It think it was "big Johnson" to a similar tune
San Jose Postmatch
- Thread starter NYCFC_Dan
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Feel like Villa's pass overshadowed the quality on display from the rest of this build-up by NYCFC. Beautiful goal. pic.twitter.com/NFgnir4zUX
— Matthew Doyle (@MattDoyle76) April 3, 2017
snugglefarts
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You know, I really appreciate that Maxi was there with the follow up in case the goal was actually saved.
QuazyPat
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Close! They were chanting, "He's not Saunders!"
It was coming from 206/Chicken Bucket (and possibly elsewhere).
They did it during the first two games as well and it was just as funny then.
Edit: Whoops, quoted the wrong user originally.
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Yep. I sit right there. Pretty funny.
I need to suck it up and count reading post match threads in my game day readiness kit. I miss too much.
I'll be back after I read through all of this.
I'll be back after I read through all of this.
Marito
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I watched the second half of the Arsenal vs Man City game the following day, and the first 20 min of Yaya Toure on the pitch (he subbed in at the start of the 2nd half) reminded me a lot of the first 30 of Pirlo during our game. He seemed to take a bit of time to adapt to the speed, and had a number of bad passes in their own half that generated Arsenal chances, but he influenced the game a lot, found tons of channels to start the offense, and you could tell the team was playing Yaya style. DeBruyne had moved further up the pitch and it was YT in charge of starting or re-starting every possession from the back. I think he easily had the most touches, despite being a sub. On the other hand, he was playing at 1/2 the speed of the other 21 players, no question about that.
Who's that lazy guy with the beard who intercepts Bingham's outlet pass and then orchestrates a hallway of mirrors before finding Matarrita for the entry ball to Villa?
Yeah, that's the perfect example of what a lot of us are talking about. Great positioning to break up the attack, and great knowledge of the positioning of others to restart the attack and then find Mata wide open in space.
A couple of questions for the group on topics not yet covered.
1. Did anyone else notice that the referees did not award our first goal after Harrison's initial shot crossed the line? Go back and look at the tape. They are silent until Maxi smacks in the rebound. Thank goodness he did.
http://matchcenter.mlssoccer.com/ma...c-vs-san-jose-earthquakes/details/video/99088
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.
1. Did anyone else notice that the referees did not award our first goal after Harrison's initial shot crossed the line? Go back and look at the tape. They are silent until Maxi smacks in the rebound. Thank goodness he did.
http://matchcenter.mlssoccer.com/ma...c-vs-san-jose-earthquakes/details/video/99088
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 it entertaining. Glad they gave a bit of a spot light to SJ as well. He's been tremendous and the biggest sign of it is that no one really talks about him. When people do their post game 1-10 ratings he's often not even listed.
Yeah, above I pointed out the Harrison goal and not realizing he was credited with it until looking at official boxscore. I have a feeling the Ref *never* knew Jack scored and it was the video stat guys that awarded it.
Pretty sure the stadium announcer left it blank after Jack's goal too - I remember hearing something like "Goal for New York City!! Scored by......." and they just left it at that.
They took a while to do the announcement. They showed the replay a couple of times, and then did the announcement once it was clear who had scored. By then the game had restarted and one of the teams (us I think) was breaking ahead, so the crowd was not listening and never got a chance to yell his last name.
From my seats in 205, sideline at the top of the penalty area on that side, it was 100% clearly a goal. Never a question, which is why it was really disappointing that the ref, and especially the sideline ref, didn't award it right away.
Was this on the video board? I 100% missed this. Wow.
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
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'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 never really realized how important he was in cleaning up their messes before those messes got to a rather shaky backline. Additionally, Dax really was quite important in connecting and managing their high press to the backline. This version of the team might be a bit more athletic, but as it stands they are definitely weaker than last year.
I think they're really going to be riding the struggle bus in comparison to last year. They're not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but as it stands they really won't be dueling it out for top spot in the east, I'd put them in a comfortable playoff appearance slot, like east 3-4 without hesitation, but I think the chosen media narrative for this year is going to be a young team getting its feet under it. That narrative is solely due to MLS writers having a hardon for NJRB. If NJRB can pull some mid season trades they might even get a sold player at height of his value tacked on there as well.
Of course its honestly too early to really make pronouncements about a team for the year. But I think our weird kind of half counter thing will be devastating against NJRB without Dax. That backline is not as good as Dax made them look.
Are you a teacher? I've only heard my wife (a teacher) use the phrase struggle bus. I love it.
You may be spot on about their defensive intensity. I've watched them, Davis just hasn't replicated Dax. Long term, it's the right move for a team on a budget, but you only get small windows in sports unless you splash cash. Their window is now. They miss him badly.
So my example may be a crappy one. But I still worry about Pirlo's flaws when we play a team that dictates pace and style on us.
TL;DR — Great play but not necessarily evidence of great overall contribution.
Absolutely great play from Pirlo which I acknowledged in the Shoutbox during the match. A good example of what he can still offer.
However, let's not get lost in the "he does some things well so is above reproach" fallacy that is so pervasive in sports discussions. It is about overall positive contribution and I think there is a split amongst supporters (both on and off this forum) as to whether that is waning. Keep in mind, for the many good things he did in the match (and there were several obvious examples and that I would support, not including the highlight contribution to the goal) he also was the main factor in giving away a needless goal and could have easily given away another needless one shortly afterward. Which would have meant he would have "needed" to have directly created or scored two goals later just return to a neutral contribution to the match.
TL;DR — Different perspectives, different conclusions, but nearly all are welcome.
That is one of the beautiful and daunting things about sport—each person sees different things (or even the same) and comes to different conclusions. I would have it no other way (I imagine NYCFC_Dan would agree, otherwise there'd be no need for this place) and very much appreciate your and everyone else's thoughts, even when opposed to my own.
I will say I shy away from saying things are "lost on other supporters" just because their view differs from my own, unless what they are saying is demonstratively false.
You think he had a great first half and I think it was his worst of the two—depending on the criteria being used for assessment there are probably arguments to be made for either but I don't necessarily think anything was lost on you because of your evaluation.
Now, if you had come on here to say Pirlo's pass back to Johnson which started the chain leading to SJ's goal was one of the best you'd every seen then I might start questioning if you were "lost." ;-)
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.
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