MLS - September 30 - Miami (Away)


The law firm of Moralez, Morales & Mizell are out according to the team injury report.

I have the feeling Alfredo is the next to get the ax.

Good to hear Parks is back.... bad news is, what happens to Talles now?
 
Bakrar should have put away at least one of this chances.

Cushing should have made more subs for tired legs.

Santi scored an absolute banger.

7 minutes of stoppage time is an absolute fucking joke by PRO and the Messi/Miami/MLS/Apple agenda.
 
nick needed more subs. pellegrini is a foul machine and was not a good sub when we're trying to protect a lead. yea he wasn't the reason we gave up the equalizer, but it didn't make sense to me. had we put on fernandez for jasson, we would have fresh legs going forward to give us relief instead of bunkering with tired legs.

the corner defending was atrocious. not a single one of our guys attacked the ball. not a single one of them jumped. lesdesma didn't even know where the ball was but gray was also there and didn't attack the ball. terrible goal to give up so late in the game.

tackle on perea was a clear red. prove me wrong. not calling that and not giving busquets a 2nd yellow for all the fouls he committed is just because they're miami and getting them into the playoffs is all MLS needs/wants for the marketing.

I thought the starting XI had a great game except for bakrar. He made good runs but his attempts to finish were rushed. I know he's young and he'll learn, but those wasted chances came back to bite us so they stick out for me. Santi was an absolute beast and i love it when he's motivated to play. Very happy he got a goal to reward his hard work.

Magno was great and really disappointed he had to come off for lesdesma, who i thought was pretty useless. really thought nick should have brought on fernandez and martinez for jasson and ledesma. would have given us attacking threat to keep their wingbacks pinned.

overall - i thought we played well for 75 minutes. just didn't have the aggressiveness to continue attacking but a tired jasson and a useless ledesma probably didn't help. luckily, the other results went our way.
 
Bakrar should have put away at least one of this chances.

Cushing should have made more subs for tired legs.

Santi scored an absolute banger.

7 minutes of stoppage time is an absolute fucking joke by PRO and the Messi/Miami/MLS/Apple agenda.
Such a frustrating game, but in a way it's perfect for such a frustrating season. There are so many good, even great things, about this team and this can become a truly great club (although I'd argue our record is as good as anyone's already, over the course of our existence). I think what we saw for the first 30 minutes or so tonight was the makings of something really special.

But we won't get there without that final ingredient, that instinct to go for the jugular and finish an opponent off. As supporters we can all see it. We know what's missing. I suppose we can hope it comes with more experience, and maybe it will.

It's still so damn frustrating.
 
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really thought nick should have brought on fernandez and martinez for jasson and ledesma. would have given us attacking threat to keep their wingbacks pinned.
I was thinking this myself, although I wouldn't have brought Ledezma on to begin with. He's showing why he never really stuck anywhere. The talent is there, but after a few good games when he first came to town -- and he was really good -- he's dropped off a cliff. He's become the guy he was brought in to replace.
 
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Take all that happened tonight away for a moment.

This was our hardest remaining game. Coming into this game, I was hoping for a draw. Had you told me at 7:29 that we would draw tonight, I'd be thrilled. If we draw D.C. United and beat Chicago, we have a very good chance of making the playoffs.

Now -- the way the game transpired, this becomes a very disappointing and frustrating result. We should have scored 3 goals. Miami should have been down to 10 men. Four minutes of stoppage time is all that game needed. All of those things conspired to screw us tonight, as they've screwed us all season. We have had some of the worst luck in the league this season.

Still, we are in fairly strong position. D.C. and Chicago are both terrible -- we should beat both of those teams. Even four points and we probably get in. Miami is all but cooked at this point, no matter how badly MLS wants them to go through.
 
The stadium shot off so many fireworks after Miami scored. I don’t know if they do that for every goal, but it was honestly like too much (even for a game tying goal). Maybe they just had to get rid of them after that night so they shot them all off, but honestly too much.
 
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Just the second corner conceded since Game 11 on May 6 and it stings. It was funny when the camera followed Josef for the next 30-40 seconds when he wasn't involved.
One would like to get either the DOGSO or ankle-smashing red. I'm not as offended by the 7 minutes. The Perea injury treatment took a while, and there was an unexplained stoppage (water break?) around minute 69. I expected 5-6 at least. The corner on which they scored was won at only 4:22 of stoppage so the 7 minutes had no real effect as I see it.
Arroyo tripping Cremaschi to squelch a Miami 3-on-1 at '57 was hilarious.
First half NYC was dominant and unlucky not to score; second half NYCFC was outplayed by Miami and fortunate to end 1-1.
Jasson drew the foul that led to our goal.
Gray had a smart and superb pass to earn the assist. Too bad they were replaying the foul while it happened but there were some good replay views.
I have seen people (including the color announcer) calling out Ledezma for the corner and I'm not defending him but I also wonder why he was man-marking a guy 5 inches taller in the middle of the penalty area while Risa and Martins seemed to be guarding Gray and Ledezma.
 
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The stadium shot off so many fireworks after Miami scored. I don’t know if they do that for every goal, but it was honestly like too much (even for a game tying goal). Maybe they just had to get rid of them after that night so they shot them all off, but honestly too much.
Seriously. It was like closing ceremony level.
 
It was so clearly a red, it wasn’t even close. I was furious, but with that said, it could have changed the game in a different way where Miami bunkered and it ended up a draw, rather than a wide open 2nd half, who knows.

If you threw the game into a blender, with the way we both played, a draw is probably the right result, as painful as the timing was.

It is what it is, but Bakrar at most should be the second best striker who comes in as needed, and we have a couple other effective options throughout on the bench to bring in late. Fernandez etc may be part of that, but I suspect NC was concerned about him defensively last night. I wouldn’t have let Ledezma see the field again after the spitting, and he made a few crucial errors last night (giveaway, foul, lost on the set piece).

At least we are still alive.
 
It is what it is, but Bakrar at most should be the second best striker who comes in as needed, and we have a couple other effective options throughout on the bench to bring in late.
I agree, but devil's advocate he is almost solely responsible for raising the team's shot and chance creation by about 60% and his finishing rate is not much worse than Taty's was over the first half of 2021. There was a 9 game stretch in 2021 from May 15 thru July 21 where Taty had zero goals and 2 assists. Taty was very streaky in 2021 and his legend was made in the last 4 regular season games and 3 playoff games in 2021 when he scored 9 goals in 7 games.
I'm mostly saying Bakrar has played 8 games. I'd like to get another striker to start in 2024, but we really don't know much about Bakrar yet.
 
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I agree, but devil's advocate he is almost solely responsible for raising the team's shot and chance creation by about 60% and his finishing rate is not much worse than Taty's was over the first half of 2021. There was a 9 game stretch in 2021 from May 15 thru July 21 where Taty had zero goals and 2 assists. Taty was very streaky in 2021 and his legend was made in the last 4 regular season games and 3 playoff games in 2021 when he scored 9 goals in 7 games.
I'm mostly saying Bakrar has played 8 games. I'd like to get another striker to start in 2024, but we really don't know much about Bakrar yet.
All great points. I am still looking at him as coming in as likely deep on our list of choices and an underwhelming resume; and not yet proving otherwise. Simply having a striker and someone who knows how to make effective runs is an improvement. He just could have been more impactful during a stretch we needed glimpses of his upside. I am not writing him off yet though.
 
All great points. I am still looking at him as coming in as likely deep on our list of choices and an underwhelming resume; and not yet proving otherwise. Simply having a striker and someone who knows how to make effective runs is an improvement. He just could have been more impactful during a stretch we needed glimpses of his upside. I am not writing him off yet though.
I know this is probably a super specific comparison. But I’m not sure he’s a Taty run 90 minutes guy with a nose for goal or if he would be more of an Anderson Julio type player who’s an absolute lightning rod that can run past tired defenses type of super sub guy. I’m sure he wishes he could be the former than the latter. But the latter is definitely an important role that can win games. My best NYCFC comparison would be like Poku or Thiago Andrade but both aren’t right. Maybe even Stevin Mendoza but that even seems further off the mark.