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There was maybe 12-14k in actual attendance. It’ll be interesting to see the reported numbers. Nearly entire sections behind goal empty.
There was a time when I’d let my spring cycling training be disrupted by any home game. But it’s just not an enjoyable style to watch and hasn’t been for awhile. Wednesday night was not entertaining, and that was a win. That was enough for me in one week. I gave away my ticket to a co-worker
 
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I actually think Tinny is playing fine again. Back 3 has helped him.

Sweat blows. Kills us. Maybe I can see him as a backup LCB but this experiment needs to end.

Offloading Mata frees up TAM. Offloading Medina frees up a Young DP slot which doesn’t give us a lot of flexibility unfortunately. But that needs to be the focus right now if you’re Claudio.
Hopefully Mata is somehow able to buck the trend and stay somewhat healthy the remainder of the year. He's been flourishing in this new formation we have been using the last several games.
 
He’s not long for the MLS world. He’s bound for Europe soon. Kid is total class. He’s been the best and most consistent player for us this year.
He's the whole reason we had the equalizer. Great move to the inside and shot from Maxi, and great awareness and finish from Heber, but it was James Sands, hitting an off-balanced pass with his off foot to Maxi completely in stride that set the whole thing up.

 
one interesting thing from watching the game of tv is that Heber is so expressive, you can clearly tell when he is super happy after the goal, disappointed if he doesn't handle a pass well, and frustration near the end
I noticed this as well. He wears his emotions on his sleeve for sure.
 
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Now that the team seems to be playing with a coherent idea and and an acceptable degree of fluidity, we can see that the offensive buildup doesn't break down as much because of people not being "on the same page" or not knowing where/when to run. Rather, it breaks down because we don't have enough quality on the final ball, or the next to final ball. For example, there are a lot of instances where our movement and ball circulation lets Ring and/or Ofori free with some time and space a few yards ahead or below the halfway line, they see Tinny bombing up on the right... Ofori will simply not attempt the long ball, and his extra pass to Maxi or Ring will kill momentum. Ring always will attempt but his completion rate is dysmal, especially if you're asking for a really well-weighted long overhead pass. For that reason alone I wouldn't mind trying Ring as CB and Sands as 6 in the future. I am sure Sands long balls would be much better. If the long ball arrives to its destination, then Tinny's crosses are barely OK and Sweat's are a crime mostly. One other aspect where lack of individual quality/creativity just kills us is in the 1-2's where the cornered overlapping wing or wingback makes a short back pass, generally to Maxi. Maxi has such good close control that he could manage to engineer a really fast give-and-go but a guy like Sweat, for example, would never think of trying to run a quick diagonal into the 18 and wrong-foot his marker. We see Manchester City trying a lot to break out of that kind of jam by having Sterling/Sane do that with Silva, or Silva with Gundogan, etc. I mean, it's kind of mean to make these kind of comparisons but our overlapping fullbacks, particularly Sweat more than Mata or Tinny, seem to run forward and back on a rail, without a chance of turning the corner. The most they improvise is to stop and cut inside, but that usually leads to stasis since they don't have the quality for a good through ball to Heber.
 
Now that the team seems to be playing with a coherent idea and and an acceptable degree of fluidity, we can see that the offensive buildup doesn't break down as much because of people not being "on the same page" or not knowing where/when to run. Rather, it breaks down because we don't have enough quality on the final ball, or the next to final ball. For example, there are a lot of instances where our movement and ball circulation lets Ring and/or Ofori free with some time and space a few yards ahead or below the halfway line, they see Tinny bombing up on the right... Ofori will simply not attempt the long ball, and his extra pass to Maxi or Ring will kill momentum. Ring always will attempt but his completion rate is dysmal, especially if you're asking for a really well-weighted long overhead pass. For that reason alone I wouldn't mind trying Ring as CB and Sands as 6 in the future. I am sure Sands long balls would be much better. If the long ball arrives to its destination, then Tinny's crosses are barely OK and Sweat's are a crime mostly. One other aspect where lack of individual quality/creativity just kills us is in the 1-2's where the cornered overlapping wing or wingback makes a short back pass, generally to Maxi. Maxi has such good close control that he could manage to engineer a really fast give-and-go but a guy like Sweat, for example, would never think of trying to run a quick diagonal into the 18 and wrong-foot his marker. We see Manchester City trying a lot to break out of that kind of jam by having Sterling/Sane do that with Silva, or Silva with Gundogan, etc. I mean, it's kind of mean to make these kind of comparisons but our overlapping fullbacks, particularly Sweat more than Mata or Tinny, seem to run forward and back on a rail, without a chance of turning the corner. The most they improvise is to stop and cut inside, but that usually leads to stasis since they don't have the quality for a good through ball to Heber.
To build off of this, I think that, with the role we've put Maxi in, seeing the ball so much 20-22 yards out, we'd really benefit from a quicker player that can beat someone off of the dribble. We seem to have that on the edges, but not with the player found in the most dangerous spots on the field.
 
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To build off of this, I think that, with the role we've put Maxi in, seeing the ball so much 20-22 yards out, we'd really benefit from a quicker player that can beat someone off of the dribble. We seem to have that on the edges, but not with the player found in the most dangerous spots on the field.
But I think that's who Mitrita is supposed to be. While Maxi uses his relative quickness and good control to get enough separation to release a pass, Mitrita should be receiving the ball around the edge of the 18 to use his great quickness and dribbling to beat 1 or 2 guys and shoot to goal. Considering how well Heber holds the ball and combines from in between the two opposing CBs there should be plenty of chances for him to receive from Maxi and lay off to Mitrita in a dangerous spot, but Mitrita has been out of sync, and a bit passive and too wide IMHO.
 
I mean it would be great to have Pozuelo instead of Maxi and Giovinco instead of Mitrita, but Maxi wasn't billed as a dribbler and he does a fine job (all the more noticeable when he ISN'T in the lineup and the team really devolves) but is Mitrita who was billed as a Giovinco-like player who isn't living up to it yet.
 
Heber makes team of the week for the second time in a row.

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not fully true? i mean knicks suck every year and MSG still packed, tough tourists fill it up. the nets have been better and i read they struggle to fill it up.

NJRB have had good teams and still that doesnt help and they have had names.

as for us, it almost looked like the stadium had more people on wednesdays game than saturday, this 1PM time slot really seems to suck, vs montreal it was same.

it does seem this year people are focusing alot on attendance and tv ratings league wide, seems to be an issue for sure.
 
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not fully true? i mean knicks suck every year and MSG still packed, tough tourists fill it up. the nets have been better and i read they struggle to fill it in.

NJRB have had good teams and still that doesnt help and they have had names.

as for us, it almost looked like the stadium had more people on wednesdays game than saturday, this 1PM time slot really seems to suck, vs montreal it was same.

it does seem this year people are focusing alot on attendance and tv ratings league wide, seems to be an issue for sure.
I think the main takeaway is that people in New York root for a brand not the team. Maybe that’s how New Yorkers naturally, I’m not really judging it’s just the way it is. Look at the all of the successful New York Sports teams that are successful off the field regardless of their performances. Knicks, Giants, Yankees, and the Rangers. New York didn’t give a fuck at the historic rebuild the Nets has, when a normal city would have had its rowdiest sports crowd in years for them. Why was attendance still subpar? It’s the Nets. Nobody cares about the Nets because they’re not a big deal no matter how good they are. If we’re to be successful we need to make NYCFC a big deal and I’m not sure how you do that in MLS.
 
I think the main takeaway is that people in New York root for a brand not the team. Maybe that’s how New Yorkers naturally, I’m not really judging it’s just the way it is. Look at the all of the successful New York Sports teams that are successful off the field regardless of their performances. Knicks, Giants, Yankees, and the Rangers. New York didn’t give a fuck at the historic rebuild the Nets has, when a normal city would have had its rowdiest sports crowd in years for them. Why was attendance still subpar? It’s the Nets. Nobody cares about the Nets because they’re not a big deal no matter how good they are. If we’re to be successful we need to make NYCFC a big deal and I’m not sure how you do that in MLS.

sure, but also add that in almost every sport its divided by two, other markets have one team here we have two of almost everything. so everyone rallies for the one team. here when giants win SB the jets fan not celebrating, yankee wins world series mets fan not celebrating.
 
but also add that in almost every sport its divided by two, other markets have one team here we have two
I think that's a real factor in the NJRB attendance problem. Eight years ago if you were a soccer fan you had the Red Bulls. Nowadays it's just much quicker and easier to get to Yankee Stadium than it is to make the 90 minute trek out to Harrison. It's been five years and now that we're not a new thing in town we're reverting to a "normal" amount of ardent NYC soccer fans, but a lot of those folks may have also been bled off of the NJRB attendance figures.

14,000 real people in a 20,000 seat soccer stadium on a really cold day at a really early time doesn't seem so bad to me. Doesn't quite look as good when your stadium holds 45,000 though.

All roads lead to the stadium thread, of course.
 
folks may have also been bled off of the NJRB attendance figures.
I'd be very interested to see some kind of real numbers regarding people who "flipped". Of my tiny sample size of friends who are or were NJRB supporters, two (a married couple) flipped immediately upon the announcement of NYCFC for geography reasons and one has stayed loyal to NJ despite living in Brooklyn.
 
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I'd be very interested to see some kind of real numbers regarding people who "flipped". Of my tiny sample size of friends who are or were NJRB supporters, two (a married couple) flipped immediately upon the announcement of NYCFC for geography reasons and one has stayed loyal to NJ despite living in Brooklyn.

my cousins didnt flip but they not going to every home game and they STH in the supporters sections. on my way home this saturday i bumped into one of them i asked him if he was heading out to the RB game, he said no and see if he can sell/give to someone else in his group.
i figure there are similar stories in all of NJRB fanbase.
 
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