Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Revs Take A Hard-Fought Point In The City


You didn't think you were going to go a whole season without my very poor analysis of this MLS team did you?

I'll touch more on this return plus other things later on, for now, let's just focus on the game.

Looking at the starting XI, obviously a few switches with the midweek game sandwiched in between the usual weekend matinees. Brad Knighton got the nod in goal, Benjamin Angoua slots in next to Antonio Demlamea in central defense, Kelyn Rowe continues to be a Swiss Army Knife by playing at left back again, and the recently re-signed Gershon Koffie steps into the midfield with Daigo Kobayashi. Other than that, it was the usual starters in their usual spots.

David Villa got the scoring started for the home side with a control display for the ages.

And yes, I know Harrison technically "touched the ball last before it went into the net", but that goal belongs to Villa. Absolute masterclass. It reminded me a bit of when Sebastian Giovinco took us behind the woodshed last season despite not scoring:


A quick aside, I feel like David Villa doesn't get enough praise. Obviously Giovinco is arguably the face of the league and a former MLS MVP. But Villa won it last year. He's 35, was the marquee NYCFC signing when the team launched, and hasn't slowed down a bit it seems. While other old stars like Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and Andrea Pirlo didn't or haven't quite found their footing just yet, or in the case of Didier Drogba, decided to just be done with MLS right now and play on his own terms, David Villa has been producing pretty quietly. At least that how it feels. This is a guy who had good spells with Barcelona and Atletico Madrid, AND the Spanish National Team, and has just continued to light MLS on fire.

Kei Kamara had a good chance to equalize about halfway through the first half, he just couldn't quite get a left footed chip up and over Sean Johnson. the real story was the through ball by Lee Nguyen. I can't find a GIF or video right now, but if you didn't see it, just trust me when I say it was downright sexual.

Anyway, the ball went out for a Revs corner, which Kei promptly put in the back of the net with a superb header.


Knighton made a couple of nice saves, but perhaps none better than his touch over the bar and then him hitting the bar that made him look like this bear falling out of a tree...

Second half, we get a glimpse at Kelyn Rowe being what he is: a very good player playing out of position.


No awareness on that cross to sense Carmago behind him in a pocket of space.

Luckily, just after soldiering on in the face of an apparent injury and being a fresh sub, Xavier Kouassi was the man to equalize on a header. 

First off, that assist from Rowe??? Good heavens, that was downright orgasmic.

Paul Mariner on the postgame was saying he was an advocate for getting Kouassi off the field right away and playing down a man rather than potentially having him aggravate whatever knock he has and losing an important piece for even more time. But you have to love the fact that he wanted so badly to stay on and help the team that he was just limping around and then put home the header before being excited and celebrating on one leg. It reminds me a bit of what we could get from Jermaine Jones, and that type of emotional and nails destroyer in the midfield is something revs fans have been clamoring for since JJ declined after his 2014 and 2015 campaigns. It doesn't hurt that going forward we now have Koffie to slot in for Kouassi. 

In the end, it was what Mariner and brad Feldman called a "Character Draw". 2-2 and fighting back from being a goal down twice. The team has rightfully been chastised for a potential lack of mental fortitude and simply turtling when the going gets tough, so a hard fought point isn't something to be angry at. 

Man of the Match

Maybe just for that cross on the Kouassi goal alone, but he put in a pretty good shift in what is not his best position. Not to mention he shifted to right back before the goal when Tierney came on. Kalyn Rowe is the MotM for this one.

Back at it against the always deadly Toronto FC and the aforementioned Sebastian Giovinco on Saturday with a 730 PM kickoff. It could be a goal-fest, and that could also use mean Gio puts up 15 on us and we lose 20-0 or something. TAILGATESZN should be there as well, meaning a shorter recap afterwards (also possibly delayed). 

Dubs are, in fact, better and not worse than L's, let's keep it rolling.

(I'm still undecided on a post-victory song, its keeping me up at night and is generally very problematic #PrayForAlex)

PS-So as I have mentioned in a few blogs before, I was in London for the last semester, meaning I missed the start of the season. The fact that the Brits don't even show March Madness meant that they sure as shit weren't showing New England Revolution vs. Minnesota United at like 1 AM on a Sunday. Add in the fact that my WiFi was piss poor and streaming the games on my laptop went out the window. So I basically could only follow along with the team on Reddit and Twitter, but didnt always have the time to check in. 

But getting back to these was something I knew I wanted to do, so here we are. Despite missing the start of the season and being a little slow getting back into the swing of things, I am back. 

So a few season notes to this point:
-Angoua has been somewhat of a disappointment, but as is the case with nearly all new players in MLS, it takes time to adjust. He's not a lost cause just yet.

-Antonio Delamea, on the other hand, has single-handidly improved the defense. He's an absolute monster out there. And just got his second Slovenia NT call-up. This guy wants to succeed in MLS and in New England so that he can represent his country. He's hungry and not afraid of anyone on the field. I can;t get enough of him.

-Another rock has been Xavier Kouassi. Our little-known mystery signing from last year has fully recovered from his torn ACL and has been a general in the midfield. 

-It sucks that Chris Tierney is now declining at a faster rate than we expected. Don't get me wrong, he's still got a deadly left foot on his day, but more and more now he's not getting quality crosses in and can get burned defensively. And this is coming off of a 2016 that saw him named Revolution Defender of the Year (granted, our defense was so shit last season that it wasn't too hard to decide that one). 

-Tierney's decline has also meant pushing Kelyn Rowe out of the midfield and into a left back role, which he does very well in and proves he can play quite literally anywhere on the field (he's played every position besides goalkeeper, I have also not fact checked this). But he cannot fulfill his potential at left back. He needs the ball a lot more than he gets it to do that. A left back prospect should definitely be on the shopping list this summer and winter.

-I've long been a Cody Cropper guy. I've advocated for Shuttleworth to be shipped out and for Knighton to be the backup (both of which have happened) because I believe so much in Cropper. He's young, has experience (albeit not much) in England with Southampton and MK Dons, and is a USMNT prospect. I thought he looked solid in limited appearances last year after signing later in the season, and he;s looked good this season as well. Not to mention I wanted someone to finally wear that #1 shirt (Matt Reis was the last one to do it since Bobby took 22 and Brad wears 18). 

-I'm still waiting for Kei Kamara to be Kei Kamara. He's scored 4 goals in 12 games this year, compared to 7 in 21 just for the Revs last year. We need him to somehow turn it on, though that again would be aided greatly by Chris Tierney remaining in good form. Kei is at his best when he can be athletic and tall and go up and get headers all day, out jumping the defenders. Tierney being able to whip in balls from the left side would be huge, because other than that, the majority of our crossed balls seem to come from set pieces, like he scored tonight. 


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Thursday, May 25, 2017

Boy's Club, Men's League: Week 1/2

As I have begun to accept that I am a washed-up athlete, I have taken a significant step in the process: I joined a men's rec league. Two of my friends I work with at camp (sidenote: This Week In Campers is roughly a month out from its triumphant return) played in a league at the JCC last summer and asked me a few weeks ago to play in it while I was sitting in my Sports Marketing class probably playing Tetris. 

Now, I figured it would be us three and a few kids my friend Jacob knew from the league, and that we would be going up against other guys like us (semi-athletic, for sure not all-star basketball players) and middle-aged Jewish men. Well, it turns out we A) have three unreal guys on our team and B) are playing other teams with multiple unreal guys on them. We're playing in the upper division, which I guess is fair since we can't just have one of our guys dunking on bad teams every week. 

I'll recap the first two weeks now and then make this weekly. Let's roll.

First things first, our first time together as a team was three weeks ago when we scrimmaged what I assumed would end up being the second best team behind us. We played three games and we only won the first one, but that's because our guys just kept trying to throw alley-oops the last two games. Still a lot of potential there. 

Game 1, we played the defending champs. This threw me off because when I saw them I thought, "There is ZERO chance they won it all last year." One very athletic young guy surrounded by old dudes. One was even wearing plaid dress shorts on the court and looked like a fatter Bill Murray. Turns out that guy could hit an open 3. Also turns out we have zero chemistry right now, and it showed. Not a good game. No shots were falling. I don't even remember the score to be honest, but we lost by something like 11. 

Game 2, we were feeling good walking in. And then we saw the other team. First thing I personally saw: 6'6" black dude built like a goddamn Sherman tank. And then a 6'4" kid with arms like the Greek Freak himself. A point guard with good handles. A couple of lanky white guys. And then this older dude who couldn't move around too well. 

Here's the thing about our team, no one really likes to get down in the blocks and fight for rebounds. We're the Celtics. Tons of potential offensively, but if the shots aren't falling, the other team will have like 100 rebounds. That carries over to the defensive end to. That big dude was getting putbacks like every other trip down the floor. And that old dude? He went like 11/13 from 3. Incredible. 

So at this point i have to ask you, the reader, a question. Is losing 99-68, hypothetically, in men's league basketball a bad thing? Is that bad? Should we (hypothetically) not have done that? 

We are 0-2 and it can't get much worse form here except that it absolutely can. Next week is a new test, a new challenge. Will we take home the W, or collect a third straight L? Will Chris (the kid who loves dunking and talking trash while we're down a hundo) show up on time? I guess we'll find out.
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