Somebody once said “A tie is like sleeping with your sister. Sure, you got laid, but… IT’S YOUR SISTER!” DC United ties the NE Revolution 1-1. The Revs scored just SECONDS into the second half cuz we weren’t paying attention, and United equalized shortly thereafter on a penalty kick by Jaime Moreno.
Unfortunately, my “Ghetto Tivo” didn’t record the match due to “technical difficulties”, but I managed to watch most of the first half at my girlfriend’s before being interrupted by my boss. Then I missed the first fifteen minutes of the 2nd half while driving home. Then, of course, interrupted by my boss again, so I missed another few minutes. And I thought all was OK, since it was supposed to be recording… Ah well.
Well, I’ll recap what I remember which I’ll expand upon if I can download someone’s cap from somewhere.
More after the B U M P…
First and most significantly, we came out in a 442.
To me, this is really, reall, really important on several levels. It shows that we CAN adjust to the tactics deployed against us, namely attacking us down the wings and getting our central defenders in 1v1 situations. This will give teams who play us in the future a little bit of pause as they have to consider which way we will come out of the gate.
I thought for the most part the formation worked. We did a much better job controlling the wings defensively and except for the Revs goal (I’ve only seen high, er, lowlights) the central defenders were well supported. The outside backs got up and back well, and kept the opposing wingers Steve Ralston and Khano Smith at bay. The problem with the formation was everybody was crowded into the middle of the field. Clyde Simms and Christian Gomez were supposed to be there, but Ben Olsen and Fred kept pinching in. As a result, the same issue we’ve been having was still present.
New Starters & Questionable Subs
Moreno sat on the bench along with Brian Carroll. A good move in my book. Carroll has been playing poorly this whole year, so that was not a shocker. And Simms did a more than admirable job until Carroll came back in. He has always been a more physical presence than Carroll, altho Carroll was a better “reader” of the game and cut off more passes. Now that opposing teams aren’t attacking us the same way, he isn’t as effective anymore.
Nicholas Addlery started for Moreno. Addlery is a completely different type of player than Moreno. He is actually more like Emelio. He’s big, strong, has decent speed and decent skills. He lacks Moreno’s skill, but makes up for it with a lot more hustle and workrate. His inclusion gave us a bit more pace up front, not so much in foot speed, but just in that he is more likely to pass the ball and keep moving rather than dribble around. He also has less of an affinity to pass only to Gomez, so the ball got spread around a little bit more. Also with him in there, it gave us two targets for crosses.
Now I am usually OK with Soehn’s choice of substitutions, but this game I was not. Addlery was performing well and gave us a different look than Moreno, and i thought he should have stayed in until he was tired. Moreno came in and immediately slowed the pace down… not what we needed. And Carroll certainly didn’t warrant being put in either. If Simms couldn’t go the full 90mins, I would have put in Justin Moose instead who in his limited appearance has shown more than Carroll has. And in hindsight (being 20/20 and all) Moose would have been much more useful with the Revs down to 10 men.
The Bastard Referree…
The ref was *horrible*. Yes I know he gave United a PK and a man advantage. So I can’t really say it was any kind of bias… so i will just say he was incompetent. He routinely let the Revs get away with clutching and grabbing which ultimately out-weighed the red card he gave to Shalrie Joseph. And the OK he called on Riley against Moreno was legit, so i don’t “praise” him for getting it right. Riley made no play on the ball, just shoulder charged Moreno who did what he was supposed to and fell over. The ref though, then did not award a second PK when Riley did it to Emelio later in the second half. In fact he gave Emelio a yellow card. Idiot. And anytime a DC player so much as sneezed within 10 ft of a Rev, the ref blew his whistle. That affected the outcome much more than the PK and red card did, in my opinion.
What now?
Well, we play Chivas USA minus Amado Guevara on Sunday. I may put up a brief preview if I have the time before the game. Otherwise, you’ll just have to suffer through another long-winded recap ;)