With this being, officially, the one-third point of the season, I've got a grander project in mind in terms of clocking where things are in Major League Soccer. That will come later, though. For now, I want to wrap up the two remaining games from teh weekend. I didn't have time to catch, or even watch an archived version, of either game - though I did watch highlights of both - so I'll treat these only briefly and let others who did see them do the talking.
Red Bull New York 2 - 4 DC United
- Unless I'm mistaken, it's impossible to beat The DCenters debriefing posts in terms of links to the world of reportage and opinion and DC United games. If you go there, you'll find what you need.
- At the same time, any time Ben Olsen notches a hat trick (any time?), the thing that needs to be said is pretty obvious. I've always liked Benny well enough, in spite of the incredible volume of whining he directs at the referee, so this feels like a cause for celebration. Besides, it's not like he's going to "pull an EJ" and get one next weekend; by my count, he's due for the next one sometime in retirement.
- For all that, DC sure sounds like they're feeling jiggy. And with them going 4-0-2 (w-l-t) over the past six - and they're hitting some tough teams - it's hard to blame 'em.
- Red Bull, on the other hand, seems to be slowing a bit. The loss itself wasn't so shocking - well, considering when two of Olsen's goals came (e.g. after Bobby Boswell's ejection) maybe it was - but how badly they were exposed on the weak side on two of those goals simply has to ruin one night's sleep for Bruce Arena.
Columbus Crew 1 - 2 Houston Dynamo
- Here are the reports I bothered digging up: The Columbus Dispatch; The Houston Chronicle; ESPN.
- The anonymous (to me, anyway) Columbus player who kicked a corner flag out of the ground in disgust said plenty as I see it. Based on what I read, Columbus did well enough in this game, but still managed to lose it. Ouch. At a certain point, losing games like this requires a certain kind of magic - which makes the Crew the David Freakin' Copperfields of MLS. An own-goal by Chad Marshall (maybe the effects of that concussion are lingering?) and a beautiful, yet half–wacky headed goal by Joseph Ngwenya erased a plenty nice goal by Alejandro Moreno.
- Given the above, it seems appropriate to single out the pained musings posted on the Crew Offside regarding the state of all things Columbus and Crew. The cold, hard reality is that, after Columbus, only Real Salt Lake and LA Galaxy fans have cause to feel so blue as Crew fans these days (OK, honorable mention to Chicago). Is it time, as Jim suggests, for Sigi Schmid to go? Hard to say. Though it's hard to argue at this point that it will make things any worse.
OK, I'll be working on that "big picture" thing for a bit. Observing radio silence....
(#########)
No comments:
Post a Comment