USOC - May 11 - Rochester (Home)

[Brooklyn Blue]

The biggest takeaway from that disjointed game was the need for sunglasses at Belson Stadium.

And, it was good to put faces to a few names. Surprisingly, Shwafta does not look like Ronny Deila, and mgarbowski has more personality than a paper football triangle.

 

[SoupInNYC]

Great having beers with mgarbowski and Shwafta pregame in the parking lot last night. Some other thoughts (all over the place)

• That first 20 minutes were sloppy on the back end. I wouldn't go as far as saying Rochester threatened, but the NYCFC back 6 was really shaky. This also came through on the goal and whatever the hell Vuk Latinovich was doing.
• NYCFC were having huge success finding space between the wingback and outside center back in Rochester's back 5 with runs from deep. Thiago, Pereira, and Maxi especially were finding tons of space, the balls to find them were just lacking at times. Finally broke through on Thiago's goal with a beautiful ball from GP and what a finish from Thiago.
• Zelalem was absent the whole first half. Didn't see him really get involved at all.
• O'Toole was interesting at LB. I thought he showed some nice skills going forward at times, but he clearly needs to brush up on his defensive work. I asked Ronny postgame on this and he said that he's been practicing there since Malte's injury. O'Toole does have some experience there as he played in that spot in the Red Bull academy.
• O'Toole was also made available post game and he's a really nice kid.
• There was a St. John's baseball game happening next door. At one point a foul ball came from there and landed in the stands. Thankfully nobody was hurt, but there's some form of NYCFC/baseball joke here that someone more clever than me can come up with.
• We had the postgame media scrum in the bottom floor of Carnasecca which was weird. As we were waiting for Ronny, Glen Crooks and Trey from Blue Balls pod were tossing a football they found around, which I found hilarious. They were tossing a football, while we were waiting to ask questions from a soccer coach inside a basketball stadium, as St. John's baseball players walked passed us to their locker room.
• The immediate addition of quality once Santi and Talles Magno came on was so apparent and almost resulted in an immediate goal. Yeah, Talles could have done better on that, but I do give credit to the Rochester keeper on that one, as he came out strong and really cut down the angle. Forced Talles to go over him and Talles missed.
• Thought the ref was super card happy and he left a few more legit yellows out on the field. Santi was held for a good 2-3 seconds by his jersey while he didn't have the ball, right in front of the ref, and he just completely let it go. I didn't catch the Rochester player's number, but I'm guessing it was a player already on a yellow and the ref didn't want to give a second one to him. Not saying that's right, but I'm just postulating because it was such a clear yellow card IMO.

 

[Shwafta]

Also, I never saw Shwafta so worked up before as he was last night about the refs. Of course, a worked up Shwafta at 11 on the Shwafta scale is about a 2 on the generic scale so he was still pretty chill.

Which is funny because other people say I tend to get worked up about things easily, so must be a soccer game thing, lol.

But actually what the heck was the ref doing? Magno has the ball with another player (i forget who) clean through about to bypass another player, rochester player literally grabs hold of Magno's arms for like 2 seconds. No yellow. That's the most CLASSIC yellow card of all time.

 

[Gotham Gator]

both o'toole and jasson are forwards made to play wingbacks. it's no wonder our defense was poor today. not to mention Vuk isn't very strong and Barazza is too nervous for his own good. our back line being unorganized seemed to be the primary reason we had trouble aside from being way too casual while rochester was playing with their heads on fire.

with GP, it was just a foul. an unnecessary one, but still just a foul. not deserving of a yellow but i think ref gave him one because he didn't just walk away.

ref was giving out lots of cards but never to the one rochester defender who kept 2 handed pushing everyone?

O'Toole & Jasson - the All-Ivy League wingback selection.

 

[Shwafta]

Double post again because sorry,

Chanot with the visor is the greatest thing to happen to this football club in years! He looks like some sort of sci-fi dude and I love it

 

[SoupInNYC]

O'Toole & Jasson - the All-Ivy League wingback selection.

After the game, Sam Cooke mentioned he often sits next to O'Toole on flights and while Sam is watching something on Netflix, O'Toole is working on his dissertation.

 

[moogoo]

Double post again because sorry,

Chanot with the visor is the greatest thing to happen to this football club in years! He looks like some sort of sci-fi dude and I love it

he hates that thing so much... i'm sure he'll throw it at you if you ask for it. hahaha

SoupInNYC any update on maxi? is he injured? he was limping a good bit out there...

 

[SoupInNYC]

he hates that thing so much... i'm sure he'll throw it at you if you ask for it. hahaha

SoupInNYC any update on maxi? is he injured? he was limping a good bit out there...

Didn't ask and now that you bring that up, really should have asked.

My assumption is he's fine. I know he took a few knocks out there and was limping around a bit at times, but he seemed to eventually get over those. But at his age and on turf, probably still should have asked about it post game.

 

[LionNYC]

After the game, Sam Cooke mentioned he often sits next to O'Toole on flights and while Sam is watching something on Netflix, O'Toole is working on his dissertation.

You know O'Toole will pull a Brandon Vincent and realize that his Princeton degree will be more valuable to him than a professional soccer career.

 

[Fantazma]

You know O'Toole will pull a Brandon Vincent and realize that his Princeton degree will be more valuable to him than a professional soccer career.

we traded him to Chicago for Jack Harrison on draft day.....we won the trade.

 

[LionNYC]

we traded him to Chicago for Jack Harrison on draft day.....we won the trade.

We traded the pick. Chicago then drafted Vincent. Important distinction.

 

[Fantazma]

We traded the pick. Chicago then drafted Vincent. Important distinction.

True, but nycfc wanted harrison and they were willing to trade him to nycfc for the pick and i think some gam.