That was a nice goal. Huh, imagine of some of those folks had gotten on the pitch earlier!
What's with the short corners? Not a single one has worked.
This score flatters TFC.
Edinson Cavani will be taking Altidore's DP spot by next game, I heard.
It certainly does.
I hope what we are seeing out of our midfield is just a blip, guys tired from running around in Florida and Vanney’s criminal lack of rotation / subs.
The skeptic’s view is the opposition is targeting Bradley, he’s slowing down, and Delgado looks bang average without a strong Bradley playing beside him.
this is my most frustrating game watching our club lose, they didnt even show desire to win and now for sure they are flying back to YYZ, can we cancel the season now, no point of playing till next year, the coach was outcoached and couldnt bring out the best out of his team
Someone check the calendar..... is this 2009? That was shit.
TFC was screwed the moment there was no CF to play off of, and the tiki taka BS didn't work. Everyone made terrible decisions, especially holding the ball too long and made it easy for NYCFC to pressure. Fullbacks making senseless runs when midfielders keep coughing up the ball. Gonzalez looked lethargic. Bradley ran out of gas but wouldn't admit it. Pozuelo probably had one of his worst games as a Red. I felt bad for Westberg.
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
next time ! whatever next time means these days !
and everyone praying for Seattle .... i knew it was an arrogant jinx
what a lethargic showing....
why is our TAM on the bench?
rotation is an excuse - we are not a team that drives the play
NYCFC unfortunately - totally deserving of the win....
pathetic
Vancouver looking 100x better than TFC despite missing key players and being a budget team. Did TFC really care about winning this tournament or did they just want to max the regular season games, play some golf then go home?
It is what it is, TFC was shit on Sunday night, now this team has to sit around for almost a month waiting for whatever is next.
Remember The Man, The Legend, The Goal 5-12-07 and All That #9 Left On The Pitch, Thanks For The Memories !!!
W..T..F...did I just watch? I knew when I saw the starting lineup we would lose. I was hoping I would be wrong. Turns out I wasn’t.
In the light of the next morning, Leach encapsulates what I'm thinking
Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/MLeach680News/status/1287698927685337088
I am glad to hear the reports that Vanney was seething afterwards - one reporter indicated he hasn't heard Vanney this pointedly ticked off at the team after a game ever. Not yelling, not calling out his players. Just angry at people repeatedly not doing what he & the coaching staff asked of them.
Vanney made a point of saying Nelson played well all things considered & that he was happy with his performance
2019 was unexpected fun
2020 will be whatever it will be with this team - its unbalanced and the defence, once again, just isn't good enough but Poz & co are, when given time, great to watch
But the transition from the bad 2018 is not complete yet - we do not have the tactical capability to play against teams who play us narrow
2021, in my mind, requires some serious rethinking of the whole of the back line and a retooling of the midfield including a hard look at the role of Bradley - I think the 4-2-3-1 is our likely best approach - we have 3 very good lone strikers and some excellent ball movers & at least one good fullback with some defensive responsibility who likes to bomb down the wing.
But this team needs to complete that transition from 2018
I do wonder if they were somewhat happy to go out of this tourney. The season point accumulation is over at this point. Only benefits of staying in are for the concacaf spot and pride. TBH, I’d want out of Florida and to be back home in “safer” Canada.
Of course Vanney is upset. We were crap and he is the manager. But there is no bigger message about the “meaningfulness” of this to gain from that.
The bigger picture belongs to others. Us.
It was and is a mistake to put the players (and the team's other employee's, including Vanney) in this position, and it only happened because the state of Florida has the Trumpiest governor in the US. It's truly awful. I cannot think about this tournament without thinking about that.
I hold Garber and Abbott accountable for needlessly gambling with peoples health and lives like this, even if nobody gets seriously sick.
It seems TFC will get out of there without anyone visiting a Florida hospital. That is good enough for me.
I will have forgotten this ill conceived stupidity in two days, and everybody else will within three months of the end of the pandemic.
Last edited by ensco; 07-27-2020 at 08:21 AM.
"There are some people who might have better technique than me, and some may be fitter than me, but the main thing is tactics. With most players, tactics are missing. You can divide tactics into insight, trust, and daring." - Johan Cruyff
One of the things I noticed was: On the first goal, it looks like Medina was Nelson's mark, but Jayden focused on the ball instead of his man and left him open. I wonder if that's what led the other players to not use him as an outlet. Regardless, after the first 30 minutes Bradley looked fatigued. I think it probably would have been better to rest him in the 3rd game and give a chance to Fraser. Well, armchair quarterbacking is easy in hindsight, but this didn't look good on Vanney.
I think TFC immediately looked better once Altidore was out there. (Couldn't he have come in 5 minutes earlier, before the 2nd NYC goal? By then it was clear that whatever the 2nd half adjustments were supposed to be, they weren't happening.) I even wonder if they might have had more success with Mullins in the first half than what they were trying.
Pozuelo isn't a fast dribbler. But he often manages to wriggle through tight spots with some crafty moves. He had some success with it last year. NYC knew that, expected it, and weren't having any of it. If you pressure Pozuelo with two athletic players, with someone else goalside in case he wriggles through the first two, Pozuelo loses the ball 95% of the time. Smart teams in MLS will learn from that. Pozuelo needs to learn as well and stop with that. And the rest of the squad needs to offer him quicker targets so he has options. A few times it worked nicely last night, more often on the right side. The left side was pretty dead, which makes us easy to defend. And there was lots of ball watching throughout the game. (The start of the DC game was MUCH better.)
Other than that: If they (incl. Vanney) learn something from the last few games, I'm happy. Start the charter and get the hell out of the Covid swamps of Florida. They'll have to quarantine for 2 weeks back here. I wonder what Jozy and other US-based players will do?
Last edited by Auzzy; 07-27-2020 at 09:48 AM.
I agree with all that. It's good to be reminded that the players often aren't doing what they're asked. I just hope Vanney also learns from it. Not just in terms of benching certain players forever, which he does often anyway. But in terms of his own decisions and tactics. I still think Vanney can be a great manager at times; at other times he's thick-headed and obtuse.
I'm pretty sure that Nelson screwed up badly a number of times, but it's certainly good that Vanney didn't throw the kid under the bus. We shall see if/when Nelson is on the field again.
With our zonal marking system you want the forward to rush out and pressure that ball (which he did). Auro needs to keep track of his area there and that’s his man.
Not that Nelson was great on the day. Clearly he has talent but also looked green. Couldn’t sort out his marks on the overlap (Laryea was going nuts), needed to pressure with more urgency, and still a bit slow to release the ball (think this is why people won’t pass to him).
He’ll get there but I would look for more 20-30 minute gigs as a sub rather than as a starter (understand our hand was forced on the day). At his age, if he has the potential everyone assumes he does, there should be a lot of upside.
Good point. NYCFC cheated all night and we wilted.
I just felt although we played much better, it was Seattle all over. Why doesn't Jozy start the 2nd half. The thing about Altidore and even Achara to a lesser degree, they can hold the ball and either turn and score or play off. They also know how to run through channels to create opportunities.
This team needs a quality striker, it keeps our opponents honest. One thing last thing on Jozy, who knows what his current issue is but remember in '17 in that Columbus game, he was seriously hurt and played through it and scored that key goal. He will always get a free pass from me and i am not even counting the MLS finals goal.
Even so, it was our midfield that got creamed. We were allowing them to pursue and overload the right side, like i said easy to say later and be critical but it really was somewhat predictable. If Poz was playing false 9 how much do we really want him tracking back (he is a quality attacking midfielder).
Don't care didn't watch game.
Completely pointless to go ape shit over these games, absolutely nothing to be gained, and a lot to loose health wise if you don't win the genetic lottery.
Real games start next year 2021.
Vanney needs to stop using Pozuelo as a False9. He's at his most dangerous playing as an attacking midfielder where he can set up the striker. Look at the assists he got. Two tap ins for Akinola, and one breakaway. Pozo doesn't have the speed or physicality to keep beat these defenders but his play making and vision is elite if he has someone (anyone) to set up. In the false 9 role, he doesn't have the wingers who can make that offensive contribution on this team, meaning using him as a false 9 is just a waste. Play hm as a 10,and et someone just take those tap ins. Even Patrick Mullins, as much as we like to hate on him, can score those point blank shots that Pozo serves up on a platter.
This!
We looked excellent with Osorio in the Bradley spot. Fraser just isn't defensively good enough and is too slow to be dependable right now. If Fraser started over Bradley he would have been overrun too.
Also I hope we're scouting CBs because we're going to need a couple soon. One with speed and pedigree and another bench option one. That should be on the front burner at TFC HQ.
And as far as this tournament goes, no matter what the players say you can tell that as soon as the points didn't count towards the season, they lost interest. I haven't seen this many poor decisions, bad passes, and lazy play since we mailed it in after things went south in 2018.
It should be mentioned though that our conditioning is questionable. I know there's been a lot of goals in the last 15 minutes of matches but I watched almost every match at this thing and the only team that frequently looked burnt by the 60th minute was us. I don't recall a team in worse 90 minute, hot weather shape than us. Even trash heaps like Atlanta had energy at the end, they just have no talent or game plan. But who knows how it went down there. Maybe Vanney played it safe and trained less due to heat and Covid concerns.
14 Miami Marlins test positive.
Any MLS musings about playing games outside a bubble in September/October are pretty much fantasy.
"There are some people who might have better technique than me, and some may be fitter than me, but the main thing is tactics. With most players, tactics are missing. You can divide tactics into insight, trust, and daring." - Johan Cruyff