San Jose Postmatch

[NYCFC_Dan]

Love that Chanot was voted MOTM btw.

 

[Gotham Gator]

Was this on the video board? I 100% missed this. Wow.

It was when they did the usual announcements of the starting lineups just before the beginning of the game. Hopefully, the Club will include it in a video so that everyone can check it out.

 

[Kjbert]

NJRB need to get value out of their youth players. Right now, they are caught between two generations on their roster. I thought the Marsch move was poor two years ago, but he has had terrific regular season success.

They certainly have as deep of a bench of top prospects as anyone. But if their older guys break down, there is no experience there. If Klejstan or BWP don't play close to 3,000 minutes this season, I don't know where the goals are coming from consistently.

 

[The Toe]

Was this on the video board? I 100% missed this. Wow.

The original lineup they had posted had Pirlo in goal, too. Very nice little touch, then they went to the real line up.

 

[LionNYC]

The original lineup they had posted had Pirlo in goal, too. Very nice little touch, then they went to the real line up.

Yeah, I saw this inside the Pitchside club. And I thought, who the hell made the lineup picture this week?

 

[sbrylski]

Ahhh, the Pirlo shimmy. He leaves the player on him chasing ghosts. It is an "ooohhh ahhh moment" that he does about 2-3 times a game.

I feel that the " MLS narrative" on Pirlo is that he is too slow, can't play defense and that is generally can't "adjust" to the league. It's like the talking heads are waiting for every opportunity to roast him for every mistake he makes. I remember some anonymous player last year saying that he was going to run at and hit Pirlo for 90 minutes, it's the old "athleticism" trumps soccer skill that seems to permeate a lot of MLS thought. And a guy like Pirlo will never be appreciated because he doesn't "run hard" for 90 minutes and look "fired up". I fully expect an article or two roasting him this Monday from the MLS soccer crew.

Nah, not a teacher just on #team20's.

It was the right move from a long term prospective to sell Dax, but unless Austria decides to splash some cash in the summer window, their MLS cup dreams are now dead for a few years. If they had kept Dax it would have been a gamble on winning it this year versus trying to setup for the future. Besides the defensive struggles NJRB have they're also starting to undergo a serious period of transition. The reason NYCFC's old guys can still play well at 35+, after their competitiveness has started cratering due to age, is because they were world class players and had a lot of skill cushion before they get to average MLS level. That's not the case for NJRB, lets take a look shall we.

BWP their best scorer is 32. While many of his goals come due to his height and ups, aka headers, you still have to get there and NJRB's style is hyper athletic. BWP is going to fall off a cliff sooner than later.

Klejstan - 31 his absolute career peak was probably in the last few months with some NT call ups for the first time in ages. Now its about how do you manage his decline. The best move is probably to deal like with Dax, but that would give away the game too much. You want to telegraph to the fans that its going to be a rebuilding period,not spring it on them over an offseason.

Robles - 32 goalie years are different than normal years but Robles isn't at his best anymore. And the FO needs to start thinking replacements, but this situation can still go on for a few years, as Robles still has a ways to fall before he becomes a bottom half goalie.

Aurelian Collins - 31 They need to replace the defense anyway so its not as big of a problem.

There's some more old guys that can start but not always like Grella. More importantly if you discard these guys the rest of the team is 26 or younger, and its really 24 or younger because there's one 26 year old. They are damn young and stocked with talent that will be good but is currently ok. Just based on the bell curve of pro level soccer skill vs age its going to be 3-4 years before you can start calling NJRB title challengers from the word go. Right now their best players are aging out or being sold and their young players need time. Selling Dax was my signal that they are trying to build for the future a bit and try and cut down on that 3-4 year cycle.

It all depends on how their young players develop at this point, if they can develop quickly then year after next they could be right on top of the east again, if they don't its going to take a bit.

NJRB won't stop being dangerous, their academy is producing too reliably for that to happen in the foreseeable future. But for a few years they're going to be quite beatable before we have to start circling the match days as must win's for a title shot, instead of just a must win rivalry game.

Sidenote: Personal conspiracy theory. The NYCFC academy actually has a lot of people with very high level European youth coaching badges. NYCFC have near exclusive youth scouting rights to an athletic pool the size of the Netherlands, they can develop a huge amount of sellable talent if they put their minds to it.

I think this is a little harsh. The Red Bulls have one of the best academies and a stacked USL team. The Dax trade was about cycling their youth in. Sean Davis is a pretty good player. They just need to adjust their style.

Brandon Allen should slowly push BWP out too. Etc.

 

[Gotham Gator]

The original lineup they had posted had Pirlo in goal, too. Very nice little touch, then they went to the real line up.

Now that one, I missed. Pretty funny.

 

[NYCFCfan]

2. Did people enjoy the horsing around when announcing the starting lineups? For those that missed it, our regular announcer was away, so they had this segment where Sean Johnson steals the mike and, amid lots of feedback, begins introducing the starting lineup with glowing references to himself. I thought it was pretty funny, and the kids loved it, which goes a long way with me.

I found this hilarious because he's incredibly humble and soft spoken.

 

[Christopher Jee]

I think the Pirlo criticism is fair. This sport requires offense and defense. We are lucky in that we dominate possession. What concerns me is that there will be teams that force their style on us. We can not adapt to another style with Pirlo on the pitch. What happens when we play a grind it out team like NJRB?

When we have 60% possession, Pirlo is great. When we have 40% possession, there's that much longer for him to defend, and frankly, he has no interest in defending for 90 minutes right now

I think this is a false dichotomy. Possession is a form of defense and I would argue that Pirlo is the best metronome on the team. When he left we took a lot of pressure.

If we had an offensive line and a defensive line like in some other sports then sure, I would not put him out there as a defender. But that's not how soccer works. It's a big, messy beautiful picture that defies efforts to analyze via segmentation, more effectively than most sports.

 

[Tom in Fairfield CT]

I think this is a false dichotomy. Possession is a form of defense and I would argue that Pirlo is the best metronome on the team. When he left we took a lot of pressure.

If we had an offensive line and a defensive line like in some other sports then sure, I would not put him out there as a defender. But that's not how soccer works. It's a big, messy beautiful picture that defies efforts to analyze via segmentation, more effectively than most sports.

It looked to me that we were fine until maxi came off for Fred, then the pressure really started.

Its amazing to me that a guy can have a gaffe lead to a goal, and a clear penalty not called, yet he'll still have defenders here. It shows their bias when they can't EVER say the guy had a bad game. I remember after his woofer in the heat last year, there were still those touting his off the ball movement or something.

 

[Christopher Jee]

It looked to me that we were fine until maxi came off for Fred, then the pressure really started.

Its amazing to me that a guy can have a gaffe lead to a goal, and a clear penalty not called, yet he'll still have defenders here. It shows their bias when they can't EVER say the guy had a bad game. I remember after his woofer in the heat last year, there were still those touting his off the ball movement or something.

Maybe we'll just have to agree to disagree. I already put a decent amount of energy into explaining how I acknowledge those shortcomings without having them dominate (by my judgment) my overall assessment. I'm not sure there's too much that I have left to say about it.

 

[JGarrettLieb]

I think this is a little harsh. The Red Bulls have one of the best academies and a stacked USL team. The Dax trade was about cycling their youth in. Sean Davis is a pretty good player. They just need to adjust their style.

Brandon Allen should slowly push BWP out too. Etc.

How is calling them a playoff team that should be in east 3-4 spots harsh? I said they aren't and wont be as good as they were for a few years but by no means are they going to be bad. I actually said that they can't really be bad because of how good their academy is.

They're just not going to be favorites to win the east for awhile until the academy products get a bit more play time. We should be beating them, as a presumptive 1 or 2, but they're not going to be bad by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[The Toe]

https://www.nycfc.com/post/2017/04/03/behind-scenes-nycfc-vs-san-jose

3:50 mark for the April Fool's Day portion.

 

[EganSoccerWords]

Wallace saves Matarrita's ass more times per game than you can count.

We have more possession this year because we have Maxi. We are better this year because we have Wallace.

Subtraction of Lampard as well. The only thing Lampard really did was poach goals, whereas at least now all three of our midfielders are contributing to keep or get possession.

 

[sbrylski]

How is calling them a playoff team that should be in east 3-4 spots harsh? I said they aren't and wont be as good as they were for a few years but by no means are they going to be bad. I actually said that they can't really be bad because of how good their academy is.

They're just not going to be favorites to win the east for awhile until the academy products get a bit more play time. We should be beating them, as a presumptive 1 or 2, but they're not going to be bad by any stretch of the imagination.

It sounded like you were saying they are going to implode at any moment. I stand corrected.

 

[21Architect]

Its amazing to me that a guy can have a gaffe lead to a goal, and a clear penalty not called, yet he'll still have defenders here. It shows their bias when they can't EVER say the guy had a bad game. I remember after his woofer in the heat last year, there were still those touting his off the ball movement or something.

Pirlo had a match last season where he was abysmal throughout and I'm positive I said something like "this was his worst match" at NYC.

So liar liar set your pants on fire!

 

[Kjbert]

I think this is a false dichotomy. Possession is a form of defense and I would argue that Pirlo is the best metronome on the team. When he left we took a lot of pressure.

If we had an offensive line and a defensive line like in some other sports then sure, I would not put him out there as a defender. But that's not how soccer works. It's a big, messy beautiful picture that defies efforts to analyze via segmentation, more effectively than most sports.

Possession is a form of defense. But until we have 100% of possession, he is still an albatross. And I thought he played VERY well the other day

 

[Jagmandeeep]

I've watched some NJRB games this year, or rather the 20 min highlights that MLSlive offers. That team really lost its beating hart when they sold Dax to Chiraq.

I was reading this thinking Chiraq? What is this... I LOL'd so hard when I got it. Gold star for you my friend haha.

But NJ does look weak from the little I've watched them.
Although watching San Jose trying to press our back line I felt much more comfortable now that we have some competent players back there.

I say these teams that love the press will have some tired legs trying to chase the ball this year.

 

[D_RoyJenkins]

After watching the match off my DVR I realized Pirlo had a much better game than I gave him credit for. I believe a lot of the pressure we took towards the end of the match can be traced to his absence. You can call me a Pirlo Homer but I honestly think we don't need to worry about his defensive deficiencies even when we're not dominating possession, the work rate of Ring and Maxi make up for it.

 

[Kjbert]

The small field hurts us when other teams try to press right? We're better off with a larger pitch if a team just tries to press?