Chicago (Away) - Postmatch

[LionNYC]

NYCFC goes to Bridgeview, IL and gets a 1-1 draw. It extends NYCFC's unbeaten streak to what Univision tells me is a club record 8 games. I think we could have done better: Heber hit the post, Heber didn't covert when the defender and goalkeeper didn't communicate, and Rocha couldn't connect in the final moments of the game. But I also think we could have done worse.

We are better than this Fire team, but we didn't show it today.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1132385704250679302

 

[413Blue]

We didn't look great, but I'm happy with the point on the road.
I'm curious what the setup was in comparison to the gameplan. It seemed like Sands kept playing a different position every few minutes. Also curious as to what Rocha was supposed to bring that Ofori couldn't. I thought Rocha has been performing well in midfield, but a healthy Ofori should start, or even Keaton.

 

[mgarbowski]

Also curious as to what Rocha was supposed to bring that Ofori couldn't. I thought Rocha has been performing well in midfield, but a healthy Ofori should start, or even Keaton.

I don't think Keaton is suited to play the deep double pivot and replace Ofori or Rocha in our current setup. But I also don't know why Ofori was benched.

ETA: This is has been covered previously, but our new formation and our roster construction are a very poor fit. We've basically rendered Isi and Parks superfluous except for rotation and depth. And if Medina were decent it would be even worse.

 

[JayH]

A just result. And I’m not happy or sad about it.

 

[NYCFC_Dan]

So I didn’t miss much today? Tough to not only draw to this Chicago team but also draw after having not played for 2 weeks.
There’s very little buzz surrounding this team right now.

 

[twsj91]

Announcers also mentioned the Fire are undefeated at home this year. They’ve just been horrendous on the road. Guess we’ll take the point.

 

[Fantazma]

This is what happens when you take a week off, but we needed that week for them nagging injuries. I can only assume ofori was not 100% that’s why Rocha started.

Take the point go on to Columbus, we still have two games in hand with many teams and still in 5th and within striking distance of top spots.

I was watching the spanish broadcast but lmao I can’t believe English commentators confused mitri with heber

 

[mgarbowski]

Announcers also mentioned the Fire are undefeated at home this year. They’ve just been horrendous on the road. Guess we’ll take the point.

Announcers were wrong. Chicago lost at home to Seattle this year.

 

[413Blue]

Announcers were wrong. Chicago lost at home to Seattle this year.

Heber had a great goal today.

 

[FredMertz]

Announcers were wrong. Chicago lost at home to Seattle this year.

Truly awful announcers. Misidentified players, spoke almost exclusively in cliches and sounded like they were new to soccer. Truly painful.

 

[twsj91]

Announcers were wrong. Chicago lost at home to Seattle this year.

God they fucking suck. I’d like to apologize to everyone for quoting them. I understand if I’m banned or suspended going forward for that.

 

[canchon]

Truly awful announcers. Misidentified players, spoke almost exclusively in cliches and sounded like they were new to soccer. Truly painful.

Folks, switch to the Spanish feed even if you don’t understand a thing. 4 announcers including Pablo and El Profe. Don’t spend a minute listening to those clowns on the English feed.

I heard that in the Atlanta-RSL game those jabronis said for a game winner in the 90th minute: “that’s not a goal....it’s a Golazo!”...causing Atlanta fans to throw things.

(And I know, who gives a crap about Atlanta fans but that crap is minor league.)

 

[NYCFC_Dan]

I just saw the goal and they announced it as Heber...

 

[Nelson Jay]

This is what happens when you take a week off, but we needed that week for them nagging injuries. I can only assume ofori was not 100% that’s why Rocha started.

Take the point go on to Columbus, we still have two games in hand with many teams and still in 5th and within striking distance of top spots.

I was watching the spanish broadcast but lmao I can’t believe English commentators confused mitri with heber

that's funny. it also happened in the Spanish feed.

- Game:

I am not too excited with the draw to be honest. I thought we did well in the first half, it was just that luck wasnt on our side and (correct) calls were made. A draw is still 2 points lost.

in the second half, I didnt understand Rocha's position. I would had thought he would be defending in Mata's position and not move forward and have Ofori move a little more up. Rocha kept running up to the box

Isi came a bit too late. If there is something that irks me, I don't understand bringing offensive players in the 89+ plus minutes. Is the idea to keep the ball forward? if so, at least have the offensive player run like a madman for at least 15 mins. I truly feel that Isi's speed and creativity is wasted when he is on for 5 mins.

 

[JohnB]

Quick, think of the fastest and most foolproof way to make sure I don't watch your postgame media coverage.

Spoiler

have someone interview Tony Rocha

 

[Gotham Gator]

I just saw the goal and they announced it as Heber...

For those who were able to watch the game, did they ever correct this?

 

[Ulrich]

Sorry, got to disagree with a lot of you. 1pt was fortunate to get - the Fire figured out Dome's new formation and were constantly overloading the defenders and walking the ball in to the box. Chicago had the better of the chances up close and were called off a number of times for razor-thin positioning - NYCFC's defense did not look prepared for how Chicago constantly changed the point of attack.

I'm sure any opposing team would be fine limiting Mitrita to outside the box shots, and it was a beauty, but that sort of shot will not get converted often; Mitrita was basically useless otherwise with countless dribbles into congestion. Beyond him, didn't even really think we showed much bite save for the crossbar shot that was more a result of an outlet kick from Johnson and less of any sort of tactical nuanced buildup.

Also, there was never a good TV angle of Johnson's punch of the ball at the edge of the box, but it looked like he may have hit it outside. Very surprised there was no VAR of it because in real time it looked like his fists were outside of the box and should have been a Red. Not the first time he and his defenders weren't on the same page. Maybe it was the week off, or maybe Chicago figured out the through ball was something our team can't track.

 

[Annagram]

It was a bad performance, no question about that. It seemed as the bye-weekend took the rhythm off. The lucky side was that Chicago were also terrible, and couldn't exploit NYC's awful sub-par performance. The NYC players couldn't string together three passes, their positioning was bad, and everything went all too slowly. Obviously the pitch was pretty tough to play, and the heat didn't help.
I can't see any other reason for Rocha starting instead of Ofori than the latter not being fully fit for 90 minutes after his injury. Most players had an off-day, and especially Sands showed that he's still only 18. It was his weakest performance so far. Maxi having to act as a sweeper at times was really strange thing to see. IMO only Johnson showed good enough effort, all others were struggling. Domé should have made substitutions much earlier, although I don't know which - perhaps bring Tajouri-Shradi on much, much earlier.
In the end only the result matters, and a point from that game was a success.

And the Univision commentator(s) was/were as bad as I've ever heard. Sudden shouting in the middle of a sentence with no apparent reason just takes the focus off from following the game. Terrible.

 

[Christopher Jee]

This would have been a fun match to watch in person because of the tactical and positional shifting that was happening. I'm looking forward to seeing The Outfield report from traveling analyst SoupInNYC

The 3/5 ATB to me is always high risk / reward. If you can get your wingbacks in the area where the ball is being contested, then you almost always have an advantage, but if not, you end up getting exposed. Chicago did a really good job of winning the positional game. Numerous times in the first 15', we ended up 3 v 3 at the back. And when that wasn't happening, we had 5 ATB marking nobody while Chicago held the ball 6 v 4 in the midfield. The failure mode for this second scenario is that they had players running through a static, deep 5 man line on to through balls.

I think this was because they were playing a long narrow 4-3-3 which meant 3 v 3 on our backline, which meant Tinny and Mata had to stay home, somewhat uselessly, which meant 2 v 3 in midfield and 3 v 4 on our front line. But like said, would defer to someone who had a better view of the full pitch.

Hats off to Dome for switching the system when he figured out that we were struggling to win the positional game. But I have major questions about the players he left on the field.

Maxi on the wing in a 4-3-3 is something we know by now to be ineffective. And Rocha and Sands as the two 8s was a total skill misfit that should have been fixed at half time or earlier.

It's going to be interesting to see if we can tweak the 3-4-3 to overcome the positional issues that Paunovic was able to create for us, or whether we work on being able to flex between the 4-3-3 and the 3-4-3 more effectively or with a lineup that's more suitable for both systems.

Consider this lineup with Shradi instead of Rocha:

Mitri - Heber - Shradi
Mata - Maxi - Ring - Tinny
Callens - Sands - Chanot

Switching to a 4-3-3:

Mitri - Heber - Shradi
Maxi
Ring - Sands
Mata - Callens - Chanot - Tinny

I think if that's the way our 4-3-3 looks after the switch instead of what we saw, maybe we still win that game.

 

[SoupInNYC]

This would have been a fun match to watch in person because of the tactical and positional shifting that was happening. I'm looking forward to seeing The Outfield report from traveling analyst SoupInNYC

The 3/5 ATB to me is always high risk / reward. If you can get your wingbacks in the area where the ball is being contested, then you almost always have an advantage, but if not, you end up getting exposed. Chicago did a really good job of winning the positional game. Numerous times in the first 15', we ended up 3 v 3 at the back. And when that wasn't happening, we had 5 ATB marking nobody while Chicago held the ball 6 v 4 in the midfield. The failure mode for this second scenario is that they had players running through a static, deep 5 man line on to through balls.

I think this was because they were playing a long narrow 4-3-3 which meant 3 v 3 on our backline, which meant Tinny and Mata had to stay home, somewhat uselessly, which meant 2 v 3 in midfield and 3 v 4 on our front line. But like said, would defer to someone who had a better view of the full pitch.

Hats off to Dome for switching the system when he figured out that we were struggling to win the positional game. But I have major questions about the players he left on the field.

Maxi on the wing in a 4-3-3 is something we know by now to be ineffective. And Rocha and Sands as the two 8s was a total skill misfit that should have been fixed at half time or earlier.

It's going to be interesting to see if we can tweak the 3-4-3 to overcome the positional issues that Paunovic was able to create for us, or whether we work on being able to flex between the 4-3-3 and the 3-4-3 more effectively or with a lineup that's more suitable for both systems.

Consider this lineup with Shradi instead of Rocha:

Mitri - Heber - Shradi
Mata - Maxi - Ring - Tinny
Callens - Sands - Chanot

Switching to a 4-3-3:

Mitri - Heber - Shradi
Maxi
Ring - Sands
Mata - Callens - Chanot - Tinny

I think if that's the way our 4-3-3 looks after the switch instead of what we saw, maybe we still win that game.

Yeah, looking forward to getting into a lot of that later.

The only thing I’ll really note about yesterday is while SeatGeek stadium is in the middle of nowhere, my Uber ride from the South Loop was only $25, so really not all that bad