General Sports Water Cooler

KC totally deserved that goal. They bossed the second half

Well that sucked. I was about to send out the "thank god for Hamid" text too.

I was at the game with my son. Sometimes it harder to analyze that way but I came away pretty annoyed with a couple things. The long balls were killing me. I'm OK with a couple long balls a game if there is a purpose to it. Like if a guy is open or has some break away possiblity. Also if you need to relieve pressure it can be OK. But our Defense repeatedly booted the ball up field when we had complete control of the ball. Very early on I mentioned it to my buddy who came with me who is not a huge soccer fan. But even he noticed from that point forward how often they were doing it and how it never worked. All it did was just turn over posession. Ugh. The other thing was the lack of shooting. Especially in the first half there were 4-5 advances into KC's third that just went nowhere. They tried to be Barcelona and pass the ball into the back of the net and ended up with no shot at all.

Otherwise, KC was just all around better. They were awesome with balls in the air. Seems like the entire team has a really great first touch. I think they're much better than they were last year when they won the conference. They'll be amongst the elite all season with LA, RSL and Seattle.

Najar's dribbling is OK but he doesn't have any patience yet on the ball, better to use his speed and crossing ability on the wings.

Last night we were terrible in possession. We know SKC would press and we had no answer. And worst of all, it's like our guys had no idea we were playing on a slow pitch. Can count the number of times we gave away the ball because of underhit passes. Just awful.

There were two key differences in the teams last night. First was that we were sloppy with possession and KC wasn't. As others have pointed out, Brandon McDonald and Robbie Russell gave the ball away much too easily, either by hoofing it upfield to no one or attempting sloppy passes to teammates that were intercepted. All the offensive talent in the world - and DC has plenty - can't work its magic if you can't get them the ball. And the second issue was that KC's players have been together for several years, and it showed. Whereas our guys were out of sync and could barely string four or five passes together, when KC got the ball they held it for-e-ver. In the end Hamid almost stole us a point, which is why it sucked to give up a goal so late on something as dumb as poor marking on a corner.

Right now, KC is probably the best team in the East. They have no huge weaknesses, have three very good MLS forwards, and have played together for a long time. The hope is that, in four or five months, DC will have jelled enough as a unit to be the better side.

Can someone tell me the fascination with Kitchen is? Everytime I've seen him play he's been one of the worst, if not the worst player on the field.

The worst thing about that longball "strategy" is that it came against KC - a team filled with enormous guys. We were dwarfed at nearly every position. The play where Bunbury trucked the hell out of Woolard to power a header on net (and get a great save out of Hamid) was almost comical, like watching Shaq dunk over a point guard.

At the 11:15 mark of this video is Councilman William Cole from Baltimore talking about the United possibility. He is the councilman for downtown Baltimore and the Fed Hill area. Basically MD is discussing the ordeal in the current general assembly, so more should be known about their pursuit within the next month.

http://southbmore.com/video-current-and-future-sports-venues-in-baltimore/

Filler. He was pretty good for Orlando last year, but I didn't think he was their best player or the player with the most ability to move up in level.

IIRC Neal is left-footed, so he makes more sense to sign for the needed cover at left back and midfield than Ryan Richter, who is right-footed. That's basically all I got. I've never seen Neal play :)

Galavision

Same old dcu: can't finish on frame when right in front.