Great write-up. I also like the spirit of communal competition that Vieira is inoculating his squad with. I get the feeling that he will bench anybody he wants to.
Preseason - 2/10 LA Galaxy
- Thread starter LionNYC
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Great write-up. I also like the spirit of communal competition that Vieira is inoculating his squad with. I get the feeling that he will bench anybody he wants to.
Medina had some alarming somewhat Shelton like moments where you could tell he's used to being lazy with shielding because he has spent his career up until this point running past people. Not saying it's full on Shelton but he had enough moments where he tried to outrun people and then looked surprised when it didn't work. Not time to panic but worrisome.
Maxi stepped up and took charge but I'd argue he went too far. Sands was nervous and flat footed at the start so Maxi started dropping deep but after about 15 min Sands settled in and was fine. Maxi kept dropping super deep to the point where he actively undercut Sands multiple times when he was in perfect position to play the 6 pivot and take the first pass from the CBs. At some point you could tell Maxis was confusing the hell out of Sands.
I'd argue both Maxi and Mata (pre-send off) looked active and got a ton of touches but moved with such little positional awareness they actually hindered the offense. Mata ran around like a chicken with it's head cut off. Maxi tried to play 6, 8 and 10 all at the same time and was rarely far enough forward in attack when he was needed.
When did Jason Kreis take over Lion’s account?
Damn. Replace Berget with Nemec and put that middle four in a diamond with Grabavoy and that's 100% Kreis.
Villa - Berget
Maxi
Ofori - Yangel
Ring
Mata - Callens- Chanot - Anton
Johnson
Let’s party like it’s 2015
Maxi
Ofori - Yangel
Ring
Mata - Callens- Chanot - Anton
Johnson
Let’s party like it’s 2015
I didn't go through lineups with a fine-toothed comb, but I mostly remember that he made the big call to bench Pirlo. Apart from that, I don't agree with all of his decisions, but they at least seem defensible (Shelton instead of Lewis, Tmac, Mikey, etc.).
How the hell does that seem defensible to you? He has countless examples of indefensible subs and lineups. I'd say that is his defining trait .
The Lewis issue has been beaten to death on this board, but I don't think it's entirely settled. In the sense that even we can't come to a definitive agreement on the boards about whether he's wrong, I'd say it's defensible. That feels like the case for most of his decisions.
The one decision I can think of that the board unequivocally agrees with is the decision to remove Pirlo from his starting midfield, which I feel like he did fairly early and with very little dithering.
What about his 2015 playoff lineup. And ostracizing mix? Just off the top of my head.
And for the record, he’s made plenty of good decisions and his system if fun to watch. And most importantly we win more than we lose. But there have been plenty of head scratching moments.
We must be reading different forums. I think, here, we all agree that Shelton over Lewis was very wrong. The dead-horse-beating is just because we can’t figure out *why* PV would do it.
For all the criticism of Maxi, you can never question his motor nor his motivation
He certainly uses his work rate to position himself as the engine of the offense all over the field. I'm still undecided if his impact is positive or negative but if a player is working that hard to be the guy pulling all the strings and the attackers consistently fail to receive the ball in threatening positions at what point do we question the string puller?
So Maxi (and the rest of the midfield) is in mid-2017 form already.
I personally think that Lewis should have gotten more time but I think that whether it's vs. Shelton or Wallace, the general consensus is that we can't be sure that Lewis's glimpses of form in his limited minutes will map well to more game time.
Anyway, the broader point I was trying to make is that Vieira is creating the feeling that every spot on the team sheet is very much up for grabs. We may not agree with every decision and we don't see all the factors that play into them, but I think it's hard to argue that he's beholden to name or reputation.
Very happy for Justin "Baby Mix" Haak. I would send him to Mexico too. I thought he showed much more composure and engagement than James Sands with much less time.
It's a shame we couldn't get the damn ball beyond the midfield. We didn't get to see anything from Medina or Lansade.
This match was 100% the Tajouri show otherwise.
It's a shame we couldn't get the damn ball beyond the midfield. We didn't get to see anything from Medina or Lansade.
This match was 100% the Tajouri show otherwise.
It's impossible for him to play the 6, 8 and 10 with mostly nobodies to work with. Allowing him to play box-to-box without the need to sit really far back to get the ball will allow him to flourish, which we saw for much of 2017. He, like any CAM on this roster, will struggle without Ring and Herrera's help, especially in preseason when his attacking options are a bunch of trialists.
I think the Maxi case is interesting because he's a 5'3" guy who pretty much since his first game decided he had been given the keys to the bus and took on the responsibility to have the most touches. The fact of the team seeming to play back too often, or laterally too often, or probing too slowly without ever launching a fast enough or deep enough attack, all those disappointing traits have to take into account that all other players are constantly passing the ball back to Maxi instead of making magic by themselves or combining with others not called Maxi, except Villa. I personally think that "pulling the strings" has to be a collective effort but when things don't work the guy with the most touches gets blamed more. Also, Maxi's passing accuracy is very good, and he doesn't move particularly slow or gets dispossessed more often than other offensive players.
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