First, let me say, RSL was simply lucky to get out of this match with one point. I can handle getting a draw on the road but they need to come with wins at home. If you can steal a point on the road, you're doing well, but you must win at home. If we win half at home, draw the other half and draw on the road, that will get us into the playoffs.
That being said, thank God for Nicky Rimando yet again. This man is playing out of his head right now. For the third match in a row he has to be RSL's MOTM. His play should get him Player of the Week (even though they rarely give it to goalkeepers). With 13 saves against the best offense in the league, he truly showed why RSL does not need Kasey Keller. Keller is a great keeper, but when Rimando is playing like he is, there is no reason to replace him. Well unless you want to try to sell a few more tickets, which always seems to be in Dave Checketts' mind. Even then, outside of soccer circles, Keller does not have a name that can sell tickets, so many of the people who would buy tickets if Keller were on the team already are buying tickets because they are soccer fans. Keller is not even on the level of Freddy adu in terms of exposure in the US. Think of what Michael Jordan did for basketball and Tiger Woods has done for golf. The closest soccer in this country has to that is Adu, and Keller is not even considered. Outside of wrestling circles, how many people would even recognize Cael Sanderson walking down the street, even though he won a gold medal? But they would recognize Rulon Gardner because he has done more than just wrestle. Keller is like Sanderson, he is well known in soccer circles but otherwise he is unknown.
Back to thoughts at hand. Stewart played well on the inside. That's where he needs to say. Besagno had a stinker and should not play on the back line. I think this game demonstrated that Besagno is at best a reserve which makes him a bust on the level of Ryan Leaf. I advocated for him to get a start so that we could see what we have and we saw it. He got beat around the corner so many times it was sick. On the left Forko also had a bit of a stinker. The number of crosses, especially in the second half, that New England sent in were alarming. We were lucky that they could never seem to get on the end of them. It was not like they were closely marked by Pope and Stewart all the time either. More than anything, the reason New England did not score at least one goal was poor execution on their part.
Ballouchy had a horrible game. I think he completed a pass to an RSL player at most 5 times. And don't get me started on his little trickle to the keeper shots. If you watch film of his shot, he side foots it like a pass instead of locking his ankle and driving the ball with his instep. that's why he gets no velocity on his shot. This is a skill that you should learn at like age 5 (speaking of which, I found out that my wife volunteered me to coach my daughter's U-6 AYSO team). It's very telling that our attacking midfielder is not doing well in the attack. I think the reason our offense has been doing noting is because Ballouchy, who is supposed to run the offense has been playing so poorly. It is time to give Adu the reigns and see how he does. Adu looked dangerous, but with him it always seems that right when he is about to break free, he loses the ball on the last step. It's so close it's agonizing. Lancos played well, but again, he needs to push up more into the offense.
Atiba plagued us again with his poor first touch. Again, trapping is a skill that should be learned at like the U-8 level. Esky looked good, but he's not getting service from the midfield, so there isn't much to judge him on. It seemed he was missing in the second half, but that wasn't his fault, we couldn't get the ball past the middle third, which falls on the midfield, especially Ballouchy. Ballouchy needs to sit, right now he's killing the team, he's not playing defense and on offense he's simply a liability, he turns the ball over and when he does make a pass to a teammate, it's not into a dangerous position. The offense is supposed to flow through the attacking midfielder and right now when we try that, Ballouchy loses the ball, which means we have no offense and have to play defense starting from a bad position.
The subs, Williams saved a goal, but otherwise didn't do much, for the same reasons that nobody up top in the second half did much, no service from the midfield. Chris Brown, he looked better than Besagno, which is scary since Brown is at best a great reserve player. Now for Kotschau... on in the 81st, red card in the 82nd. That tackle was truly horrible. Studs up and about 4 seconds too late. Ouch. The good news is, he can't play in the next match. Ouch. One minute in the game.... On a rating scale of 1-10, he would earn a -8.
And finally, as I posted a few days ago, I was trying to change my site's URL. Well, I'm not sure exactly why, and unfortunately, neither is my hosting company, but it just won't transfer over. So if you go to rslmalcontent.com, you will now be redirected back to firejohnellinger.com. I will continue to try to find a work around, but in the meantime, forget that I said I was moving.
Next match, China. Should be a fun one, I can't wait to see the Free Tibet, the Republic of China (Taiwan) flags and everything else that is going to happen. This is going to be a hostile crowd. Here's to basic human rights!
