September 25th, 2007 . 8:17 pm .
By: Buzz Carrick
It’s the terror of knowing, What the world is about, Watching some good friends, Screaming ‘Let me out.’ – David Bowie & Queen
So the annual late summer early fall FC Dallas meltdown is officially in full effect. FCD has now lost four of the last six, with one win a against Toronto who hasn’t scored yet in franchise history and a tie against Chicago at home. Let’s face it, if this team can’t beat one of the worst LA teams in their franchise history, that’s missing 18,000 starters to injury, there is little chance of advancing against Houston (the odds on favorite for FCD to face in the opening round) in the playoffs.
With the Brimstone Cup on Thursday, which resulted in lots of other stuff being run on the site, and some off field stuff that’s not important to this space, I wasn’t able to get a MMG out for either the Revs last weekend of Chicago Thursday. As a consequence you get three for the price of one today… except probably not as in depth.
FC Dallas 2, New England 4
Chicago Fire 1, FC Dallas 1
FC Dallas 1, Los Angeles 2
El Bueno (The Good)
Against the Revs, Ruiz has his best game of the season. Active and mobile, played defense, scored great goals. That’s MVP level play. The Chicago game was fairly good, with the clutch goal. In the LA game, once FCD went down a man, I’m not so sure Ruiz should have stayed on the field. A high energy defender/chaser would be better up high (like Cooper, but he’s hurt).
Dario is heating up into his normal form again. He was arguably Man of the Match for the Chicago game with some outstanding saves, and the LA game he was also excellent. Both the goals he gave up (not including the PK) in the last two games were unstoppable. The save he did make on Rolfe was world class. FCD wins no trophy this year with Ray Burse, Sala has to carry the torch.
I thought that after his benching Chris Gbandi had one of his best performances of the season in the Chicago game. In fact I made him my Man of the Match for responding well to his benching. He was active and got into dangerous spots in the box about 6 times. He also played good defense and saved the FCD bacon about 8 times in the final 20 minutes. When his mind is right and he’s focused he’s one of the best left backs in the league. In fact I think after his suspension for the red he will quickly be starting again. There just isn’t anyone else on this team that can play well enough right now at LB for a cup run.
I was pleased to see Dax McCarty return in LA and even more please about how good he looked. He was Man of the Match for his goal and almost second goal. More importantly his link play improved and he offered himself more. His goal was a Toja like fill in behind the striker, the kid pays attention and learns fast. That’s his biggest weakness at this point, along with occasionally being muscled off the ball. Admittedly he wasn’t great at New England, but who is against Shalrie Joseph.
“Carlos [Ruiz] — he will draw defenders anyways. I think for me it was more a case of me getting myself in the box. I work on that in training a lot, one of the midfielders has to join in and get in the attack. Chris Gbandi put in a great ball, Carlos made a run to the near post and I kind of shouted at him to let it go, and he let it go and luckily I was lucky enough to be able to put it in the back of the net. So it was obviously a nice play by us and it was something I think we should do more of.” – Dax McCarty
Clarence Goodson continues to be defender of the year for FCD. At this point that may be the most forgone race in teams of awards for this year. But I really loved the chances he made late with his head against Chicago. If Goodson can bring that element to his game he will take himself to a new level. By the way he’s a free agent after this season. So I would start preparing now for his possible departure to a “higher level”. Every player has ambition, and I bet Goodson is no different.
Until Gbandi got run off and messed it up, I liked the shape in LA. I am not a big fan of the 4-2-2-2 hybrid thing. Why I am not a fan would take an entire article, but for now let’s just say I was quite happy to see the return of the 4-2-3-1. The 4-2-3-1 creates better overall coverage among the various shapes FCD wants to play. FCD was getting penetration off the wings and creating danger in the early going agaisnt the Gals. Toja and McCarty were clogging midfield and the defense had dealt well for the most part with Donovan. It was an excellent performance right up until the red car.
“I think we started the game really well; we were coming in with a lot of intensity and we wanted a good result from this game. I don’t think our team was really happy with the result we got on Thursday against Chicago, and we wanted to come here and go back to our winning ways. Unfortunately, we got a red card early in the game, and that obviously changes the whole perspective of the game.” – Arturo Alvarez
I liked seeing Oduro in the lineup, not because of him specifically, but because of his pace. FCD’s offense has been far too one dimensional of late, and Oduro helps fix that. The best team is not always the best eleven players.
El Camino Central (Middle of the Road)
Although he continues to play fairly well, barring the Chicago game where he was way out of position all game, Alvarez is not finishing well again. His mindset seems to have slipped and I think it coincides with the Densilon signing. He must see it as a loss in PT and or a threat to his job. Incidentally Arturo is also a free agent after this year.
Toja is playing himself back into health and his form is really coming on. There is a difference between pain and injury but I hate to see a guy playing when he’s clearly limited. The transition game really suffered when Juan was missing, he’s the keystone piece for the midfield, McCarty can’t do it alone yet, he can really only compliment Toja. Without Toja the FCD midfield doesn’t function, and therefore the team doesn’t function.
I’m not too worried about the LA game by itself, only as part of a larger trend. Those Sunday games after Thursday have been killing FCD all year. In fact FCD played quite well until Gbandi got run and would have won that game IMO. Even Yallop knew that FCD was tired.
“I looked at Dallas; I thought ‘I know how they feel’. Thursday-Sunday [stinks]. It really does, and in the end they tried hard. They’re a good attacking side and they looked tired.” – Frank Yallop
No Tan Bueno (It’s Not Good)
If this is all we get from Denilson… then he’s a bust. The team is a mess since his arrival with a 1-1-3 record. Bottom line a player of that caliber has to not only produce on the score sheet, or more importantly dictate the game, but he also has to WIN. Right now you can forget the wins, cause at this point he’s not even having a positive influence on the game. Will he get better? I have no idea, but he better. If he doesn’t FCD is going no where and his arrival, instead of putting FCD over the top, will have wrecked a top tier team.
“I think that it’s fairly obvious in the first few games that everything hasn’t been perfect but that’s to be expected,” McCarty said. “He’s a new player and everyone needs time to get adjusted to playing with him. With every game, you can see that it’s getting better and better. Hopefully by the time we get into the playoffs, we will be clicking.” – Dax McCarty
In order for this season to be a success, Adrian Serioux has got to immerge as the real deal and pull the defense together. He was too much a key part of what Morrow had planned from the get go, and if that major piece doesn’t come into place there’s little chance FCD will win much in the post season. He was better in midfield against Chicago than he has been in the back. Which makes me wonder if a late in the season Ricchetti/Serioux combo with Toja high as the a-mid would work.
“That is something that we have been focusing on ever since preseason, bringing in Adrian Serioux and giving us a little bit more bite back there. I think Clarence Goodson and Drew Moor have been unbelievable this season. And guys that have stepped in, myself and Pitchkolan, you know whoever is filling in for whoever is injured, have done a good job. But you know, it hasn’t been good enough and we are going to be hard on ourselves for the rest of the way through. High expectations for sure.” – Alex Yi
Gbandi in LA continues the trend of defenders doing dumb retaliatory moves. Moor in the SuperLiga, Goodson against Chicago, now Gbandi against LA. As much as I think Gbandi’s got serious game, he’s also prone to serious mental mistakes but is not the only FCD culprit. The worst part was the lash out kick at the LA player in retaliation. If he doesn’t do that he’s still on the field post PK. FCD has got to learn as a team stronger gamesmanship. I will give Goodson some credit, he has greatly improved his composure this year up until that Chicago bone head move.
I already said I don’t like the I don’t like the hybrid 4-2-2-2, which can leave a big hole in the middle, but even more specifically I didn’t like it against New England. Against a 3-5-2 it leaves the outside backs completely exposed, which is why Ralston and Smith had a field day. In that game a 4-2-3-1 would have been much better as the high wings force the wingbacks of the Revs to play deeper and would have kept them off the Dallas end line.
“We’ve worked very, very hard in training this week, emphasizing that we need to get the ball in out wide to Steve [Ralston] and Khano [Smith] and it just seemed like they both did exceptionally well tonight.” – Paul Mariner
Someone else has to score for Dallas. FCD’s best run of play this year came with Toja was getting some goals. If Ruiz is the only one netting FCD will go no where. Maybe it will be Cooper soon, but until then the fate of this team may rest with Ricardinho, Thompson, or Oduro. Um… er… Uh oh.
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Thanks for the thoughts here, Buzz. I’m hoping this is just a late season, um, stall, as opposed to a full fledged meltdown. Keep in mind that the first two games in this little set Toja was not 100% – anyone watching could see that. And as you said – Toja is clearly the linchpin of this team. So he gets back into stride in the last two games of this set and we see them pull out the tie against Chicago and were clearly outclassing LA until Gbandi took 5 minutes off. Let’s see what the game against Houston shows – I think that may be a better test then this last little set. We’ll have a healthy Toja and a fairly confident McCarty filling in quite well for Richetti (though it would be nice to get him back). We’ll just have to see how the D and finishing up front shape up in the stretch run.
I’ve enjoyed watching Denilson play – but you’re right… the fancy ball tricks don’t help if the result of the trick isn’t the opposition plucking the ball out of the back of the net.
Usually I agree with you on everything, but this time I’m not completely onboard.
I would have put Toja in the bueno section, simply because he’s looked sharper with each game. He appears to me to be close to 100%. I’m feeling encouraged by that.
I would place Alvarez in the No Tan Bueno. I like that Arturo can and will take on the defense, but his shots are so predictable that goalkeepers see them coming a mile away. Seems like he needs ten touches to line it up before shooting. His corner kicks have also gone from bad to worse.
I would put Serioux in the middle of the road. I think he and Goodson are starting to communicate better and his fitness appears to be improving. Still don’t think we’ve seen the best of him yet, but he does appear to be improving rather than slumping.
I’m not ready to write Denilson off… at least not yet. I think he still shows a lot of promise, however the LA game was not a good sign – that was probably his worst performance yet.
What does concern me is the continued lack of width in our attack, the lack of speed in our defense and exposure from the flanks, and our inability to finish in front of goal.
Still not sure what to do about Gbandi. He can play well, he’s shown that before.. but if he continues to lose focus and make stupid mistakes then he’s no use to us. The problem is that there’s no good alternative and that’s no tan bueno. What’s the word on Wagner?
I’m always the naysayer, but this all smells real familiar…Dallas starts the season with a new formation/player/gimmick that sees them explode out of the gate and surprise everyone else.
I’ll grant you it took longer this season, but eventually the other teams figure them out, they lose a few games, and the big confidence slide starts.
If there was any real chance of drawing Colorado in the first round of the playoffs I would have already thrown in the towel.
This is a tough one for Morrow- do you bench the star you brought in or ride him all the way through. Either way, if the team crashes out he is going to look bad. At least they structured Denilson’s deal with next year as an option, apparently.
Buzz, thanks for saying what I’ve been thinking since day one…Denilson was a mistake. He’s been a bust everywhere he’s been. Yes, I know he’s won a World Cup, but how could you not with that Brazilian team he was on in 2002, and he wasn’t even a starter. I hope he doesn’t come back in 2008 and we put that money towards bringing in a proven forward. That’s what we need.
Not sure Goodson is ready to be snapped up by a European side, but we should do everything to prevent it by re-signing him soon.
How bad is Richetti’s injury…i’m hearing it is pretty serious, but haven’t seen anything official…what’s the buzz scoop?
Great report Buzz. I agree with you on each and every point. I’m ready to start my Buzz for FCD head coach campaign. Nobody knows this team like you do.
Yes . . . what’s the latest injury update? How is Ricchetti? And how is Sala’s hand/wrist? He seemed to injury it on a save at some point in the LA game. And, last, how’s Cooper doing this week?
Any inside scoops yet?
Thanks!
I’m planning on going to training tomorrow. I wanted to wait till later in the week to go so I could get more up to date injury info prior to the weekend game.
I don’t see a facial expression that fits….is the coach nuts? Where is the discipline? What are the expectations? Are we rewarding horrific behavior? I’m embarrased that Chris is not being held accountable to the team and fans for his actions. And somehow I have to make some sense of this to my 9 year old grandson. The only sense is that Coach MOrrow has none.
Julie, how do you know that Gbandi isn’t being held accountable? Just because he hasn’t been publicly raked over the coals, doesn’t mean he’s being rewarded. If you want to make sense of this to your grandson, tell him that people make mistakes. And when that happens, the best you can do is put it behind you and do your best next time. Tell him he can learn from Gbandi’s teammates should he ever have a teammate who makes a game-changing mistake. Not one FCD player has publicly trashed Gbandi or blamed him for the loss. They’ve kept it in the team — which is how classy lockerrooms handle it.
Very good points, JuanIg . . . thank you for the excellent response. Regardless of what or why it happened, at this point, the team has to not let it get to them and has to move on. BTW, here’s what Dax McCarty said about the lose (this is copied from the FCD quotesheet that’s on the FCD website):
“You know, it is just the way the results are going for us right now, to be honest. And you know maybe we didn’t deserve that, and it’s kind of us shooting ourselves in the foot right now. We are a team, we are in this together, it’s not one person’s fault; it is just the way the results are going for us. And we need to figure out a way to start getting some wins under our belt heading into the playoffs. “
I am happy to see I’m not the only one that believes this year will be different.
And yes, I’m well aware that history is not on my side. But I still think that Coach and Hitch can will this team to higher heights. And at the very least, we now have a much stronger foundation than the last several years.