LA story – revisiting the latest loss
September 28th, 2007 . 8:22 am . By: Chamo JonesThe knee jerk reaction on Monday by fans and media alike was to blame Gbandi for the FC Dallas loss on Sunday night. Even I went for the easy headline in my “FCD News Recap” on Monday (DJ’s silent “G” bit never gets old). Gbandi was the obvious culprit. Twenty minutes into the game, FC Dallas was in control leading one to nothing. Then in the span of 5 minutes Gbandi commits two mental mistakes that not only leveled the game at ones, they left Dallas with the daunting prospect of playing a man down for over an hour. Eventually, just as Dallas fans all over feared, Dallas gave up the second goal and lost. Obviously it was all Gbandi’s fault. After a couple of days of reflection, and watching a couple of Copa Sudamericana games this week, I say not so fast my friend. I am ready to splash the messy blame on more people than Gbandi. Playing a man down even for long stretches is not necessarily the kiss of the death for the team with the disadvantage. Just this week in the Copa Sudamericana, we saw DC United hang on for a 2-1 victory over Chivas despite playing some 50 minutes a man down. And last night River Plate beat Botafogo despite playing 9 v 10 and having a two goal deficit with 20 minutes to go in the game. Closer to home, Dallas beat Columbus earlier this season in stoppage time despite having a man disadvantage, and who can forget Colorado beating Dallas in the deciding game of the western conference semifinals back in 2005 with 10 men for most of the second half and the two overtime periods. Do we have enough examples to prove that playing a man down is not the kiss death? Good. Coach Morrow’s tactic of keeping the team in an attacking formation despite going a man down appeared to be the right approach. LA was not creating many chances on the other end. Dallas had enough skill at every position to maintain possession for long periods of time, plus they had the “speed” threat with Oduro to keep LA honest. The tactics worked well as Dallas created as many scoring chances if not more than LA, until coach Morrow made his first substitution. Morrow seemed to channel Coach Clarke as he went with “defensive” substitution: Pitchkolan for Oduro. The problem with this substitution is that it completely wrecked the tactics that had been working up until the time of the substitution. The speed threat on the counter was no longer there, and LA was able to move attack with more numbers. Pitchkolan’s contribution to the possession game from the moment he came in until the Klein goal was three touches and two giveaways. And just to add a little salt to the wound, on the goal the fresh legs of the middle of the park destroyer did not switch out to cover Cobi’s run down the left flank, nor did he cover Klein who was wide open at the edge of the penalty box. It would seem that if Morrow had subbed Ricardinho for Oduro that the tactics could have remained the same, and Dallas would have had a better chance at getting at least one point out of this game. And let’s say that the Clarke impulse could not have been overcome, given how much LA was attacking from wide positions it seemed that Wagenfuhr would have been a better choice to slow down the LA attack. Pitchkolan still would have been a viable sub in this game, just not at the time and for the player that Morrow chose to sub him for. 5 Comments Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI Leave a comment |
Don’t forget the 9v11 victory over Colorado in 2004. TWO men down and we got 3 points
I am a firm believer that playing to tie is the best way to lose, so I was dimayed by the decision to bring on Pitch for Oduro (of course I believe Pitch is at best the 4th option at central back and no option anywhere else). But I don’t agree that much of the blame can be “splashed” on Morrow. His substitutions this year have by and large been designed to maintain offensive pressure. While I would have preferred Morrow bring on Ricardinho for Oduro in this game, it is not often to see a manager bring on an attacking player when a man down in a tie game. Gbad Gbandi put Morrow in an awkward position. Together with giving up the PK, Gbandi almost single-handedly wrecked FCD’s chances of getting any points at the Tool Shed.
I would have brought in Ricardinho and Wagenfuhr for Ruiz and Denilson. We needed to guard our left flank and the best offensive chances were to go hockey strategy, dump it into the corners and beat thyem to it with Oduro and Ricardinho. Let’s hope we don’t see CC’s ghost again.
I agree. I was scratching my head and shouting out “Why!” when he made that substitution. If anything I would have taken off Ruiz, Denilson .. they were essentially the non producers of the 2H IMHO.
You could argue that Ruiz faded because nothing came his way, but it seemed to me like his energy and drive was fading also.
I thought that Dominic was one of the better players for us, so I was surprised when he was taken out.. but when I saw Pitch coming on for him I was like “What? If you want cover on the left, bring on Wags or Wally!”.
I’m still not sure what that was all about. I’m assuming that the idea was for Serioux to push forward into midfield and have Pitch cover with Yi.. but it certainly didn’t appear to be effective. Pitch has to get his act together in passing.. even some of the easy passes to people 10ft away were off target.
I still put most of the blame on Gbandi. The red was bad but going down a man is not a death sentence like you said but the penalty is what killed us. There was no need for that stupid foul in the box and thats why i put al ot of the blame on Gbandi.