MLS - April 17 - D.C. (Away)

Johnson needed to do better on the second goal but I thought he played well tonight. And I thought his distribution was very good.

Callens was mediocre last year and he wasn’t good tonight.

Chanot was a bright spot. Thought he played well last year except for his occasional dumb shit but overall, he’s a top tier CB still in this league and he showed it tonight.

Tinny was ok tonight. Not man of the match for me. I thought he looked rusty frankly.

Gudi is not good. No reason to waste any more time there. He’s Ben Sweat on a good day.

Sands was poor. Sloppy with the ball and slow.

I thought Keaton was just ok. Better than James tonight. Again. Looked rusty.

Maxi was invisible for 80 minutes. Maybe he’s just old now. We’ll learn real soon as the games start to come quick. But he made no impact tonight.

ITS was bad. Time for us to move on. He’s regressed since joining the club. I didn’t see him make a single positive move tonight. Maybe that jersey number is cursed because he looked like GMS tonight. Minus the free kick.

Medina had one nice play and was invisible. Again. Time to move on. It’s not happening here at this level.

Taty scored a goal because he put worked everyone. That’s what he does. Love his passion. Wish his touch matched his passion. If someone is really offering $4 million for him you buy him a plane ticket.

Malte was a bright spot. You can see that he’s a player. Makes me feel better about Mata. I think LB will be fine this year.

Morales looked fine. Probably needs a ton more reps. But even against the low block I thought we looked better when he came on and tried to break them down. Would like to see him get the start next weekend with James moved back to CB where he belongs.

And then there’s Jasson. Looked overmatched. Not particularly fast. Doesn’t have a wonderful first touch. Last season, that kid doesn’t see the field. Haak is light years ahead of him at the same stage. But that’s how poor our off-season was. We’re down 2-1 and we have to bring on a kid that we tried to sign three times only for him to say no and try to go to Yale. We were his second choice. Behind Yale. And that’s our solution to be positive with a sub.

I don’t blame Ronny for this loss. I thought he set the team up well. He played the players he has. We know he’s not picking the ingredients. Some CFG overlord is. The subs were the right subs and the game shifted slightly with them. I’m assuming Morales and Malte aren’t fit to start yet. But when they are, I think they join the 11 rather quickly.

All in - the loss is on CFG. And that upsets me
 
Was it me or did it seem like Gudi was getting way to much of the ball. WTF was Taty doing switching play in the the final third to Gudi when ITS was right there in the waning minutes of the match. ITS had the best shot on goal all night. I know he has his shortcomings but damn...
My eyes are incapable of seeing the brilliance that the stats apparently tell us regarding Parks. Did he do anything tonight more memorable other his signature tripping over ones own feet move?
Why do we generally suck in the final third.
And why are we are generally bad at the start of the season. I don’t understand.
NYCFC looked sloppy for close to seventy minutes tonight. Someone splash some cold water in my face and tell me something good to keep me off the ledge.

something good: deila subbed at 70 minutes instead of 88.
 
Johnson needed to do better on the second goal but I thought he played well tonight. And I thought his distribution was very good.

Callens was mediocre last year and he wasn’t good tonight.

Chanot was a bright spot. Thought he played well last year except for his occasional dumb shit but overall, he’s a top tier CB still in this league and he showed it tonight.

Tinny was ok tonight. Not man of the match for me. I thought he looked rusty frankly.

Gudi is not good. No reason to waste any more time there. He’s Ben Sweat on a good day.

Sands was poor. Sloppy with the ball and slow.

I thought Keaton was just ok. Better than James tonight. Again. Looked rusty.

Maxi was invisible for 80 minutes. Maybe he’s just old now. We’ll learn real soon as the games start to come quick. But he made no impact tonight.

ITS was bad. Time for us to move on. He’s regressed since joining the club. I didn’t see him make a single positive move tonight. Maybe that jersey number is cursed because he looked like GMS tonight. Minus the free kick.

Medina had one nice play and was invisible. Again. Time to move on. It’s not happening here at this level.

Taty scored a goal because he put worked everyone. That’s what he does. Love his passion. Wish his touch matched his passion. If someone is really offering $4 million for him you buy him a plane ticket.

Malte was a bright spot. You can see that he’s a player. Makes me feel better about Mata. I think LB will be fine this year.

Morales looked fine. Probably needs a ton more reps. But even against the low block I thought we looked better when he came on and tried to break them down. Would like to see him get the start next weekend with James moved back to CB where he belongs.

And then there’s Jasson. Looked overmatched. Not particularly fast. Doesn’t have a wonderful first touch. Last season, that kid doesn’t see the field. Haak is light years ahead of him at the same stage. But that’s how poor our off-season was. We’re down 2-1 and we have to bring on a kid that we tried to sign three times only for him to say no and try to go to Yale. We were his second choice. Behind Yale. And that’s our solution to be positive with a sub.

I don’t blame Ronny for this loss. I thought he set the team up well. He played the players he has. We know he’s not picking the ingredients. Some CFG overlord is. The subs were the right subs and the game shifted slightly with them. I’m assuming Morales and Malte aren’t fit to start yet. But when they are, I think they join the 11 rather quickly.

All in - the loss is on CFG. And that upsets me

i blame ronny because he didn't get the players in game shape. they were gassed and they shouldn't be. DC was in better shape and it showed. plain and simple.
 
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i blame ronny because he didn't get the players in game shape. they were gassed and they shouldn't be. DC was in better shape and it showed. plain and simple.

Fair. What’s funny is that we pretty much just had a jog in the park kicking the ball around. We didn’t really work all that hard or attack all that much. We were exhausted after like 25 minutes thiugh!
 
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Really concerning effort tonight. After next week the schedule gets really hard, and if we are putting up that kind of effort against D.C. United with all their injuries, we're in trouble.

It's only Opening Night so no use panicking yet -- and this team always starts slow -- but it's going to get late early with our schedule. That was ugly. After the first 15 minutes, we just disappeared.
 
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And why are we are generally bad at the start of the season. I don’t understand.
It's only Opening Night so no use panicking yet -- and this team always starts slow -- but it's going to get late early with our schedule.
NYCFC had exactly one year with a good start in 2018. 24 points in the first 12 games.

Then our coach left in the middle of the season, and 1.45 PPG after the rumors started and that fast start was wasted.

I've been assured that having coaches quit in the middle of the season is good in the long run and good for recruiting new coaches. Imagine what kind of schlub we would have as a coach now if we had not built a reputation as a club where you can win nothing but still quit mid season for a better job.
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We probably would have had to settle for our 8th or 9th choice instead of our 4th or 5th after wasting all winter waiting for a guy who chose to coach in China rather than work for NYCFC in New York.
 
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NYCFC had exactly one year with a good start in 2018. 24 points in the first 12 games.

Then our coach left in the middle of the season, and 1.45 PPG after the rumors started and that fast start was wasted.

I've been assured that having coaches quit in the middle of the season is good in the long run and good for recruiting new coaches. Imagine what kind of schlub we would have as a coach now if we had not built a reputation as a club where you can win nothing but still quit mid season for a better job.
Image


We probably would have had to settle for our 8th or 9th choice instead of our 4th or 5th after wasting all winter waiting for a guy who chose to coach in China rather than work for NYCFC in New York.
To be fair with the Van Bronckhorst stuff, he probably went so he could make an absolute killing short-term and then returned home. He only stayed one season and then quit citing "he wants to return to his family" - Sounds like money to meeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Not excusing the rest of your post, you're 100% right. But still the china vs ny thing I think is just down to them able to offer ridiculous cash
 
NYCFC had exactly one year with a good start in 2018. 24 points in the first 12 games.
Thanks for the history lesson. My first game was May 19, 2018. The comment I made is clearly based on a very limited sample size. My experience of the the club is slow starts to the season and poor performances in the playoffs.
I’m on the forums complaining about this team quite a bit and after this match signs point to that continuing to be the trend. Last night presented an opportunity, in my mind, to put recent failures behind and make a statement that this in fact is a “different” team.
I don’t want NYCFC to fail. My frustration Is leading me to have a the sense that there is something about this organization that needs to be exorcised. Most points over the past three seasons in MLS just doesn’t do much for me. Would you rather be Foreman or Ali in the Rumble in the Jungle?
 
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If you're talking about Gudi, i think he will play the first 4 games and then Amundson and Gloster will take the starting spot from him. Then this winter he will be as "gudi" as gone.
Let’s hope that happens. He only re-confirmed again my opinion.
 
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To be fair with the Van Bronckhorst stuff, he probably went so he could make an absolute killing short-term and then returned home. He only stayed one season and then quit citing "he wants to return to his family" - Sounds like money to meeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Not excusing the rest of your post, you're 100% right. But still the china vs ny thing I think is just down to them able to offer ridiculous cash
Yeah, and I know you can't force people to work for you if they want to leave. We had to let Vieira go, and we had to sell Jack, and we'll have to sell Taty soon enough. There are all sorts of good reasons, both legal and practical why that is so, except for a small handful of cases in limited time periods (which applies to Taty right now but I realize it's a limited exception).

But I hate the reflexive jump to say something that is obviously untrue every time it happens. It is not a net positive when you lose a good player, coach, or any employee, and nobody in their right mind would invent a business model that depends on it. It is rather a business reality imposed on us by the global soccer market. But it is an unfortunate reality that we're a selling club in a selling league and a secondary club in a global soccer conglomerate who sees us as a talent waystation more than a worthwhile top talent long term solution. So we cannot expect our best people to stay for long. And I have made peace with that. Just don't tell me that's for the best. It sucks, and the idea that you can do better by letting people work for you whose goal is to leave as soon as possible regardless of whether they achieve any team goals, so that you can hire yet more people who want to do the same, is manifestly preposterous.

And your point about GVB is evidence in my favor IMO. If losing Vieira midseason were this amazingly positive force for good for the team, then GVB would have chosen to forego short term money in favor of building his resume with us and an even bigger prestige and money payoff later. But getting a lot of stuff now is almost always better than maybe, maybe getting more stuff later which is why his choice made sense. Just as keeping a proven good employee is always going to be better than maybe getting a GVB later, because often enough the later payoff never comes and you end up with undershirt guy. And frankly, who knows how good GVB would have been as our coach. Every new hire, both coaches and players, is something of a risk. Which is why it is so self-evidently true that keeping a known good employee is always better than losing them for the uncertain chance of maybe getting someone just as good later, if you're lucky.
 
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Yeah, and I know you can't force people to work for you if they want to leave. We had to let Vieira go, and we had to sell Jack, and we'll have to sell Taty soon enough. There are all sorts of good reasons, both legal and practical why that is so, except for a small handful of cases in limited time periods (which applies to Taty right now but I realize it's a limited exception).

But I hate the reflexive jump to say something that is obviously untrue every time it happens. It is not a net positive when you lose a good player, coach, or any employee, and nobody in their right mind would invent a business model that depends on it. It is rather a business reality imposed on us by the global soccer market. But it is an unfortunate reality that we're a selling club in a selling league and a secondary club in a global soccer conglomerate who sees us as a talent waystation more than a worthwhile top talent long term solution. So we cannot expect our best people to stay for long. And I have made peace with that. Just don't tell me that's for the best. It sucks, and the idea that you can do better by letting people work for you whose goal is to leave as soon as possible regardless of whether they achieve any team goals, so that you can hire yet more people who want to do the same, is manifestly preposterous.

And your point about GVB is evidence in my favor IMO. If losing Vieira midseason were this amazingly positive force for good for the team, then GVB would have chosen to forego short term money in favor of building his resume with us and an even bigger prestige and money payoff later. But getting a lot of stuff now is almost always better than maybe, maybe getting more stuff later which is why his choice made sense. Just as keeping a proven good employee is always going to be better than maybe getting a GVB later, because often enough the later payoff never comes and you end up with undershirt guy. And frankly, who knows how good GVB would have been as our coach. Every new hire, both coaches and players, is something of a risk. Which is why it is so self-evidently true that keeping a known good employee is always better than losing them for the uncertain chance of maybe getting someone just as good later, if you're lucky.

It's not a net positive to have to lose a good player or coach mid-season, but it is a necessary evil in a league that plays the opposite calendar to the rest of the world.
 
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It's not a net positive to have to lose a good player or coach mid-season, but it is a necessary evil in a league that plays the opposite calendar to the rest of the world.
Yet we may lose a player to Brazil, which runs a similar schedule to us.
 
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Yet we may lose a player to Brazil, which runs a similar schedule to us.

We are a minor league when compared to other leagues around the world, even Brazil. If the player thinks he's ready to get promoted to a better league, then we need to do what we can to help him achieve it. Just because it's the right thing to do, and we should always want to do right by our players. It's a necessary evil of both being on the opposite schedule and being a minor league.

I know we're New York, and by MLS standards we want to be a big team, but by world standards we are a very small team. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just the way it is, and we should embrace it instead of getting white-hot mad over it.
 
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We are a minor league when compared to other leagues around the world, even Brazil. If the player thinks he's ready to get promoted to a better league, then we need to do what we can to help him achieve it. Just because it's the right thing to do, and we should always want to do right by our players. It's a necessary evil of both being on the opposite schedule and being a minor league.

I know we're New York, and by MLS standards we want to be a big team, but by world standards we are a very small team. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just the way it is, and we should embrace it instead of getting white-hot mad over it.

The problem is we’re a small team. Should be a big fish in this small
Town
 
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It's not a net positive to have to lose a good player or coach mid-season, but it is a necessary evil in a league that plays the opposite calendar to the rest of the world.

you basically just reiterated his point.
 
The problem is we’re a small team. Should be a big fish in this small
Town

In MLS? Sure. We should be a tentpole team like LAFC is. No argument there. It is disappointing that we are not. But we're never going to be a big fish in the NY market. And perhaps that is part of what holds us back.