Recaps of D.C. United’s scoreless draw with the Chicago Fire by us and WaPo. Men in Red with the other end.
A recap of the Washington Spirit’s 2-2 draw with Racing Louisville by us.
Reviewing Loudoun United’s 1-0 loss to Colorado Springs Switchbacks (us): Hey this wasn’t bad!
Why 2023 could be a big year for Aubrey Kingsbury (ESPN): Here’s hoping!
Independiente, al borde de la asfixia: Gonzalo Verón le ganó un juicio y el Rojo debe pagarle 11 millones de dólares (Nacion): Hey, remember when D.C. picked the New York Red Bulls player in a re-entry draft, he chose not to sign and moved back to Argentina? Well his club there didn’t pay him for months before loaning him out (and not picking up that tab), and he won his case in court, with penalties doubled as this happened during Covid.
Meanwhile in more notable D.C. alumni happenings, Bill Hamid did this Saturday night, and later Memphis scored the eventual tying goal. Bill Hamid, saving points for his team since 2010.
On the “Former DCU Coach tracker” Montreal got pounded (5-0)…I think that Losada is not going to last the season, he has a depleted roster, they went down a man to a red card and….it was ugly. Houston dropped a 2-1 decision (but showed a lot of attacking in the match).
On the “Former DCU Player tracker”–Lucho Acosta (who had such an amazing 2022) isn’t doing nearly as well this season. The stats back up the eye results. And as a result, Cinncinati has been getting wins but not convincingly. I had assumed that Acosta had matured (and that is what we saw in 2022) but maybe not, maybe he’s in a funk (because again, there were off-season rumors of foreign interest in him).
Re: Losada – that style was in vogue in the 2010’s because of Germany’s 2014 World Cup win. It was new a fresh and all the pressure was new and unsettling to opponents. Now, players are used to playing against it and it’s been shown to grind down players and teams by the end of games/seasons (witness DC United 2021 for a team that was hot then just ran out of gas at then end when it mattered most, also, see Leeds).
A high midfield press should be a tool in the toolbox for certain game situations. It should not be the default game plan. Once the other team figures it out, there is no Plan B. Meanwhile, you also grind down the players who you need to make it work.
I hope that Coach Losada can go learn another style rather than one that shortens pro soccer players’ careers. While we are at it, I am glad to see that Peter Vermes is floundering at SKC as he needs some new ideas too. The other teams have all figured out that high press style. See also, NYCFC (away from Yankee stadium), and the Red Bulls post 2018.
Saturday afternoon I went to the rugby match between (Cardinal) Newman and Atlético de Rosario at the Club Newman.
Rosario dominated early and on the basis of five (three point) penalty kicks (think field goals in gridiron football) led Newman 15-10 at halftime. But Newman came storming back and with three tries (Five points each), two try conversions (two points each) and two penalties and won going away 35-24. With two wins in their first two matches, Newman is tied for first place in the Primera División de Rugby.
Some longtime readers of B&RU may remember that I wrote extensively about the contrast between fútbol and rugby in Argentina. As derived from its British origins, Argentina exemplifies the old saying that “football (soccer) is a gentlemen’s game played by hooligans and rugby is a hooligan’s game played by gentlemen”.
Newman RFC is composed exclusively of former students of Colegio Cardinal Newman (the youngest member of Saturday’s XV was 23). Club Newman itself is located about 20 miles from downtown Buenos Aires — a walled, gated community of about 600 very fancy homes built around a golf course, tennis courts, and many, many rugby fields.
My brother in law Lalo was one of the founders of Club Newman ca. 1985 and it admits only students past or present or their parents as members/ residents. Originally, Club Newman was a weekend retreat for professionals and businessmen living in Buenos Aires but about 70% of the homes are now year-round residences.
I’ve been going to Club Newman for years now on every visit but for the first time noticed something— fútbol fields, not on the main rugby fields but on auxiliary fields. My nephew Diego said that he himself was really responsible for instigating them some time ago.
Newman does not(and probably will never) sponsor soccer teams against outside opponents. The activity is strictly “interno “. But about 300 children and youth from the 600 Newman families now play in their internal rec leagues.
El fútbol marcha adelante aún en la citadel de rugby.
Old Glory DC unfortunately got blown away 48-26 by San Diego Legion yesterday at Snap Dragon Stadium in San Diego. They were down 17-12 at half and never got back in it as San Diego scored several times early in the 2nd half. San Diego’s defense was stout and OGDC couldn’t make the Legion pay for their mistakes for the most part.
Also if you tried to watch the game it was shown live on The Rugby Network (free accounts) and then shown on tape delay on MASN at 8:00 last night.
With the loss OGDC drops to 2W-4L-0D and 14 points. That leaves them currently sitting in 4th place in the East and 2 spots outside of playoffs with 10 games to play.
It was pointed out that the main passing connection for DC on Saturday was between Tyler Miller and Christian Benteke. While it’s nice to take advantage of Miller’s distribution and Benteke’s ability to win balls in the air, it doesn’t say much for United’s ability to build an attack, and that was pretty evident on the field. Hopefully Lewis O’Brien can do a good job of connecting the defense and the attack, and I think he’ll be an iimprovement for sure. But he’s only here til July, so… we better figure something out.
Paulson is a big reason for that. He did not move to create secondary passing lanes between the backs or other mids to himself. His lack of mobility meant that whoever had the ball usually only had one option.
I saw that stat and I think it’s deceptive. I think that’s Doyle just “mailing it in.” If Bill Hamid had ever had that kind of data with, let’s say Kamara or another central striker, you’d have assumed he was just booting it downfield. And that wasn’t what Miller was doing and how he was playing. Instead, he’s playing as a defender/sweeper-keeper. And those are a combination of through balls slicing through multiple Chicago defenders and also Benteke doing a fine job as a target man–showing for the ball and then distributing.
Maybe, but it is absolutely true that we struggled to create decent passing patterns in build up all game, or at least ones that troubled Chicago. Need to figure out how the fullbacks, wingers, CM’s, and forwards relate to each other for the short passing game, we clearly were more concerned with being solid out of possession. The adherence to a shape and caution with the opponent’s counterattack yielded a clean sheet, it’s just that Taxi and Benteke suffered from the lack of chaos we simply failed to create going forward. So, when the most effective way forward is in fact to lump it to Benteke from our best backline passer, the goalie, there’s no surprise element, it’s gotta be worked on. 4-4-2 doesn’t have the same natural passing patterns as a 4-3-3, for example, but you have to find those triangles, regardless.
I’m thinking that adding Pedro Santos and Lewis O’Brien should help. It’s a lot to ask of Jacob Greene to start contributing going forward, but that would help too.
I’m increasingly of the opinion that Pedro Santos isn’t useful as a midfielder or forward. He’s got the skill for a give and go, say, but not the speed to get there for the “go” part. I think we might have been fleeced pretty badly, his mobility looks way worse than his appearances against us last season.
I agree based on what I’ve seen from him. It’s a lot like Durkin really – they’re being miscast as outside mids when their best traits shine in the middle/closer to goal.
Basically, think Fletcher, TKD, and Hopkins need to be used to add dynamism and energy, and develop real synergy on the flanks. They won’t all start, but they should all play, and in my opinion, Pedro Santos is a very niche sub.
Can we get a forum page somewhere? We used to be able to create fanshots/fanposts and there’s nowhere to put them now. Also, FreedomKicks could be placed as a daily sticky post where we can just start posting and when that day’s contributor that creates the link post could just edit the top post in some way so that we (the commentariat) don’t have to wait to post some days.
Lewis O’Brien has his visa!!! Let’s rejoice! I’m really hoping he makes us better at building the attack from the back. Miller just doing his best to find Benteke with a long ball every single play is not a great recipe for success, we need to be able to do both things.