I'll just say it and take the bullet: Red Bull New Jersey, you are the better team this season.
It's more than clear by now that we are a collection of players and not a team. Things were starting to gel a bit before Pirlo landed (I love Pirlo, and it's not his fault), but we were set back several spaces on the cohesion front by summer transfers in general. The Red Bulls played as a team, thought as a team.
Pirlo had a target on his back and was taken out almost every time he had the ball. But despite that, depressingly poor showing from my mancrush tonight.
Despite accidentally allowing the goal, I was impressed by Mena tonight. I liked his aggression and bravery, and even when that goal went in, he was where he should have been when he should have been there.
Lampard was so close to redemption. So close. But still so far away.
Iraola may have had his best match yet, for what that's worth. I still want to love him, but he makes it so hard.
Angelino is still wonderful, but RBNJ clearly knew he was exploitable and kept feeding the ball up to Lloyd Sam on his side hoping Angelino would screw up (and he did once or twice). But on the other hand, he's personally responsible for this match not ending 0-3, he made some great passes, brought energy and creativity and was all over the pitch.
To that last point... we have got to be more disciplined in our formation and less flexible. For much of tonight it looked like the team had once heard of totaalvoetbal and thought they knew what it meant and how to do it. Instead it was a confused mess. Like, what would you call this:
A 2-mishmash-1?
Again, we have *got* to play two up top. Villa as lone striker is absurd. I don't ever want to see that again. He must have a target man with him. It should be Poku.
The first fifteen minutes were fun, but also nailbiting. The team really needed to calm down, take control of the match and reduce the pace, but instead they got carried away.
There's always next year.
