Away - March 29 - Toronto
- Thread starter LionNYC
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Hopefully Romania wont need Mitri for 90 minutes against Faroe Islands on Tuesday the 26th.
(proof that I now care enough about the Romanian national team to know that they play Faroe Islands next week -- never would have predicted that).
How about I don't delete previous matches and keep expanding it? If we're at a 5th, I can make it orange for you. Or if someone gets 5 in a row without a yellow I can make it green and maybe make a yellow gray?
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It turned out that yellow was shown to Chanot.
Oh, I don't mean delete previous entries- but over time width-wise it's gonna get too long, right? so that's what I'm talking about. (Like, projection of what the closest point to suspension is)
With Ring up the field and the frequency that our midfield gets sliced up this season Chanot and Sands are being forced into professional fouls at a terrifying rate. Missing games is the least of our worries at this point, we're going to start seeing second yellows from the solid chunk of trigger happy refs floating around the MLS.
I thought Sands was gonna get a second yellow in the match. He goes in hard on tackles, and the attacker seems to take flight quite a bit. If the ref doesn’t see it perfectly, that airborne player gets the benefit of the doubt and Sands gets a card.
Good thing we signed 26 CMs this offseason...
I agree, Sand's fouls hard, in an impressive professional manor that's well beyond his age, seems like he's learned a lot from Ring. Thankfully this ref was letting stuff go both ways I don't think most MLS refs will allow it to the degree we saw this weekend. The other thing that could help is if he starts getting some national team buzz and the refs give him a little more room to operate. Right now he seems to be getting the young unknown treatment from the refs with a few questionable calls on him that I think may go the other way if he was a know veteran.
That is true. And I was surprised the first 2 games, and again yesterday, why our midfield would seem so porous, having 3 defensive-minded players in Ring, Sands, and Ofori/Mata. I wonder if it's lack of defensive help up top from Mitrita, Taty and Maxi, that allows opposing fullbacks and/or CBs to push higher that they should, or lack of cohesion that leads to quick turnovers without getting close to the opponents 18, or what? And it's not only that Ofori, Sands, and Ring seemed to play well and be very active yesterday, but maybe the fact that they were too active, meaning they were forced into action more than was healthy, and when they were overrun, Chanot and Callens had to scramble.
LAFC also has one of the best attacks in the league, and they were always going to get their chances. You can't shut down their offense, you're just trying to limit the damage which we did to varying success.
There was a giant gap between the parts of the midfield when Ring would bomb forward and Sands positioned himself a lot just above the CBs like a stopper. It just left a ton of real estate to flood in to. With three midfielders, all of the units have to move in unison and stay compacted but that was definitely an issue since LA was happy to play the quick through ball over the top to the wings, and it torched us repeatedly..... hence why I think Sands was playing deeper, but the LA just adjusted and took the space given.
I thought he got one in the first game as well. Went back to the timeline page for the game on the league website and found the below stillshot for Ofori's post-game interview....
When you look at the first LA goal, Chanot made a turnover to Blessing on the bad side of our midfield. Blessing then played the ball forward and wide right to Vela, who beat his man to the box and finished between Johnson and Chanot. The person marking Vela??? It was Mitrita - our left wing. Our left fullback was nowhere to be found. As mentioned, our midfield was trailing the play. Even Callens was caught well behind the play.
The entire team had pushed way too far upfield on an attack that ended when Sands shot weakly and the goalkeeper collected. He fired quickly downfield to spark a counter, and after Chanot's turnover, they effectively caught us upfield. I wouldn't be surprised if this is something Bradley had seen on film and planned to exploit.
And that LB that was missing on the play was Mata because he was busy waiting in line at Loebels for a steak sandwich over by the 3rd base outfield pole. It was happening all half.
Yep. And that's why Mitrita was farther back, covering for Mata's run. That's good on one level since he had positional awareness, but bad because he didn't execute. Ultimately, however, when you think about where you want Mitri on the field, on the back line alongside Chanot is very low on the list, which suggests maybe some of our more defensively oriented guys need to stay home more.
Yup, as soon I realized it was Mitrita trying to cover Vela I said “goal” before Vela even shot the ball. That is why the turnover from Chanot was so awful, Chanot didn’t have awareness that he was essentially out on an island with the whole rest of the team upfield.
I believe last year Chanot did something similar coughing it up to Tyler Adams leading to RBNJ’s second goal in the 4-0 rout at RBA early in the season. Vieira benched him for that.
Any (other?) dissenting opinions on whether Mata was culpable? From memory and second watch, the entire team got caught on transition after a free kick. The highlights cut between the free kick and the instant of the throw. I could re-watch it but I feel like we are reading a lot into a bad turnover on a transition which ultimately is an outlier in the data that represents the majority of his play while at left back.
Another way of looking at it - would Sweat / Rocha / replacement level LB have gotten back on that play, given a system which requires full backs to push up the field, and given Chanot's egregious turnover?
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