MATCHDAY GUIDE | Revs at New York Red Bulls (May 11, 2024) Jeff Lemieux posted: Monday, May 6, 2024, 02:39 PM revolutionsoccer.net
Preview | Revolution shooting for second straight road win Saturday night at Red Bull Arena Nick Boonstra Friday, May 10, 2024, 12:32 PM
I have no use for Kaye. 11 years in the league and Farrell still hasn't learned how to serve up a cross
Kessler's having a bad game. Vrioni still stinks. 2nd game in a row where 2 Keepers get dressed and no backup striker. The beat to this crappy post-Arena stretch goes on and on.
The optimist in me: "Maybe it was a standard knock, and the fact he's coming off an injury made him react the way he did." But that looked really, really bad for Borrero. First and foremost, you just gotta feel bad for him on a human level. And just before the injury, I was thinking, "Well, another L obviously sucks - but we did at least look somewhat competent in the attack from the 70th minute on!" But Borrero (just for his presence and potential dynamism as much as for anything he did) was a huge part of that. If he's out long-term again, I think we're looking at being a boring, awful team, at least until the summer window. I'm not ready, quite yet, to vociferously yell, "Porter out!" - but if I woke up tomorrow and saw that he and Onalfo were both fired, I'd be happy about it. And if we don't win at least one of the next two games (both at home), I think I'll be ready to activity call for Porter's firing. This team is poorly constructed, sure, but the coaching seems to be making a mediocre team even worse.
Honestly I'm ready to abandon ship. I agree that you could see the potential for some dynamism from a troika of Borrero, Chancalay and Gil. But we just have so many crappy players - as evidenced by us constantly turning the ball over due to NYRB's pressing. And Porter can't move the needle at all. Farrell is the Marcus Smart of soccer when it comes to attacking. Teams back off because they want to see him with the ball as there's zero chance he'll do anything positive with it.
In spite of the score, I was actually more encouraged by this Revs performance. Subtract Henry Kessler's nightmare game, and this would have been a different story. And I strongly disagree abut Farrell. He made a number of good plays on offense, but also knows when to keep it simple -- just give the ball to Carles, in other words.
I think that is the league would allow the Rev to place four folding chairs at random in the penalty area they would constitute a far more efficient obstacle to the opposing team than the alleged professionals that are currently in favor. That was awful!
Best example was in the first half, Kaye has the ball on the right sideline, a teammate makes a run into open space and he tries to pass it to him, but passes directly to a stationary Red Bull instead.
Another, what looks like, season ending injury. I think this has risen to the curse level. The Curse of the Arena.
A few random thoughts: The good news - the Revs scored 2 goals!! The bad news - SSDD. I hope Borrero is alright and it was just an initial scared reaction. And why was he called for the foul? The world of football has to change their definition of a handball. It is a foul to play the ball with your hand, it should not be a foul to have the ball hit your hand. If the ball is played within 5 yards of a player and it hits their hand it should not be a foul unless the arm is perpendicular to the body or over their head. But the ball hit their arm and it was away from the body. Yes, it was because they were running and we humans don't run with our arms next to our body. Porter says we are bringing in 4 or 5 players this summer. First I don't believe him, but secondly, if it does happen I hope they can play and are not simply rejects from another team.
I'm not going to argue the penalty call. But I am going to say I'm so f'in sick of VAR at this point. The purpose is to correct "clear and obvious" errors. If it takes 4-7 minutes to review, then it's not clear and obvious. That applies to every sport BTW. One minute (or whatever time is allotted) and then the replay shuts off. You've either seen the "clear and obvious" error or you haven't. These reviews kill all momentum.
I just watched a season of Championship football with no VAR and it's the better way to go. MLS has VAR but apparently hasn't invested in enough cameras to provide a full view - with the latest case being Saturday. And then calls are still open to interpretation. Just scrap the whole thing.
We finally found someone (Boateng) who can get the ball to Vrioni (VAR actually helped the Revs for once!). Looks like we are going to need him, too as Borrero is injured again and Chancalay is suspended for yellow card accumulation. I believe that is the first time this season the Revs have scored by passing into the box. All the previous goals were either long distance shots, or rebounds.
Ref got that one wrong - and it wasn't just a foul on RB, it was a dirty play because it can do what it clearly did in this case; caved in the knee on a planted leg. Just because someone is trying to shield the ball doesn't mean you can or should go through the knee of a planted leg. That's just dangerous and dirty. Totally with you here - the sight of defenders setting up with their arms behind their backs makes me crazy. Let players just play naturally - they can do that with out unnaturally making themselves bigger. And, to me, we shouldn't be giving penalties in non-scoring situations - it's just incentivizes playing to draw the PK, which is exactly what has happened. When you see players celebrating drawing a PK, that's a sure sign that the rules have gone off the rails. We hoped that we'd be able to quick-pivot and revive our play before the whole Arena suspension, but clearly Porter's methods are just too different for that to happen. That said, trying to make a call on a new coach after 2.5 months, regardless of how badly we're doing is just foolish. He deserves time and the chance to mold the team his way before we render judgement. And, though I would never say never, the chances of Porter being fired before next spring are extremely remote. At worst, it's a Clavijo situation, where if he gets off to a bad start next year, then he's at risk. The Krafts are not reactionary in canning coaches, bottom line. Well, 'clear and obvious' doesn't necessarily mean quick. A long delay sucks watching on the tube, but is even worse live - especially when your over-protective ownership won't show the replays that the rest of the world is seeing. But, VAR did correct the wrong call on Vrioni's goal - so that was a good use of VAR. And, it was very close, so why was the assistant ref raising her flag? It's not supposed to be best guess - you only raise the flag if you see the offside position when the ball is struck.