We've always used one of our outside back positions on a roster friendly salary charge player. KOT is very good value for the price. If we put a $500k player there we'd need to downgrade elsewhere.
Leagues Cup - July 29 - Puebla (RBA)
- Thread starter LionNYC
- Start date
KOT is a perfectly cromulent LB and the sort of player that good MLS rosters have. I'm glad he's on the squad. But I have no idea what universe the tweet (which Footy technically isn't responding to) posits in which he would have won us that match.
I love Kevin! He is absolutely playing with house money. The way he was signed late in the draft and is now playing full time as a starter is pretty incredible. Such a diamond in the rough. If you ever hear someone is 234 screaming, “that’s my Kevin!” Or “Leave Kevin alone!” That’s me.
Also, we tried that with Cufre. He was one of the highest-paid players on the team with an annual salary of $757,800, and KOT took his starting spot from him.
Reid only started to make Cavallo feel more comfortable, so if KOT played than Alonzo would have been able to start, and he wouldn't have had the yips since those were caused by being a late game sub. Plus a butterfly would have flapped its wings near the VAR monitor so the ref would have realized there wasn't clear and obvious evidence to overturn his penalty call so that would have stood.
I think so. At least in the second half, both Fernández and Martínez missed very good chances. One in particular stood out. Martínez had a wide-open look in front of the keeper, but couldn’t control a pass that was slightly behind him and got caught in his feet.
Ironically, Puebla’s third goal came from a very similar position. The final pass was also slightly behind the attacker, but he controlled it cleanly and calmly slotted it past Freese with pinpoint accuracy. The contrast was striking.
Maybe Puebla just had a great night, but the gap in quality, especially in the final third and around finishing, felt massive between the two teams.
The chart measures possession value differential, which is not quite the same as chances. Puebla has more xG so they had better chances even if w we had more.
We had 4 more shots, but look at the game state. Puebla controlled possession the first 20 minutes. Then we had more possession for 20 minutes. But after Puebla got Goal 2, they let us have the big share. That doesn’t really mean we outplayed them.
I don’t consider 3 goals on 2.13 xG to be particularly clinical. You should get 2 or 3 goals on 2.xx xG. Two is more likely than three but neither is a surprise. But we should have had 1 or 2 goals.
Just need to climb over 14 teams in 2 games and we advance.
Arguably, the next 2 games are already meaningless to NYCFC, even for those who care about Leagues Cup. By the time of Game 3 next Tuesday, NYCFC can easily be officially eliminated.
If we're having Leagues Cup, I prefer this format over the 2023-24 version because it only stops the MLS season for a week and then only affects 4 teams afterwards. But not using groups means the games are much more likely to be pointless.
Arguably, the next 2 games are already meaningless to NYCFC, even for those who care about Leagues Cup. By the time of Game 3 next Tuesday, NYCFC can easily be officially eliminated.
If we're having Leagues Cup, I prefer this format over the 2023-24 version because it only stops the MLS season for a week and then only affects 4 teams afterwards. But not using groups means the games are much more likely to be pointless.
I know what you mean (and agree). But happy for the team to go all in on resting our key starters, giving playing time to some of the kids and integrating Nico. (Though accomplishing #3 is not ideal while also accomplishing #1 and 2.)
No pointless then. Just a different point.
I'm totally fine with Pascal's approach and hope he continues with the mix. Maybe give the usual starters more minutes tomorrow because that's in line with a normal weekly schedule but whatever.
One thing about this format I find interesting/amusing in a thought experiment sort of way is that the main reason NYCFC is not already eliminated is that theoretically, every team ahead of us could lose the next 2 games because every game is against a LigaMX team. For the same reason, if we win tomorrow, we will be alive going in to Game 3 because again, all the teams with 6 points after 2 games could lose Game 3 and we could win Game 3 by 15 and we could jump ahead, in theory. It's a format that makes mathematical elimination less likely even though the realistic chances of advancing even now are tiny.
