Friday, October 28, 2011

Rapids 1, Crew Out

I woke up early with full intention of gathering my thoughts on the Colorado / Columbus game last night but I just can't get past something... The tweaks to the line up Robert Warzycha (and Mike Lapper) made.

1. Tony Tchani; first game in a Crew uniform and first game since July 9th; 2. Dilly Duka in an advanced position with Mendoza. Neither happened at all during the year. Both are talented players, but it's odd to see changes like this in an important game.

Changes to line-ups, especially last minute ones (O'Rourke) can change a team's mood. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. I can't say for certain that was the root cause for the Crew to come out flat, but I feel like it may have contributed. At times, when in possession, it looked like strangers playing pick up out there.

I'll let this quote wrap up things for me here so I can head off and get some coffee:

"It was just little things. That’s what’s really killed us pretty much this whole season.” - Eddie Gaven

4 comments:

Unknown said...

good vague answer Gaven, dude's a genius. says to media "here's barely anything to write about..." haha.

seasons over. time to focus on epl, eh wood?

Bleeno said...

the game was a drag. Crew were lost. playing a ping pong match. Tchani was out of focus and out of sync. Duka started strong and confident and then suddenly went invisible. Gaven covered a lot of ground but was largely ineffectual. as was Rogers. Mendoza is, of course, lazy. doesn't that just go without saying. he just hangs with the opposition's defensive line and waits. then when a ball is inevitably hoofed up to him, he runs early. offside. all for nothing. start all over. renteria should have started. don't know what the issue was there. only praise i can dish out would go to Marshall and James.
need to get Tommy up with Mendoza regularly next season. he's got to be in the starting eleven. or get rid of Mendoza. he's lost it in my opinion. a goal here or there doesn't make up for his poor work rate.

Unknown said...

seriously why is tommy not in the 11. 3 big fans right here. has columbus ever been a flashy team? no. hard working. that's the f'n ethos of ohio, let alone columbus. gaven, marshall, heinemann, (maybe rogers?), they deserve the love.

Larry W Johnson II said...

not flashy at all. crew starters winning %; players with over 10 games...

best (>40%): Burns, Gardner, Heinemann, Gaven.

Worst (<35%): Mendoza, Rogers, Balchan, Duka.

Duka. started 17 games and the team only pulled out 4 wins from them. Bad luck? missing is shawn francis. not enough games but 5 starts at LB over gardner late in season, only one team win.

33 part postmortem on crew season (and why TH should start) is forthcoming