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To keep you entertained until the game tonight. Go Revs!

Recap of the D.C. United Revolution game

photo courtesy of the New England Revolution website.

Blake here,

New England has started off the season pretty brightly given the injuries they have been coping with. Last night’s game against was the third different starting lineup in four games. The game started well for D.C. with Ben Olsen forcing two saves from Knighton in the first 20 minutes. In the 20^th minute the Revs should have gotten a penalty kick when DC United player Namoff clearly intentionally handles the ball in the box. I don’t know where the referee, Jair Murrufo, was but the call was obvious on the first go-around and more so on the replays. Announcer John Harkes tried to cover for his old teammate, but there could be no doubt. Two more bad calls from the ref follow and the half ends 0-0.

The second half started better for the Revs. In the 50^th minute Ralston crosses the ball off a throw-in to the back side post where Joseph headed it in for the 1-0 lead. Murrufo continued to make curious calls and miss obvious ones. At one point two D.C. United players collided and he called a foul against New England. Later Emilio threw Heaps down on a D.C. United corner kick and no call was made. Hand balls in the box and throwing people down are apparently not fouls. I missed that when I took my ref classes but that was a few years ago so perhaps the rules have changed.

Late in the game (injury time) with D.C. pressing for the goal, Fred (a second half substitute) has the ball in the corner by the Revs goal, shadowed by Nyassi. Fred flops and Murrufo makes the call. I had a feeling that was going to cost the Revs and sure enough Jaime Moreno hit a great free kick towards the back post where Ben Olsen made a great effort to get to it and head it into the goal off of Phelan. I give full credit to Moreno and Olsen. It was a great play. But the opportunity that gave rise to it shouldn’t have been given at all.

Perhaps I am mistaken, but it does not seem like the refereeing in MLS is getting better and in fact it sees to be getting worse. As the Revs weren’t playing last week, I satisfied my MLS fix by watching the Chivas/LA Galaxy game in which the ref gave out 3 red cards and 7 or 8 yellows. One of the red cards was off a second yellow on an obvious dive by Landon Donovan. (Is he taking diving lessons from Christiano Renaldo?) And in the game against D.C. United Murrufo makes 2 bad calls which effect the outcome of the game directly - the non-call on the obvious hand ball in the box and the phantom foul on the Revs that lead to a goal. Ah, but as they say, that is part of the game.

At the end of the day the Revs were outplayed in the first half and D.C. was outplayed in the second half. The draw was a fair result all-in-all.

A couple of final thoughts: Without the efforts of Knighton (who was man-of-the-match for me) the Revs are down at least a goal going into halftime. Barnes was again a tower of strength in the backline and I though Igwe had one of the best games I have seen him play. I hope that Wells Thompson develops a better sense of timing, I like his defensive work, and his dribbling has improved but when he goes forward he is still making one dribble too many and losing the ball. As a Revs fan I am very happy Sharlie Joseph is still with the team, but how can he not be in Europe. He is ready for that next challenge. Another Rev that is ready for the next challenge is Larentowicz who just keeps getting better. Lastly (and I think I speak for all Revs fans here) I hope that Twellman is able to come back soon at his usual form. It is clear that the Revs don’t have an answer at the forward spot yet. Dube and Mansally have their moments, but neither seem to be able to get in scoring positions the way Twellman does.

That’s all for now.

Thoughts and Reflections on the T&T game

Blake here,

After thinking back a bit more on the U.S. Men’s team match against T&T I still don’t know what to think. The away game against Costa Rica on June 6^th will be a much better indicator of where the U.S. is as a team. We have never beaten Costa Rica on their home field (a fact which doesn’t get mentioned a lot unlike our lack of success against Mexico) and a win there would be a truer indicator of our dominance in CONCACAF claimed by so many fans and commentators. Yet another home win against T&T? Even a dominant one? Not so much. As for the players, one of the things that has become apparent is how much Dempsey’s game has been improved by his time in the English Premier league. He is much quicker with the pass and far less likely to lose the ball in traffic. He seems to always attract two or three defenders and rarely gives the ball away. In addition his defense has improved significantly. When he was with the Revs, he wasn’t necessarily a weak link on defense but was certainly not one of their stronger players on defense. Plus he was prone to the occasional yellow when he would get beaten on defense and take the player down to prevent a fast break. Now he is a much more complete player and rarely seems to get caught out of position. Bradley has improved significantly as well. Although he did pick up one of his trademark foolish yellow cards against El Salvador, against both Mexico and T&T he played a complete controlled game. It will be interesting to see how he does in the hostile climates of Costa Rica and Mexico for the away games in those countries. And what to think about Altidore? He has his champions and certainly played as complete a game as you could expect against T&T for a kid his age. And his goal in the El Salvador game obviously was critical in sparking the comeback. But the image of him getting shoved out of the way by Hejduk prior to Hejduk scoring the tying goal just sticks in my mind. A true goal scoring forward would not have let that happen. It was, well, Landon-like. Now if he starts and scores a brace against either Costa Rica or Mexico on their home fields – well maybe then I might jump on the Altidore bandwagon. Until then I will be cautiously hopeful…

Blake here with some thoughts on the Revs so far

photo courtesy of the official New England Revolution Website

After watching the first three Revs games (two on television and one in the bitter cold in Gillette) I have a few observations.

First, although I am not sure how, the Revs need to find a way to have Kevin Alston on the field. He was the best Rev’s player on the field against San Jose and shut down Darren Huckerby to the point that San Jose switched him over to Tierny’s side in an effort to free him up. I don’t know if you keep Chris Albright off the field because he brings a lot to the table as well so there is a dilemma here.

Second, for not being on anyone’s radar, I am impressed with Darrius Barnes. He is strong in the air, fast and provides an attacking throw in option the Revs didn’t have before. Another reason, by the way, that Alston needs to be on the field. His attacking throw-ins into the box against San Jose provided a few goal scoring opportunities which were hard to come by in that game.

Third, when Ralston is in the lineup, the Revs are a completely different team. I think Ralston is perhaps one of the most underrated players in the league. When he entered into the game Saturday night, the game was transformed. The Rev’s played with their customary attacking style and quickly regained the lead. When I think back on the players that New England has lost (Dempsey, Parkhurst, Noonan) overseas and the amount of injury time suffered by some key players such as Twellman, Castro and even Joseph, the one player whose loss last year eliminated any hope of advancement in the playoffs was Ralston. Finally, any team that has Joseph and Larentowicz in the midfield will be a tough team to play.

Talking about the Revolution

The weather was beyond cold, the refereeing was atrocious and the Revs managed to eek out a win after a truly ugly first half, all in all not a bad way to start off the home game season for 2009-2010.

Let’s just jump in and discuss the first half and get it over with. The back line was incredibly shaky with marking pretty non-existent. Lucky for the Revs, Knighton was up to the challenge of playing goalkeeper for a team that consistently let Van den Berg cross the ball across the goal. While Knighton may not be as conservative a goalkeeper as Reis, he kept the Revs in the game last night and will make this Revs fan a little less nervous about Reis’ injury status. With regards to the offense the passing game that the Revs play so beautifully was MIA.

The subbing in of Ralston for Tierney at halftime along with what were undoubtedly some choice words from Nichols to his team gave us a truly entertaining second half. Nyassi charged out and scored the first home goal of the season a little over 10 minutes into the first half off a beautiful pass by Joseph and then almost immediately went on a run and scored again. The referee Silviu Petrescu called the second goal back Petrescu called back goals in the second half like he gave out yellow cards in the first, often and without reason. The official second goal scored by the Revs was off a professionally taken pk by Ralston given for a pull down in the box.

The real standouts in the second half for me were Larentowicz who played hard for every ball in the middle and made excellent passes and Barnes who seemed to control and direct the back line better once it was reduced to three.

All and all it looks like the Revs will be fielding a great team and I’m looking forward to watching them in hopefully above freezing temperatures the rest of the season.

-Jenni

The Road to South Africa is Paved With the Goals of Frankie Hejduk?

photo courtesy of US Soccer

Blake here

I wanted to offer a few thoughts on the U.S. Men’s team performance against El Salvador and T&T. First having read a few of the commentaries on the first game, I just want to know – how much does Landon shell out to soccer journalists? I didn’t see a rating less then 6.5. This is the guy who is supposed to be our best player and he has no influence on the game. None. I remember nothing about his performance in either half and for a guy who claims the mantle of leadership and talks about being a leader – well, that just isn’t going to cut it. He is the Alex Rodriguez of the Men’s national team. All stats and chokes in the clutch. Second – is their a more up and down player then Frankie Hejduk? He makes 7 or 8 bad crosses in the game against El Salvador and then makes one perfect cross and it results in a goal. He follows that up by shoving Altidore out of the way to score the typing goal. Plus every time he goes in for one of his two footed tackles you just cringe, usually he manages not to take the guy’s legs out and get the red card, but how long can that last. Third – could a player who has scored three goals in a friendly have had a worse game that Sacha Kljestan did against El Salvador – oh wait – I forgot some of Eddie Johnson’s games, my bad. And yet I read countless posts on other sites from folks who seem to think that the only way the U.S. will do well in South Africa (assuming we qualify – knock on wood) is if he is playing. No doubt now that Jozy Altidore has had his hat trick we will hear the same thing about him. (Oh wait, we already have. Has everyone already forgotten the lesson of Eddie Johnson?)

For the first 75 minutes the El Salvador game was the worst non-friendly I have seen the U.S. play since the first round games in Germany in 06. Once the El Salvador players started diving and wasting time, the U.S. team woke up and Frankie Hejduk made a deal with the devil (kidding – I think). Two ways we could have won the game, if Ching puts that shot 5 inches either way it’s the third goal or if the ref had given the 15 minutes of extra time. We timed the goalie’s injury, it was over 11 minutes plus all the other injuries El Salvador players were feigning all over the field. The big question is, how could they have played like such crap for 75 minutes? Had they played the first 75 minutes like they did the last 20 we win 6 or 7 to 0. I have seen some of the other commentators blame Coach Bradley for this. Perhaps – but sometimes players play badly. What you can fault him for is his preference for Califf to replace Onyewu as opposed to some other choices such as Parkhurst who played a few games in the Gold Cup in 2007and looked good not to mention his excellent record with the New England Revolution. Or maybe that just Bradley’s sneaky way of getting him capped with the U.S. so he would never play for Ireland?

Against T&T the U.S. looked great but really it was the same as the qualifier against T&T in the last qualifying round on U.S. soil. Yes, Jozy gets the hat trick (although that third goal shouldn't count) and once again we had a slew of opportunities.

The team is in first place in their group and Mexico has two losses. And yes I have read all the usual arguments about Mexico playing 3 of their toughest games in the first three – but they have 2 loses and one win out of those three. And they haven’t played Costa Rica in Costa Rica and they still have to play the U.S. in Azteca. A game Bradley very badly wants to win. It would be one more thing he did that the great Arena did not do. So, while the U.S. didn’t have the toughest three games and certainly the tie to El Salvador cannot be seen as anything other than a poor results – it was a tie. Not a loss.

That said, we still have issues at Right and Left Back. If Hejduk is still in the rotation in South Africa – well I don’t think reaching the quarterfinals is likely. The same can be said for Pearce. And we have the Landon aka Rodriguez problem. It’s impossible to sit him, but if you’re expecting him to be the leader (or counting on it) then disappointment will be the order of the day. Plus, I for one, am not sure we have solved our striker issues. I like Ching (in spite of myself – as a longtime Revs fan) but he is a workhorse. He creates the opportunities and does all the dirty work of the target, but we need another forward to use those opportunities created. Is Altidore the answer? Well, let’s not be hasty. I can remember when Eddie Johnson was the answer. They are both sitting on the bench for teams playing in the second division of glamour leagues in Europe. Everyone else is worried about finding that #10, but I am not too concerned about that. We have a lot of midfielders who can play both ways and make passes, Bradley, Dempsey, Donovan – when he is awake in the game, and Mastroeni. There is also a host of possible youngsters including Edu, Torres, Kljestan. And yes I have left Adu off that list. I just don’t see him handling the physical play.

Well that’s all for now. Until the next post.