1. Even before he scored, Jaime Moreno was clearly the best player on the field. And even before he scored AGAIN, there was no question that Moreno is back in top form.
2. Christian Gomez was constantly dangerous in his 30 minutes of action, including an awesome assist on the willing goal.
3. Bryan Namoff continues to be one of the best and most consistent defenders in the league. Screw the talk about Barklage, I think Namoff could be a candidate for our next #10 with now three assists on the season.
1. After missing the Open Cup victory, I understand now why so many fans were unsure about Milos Kocic, despite his clean sheet. Not much Kocic could have done about the goal tonight, but he misses balls that he should punch, and he punches balls that he should catch. Increased experience will help as he continues to gain more chemistry with his back line, but I'm not willing to crown him as our Varlamov quite yet.
2. That wasn't quite as productive of a match as Chris Pontius is used to, but I just like the fact that we've got a guy who can fill in at central holding midfield when necessary, in addition to also playing on the wing, CAM, and withdrawn forward.
1. That's at least two goals this year that I think can be blamed on Rodney Wallace. I'm ready for Fred to return to the starting lineup.
This match was interesting in that we went in thinking that we had a big advantage on the wings, but both of our goals came right up the middle of the park. Credit our veterans Gomez and Moreno for that, showing the rookies how its done.
Another interesting piece mentioning: In the FSC pre-game show, Chris Sullivan said that he had spoke to Will Chang earlier, and Chang said that he'd had conversations with Tom Soehn about a three-year plan that involved rebuilding with youth. That comment probably raises more questions than answers. Did the three-year plan start this year or last? Because this is the first year that we've made much of an attempt to rebuild with youth. So does that mean that Soehn is pretty much guaranteed two more years? It makes a lot of sense to me that the team is making a concerted effort to rebuild this year with their collection of aging superstars.
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4 comments:
Would Fred have done better than Wallace in defending a corner? Unlikely. Wallace could probably use a couple of matches to watch the game from the bench, preferably with a veteran beside him pointing out that solid defense doesn't always involved hacking people down and highlighting the best opportunities to get forward. Still, if he's a "learn by doing" sort, I don't have any problems with him being on the pitch for now.
Good catch on the Chang youth quote. I doubt that means Tommy has 3 years, it's probably more of an indication of where Chang wants to see the emphasis placed. He probably just has Arsenal-envy ;-).
Granted Fred doesn't have the size or strength that Wallace has, but there's something to be said for experience too. In general, I love this crop of rookies, and if having a couple of mistakes per game by Wallace means that we'll be a better team for it for years to come, then I would be ok with that. The test will be whether or not we see him progress over the course of the year.
Ah! Progress in youngsters. That is always a sticky point when it comes to Soehn, isn't it? Kinda makes you wonder about Chang's "rebuilding through youth" program when the dude in charge of the program has little history of developing young players...
That's a good point, and may even be worthy of a post of its own...
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