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Player Ratings v. The Whitecaps, 2013 Vol. 1

Posted on May 20, 2013 | 2 Comments

This was a point on the road against a tough opponent. Make no mistake, it was a job well done. We came back twice, the second time while a man down, and looked the more dangerous side for most of this match. The situation was not helped by some sophomoric officiating decisions particularly with regard to the shameless conduct of Camilo, who flung himself to the turf at the slightest provocation. This latter issue was especially annoying because Camilo has the skills to succeed without the theatrics, but chooses to employ them anyway. If you want a good example of why a lot of people don’t take this game seriously, look at Camilo’s performance in minute 25. Bumped by Danso, he leaps into the air and the writhes around on the turf for two minutes. The trainer comes out. Camilo is in agony. Perhaps 999 will need to be called. And then Hosanna! He’s back on his feet and ready to go. It must have been the magic sponge.

Much of the story of this match (aside from the matters griped about above) was the high line that Vancouver played, which made it difficult for us to move the ball forward and get into our system. The result was that all too often we played long ball, which really isn’t our game. Yeah, I know we scored the tying goal that way, but success is built on correct application of the system rather than hoping for moments of individual brilliance (much as it is beautiful when they occur).

1. Donovan Ricketts: He was beaten by a very well taken free kick for the first goal. It looked to me that he was unsighted on the second, and in any case there were at least two other guys much more proximate to the source of the problem who should have closed it down in the first place. Good positioning and distribution in relatively limited action. 6

5. Michael Harrington: One of the most important changes for the Whitecaps in recent matches has been the emergence of Russell Teibert as an attacking presence on the right side. The need to track him absorbed a lot of Harrington’s attention during this match, and while he mostly kept the young Canadian out of the action, the job was done at the expense of a good deal of Harrington’s usual attacking contributions. 6

98. Futty Danso: A pretty uneventful match for Futty. Except for the shout for handball early in the match (which would have been harsh if it had been given), and for getting sent off (which was a ridiculous decision). I’ve watched the relevant passage of play a dozen times now and I am convinced that my assessment of the play when it happened was correct: Camilo initiated the contact and then crumpled up like a gum wrapper. The ref was in no position to make the call and I suspect that he just blew his whistle because he assumed something had happened. I guess we’ll get to find out just what Pah-Modou Kah brings to the table somewhat sooner than we expected. 6

35. Andrew Jean Baptiste: AJB coped as well as anyone with the fact that Vancouver wanted to get right up in our collective grille. He seems to be getting more comfortable with moving the ball forward on his own and passing positively. 6

13. Jack Jewsbury: Stalwart in defense and actually got forward a few times. He did a good job of keeping a lid on Hurtado is faster now than Jewsbury was on the best day of his life (which was several years ago). He used his smarts and his instinct for proper positioning, and got the job done. 6.5

4. Will Johnson: Watch the “foul” that resulted in the free kick on which the first goal was scored. What you will see is Camilo leaping off his feet at the first hint of contact. I give him credit. He played an inexperienced official and got a result. There really wasn’t much that Johnson could do if that sort of thing was going to be given as a free kick. His blast from the right side was blocked by Andy O’Brien’s arm and Johnson duly potted the resulting penalty. On the down side (and this is why his rating isn’t higher) I think he was culpable for the Koffie goal. As Camilo (for once staying on his feet) battled with AJB, both Danso and Johnson dropped to cover a possible cross to the onrushing Reo-Coker. This left Koffie free to receive the ball on his run to the D and take a free shot before either Danso or Johnson could move out to shut it down. If Johnson had held his ground and trusted Danso to prevent the cross (which Harrington probably had covered in any case) he would have been considerably closer to Koffie when the latter took his shot. It was a small error in a play that developed very quickly, but it highlights the fact that we still have a ways to go in terms of defensive organization. 6

8. Diego Valeri: This was an off night for him, or at least so it seemed from my vantage point. He did the things he normally does: driving the ball forward and looking to pick out a pass, but his efforts lacked their usual precision. It didn’t help that, all too often we were out of system; hoofing the ball up the pitch instead of working it forward on the floor. Vancouver’s high line disrupted our ability to get the ball to Valeri when and where he wanted it, but his play with the ball was also not quite at his usual level. 5.5

21. Diego Chará: Chará was matched up on Reo-Coker for most of the night and the two battled like gladiators for the full 90, no quarter asked, none given. Chará’s game has changed subtly over the last few weeks. He is ever more involved in the attack and has shown increasing aptitude for driving the ball forward and finding a pass. All the while, Chará looks after his defensive responsibilities and wreaks havoc in the middle of the park. 7

6. Darlington Nagbe: Mobile and effective while he was on the pitch, he looked good until he was injured in the 33rd minute. When he went down it looked like something to do with his leg, but he came off the pitch with the look of a man in some other kind of distress. No news yet on his condition, but it wouldn’t be a very good start to this long stretch on the road if he were not able to go. 5

9. Ryan Johnson: Of late, Johnson has had a tendency to float out to the flanks, especially on the left side. Opposing teams probably love this, because Johnson is a guy whose effectiveness declines precipitously the further he gets from the center of the box. He had some good moments, and probably should have gotten more calls than he did, but his overall performance was not as strong as it might have been. 5

22. Rodney Wallace: He might well have scored from the doorstep in the 14th minute but he whiffed on the shot. For the balance of the match he showed why it is that he has earned a starting spot. He slashed to the middle from both flanks and put himself in dangerous attacking positions. That his efforts were not rewarded (and this might hold for Ryan Johnson as well) has as much to do with the difficulties that Valeri had in making the connections as anything else. 7

11. Kalif Alhassan: He came on, not as he usually does as a change of pace for Wallace, but in relief of the crocked Nagbe. He did reasonably well, but looked a step slow. His tendency to sit on the ball too long persists. On the other hand, he ended up playing what amounted to right back for the last ten minutes of the match and got the job done. 6

10. Frederic Piquionne: In his more accustomed role he was pretty good. He held the ball up well, but for my money he frequently sat on it a bit too long. Even when we play over the top we need to retain the idea of playing quickly and in rhythm when it comes down. Piquionne kept the Caps defenders on our left flank honest, but a bit more alacrity in terms of his play would have improved matters. 5

20. Adolfo Valencia: I’m going to give him Man of the Match. Normally I would give this award to someone who played more of the match than just the last 15 minutes or so, but in this case I think it’s warranted. He has been frozen out of the side pretty much all season. Subbed on for Jewsbury in an attempt to get a point out of this match, he did exactly what was required. The Vancouver faithful were convinced that he brought the ball down with his arms, but the Caps players on the scene weren’t calling for a handball. The goal itself was brilliant. After shrugging off Rusin and getting the ball to his feet, he lost O’Brien with a neat bit of foot skill and then calmly slotted it by Knighton. Without this bit of grace under pressure there is every likelihood that we leave B.C. Place with squat. Well played. 7.5

This was a tough fight, and well worth the point. Let me just say that I loved the fact that we had such excellent travelling support. This is a team unbeaten in ten, and that’s something that we can hold on to going forward.

Magadh

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timbers cap off a comeback with a point…

Posted on May 19, 2013 | 10 Comments

there are ugly games and then there are ugly games and then there was yesterday’s match against the whitecaps. while the timbers had difficulty finding their stride and playing their brand of football, it could not be overlooked that their efforts were ensconced painfully between the theatrics of a side content on playing anti-football and the clear incompetence of a novice official.

still, the hallmark of a good side is their ability to grind out a result from a less than convincing effort. trenctio.smiles.5.19.13despite the poor officiating and the efforts of the whitecaps to ensure otherwise, the timbers earned a point after coming back from a goal down twice in one game. they did little to help their cause. though the stats may suggest otherwise, the timbers were profligate at every stage and area of the game. most of which is attributable to the extra-special attention diego valeri received from marques davidson, gershon koffie, and jordan Harvey.

like many of the timbers faithful i have often thought valeri was otherworldly, but there were times during yesterday’s match when i believed valeri had literally sprouted a third and fourth leg. that is how closely he was marked by vancouver, and, obviously, that affected the his play and the timbers overall attack. valeri was poor on the night. really poor. he was tackled and lost possession 25 times, he made 20 unsuccessful passes, 7 unsuccessful crosses, and looked frustrated by every turn of play.

the more valeri was marked the more difficult the bait and switch tactics involving the rod wall became, and the more they failed. where the timbers targeted the rod wall with several cross pitch switches last week against chivas, yesterday they did less with more. even when the ball was provided to the rod wall, his newly found, rangy play was suffocated within seconds. i hate to give an ex-spud any credit, but y.p.lee did a phenomenal job covering the timbers advance on that left flank.

factor all of the above in with the understanding that the match was played on what is the fake-turf equivalent of sharmen toilet paper and you might understand how the timbers could have 63% of the possession, retained with 78% passing accuracy, and still look as if they were treading water. personally, i have never seen a pitch grab a ball and eat it the way that pitch did, it stifled the length and speed of passes, and prevented any break away from fully materializing. (yes, those innuendoes were intentional, because, as you may feel as well, the timbers got jobbed yesterday).

culprit number one, and quite possibly winning the race for my least favorite player in the mls, surpassing even the likes of steven lenhart and wondolowski: camilo sanvezzo. i cannot begrudge the beauty of his free kick goal in the 24 minute to put the caps up 1-0, it was a sublimely struck deadball effort that left donavon ricketts no chance to make another save worthy of award. no, i cannot. but the problem with camilo sanvezzo is that his efforts last night on the whole were worthy of an academy award–he is a cheat of the highest order. much like the foul that saw the captain receive a yellow card and the caps a free kick, sanvezzo sold a novice ref a lemon and the official bought it (the fact remains, johnson did commit a foul just not a foul worthy of a yellow card). earning a free kick should have been enough, but sanvezzo looked to take players out of the game. there is an old saying in sport: if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying. well, sanvezzo definitely earned participation points last night.

regardless, a class act showed him how to perform without theatrics and with slight-of-hand play. again, will johnson carried the club when it needed a comeback. after a throw-in on the right flank and a jewsbury cross that was cleared to harrington, the captain took on y.p. lee within the 18 yard box and unleashed a shot that hit a sheepish andy o’brien on the arm. a clear penalty and an easy goal for the captain to make it 1-1.

the resultant celebration was emotional. unfortunately, teams are always at their most vulnerable after having just scored. there is a release, a sense of relief and safety, that dulls a team’s resolve to prevent the opposition from getting in on goal. as soon as the celebrations had ended and the ball was back in play, the caps took advantage of the timber’s temporary, mental slump. poor positioning and shepherding of attackers led to a cracking goal by gershon koffie. off of a throw-in, camilo sanvezzo backed into andrew jean-baptiste, who had the brazilian backed off goal, before sliding a pass to koffie at the top of the 18 yard box. uncertain of where he needed to be, futty determined that he should be everywhere but where he actually needed to be. and by the time he realized he needed to cover koffie the damaging strike had been unleashed, and curling around a retreating timbers backline and into far corner for a goal.  2-1 caps.

from that point, it was clear the game was going to turn only with some form of effort resembling either special or embarrassing or both. but before that came, the timbers had to weather a few counterattacks and a red card. normally, i do not complain about officiating in post game reviews because bad calls happen and it is up to timbers to make their own luck. this review is an exception because the officiating was exceptionally poor all match. futty.sanvezzo.red.5.18.13the red card awarded to futty for, one, having position on camilo sanvezzo and, two, being pulled into a tumble and dummied by camilo sanvezzo is likely the worst bit of officiating i have ever seen. first, futty did not foul sanvezzo–sanvezzo played that up as well as he could, which suggested even further that he is a cheat. second, and most importantly, that was not a goal scoring opportunity. sanvezzo was not away on goal, nor was he in possession of the ball even in the broadest sense of the term possession. and here lies one of the worst misconceptions and misinterpretations of the laws of football–the last man. nowhere within the laws of football will you find a rule that states “last man.” it does not exist. the rule is that if a player denies by obstruction a clear goal scoring opportunity then a red card will be awarded. that does not change the fact futty had every right to attempt to block out sanvezzo–he had both position and pace on sanvezzo. look, had futty come from behind and taken sanvezzo down i would say he earned a red, but he did not–he had position and a right to play the ball.

regardless, with ten minutes left in the game, and down a goal and a man, i am sure prayers were said and personal masses endured. and they must have been heard (which is a ridiculous statement because i sure god has more important things to do than watch over sporting event). at the 83 minute, the captain lobbed a longball to trencito that was suspiciously similar to doug flutie’s hail mary pass to earn the boston college eagles a famous win. trencito.v.van.5.18.13this pass would earn the timbers a not so famous draw. bewildered that the pass hit its mark, andy o’brien and brad rusin converged on the wee train and the wee train bowled right through them. valencia took the ball with his left, turned jordan harvey and put brad knighton on the floor to easily slot the ball into the net with his left. the moment many of the timbers faithful had been awaiting–trencito’s major league debut–brought what they had hoped.

here is the bottom line: in the worst of circumstances, against the worst of foes, the timbers fought back to earn a point. cascadia cup implications aside, this was an effort, born through sheer determination and an unwillingness to lose, that puts paid the claims made by the timbers by their own play that they are a formidable mls side. this was another effort about character, and you would be crazy to believe character did not matter in this game come the end of the season.

sunshine

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Player Ratings v. The Goats, Volume 1

Posted on May 14, 2013 | 10 Comments

[This post is really off schedule. I got caught in some stuff and then was in a situation where throwing up a post on the internet would have been wholly inappropriate. Sorry for the delay. I will strive to get it together.]

That was a good win. I just want to get that out of the way, because I want to rain on the parade just slightly. That was a good win against a team that we should beat every night of the week. At this point Chivas is a shambles. They have no system (at least not one that I was able to identify) and they simply haven’t got the talent to have any kind of success in the absence of one. The scene has changed around the JW. No longer are we going into matches with little hope and less expectation. We’ve seen what this team is capable of doing, and at this point the stand is a bit higher.

Yes, that was a good win but, and this is a big but, we were very wayward at times, especially in the last twenty minutes. Even the most one-eyed of Chivas supporters must have known that at 2-0 there was no way back. We clearly knew it, and we got looser with the ball and looser in defense. That’s fine at home to the Goats, but away to the Caps (as we will be next week) it might turn out to be a different story.

Anyway, we did what we had to do and beat who we should beat. There were a lot of fine performances, and they will be the focus of the balance of this post.

1. Donovan Ricketts: I’ve said a lot of things in a critical vein about Ricketts, mostly stemming from the manner of his arrival at the club. All that is behind him (and us) now. He has shown himself to be a first rate shot stopper. He keeps his defense organized well and his timely distribution set up our first goal. Ricketts catches a lot balls right at him, which is an indication of how sound his positioning is. He’s probably not going to get Save of the Week, but he looked pretty good. 7

5. Michael Harrington: Apparently CP and I were on the same page, because Harrington was back on the left, on which he clearly feels more comfortable. He was back to his energetic and effective self, in which he was abetted by the fact that Chivas didn’t really apply a great deal of (read: any) pressure down their right hand channel. 6

35. Andrew Jean Baptiste: A better run out for him. He’s not the fastest guy on the park, but that is not the worst flaw in a center half. He’s doing a better job in terms of positioning and communicating better both with his fellow back line players and with Ricketts. It seemed to me that it helped to have Jewsbury over on that side, as he stays at home more of the time and gives AJB more effective cues in terms of positioning. 5.5

98. Futty Danso: Our 98 threw down an imperious performance, dominating the middle and getting forward effectively. He should really have put at least one of his two efforts on frame, but he did a fine job of making his presence felt in the opposing box. 7

13. Jack Jewsbury: He too seemed to benefit from being back on his more favored side. Jewsbury has effectively repurposed himself and now inspires confidence where he used to inspire angst. Not only is he playing his own position well, but his positional sense and assurance have a salutary effect on AJB as well. 6.5

4. Will Johnson: Our captain has no bigger fan than myself, but he had some moments in this match that didn’t look all that impressive. On the other hand, he had long stretches where he showed exactly what he brings to this team: intelligence, energy, and aggression. And then there was the goal. It was really icing on the cake, but it was well taken nonetheless. When he got the ball at the top of the box you could tell that he only had one thing on his mind. The shot was sublime and it created to perfect point of closure for the match. 7

8. Diego Valeri: I announced in the immediate aftermath of the game that Valeri was my pick for Man of the Match. I’ve had a lot of conversations with people about this, but I stand by my choice. There are other possibilities (one of which will be discussed below) but for me it was Valeri that really made things happen for the full 90 minutes. He was excellent on the ball, and his move to get through for his goal was beautiful. Of course, it helped that Purdy played him on. I don’t want to revel in Purdy’s error, since I thought he was a loyal (if not especially effective) servant of the club. So let’s stick with Valeri, shall we? His passing was rhythmic and incisive and it was clear that he was well up for it from the opening whistle. In addition, in case you didn’t notice, he also tracked back on defense and helped us keep this clean sheet. I don’t know what the status of our loan deal with Lanus is, but we absolutely must keep this guy in town as long as possible. 8.5

21. Diego Chará: Chará had an effect on Chivas’s midfield not unlike that of guzzling a fifth of Bacardi 151. He just absolutely destroyed them. He won lots of balls. That’s pretty much a given with him. But, as has been his wont in the last few weeks, he got forward effectively and added his weight to the offensive threat we created. With Chará in the mix in the attacking zone, the Timbers become and extremely difficult side to defend. This element of his game was seldom in evidence last year, as he was too busy trying to plug holes in the dyke. Now, freed from the need to defend every inch of the midfield, he game is expanding in exciting ways. 7

6. Darlington Nagbe: When this team is right and Valeri is purring like a Ferrari, Nagbe thrives. How wonderful it must be for him to finally be in an environment in which the full measure of his skills can be brought to bear. 7

22. Rodney Wallace: There are those of you out there who are going to say that not rewarding RodWal’s performance with the MOTM nod is a travesty. I hear you. In fact, I’ve heard a number of you since the end of the match. I thought Valeri’s overall performance was fabulous. His first goal was a perfect illustration of how things have changed for this man since last season. Under Spencer, and while Boyd was lumping around in the middle of the park, Wallace was relegated to patrolling the sidelines, attempting to get to the byline and provide service into the box. This is just not what he does. He is a slasher who likes to get at the goal. Last year, when this role was filled at all, it was filled by Songo’o. This year it’s Wallace, and it doesn’t hurt that he’s got a pro like Valeri getting him the ball in dangerous areas. His goal was sublime: power, pace, finishing, all rolled into one. The pass that he put through to set up Valeri’s goal was similarly pristine. For those who think he should have been Man of the Match, well, I don’t totally disagree, especially since Wallace has lifted his game so far from where it languished last term. 8

9. Ryan Johnson: He had a decent night, although his work in the neighborhood of the goal was not terribly productive. This match highlighted a fact of RJ’s game: he’s not all that fast (Purdy beat him in a couple of footraces). What he is is clever. He’s an instinctive striker who puts himself in dangerous places and tends to take his chances when he gets them (unlike a certain Scot of not so fond memory). A good night, but he can do better. 6

11. Kalif Alhassan: Came on for Nagbe right after the second goal and did well. His progress has been agonizingly slow, but he seems to be progressing in the system, although he still likes to spend more time on the ball than is probably good for him (or for us). 6

14. Ben Zemanski: Brought on for Jewsbury after 74 minutes, this was a good appearance for him. He’s seemed to have some trouble finding the pace and movement of games into which he’s been subbed, so this was a good environment. It was kind of like putting someone in at the shallow end of the pool, so that they can better acclimate themselves. Zemanski can do good work for us, but his is still a work in progress. 6

10. Frederic Piquionne: They put him in for the last seven minutes. I’m not exactly sure why, other than the fact that Harrington looked like he was running out of gas. The result was another snapshot of Piquionne’s finer qualities. He was good on the ball and helped keep the pressure on. 6

Once again, I think that we can all take some well-deserved pleasure out of the way this match was played and out of the result. But next week will be another matter entirely. We’ll be away to the Caps, and I would urge any of you that have access to the MLS Live internet service to have a look at their match from last week with L.A. They are the kind of team that will punish mistakes, and our next job is going to be playing a match on the road without making any.

Magadh

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timbers and moms, moms and timbers: there should be no goats today….

Posted on May 12, 2013 | 1 Comment

it’s an inconvenient and early game on this mother’s day. that means two things: first, moms around the world are going to ask their kids why they are wearing green. and, next, this post is not going to inform you of anything worthwhile. as surprising as it may be to many of you, i too came from a mother and i plan on celebrating even for just a little bit the fact she kept me around rather than put me up for adoption or left me on the step of an orphanage with a letter pinned to my swaddling. i kid on all aspects…

besides, what is left to say about chivas? chelis has done his best to run every bit of talent out of that club, excluding dan kennedy. but I am not too concerned about dan kennedy because he cannot prevent the timbers scoring from the comforts of his couch. kennedy is currently serving a suspension for a straight red card, and unless something strange has occurred within the rules and regulations of major league soccer, the timbers will not face dan kennedy. but you never know with this league. ever.

instead of kennedy the timbers will face pat mclain. yeah, i too had to look him up. but the boys over at chivas officiale sure had some nice things to say about him. you can read about him here. though being the understudy of dan kennedy may cause some trepidation given Kennedy’s stature as a keeper, but what i found most concerning was the fact he has good leg and foot movement, indicating he is alive.

His coaches and teammates describe him as a “very solid player”, with impressive feet and leg movement and very good timing on the ball in the air.  On Sunday McLain’s qualities will also be strengthened by all the advice Kennedy shared with him this week.

right about now you are asking “why, sunshine, why do you spend so much time discussing chivas goal keepers?” well, the answer is two part. first, dan kennedy is quite possibly the best keeper in major league soccer. without him, chivas stand even less of a chance preventing a potent timbers offense from scoring. the other reason is chivas has a tendency to play that miserable italian 3-4-3 formation, also employed on occasion by pep guardiola (but we will not discuss that), which proved exciting enough in the early stages of the season. but now it seems chivas has been found out. they have not won in the last 4 regular season games and were absolutely torched by sporting kc earlier this month. still, it does give us a moment to sit down and discuss the purposes or advantages gained by the formation.

overall, the 3-4-3 provides flexibility to a team. it strengthens the midfield and reinforces the attack. in defense, the wingers can drop back and provide assistance when needed. that is it. that is about as good as it gets for the formation. against teams that push a lone striker, the 3-4-3, exposes the midfield and against teams that use aerial attacks the 3-4-3 is vulnerable to wing play. look at their game against sporting, a team that runs a similar system as the timbers, and you will notice just how exposed chivas were to varying attacks. and to accommodate your needs, here is some video:

it took sporting 40 minutes to finally score, but there was never a question that they would. their movement simply tore apart the chivas back 3, leaving them 6′s and 7′s all night. it did not help that kennedy was shown his walking papers before the real action began, but the flavor of ineptitude was tasted. surprising as it may seem, chivas still insisted keeping 3 at the back with a fourth defender in a somewhat advanced position like a ? (question mark) formation.  that did not help.

returning to how this will affect the timbers approach to chivas. frankly, i cannot see porter doing much more than what he has done so far this season–play his system. it was working for sporting before the red card, it will work for the timbers. with ryan Johnson and the FP, the timbers have forward strikers who can either open up the chivas backline through the mismatched midfield or through aerial attacks. if the chivas play man on defense with the timbers front 3, we will likely see more attacking runs from mikey mo money and captain emeritus. but more instructive of how this game will settle up is the play of graham zusi. sporting’s playmaker dominated from the first minute and i expect the timbers playmaker to do the same. we know valeri is good, but today we may see just how incisive he can be.

the only concern is whether the timbers central pairing have ironed out their communication issues in the last 5 days. because attack is certain to run the wings in order to spread the already thin chivas defense, ajb and futty will be instrumental in directing any play forward.

moms, if you have the opportunity to see this match live, all i can say is this has the opportunity to be one heck of a mother’s day gift.

sunshine

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Player Ratings Away to Dallas

Posted on May 10, 2013 | Leave a comment

Eeeek! I got caught up with something at work and didn’t get loose until just now. I warned sunshine that I was going to be a bit late with the post today, but I’m sure he didn’t figure on this. I’ve been inside most of the day, but every time I step outside I scan the skies nervously for any sign of the flight of predator drones that I am sure that sunshine has out looking for me. For the next few days I’ll be dressed like this:stealth-wear

I usually like to take a bit more leisurely pace when I do the player ratings. Of all the things I write for this blog, that is the one that seems to receive the most scrutiny. This is as it should be. The player ratings are the moment at which we get to the finest level of granularity in our analysis of why games turned out the way they did. Football is beautiful in being simultaneously strikingly simply and satisfyingly complex. People have a lot of opinions about particular players, and it’s difficult to pay attention to how all eleven guys are playing as opposed to focusing on just one. In any case, circumstances dictate that I need to do this now.

I feel like it ought to be repeated that a point on the road against the league leaders is not a bad result. There is a general feeling of disappointment starting from the manager on down, because we got a lead and didn’t hold it. I’ll have more to say about the penalty that cost us the full points below, but I will say that, on the basis of multiple viewings, there was not much that the official was left with very little choice. Well, more of that anon.

1. Donovan Ricketts: Man of the Match. If Ricketts hadn’t been on his game we wouldn’t have been anywhere close. After picking up his fifth Save of the Week Award for his save from Saer Sene, and if he doesn’t get it again for his late save of a Kenny Cooper shot it will be a real shame. He’s at the top of his game and seems to be inspiring some much needed confidence among the defenders in front of him. 8

5. Michael Harrington: Not his best game of the season. Part of this was due to the fact that he was chasing David Ferreira over hill and dale until the latter tweaked his hammy early in the second half. But it wasn’t just this. Even when Ferreira was elsewhere on the field Dallas seemed consistently able to do business down their left hand side. His passing was not great and his crosses were ineffective. The shift to the right side did work at the beginning, but it may have outlived its usefulness. 4.5

98. Futty Danso: I happened to be listening to the Dallas broadcast of the match, and if I would have had to listen to them pronounce his surname “Dansoo” even one more time I might have gone off my head. This was an excellent game for Futty against an opponent that had both size and lots of speed. His positioning was good and his tackling first rate. He’s really stepped up his game since Silvestre went down and we’ve needed that to happen. 7

35. Andrew Jean Baptiste: He looked tentative and leggy for much of the match. I guess the thing one really has to talk about is the penalty. What started out as the usual give and take in the box was transformed into something else by a bit of poor judgment from AJB. If he just lets go of Perez a couple of seconds earlier, Perez backs himself into a place where he can’t do any harm and the whole problem goes away. Instead, we end up giving up one of the costlier penalties of recent times. 3

13. Jack Jewsbury: The captain emeritus has been doing his very best to make me eat my words lately. He has adjusted well to playing on both defensive flanks and he once again did a good job of shutting off the service from his side of the pitch. 6

4. Will Johnson: This was a match where the captain did a lot of little things, doing his best to drive the team forward and holding people accountable when they didn’t use their heads. You could easily overlook what he brought to the side on the night, but without his active play and willingness to track consistently in defense it would have been a much more difficult night for us. 6

21. Diego Chará: While Will Johnson soldiered on anonymously, Chará did his best to smash things in the middle of the park. He won lots of ball and turned his winnings into forward movement on numerous occasions. His energetic play forced a Dallas side used to having things mostly their own way on their own ground to advance the ball with a much greater degree of circumspection that is their wont. His courageous tackle on Ferreira late in the first half probably saved a point for us. 7

6. Darlington Nagbe: A beautifully taken goal and some aggressive work down the flanks were the highlights of his match. He seemed out of sorts against the Revs, but looked to be in much better form against Dallas. His hallmarks have become driving the ball forward in attack and looking to combine with Valeri in the box. If he can maintain this effort week in and week out he will really be dangerous. 6.5

8. Diego Valeri: Another day, another dollar. Valeri was typically active, ranging across the attacking zone and causing problems wherever he went. I can assure you that Dallas was unused to having someone attack with the kind of precision and vigor that Valeri brought to this match. 6

11. Kalif Alhassan: Kalif really looks to me to have stalled in terms of his development in the system. He’s quick and he can pass the ball effectively when he is inclined to, but he too often seems to settle for an easy option, or to dribble himself into bad places. He just couldn’t seem to get much done and that was a real let off for Dallas. 4

10. Frederic Piquionne: He had some good moments, but didn’t do the greatest job of getting the ball on frame…with the exception of the one that he put off the post, which was tantalizing. He is a big guy and can work effectively as a target man, but he lacks the mobility of Ryan Johnson and the latter’s chemistry with Diego Valeri. There has been talk around the team of his getting more some starting opportunities and it will be interesting to see if more time will lead to a more natural-feeling integration into the attack. 5.5

22. Rodney Wallace: A reversion to Wallace’s earlier role of coming on late to try to provide a change of pace. He did a good job, pushing the pace and creating chances for others. His assist on Nagbe’s goal was a perfect illustration of his quality. 6.5

14. Ben Zemanski: It took me a minute to notice that he had come in, since almost immediately afterward we conceded the penalty. Zemanski’s role of late has been to come on to try to solidify matters in a close game. He didn’t do a bad job, especially since Dallas really pressed for the win in the wake of their equalizer. He was adequate, but it is hard to evaluate his performance effectively, since it was all hands to the pumps for most of his tenure in the match. 5

9. Ryan Johnson: He was held out, in part I suspect to try to keep him fresh for the match with Chivas on Sunday, but also to give Piquionne a start. He came on late in an attempt to grab the full measure, but although he had a good moment with Zemanski in the waning minutes, he didn’t really have enough time to have an effect. 5

Magadh

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Player Ratings v. the Revs

Posted on May 5, 2013 | 4 Comments

When Bob Boone was hired to manage the Cincinnati Reds in 2001, I remember reading one sportswriter’s comment that it was “like serving leftovers from a meal that nobody liked the first time.” This is an apt summary of my feelings about doing the player ratings column today. I’ve watched the match a couple of times now and it is maddening on several counts. It started with the Revs playing so many guys behind the ball, effectively crowding out a lot of our offensive avenues. We compounded the problems caused thereby by spending a lot of time out of system. We held the ball for long stretches of the match, but didn’t move it quickly enough or with sufficient purpose. It tells you a lot that we managed 67% possession and took 22 shots without scoring. This is going to be our lot against lower grade opposition for the time being: everybody watches film and people now have a pretty good idea of what we like to do to be successful.

For the long time Arsenal fans out there, this will seem all too familiar. We had a ton of possession and took far more shots, we nearly got beat on the break on several occasions, and we had a catastrophic injury to top it all off. I suppose I’ve got to write this thing now, but I have no illusions about how much I’m going to enjoy it.

1. Donovan Ricketts: MOTM, but mostly in a faut de mieux sort of way. He kept a clean sheet, which is job one and job done. He was forced into a couple of quality saves when we lost focus in the defensive end. He’s clearly been told that we want to play out of the back, because I don’t think I saw him punt the ball more than a couple of times all night. 6.5

5. Michael Harrington: Switched sides with Jewsbury again and really came back to earth. Ryan Guy seemed to give him a lot of problems. He didn’t make as much hay going forward as he usually does, and this detracted from Nagbe’s effectiveness as well. He looked a bit leggy to me, and his lack of energy meant that we didn’t have our usual punch on the right hand side. 4.5

27. Mikael Silvestre: About eight years ago, I was playing in a rec league match in Seattle when I tore the calcaneofibular ligament and ruptured the deltoid ligament in my left ankle. A week later, another guy on our team tore his acl and had to have surgery. When I found out what his rehab regimen involved (including spending time on a machine that agonizingly stretched the repaired ligament for hours a day) I felt as if I had got off easy. And so I have real sympathy for Silvestre. He was doing well up until the point that he got injured, driving the ball out of defense and getting forward. Given his age and the severity of the injury, this was, most likely, his swansong for the team. 6

98. Futty Danso: Not a bad night, but he still doesn’t seem totally comfortable playing the ball out of the back. Sometimes a center half has to hoof it forward out of necessity, but the more one does it, the more one lets a team like the Revs off the hook by giving access to a 50/50 ball in the middle of the park. Danso is going to get a lot of chances to sort this out, and we have to hope that he does. 5

13. Jack Jewsbury: He made a pretty good showing given that a) he was playing way out of position, and b) he job was to cover the quick and aggressive Fagundez all night. He used his smarts and Fagundez relative lack of experience to keep him quiet all night. 6

4. Will Johnson: Johnson spent much of the night hassling Lee Nguyen, who has really benefitted from being shifted into the middle of the park. Nguyen is quick and very dogged and Johnson had his hands full. Johnson did his usual quality job of keeping him under control, but it meant that he was less able to exert his influence in other aspects of the match. 5

21. Diego Chará: With Johnson essentially man marking Lee Nguyen, Chará was left to pick up the scraps in midfield. It was a bit of a blast from the past in the sense that Chará all too often seemed to be in too much space to work the angles as he likes to do. 5

6. Darlington Nagbe: He could have settled this thing in the 15th minute when Chará put him through on goal, but he let Shuttleworth off the hook by taking a shot from about 18 yards instead of bearing down on him. He spent much of the match lost in a forest of Revs defenders, unable to get clear. He could have helped himself out by playing the ball with a little more alacrity than he did, and here come upon a theme that very much defined the night for the Timbers. If you’re trying to break down a team that has parked the bus in the final third, it is crucial to move the ball (and oneself) quickly to force the defense out of shape. Nagbe didn’t do a terribly good job of this, but he wasn’t alone. 5

8. Diego Valeri: In case you’re wondering if people around the league study film, they do. The Revs had clearly figured out that Valeri is one of the most dangerous trigger men in the league and resolved to make someone else beat them. He spent the night in the company of two and sometimes three defenders and couldn’t really get it going. It didn’t help matters that he was part of the general tendency on the night to linger on the ball or try things that were not on instead of sticking with short passes and moving the ball quickly to get the opposition out of shape. A frustrating night for him, and for the rest of us as well. 5

22. Rodney Wallace: Much as he has shown great improvement of late, this was not RodWal’s best night. He tried to provide width, but didn’t put sufficient (or sufficiently effective) service into the middle. He let himself get shut down too easily on numerous occasions. In part, this had to do with the battle being fought between Fagundez and Jewsbury behind him which meant that the latter was unable to provide much support going forward. Still, Wallace didn’t make as much of his opportunities as his recent performances suggest that he ought to have. 4

9. Ryan Johnson: Like a couple of the other Timbers players, he looked a bit leggy. Given the system that the Revs were playing, he was always going to be a little short of service, and it was clear from all the time he spent checking back to try to get to the ball. That’s not his game and it showed. Matters were not helped by the fact that the Wallace, Harrington, and Valeri couldn’t manage to get him much in terms of service in the box. 5

35. Andrew Jean Baptiste: He was thrown on in the 58th minute when Silvestre went down. One wants to give him some slack for the circumstances in which he came on, especially given that he was playing on his weaker side, but he had some very worrying moments. He and Danso are a lot alike, although AJB tends to be a bit better on the ball. But he didn’t seem to have a very good understanding of where he was supposed to be, and after he came on the Revs started to find cracks in the edifice of our defense. He’s going to need to work out his communication with Danso much better when we come up against Dallas, as they are likely to get a lot more going forward than New England did. 4

22. Frederic Piquionne: Very much below the standard that he has so far shown here. He came on for the somewhat static Ryan Johnson in the 68th minutes and, to be honest, added very little. He wasn’t very good on the ball, and spent too much time on it, contributing to the overall lack of rhythm in the team in the last third of the match. 3

11. Kalif Alhassan: He came on late for Jewsbury and it was pretty clear why. Porter wanted to add another attacker to try and nick the win in the last ten minutes. It didn’t work out. It was pretty typical of his problems at other times: too much time on the ball, poor decision making, imprecise passing. I will say that by the time he came on the whole side seemed so demoralized that we could have sent Lionel Messi on and I don’t think it would have done much good. 4

This will be an interesting week for us. We have another mid-week night match coming up, this time away to conference leaders FC Dallas on Wednesday. This is a team against whom we have had some absolutely wretched nights and it is going to take maximum effort for us to get anything. I’d like to think that part of our problem against New England was the quick turnaround from the away match against KC. We have some challenges (especially in defense) but this is also an opportunity to reassert our quality and to play the game that we know we can play.

Magadh

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I Blame Myself

Posted on May 4, 2013 | 4 Comments

I should really do the player ratings today, but watching that match was like chewing on a sawdust hoagie and I just can bear to get that deeply in to the minutiae of what happened. I’ll get to that tomorrow. For today, I feel like I need to expiate some serious feelings of guilt. Those of you who follow our Farcebook page will have had some inkling of this, but I feel as if I need to make a clean breast of this.

Several days ago now, before the Revs match and before the Green Machine scrimmage, I made some stupid comment about how I wasn’t really that worried about how injuries might affect the team. Granted, I did offer that caveat that we were thin at center half and probably needed to acquire some cover there. But my overall position was that our new system (which in deference to the wishes of the manager I will hereafter desist from referring to as Porterball) had created a situation in which one player could be slotted in for another without much drop off in performance. As regards the larger point, I don’t think I was wrong. But making assertions about the unimportance of injuries in a public forum is a provocation to the universe akin to waving a red flag in front of a bull.

For those who don’t know what I’m rattling on about, it was announced yesterday that Mikael Silvestre tore his acl, knocking him out for the season. The whole thing looked so innocuous when it happened that I must admit to being shocked when I got the news. Silvestre was in the attacking zone and trying to execute an overhead kick from just to the left of the goal in the hopes of putting the ball back into the mix. He got a little unbalanced, and it looked to me as if he rolled his ankle. But when the camera got to him on the ground he was clearly in distress and he was holding his knee in a way that was worrisome. His trip off the pitch on a stretcher will be probably be the last we see of him for some time. According to reports, the doctors are waiting for the injury to stabilize (which I assume means that they are waiting for some of the fluid to clear from the area), after which they will perform surgery. For a guy at Silvestri’s career stage, this is pretty catastrophic.

Ever since sunshine texted me with the news yesterday, I’ve been sitting around feeling like I put the whammy on him somehow. My rational mind knows that this isn’t the case. Silvestre is 35, and I’ve seen enough of him (especially during his days in the N5) to know that he has always been a bit fragile. Even if I hadn’t known these things, sunshine made a point of reminding me of them on the day that the news of his signing broke. It’s not as if the prospect of an injury was all that remote. Still, the fact that he was injured so catastrophically only days after I made a crack about the unimportance of injuries to our squad makes me feel as though there must some element of quantum entanglement to the whole situation. Is this reasonable? No, but neither is the fact that I always put my shoes and socks on in the same order. It’s just fundamental: you don’t say things like that even in private, but especially not in public.

So where does that leave us? Well, we have Futty and AJB, both of whom are serviceable, but both of whom have had injury problems already this term. Then there is Tucker-Gangnes. I was impressed with him in the minutes that he got during preseason. He’s reasonably quick for a center half (actually he did some decent work at fullback during one of those games down in Arizona), and my impression was that he was pretty good with his feet. Is he good enough to cut it at this level? Hard to say from the time and circumstances that we’ve seen so far, but I strongly suspect that we’re all going to find out in the near future.

There was a time not long ago when you could take players straight out of the college ranks and throw them into this league with some confidence that the jump in quality wouldn’t necessarily be an issue. Those days are gone now. There are guys playing in this league now who have come through serious, long term development programs starting in childhood. Just last weekend we faced a team with a player who had attended Barcelona’s La Masia training academy. My point here is simply that it’s going to take a bit of time and play before we can say for certain that Tucker-Gangnes is going to work out, although, as I said, the chances are good that we’re going to get some meaningful data points soon.

We needed to augment our cover at this position even before the injury to Silvestre. There had been some talk about signing Perth Glory defender Michael Thwaite. I don’t know how things were going with that, but I’m guessing that the Timbers felt like they had to get something done quickly, and so they have contracted the services of Norwegian defender Pa Modou Kah. Kah has been playing in the Middle East for the last couple of season (most recently in Saudi Arabia), but he did play seven seasons for Roda JC in the Eredivisie. He’s 32, which is not too long in the tooth for a central defender. I’ve actually found a bit of footage of him, and he seems athletic, although it’s hard to know exactly how he’ll function in the course of a full 90 in this league.

For a moment there, I had the impulse to make some comment about what sort of effects this injury might have on the overall set up that we’re sending out night in and night out, but I think that I’m going to resist the temptation. I feel like I’ve already done enough (damage).

I’ll be back tomorrow with player ratings from the Revs match. Until then, enjoy the weekend.

Magadh

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Player Ratings: Timbers v. Sporting KC

Posted on April 29, 2013 | 9 Comments

Was that the best win in the Portland Timbers’ MLS period? The simple answer is: yes. Portland went into one of the league’s real fortresses, contrived to go behind twice, and still came away with all three points. Behind after 43 seconds, the lads stuck with their system and fought tooth and nail through the full 90. The goals were top notch. The first came from a beautiful glancing header to the far post by Ryan Johnson from a corner. The second was similar in a lot of respects to the goal that Keane and Donovan worked against Sporting last week, with Collin playing the role of Nagamura and getting skinned for pace. The winner was an excellent illustration of the value that Diego Chará brings to this team. He won the ball in midfield then put a sliderule pass through to Wallace who finished coolly to give us a lead we would never relinquish.

For me, the key to this match was that we identified a weakness in Sporting’s setup. They like to play a high line, but their center halves are not terribly quick. Collin, although he is a skillful, physical defender, is just slow, and his lack of pace was brutally exposed by Ryan Johnson to set up our second goal. In general, we got up on them in a way that most other teams have not done, especially in K.C. Sapong, Bieler, and Zusi all suffered from a lack of service, and although we didn’t dominate possession in the way we have at times this season, we held the ball for long stretches at key times in the match and wouldn’t allow Sporting the time and space to play their game.

1. Donovan Ricketts: It didn’t start out that well for Ricketts, beaten flat footed after 43 seconds (admittedly from a free header that should never have happened). Ricketts then righted the ship. He made a number of excellent saves, none better than the one from a header by Collin in the third minute of stoppage time that looked for all the world like it had beaten him. If that doesn’t win him Save of the Week I shall be quite surprised. 7

5. Michael Harrington: I didn’t get the memo about Harrington and Jewsbury switching sides, and as a result I spent about the first ten minutes of the match trying to figure out if it had always been that way (it didn’t help that Mrs. Mags was gaslighting me about the whole thing). This, as it turned out, was a brilliant move, pitting Harrington against the guy who replaced him at Sporting. Harrington and Sinovic fought a running battle down one side of the pitch, with both players really being pretty much neutralized. That was a win for us. 6

27. Mikael Silvestre: His first half hour was not great. He (and many others in defense for Portland) got caught ball watching on Besler’s first minute throw in, allowing Myers to score. He put in fairly tasty tackle that resulted in the free kick from which K.C. got their second. Although he was tight on Collin on the resulting kick, he (again) got caught ball watching and allowed the latter to play the ball to Myers who completed his brace. These two moments aside, he was generally good. He tackled quite aggressively and was up in the front when things got stroppy. 5

98. Futty Danso: Danso was having a pretty good match, aside from a couple of instances of ball watching, when he went down awkwardly and twisted his knee with about 20 minutes to go. No info yet on what his situation is, but he looked in a great deal of discomfort as they were carting him off. Another injury in a place where we are thin. 5.5

13. Jack Jewsbury: Well, they found a way to put Jewsbury even further out of position, but he did fine. He kept things in front of him and made judicious (if infrequent) forays into the attacking zone. Yet another illustration of why our captain emeritus is a useful guy to have around. 5

4. Will Johnson: Speaking on ESPN Press Pass after last night’s match, Robbie Earle described Will Johnson as a guy who would “kick his own granny for a goal.” Yes indeed. 6.5

21. Diego Chará: Ever wondered what Diego Chará brings to this squad? You have no further to look than the 58th minute of this match. Chará nips in to disrupt a pass between Sapong and Nagamura on the right touch line. He seizes the ball, shrugs off a challenge from Rosell, and slots a perfect ball through to put Wallace in on goal. Aside from this, all he did was run all over the ground and disrupt everything that K.C. tried to create going forward. Overall this was our best performance in the middle of the park, and Chará’s energy and aggression were big reasons why. 7.5

8. Diego Valeri: A real master class from our Argentinian midfielder. Valeri pulled the strings like a puppet master, keeping everybody involved and creating lots of chances. He missed his third goal of the season by mere inches in the 5th minute. His pass to spring Ryan Johnson for the second goal was the stuff of training videos. Coming on to a loose ball in midfield he looked up and immediately recognized two things: 1) Aurélian Collin was the last man covering Johnson, and 2) Aurélian Collin has about as much chance of staying with Johnson in a 40 meter sprint as I do of sprouting wings and flying across the Pacific. He took the appropriate action and Portland was level. 7.5

6. Darlington Nagbe: Let me get my one criticism of Nagbe out of the way early. In one on one on Nielsen in the 15th minute he was impatient and scuffed a shot when he should have made the Sporting keeper commit. Outside of that, Nagbe was pretty much golden all night. Being on the same side as Harrington meant that he didn’t really have to track back as much as he often does. He made the most of this, getting into dangerous positions time and again. Seeing Ryan Johnson put through by Valeri, he ran the central channel and was rewarded with a tap in. This was only one of a number of effective positions that he found throughout the night. 7

22. Rodney Wallace: A great match for him, and not just because he scored the winner. He was energetic from whistle to whistle. His drive from 20 meters in the 23rd minute stung Jimmy Nielsen’s hands, and set up the corner kick from which we got our first equalizer. He was a bit on his own, as the switch to put Jewsbury behind him meant that he didn’t quite have as much support. Still, he got forward effectively and provided width in a way that made our whole approach more effective. RodWal has lifted his game and has done a good job of justifying his claim to a starting spot. 7

9. Ryan Johnson: Man of the Match. The first Timbers goal was a sublime header. The second resulted from Johnson absolutely skinning Aurélien Collin. The signature image of the match for me was Collin desperately (and vainly) trying to catch up to Johnson after Valeri’s pass put him away. 8

35. Andrew Jean Baptiste: Thrown into the witch’s cauldron after 70 minutes when Futty went off, AJB came in and did his thing, which was playing tough, shut down defense on one of the better attacking units in the league. AJB is maturing quickly, and he’ll need to because I’m guessing he’s going to be seeing a lot more time on the pitch in the near future. 6

10. Frederic Piquionne: As per usual, Piquionne came on late and added class and stability. Piquionne is a smart player who knows what to do with the ball when he gets and puts himself in dangerous positions despite not being the quickest man to ever play the game. 6.5

14. Ben Zemanski: The insertion of Zemanski offers one of the most interesting contrasts between this match and the last one away to SJ. Last week we wobbled at the end and pissed away two points. This time we stayed strong and whereas Zemanski’s arrival didn’t help much last time around, this time he kept cool and did the job that CP put him in there to do. He was calm and held the ball when it needed to be held. There is a role for this guy on the team, but he’s going to have to find it in limited minutes for now. 6

I’m sure we all want to see the lads again soon, and we’ll be getting our wish since we get the Revs on Thursday at the JW. I’ll be back at midweek to talk about what sorts of challenges they might present.

Magadh

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The End of the Beginning of the End

Posted on April 25, 2013 | 1 Comment

It’s nice to be done with San Jose for a while. After all the bad feelings and controversy of the last two weeks, I feel like I’ve been sick and am just returning to health. Sunday’s match was, it must be said, not terribly edifying from a football perspective. In part this judgment stems from our concession of two points due to a failure to clear our lines in the chaotic minutes of stoppage time. But from a broader perspective the game was simply not terribly aesthetically pleasing. This is another reason why I’m not sad that we won’t be seeing the Quakes again until the end of July. With each passing minute of that match they became more content simply to loop high balls into the box and hope that an opportunity would arise from the resulting scrum. A successful strategy if the point is a point, especially when you’ve not created very much with the ball on the floor.

I think we can be satisfied with taking four of the six points on offer from these two matches, but there is little or no letup for us in the schedule in the near future. This week we’re away to Sporting, always a difficult assignment. Next week we have the (hapless) Revs at the JW, but then we’re away to division leaders FC Dallas, who have really looked like world beaters so far this season. In the past two seasons we’ve been thrashed 4-0 and 5-0 down that way, with a 1-1 draw in the second week of last season being the only time we’ve claimed so much as a point on the road. Then we get Chivas, once the doormats of the division but now playing some pretty decent football. Finally, we face off against the Caps in the second phase of the chase for the Cascadia Cup ™ before we get a couple of games against less challenging competition (home to D.C. and Chicago). This isn’t the beginning of the end. It’s not even the end of the beginning. It’s the beginning of the end of the beginning. Or something like that.

Before turning to a serious consideration of the opponents facing us this weekend, allow me to say that I was very happy when they decided in 2011 to change their moniker from the Kansas City Wizards to Sporting Kansas City. I think the Wizards is a dopey name for a sports franchise. I can kind of accept it in the case of the basketball team from Washington D.C. because it replaced one of the more inappropriate team designations in the history of American sport (at least if one excludes overtly racist ones like the Redskins). I grew up following European football, so I’m used to certain kinds of names, and it always rankles to hear the names of sports franchises that sound like the brand name for a toy meant for five year olds.

Ok, curmudgeon time is over now. Irrespective of what they are called, Sporting are a very good side. They’ve got the second best record in the league, behind only FC Dallas (who I expect will vary back toward the statistical mean in the course of the next few weeks). KC are unbeaten at home, and although they got run off the park by the L.A. Gals, that had as much to do with the midweek match against the Energy Drinks as anything else. Looking at that match one would do well to recall that Sarvas’s goal in the 27th minute was the first goal given up by KC in about 9 hours of play. They are a team that doesn’t concede many goals. The match with L.A. was only the seventh time that they’d conceded more than one goal in a match since the beginning of last season.

There was, I suspect, a collective sigh of relief heaved by the central defenders of this league when Kei Kamara headed off to Norwich City over the off season. Kamara, by the way, is due back from his loan spell on 6 May, unless Norwich decide to negotiate a permanent transfer. I can tell you now that they are not going to do this. This is not to say that Kamara has not impressed. He just hasn’t impressed as much as Sporting Lisbon’s Ricky van Wolfswinkel and so he’s likely to be heading back this way just in time for summer.

Even without Kamara, KC are an excellent side. Unlike San Jose, whose most remarkable attribute was their ability (now apparently much diminished) to be effective with a wholly one dimensional offense, Sporting has a lot of players who can hurt you. Graham Zusi’s quality is well known. C. J. Sapong is a dangerous attacker, although he has yet to really find his form so far this season. The real upgrade for this term has been the importation of a new DP in the form of Argentinian forward Claudio Bieler from Ecuadorian side LDU Quito. This is a guy who knows how to win, having claimed the Liberators Cup with Quito and a league championship in Chile with Colo Colo. All that is, of course, ancient history. In the present moment he has four goals in eight matches. He adds a dimension of technical ability to KC that is analogous to that which Valeri brings to us.

Perhaps this will be our most challenging match of the season. It will be away, and I will resist the temptation to rehearse our road form in the last 14 months. KC present a novel test for us. They are not as fast as Seattle, but neither do they lumber around like the Quakes. They have the capacity both to be physical and to be technical, and you just don’t find that particular combination that often in this league. Perhaps we can discuss this in the coming days, but I have a sneaking suspicion that we might go with a more defensive formation in this match. Some people that I’ve talked to were less impressed than I was at our performance in defense last week (particularly with respect to Danso and Jewsbury). Might this be a game where we revert to the earlier road theory and move Jewsbury into the middle as a second CDM? I would hope not. We play best in the 4-4-1-1 (or 4-5-1 or whatever) that we’ve been playing with Jewsbury at right back. Is he ideal at that position? Well, no. But he seems to be the best thing that we’ve got going there right now, and in any case we play better when we put ourselves in a position to attack.

sunshine will be back tomorrow with what will be, in all likelihood, deeper insights than are here presented.

Magadh

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Player Ratings versus San Jose (again)

Posted on April 24, 2013 | Leave a comment

Given the fact that this team has only won about three games on the road in the MLS era, it might sound a bit rich to say that one is disappointed by not taking all three points away to San Jose. But this was a match in which those points were there for the taking, if only we could have seen out extra time. We didn’t dominate possession as we did at the JW, and the Quakes improved on the excellent job that they did last week of disrupting what we were trying to create in the final third. Still we managed to go ahead through Valeri, whose strong play all night was the one point of distinct improvement over last week’s outing. His goal was opportunistic, certainly, but was also involved a great deal of skill as he potted a half volley (or a volley, I couldn’t quite tell) from about eight yards. For the third straight match we scored first, and although we didn’t see it out in the end, I think it fair to say that that our overall level of play continues to be a dramatic improvement over what it was at any point last season.

1. Donovan Ricketts:. Called into action with more frequency than in the last couple of matches, Ricketts did well all night. He made a good stop from Lenhart with his feet in the second minute, then saved a one on none chance from Wondolowski in minute 21 after Harrington lost coverage. He had a third quality, smothering Garza’s attempt in the 72nd minute after the latter slipped by a befuddled Silvestre. His distribution was timely and effective, at least in most in most instances. I think he was unsighted for the goal, and when you give up a blast from ten meters bad things are going to happen to you. 6.5

5. Michael Harrington: He got turned around by Salinas a couple of times and let Wondolowski go walkabout in the 21st minute in a way that by all rights should have led to a goal. Other than that Harrington put in a typically energetic performance. If we could clone him and put him out on the right as well we would be dangerous. As it was, he touched just about every blade of grass on the left hand side of the pitch. You could look at his failure to latch on to Adam Jahn when the latter scored the tying goal, but I think it was just bad luck that he ended up in a place from which he couldn’t get around Wondolowski. 6

13. Jack Jewsbury: I must admit that, all things considered, my standards for Jewsbury’s performances at right back are on the low side. Playing out of position and in a situation for which his skills are not entirely ideal, Jewsbury has done a stellar job. He kept play in front of him, didn’t get sucked in to ill-conceived tackles. He battled with Lenhart all night and didn’t back down. 6

27. Mikael Silvestre: Silvestre has very much grown into the role for which he was brought into the side. This is a situation where he skills are very much apposite. He is a canny defender who positions himself well and is calm on the ball. 6

98. Futty Danso: Even with Wondolowski playing up front, this was still likely to be the sort of match that played to Futty’s strengths. San Jose likes to pump high balls into the box from midfield, hoping that Lenhart and/or Wondolowski (or Gordon when he’s actually allowed to play) can make something happen. Futty played a strong match, policing the aerial balls and bodying up with Lenhart effectively. His last ditch tackle on Wondolowski in the 65th minute could very easily have saved us the loss of a point. 7

4. Will Johnson: A typically spikey performance from the captain. True to form, San Jose once again came out with a physical approach. Johnson did a good job of making sure that the Timbers responded appropriately. 6

8. Diego Valeri: I don’t think that MOTM is as clear cut as it was last week (at least for me although others disagreed). I’m inclined to give it to Valeri. This is not simply because he scored but because he provided an excellent illustration of what he brings to the team that Nagbe does not. He is so calm and quiet on the ball. He plays with purpose. While Nagbe can beat people in the middle of the park, Valeri does so with a goal in mind. He did a good job of keeping the tempo high and creating dynamic play in the middle of the park. 7.5

21. Diego Chará: I have often suggested that Chará has raised his game since the arrival of Will Johnson, and this match was yet another example. Chará seems much more relaxed than he did last season. He doesn’t dive into tackles as circumstances so often required him to do. Rather he positions himself effectively to prevent the formation of threatening situations in the middle, applying the more aggressive side of his game when necessary. As in last week’s match, there was just not that much going on for San Jose offensively, and this had a great deal to do with the effectiveness of Chará and Johnson in midfield. 7

6. Darlington Nagbe: He had some good moments, but also had some periods during which he seemed to lack direction. His performance was energetic overall and he played in rhythm most of the time, which is certainly key for what we’re trying to accomplish generally. 5.5

9. Ryan Johnson: Didn’t get a lot of joy, but he moved well and put himself in some dangerous positions. He was instrumental in the goal by running onto a ball from Nagbe (or Valeri depending on if you think he redirected it) and drawing a last ditch tackle from Beitashour. Johnson did what he was supposed to so, and if he didn’t get a reward on the stat sheet, he still did a yeoman’s work for the side until he was lifted in favor of Piquionne for the last ten minutes or so. 6

22. Rodney Wallace: He had some good moments, but the last couple of matches have been very much a return to the mean of his overall level of performance. Wallace is capable of some quite impressive performances on a time, and he can provide useful service in limited minutes, but I remain unconvinced that he is a long term solution at left mid. 5.5

11. Kalif Alhassan: Brought on for the last fifteen minutes or so to give Valeri a blow after his week off. I suppose that the most important thing about his appearance was that he seems to be working his way back into Caleb Porter’s good graces. He still lingers on the ball longer than is good for him, but to me he looks to be improving. 5

10. Frederic Piquionne: Standard night for the Frenchman. He came on late and just added a bit of quality to the side. 6

14. Ben Zemanski: He came on for Nagbe late in what turned out to be a vain attempt to cement the victory. Not really enough material for a rating. NR

Magadh

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