United 1-2 KC: This Ain't Hard

Shatzer and others correctly tag the critical meme here: high pressure (and secondarily, inability to suss out a 4-3-3). DCU can't cope, and never has. Shatzer and others completely fuck up the impact of missing players; no, Korb and Chabala is not a dropoff from Russell and Woolard, except to the extent that Chabala had joined the team only three days before. Look, if you can't understand that the team has managed to tactically correct for Woolard's incredible slowness, and incredible fucking stupidity, to the point where you believe that Daniel Woolard is a credible starting left back for any team that doesn't have some bar's name blazoned across its shirts, I can't fucking help you.

I'm not convinced that the blame should lie entirely with Olsen, who has coached the team to shorter passing, single touches, good ball movement. There was none of that in evidence last night, and I'm hard-pressed to believe that Olsen came out before the game and told the team, "Hey, let's languidly drop long balls back into KC's laps, and stand around on defense, and apply no pressure at all, except for you, PartyBoy and LongTanJohnson."

Not that I don't have questions for Saint Benny. For instance, why is PartyBoy marking fucking Teal Bunbury on corners? And even bigger philosophically (though not in practice--Bunbury's goal was on Pontius, he knew it, and he thumped his own chest in acceptance in the afterglow), why the fucking fuck is a goddam moron like Brandon McDonald marking that giant Aurelien Collin, instead of the taller, smarter Dudar? Why, when Branko came up with a kneebummy, did you fucking put in another D-mid instead of, say, Stephen King, who once in a while shines in center attack (unlike Saragosa, who was not in any way cut out for the job he was asked to do last night)?

On to my critique of BFF's analysis, which is what prompted this post in the first place:

Worrisome if not distressing.

Take a Valium. It's one game. The outcome and the methodology were predictable--as, I concede, you're about to admit in a few sentences.

Minus DeRossario, minus Woolard (replaced by some journeyman with two workouts with the club) 

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Last night showed what DeRosario brings: bullying the rest of the team into running. Now, that's nontrivial, I'll admit. But we also left behind DeRosario blaming the rest of the team for him being 34 years old. As to Woolard, no. Just no.

And beloved, I'm not sure how you so easily spouted the most myopic, ill-informed, and goopingly unironic description of Mike Chabala that you possibly could, but...wow.

I wonder how much of it is United's lack of athleticism versus Kansas City's. Man for man, Kansas City was bigger, stronger, faster.

I long for the day when Japanese movie monsters run wild in the streets of Kensington, just so I can watch you flap your arms for a few seconds before I myself am consumed.

It's easy to look bigger, stronger, and faster than someone who's not moving. Athleticism...I'm not sure that word means what you think it means.

They swarmed because they could. United panicked on the ball because they had too.

They swarmed because United didn't move, and didn't move the ball. United panicked on the ball because no one moved off-ball. That's part of the tactical deficiency Shatzer's talking about. Again, being too fucking lazy to do your job isn't a failure of athleticism, it's a failure of getting your deadwood road-gaming ass to move for some portion of 90 minutes.

Someone is going to take out Kitchen. He's dirty...

 Woot! I get to throw a bone!

Yes. Yes, he is.

He's also United's best player, but he's dirty.

Holy crap. Can you make just one point and move on before you completely fuck it up, beloved? No, he's not. Pontius is a better player. Hamid may be a better player. Boskovic may be a better player, but we'll never know because he's such a terrible fit for the club. Salihi may be a better player, but we'll never know because...

Long Tan sucks. Sucks. 

Well...only sort of, so far. Unlike anyone between Hamid and the front line (with the exception of Andy Najar, for 20-second stretches, and Danny Cruz, who came in far too late to have an impact), he worked for a living last night. He has the same problem everyone else on the team has--he can't volley, and I really wish that Saint Benny, who could volley, would fucking do some fucking drills on hitting balls on the half-volley, because the need to settle the fucking ball and make love to it before directing it goalward has gotten pretty fucking stale.

By which I do not mean to exclude the very real possibility that LongTanJohnson sucks.

Saragosa sucks. Sucks unto suck.

I disagree. Saragosa was--stunningly, I know--misused. Last night was, and I admit that there were challenges but still, a frightfully instructive example of how not to manage a formation with the players available. He was a terrible choice to plug in when Branko went down, without some adjustment of roles and relationships and positions.

Part of the thing here, and it's a part we're loathe to admit, is that Benny is a really, really fuckawful in-game coach, and a poor tactical manager. Can this improve? Maybe. Given time, he'll improve more in a year or two than Tommy Soehn or Curt Onalfo will for the rest of their lives.Will he get time? Will he deserve it? Beats the fuck out of me.

This is why this team is at least a year away - they would have lost this game with starters. Their second-stringers suck, and in MLS, you need good second-stringers. United doesn't have any.

That's where you're totally steering the boat onto the reef, beloved. You just said the second-stringers were all hurt. The bench was the third-stringers. Some of the regular starters are second-stringers, and the team has managed to correct for that enough of the time.

I disagree that they would've lost the game with starters--the only one not in was DeRosario. Might his arrogance and sheer dislikability have made the difference? I actually think it might've been the difference between a loss and a draw, but who the fuck knows? Would his presence have kept Benny from making the defensive adjustments that cost the game--or caused him to make different ones that worked? Not putting Dudar on Collin after the very first corner kick was a huge tactical error. Chabala's unfamiliarity with the system, which drew him so far into the middle that he lost his mark on the back post as the Traitor Graham Zusi charged in, certainly didn't help. Pontius in a crucial role in defense on another set piece (but wait! it worked with Tino Quaranta!) was sub-optimal, too.

I do seriously doubt that physical differences were the key here, given the stunning errors in judgment (didn't you hear me, half a county away, screaming about putting Dudar on Collin?) that both Saint Benny and the team laid out there last night. The really disturbing thing to me is that I knew we'd lose when we turned on the game. If, thousands of miles away, I knew that (and so, clearly, did BFF), what the fuck is going on with the team that they can project it so unerringly?

Harkes sucks.

Wynalda's wife doesn't think so. Boo-ya!

I miss The Bow-Tie, and The Bow-Tie sucked.

No, he didn't. He was the glue that kept us all together. He was goooood.