First Impressions - DC United 1 : 1 New England Revolution
Take it.
United put together their best game of the regular season, with a strong but goalless opening forty-five minutes. Strange as it sounds, after United controlled play as well as they did, I expected New England to get a goal against the run of play, which is exactly what happened. However, United finally got a break with a cheap penalty which Moreno put away. It was a cheap call, but given that referee Terry Vaughn missed Christian Gomez getting mugged in the box, I can't say that the game was reffed unfairly. Vaughn had a classic poor calls on both sides match. In a strange way, I think Joseph's red card ejection helped New England, since they had a ready excuse to pack it in and go out on with the draw.
Still, there are way more positives than negatives coming out of this match, some expected, and some that surprised me. If you saw this game, you saw a team that played an order of magnitude better than what we have seen to date. This was improvement. By a great deal. Even if we had lost, we saw more than we'd seen to date.
Labels: 2007 Season, DCU, First Impressions, New England Revolution
posted by D @ 8:25 PM
9 Comments:
Sadly, Terry Vaughn was Man of the Match for DCU. It looked like Moreno was shoulder-to-shoulder on his penalty and the red card should have been a yellow.
Still, though, it was bad on both sides. And what was up with that almost brawl? The AR got shoved -- people should get red cards for that. No one is allowed to touch a match official, no one.
Also: Eric Wynalda needs to shut up. He kept going on how the captain gets to talk to the officials differently (they don't) and how they get to be "enforcers." Like it or not, the referee does that. And sometimes they get it wrong, but, good Lord, Eric, it doesn't mean that players just get to take other people out.
that game was brutal as hell to watch. nothing was pretty about any of it at all. I'm glad we got a point, no doubt I'll take it and we earned it but I think were in for a long season.
The ref was absolutely horrible. ALL the small stuff (and I do mean ALL) went the Revs way. Then more than makes up for it by gifting us a penalty and a red card. The penalty might have been a foul outside the box, but I don't know how you call it inside the box. Nor do I undersand how you then book Emilio when it happens a second time (but that is neither here nor there). The Jospeh red was a yellow, its as simple as that.
Other than that, DCU got a point. I guess that is good. But man do they need to start getting some wins if they want to make the playoffs.
Jospeh's red seemed to be a double-yellow to me... it was a persistent infringement+professional foul.
Was it just me... or did Taylor Twellman dive in the box with no one within feet of him twice?
*should have used preview and thought a little longer... so double post*
I'm not saying that Joseph should have gotten red... but I am saying he should have picked up a second yellow by that point. He spent the whole night knocking Gomez around without really going for the ball. The replay I saw looked (from the stands) looked like tackle from behind without going for the ball. Which is borderline red to begin with (it would be a question of intent... and Joseph showed time and again that he wasn't really playing the ball...) he was trying to intimidate Gomez or anyone else trying to be in that space.
Seemed like a classic ugly vs. pretty-soccer kind of matchup, that was a clear indication of what we can expect from our opposition this year.
IMO if United could work the wings more, and serve in better crosses/spread the defense, we can beat anyone. But the possesion aspect of our game is still the key regardless of a 352 or 442 formation.
I liked what I saw from Fred (much moresop than Freddy), I hope his injury is not too severe.
it's a result we didn't get against the same New England Revolution last fall in the conference championships. And at least Twellman didn't score against us. With a win on Sunday against Chivas things will be getting back on track. You need to stop the free fall before climbing back up again.
The Emilio yellow card for 'diving' in the box looked eerily similar to Moreno's penalty call earlier in the half.
Moreno has seemed to be more effective as a sub for over a year now. The problem is that after all he's done for us, it feels like treason to even think that. Yet he remains one of those guys who can be invisible for 89 minutes and then put the team on his shoulders. If we use him in that Sheringham/Goater role, it may allow us to put younger, more able legs (assuming we have them) out there for ~60 minutes and hope that the last 30 is where we get the Moreno magic.
Also, with our serious lack of any wing play or quality crossing threat, DC United looks to be the team who could most benefit from Beckham in July. Maybe LA would be interested in a trade. We could give them the entire Nationals franchise. If they act now, I'll throw in the Caps.
"We weren't that happy at halftime. We felt we could be a lot better, started the second half very well - started going at them," Nicol said. "And up until the penalty decision we were really on top." (from mlsnet.com)
What precisely were they really on top of? The goal not withstanding the match was pretty much push and pull.
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