Thursday, April 17, 2008

DC United/Crew Running blog

El classico yanqui!

What are "caliber players"? Oh, the announcers mean "quality players" or "high-caliber players", but that's not what John Harkes said.

Kickoff! The Barra Brava, SE, La Norte, heck all the DC fans look great.

3- Early focus is on Eddie Gaven for some reason, though he didn't do anything there but kick the ball out.
5- It must be the camera angle, but Emilio Luciano looks heavy. Brian Carroll looks so wrong in a Crew jersey. It's going to take a while to get used to that. Ooo, Gallardo serves into the box, Columbus clears, the counter springs Robbie Rogers - eek, he misses wide. Good work to get free, though.
7- Wells didn't look good on the corner there, but he ended up not having to pay. Young goalkeepers haven't looked great in MLS lately - ok, maybe Hesmer and his PK saves. Tony Caig is probably tragic at any age.
10 - AMo is his usual battling self, but Martinez shuts him down on the counter well. It's mostly been DC running their usual possession game, but the Crew worked the counter well. DC not shabby on the counter either, and Fred earns a CK. Gallardo takes, Crew clear.
18 - Eeek, cable problem, but lucky for me, no one scored while I was offline.
19 - Harkes is comparing Gallardo and Gomez, and it doesn't help when he mixes up their names and says one when he means the other. I know I like the Christian's hair better. Does anyone in MLS rock the ponytail successfully?
Hesmer makes a catch on a ball from distance.
22 - Damn skippy! Great no-look backheed from Schelotto into the DC box. That was so pretty. It's too good for MLS. No, seriously. No one on the Crew was prepared for it or looking to make the run. It's like Magic Johnson first coming into the NBA - you're just not looking for passes no ones has ever made before.
28 - Wow - a great stretch of attacking there - Schelotto is stoned by Wells after a great pass from Rogers, then Gallardo serves a delicious cross to JMo, who takes a poor touch and allows Hesmer a chance on the ball.
33 - GOAL! Schelotto holds up the ball on the attack beautifully, waiting for the run by Hejduk, who then receives the ball and crosses into the box, quickly, where AMo connects with a vintage fighting-for-it poke past the defender to put the ball in the net. 1-0 Crew
34- Luciano Emilio gets tugged down in the box by Hejduk, who plays it like LE was holding his shirt as well.
35 - Luciano in the box again, can't quite turn and shoot.
38 - Rogers is wrecking total havoc on DC. He draws a FK near the box. Schelotto sets up. Wells catches it.
I didn't mention them before, but after the goal, the camera cut to a pocket of Crew fans celebrating in the upper deck of RFK. Good stuff.
41 - GOAL! Bryan Namoff! He sets up way outside, but DC has a nice run of possession that culminates in Moreno sliding a pass to Namoff, who takes a careful touch, almost too long, but unleashes a low shot that deflects in off a sprawling Adam Moffat. Hesmer had no chance.
43 - GOAL! Moffat comes right back up the field and chips a cross over Wells and AMo again fights for it, battling DC defenders left and right and pokes it into goal. 2-1 Crew
Wow - that sucked the energy of the DC fans. They weren't even finished celebrating properly and then they're down again.
Halftime - The Crew are looking pretty dang good this season, really.
52 - Luciano Emilio is going down rather easily. He isn't getting the call. Frankie shoots from long range. Wells does fine with it.
57- Franco Niel is getting ready to come in - don't know who Soehn is taking out. Rod Dyachenko is coming in as well.
Jaime is off, as is Marc Burch.
Had a home crisis - my refrigerator has stopped working. I can't help but think of Chick Hearn - "this game is in the refrigerator", which in this case, would mean someone still had a chance.
Anyway, Guille got the better of Gallardo again, as apparently happened a lot back in the River-Boca days. Columbus carries the day, 2-1.

7 comments:

nothingtoseehere said...

DC's attack is pretty slow...

CACuzcatlan said...

DC is looking bad this year. Emilio has not impressed me at all. The Crew has been better than I expected.

Now the countdown to the pain of watching the Galaxy on Saturday. Houston hasn't been playing well, so hopefully we'll manage to get at least a single point.

Anonymous said...

MLS Referees:

Reward skill... not how physical you are.

Both teams were constantly being hacked down.

Anonymous said...

DCU should be thankful they're not the Galaxy or they would really feel the "Darth Vaderian" levels of hate and ridicule rain down on them and their organization for such a dismal start to the season (which is worse than the Galaxy). On this fact alone, they are extremely lucky.

The Hammer said...

Anonymous... excellent point. I have a feeling that if Galaxy loses this weekend, we'll still see DC between 6th and 8th and Galaxy at 14th.

15th if it's Luis' blog.

;)

Having said that... at least Galaxy's defense isn't THIS bad. Our backline (for the most part) keeps attacks in front and the goals we've allowed have been through clear mistakes from Vanney, Xavier or Cronin. DC is breaking down badly on their collective efforts.

Anonymous said...

hammer - good points on the defensive differences. Let's hope LAG play well and pull out a victory.

I expect the Galaxy to struggle a bit this season, it's a new team, a new system, yet everyone expects them to be just about perfect from the get go. They do, however, need to shore up the backline somehow. Also, when they lose the scorn and derision is unprecendented. I don't recall DCU being pilloried to this extent when they were rebuilding and struggling several years back.

Anonymous said...

oops!

unprecendented = unprecedented