May 20th, 2008 . 8:47 am . By: Buzz Carrick

We played pretty badly as a team and I think it’s the worst I’ve seen us play since we’ve been here. – Pablo Ricchetti

I agree with Pablo, that was about the worst performance I have seen in a long time out of FCD. I tried for quite a while to think of what positive can be taken from the game. Frankly there wasn’t a lot. But being a glass half full kinda guy I managed to think of a couple, although it wasn’t easy.

LA Galaxy 5, FCD 1

El Bueno (The Good)

André Rocha was my Man of the Match. Not because he was great on the day, but because he looked like he gave a damn. In fact he looked pissed, particularly in the second half. Rocha looked like he had some pride and was embarrassed, and he was one of few who did. Up till now he’s been playing like he didn’t want to be here, which I suppose we shouldn’t be shocked about since leaving CAP for here is like going from the Mavs to somewhere in Europe. But if he would bring that passion he had to day every week I think he could really do something here. I also liked him much better in the middle in the second half than I did out wide in the first.

Cooper was again his relentless self and in a sea of players not giving a crap he really stood. He was so close to having a multi goal game… but as they say close doesn’t count. A terrific hold of the ball in a danger area allowed Oduro to get foward for the one goal. Again good result comes from being in the box. He was so close to making the game very different early. Credit to for Cooper for being the only FCD player still around to talk to media after the Morrow/Ricchetti/Gullit/Beckham/Buddle press conference ended.

Even after the concerts PHP still best surface in MLS. Even Beckham, who has played in some of the great cathedrals in socer, was raving about the field.

Here’s how good Landon Donovan is. LA plays 8 guys within 20 yards on their side of midfield, although Beckham ranges about a bit. They dare you to play through them or go over the top. FCD can’t go over the top as they have no speed (which is why the Oduro sub at half was good). When LA win it they just fire it immediately to Landon. He’s so good that he get’s triple teamed and everyone else is wide open. I also want to give him props to for not stooping to any throat slash or taunting type gestures. Class performance on his part both with his game and leadership.

Knowing also how they (Dallas) play, I think that some key moments, a key factor for us, was David on the outside. Of course, also important for us, was Alvaro (Pires) came back. In the midfield with a guy like that, and when you can use people in the right positions, it makes it hard for them (Dallas) to play their game. We could play our game and I think the first half was excellent.” – Ruud Gullit

Full credit to the front office for the sell out. Yes Beckham was in town, but this year the media storm is missing a bit on Becks. It’s gotta be easier to sell tickets with Beckham even if there is no media blitz. But someone still had to do it and I say job well done.

I loved the fact people booed Beckham. Not cause Beckham deserved to get booed, but because people gave enough of a crap about FCD to boo someone. Honestly when was the last time a FCD crowd, Inferno aside, gave enough of a crap to boo someone? That’s a step in the right direction.

Oduro add in the second half was a good one. His pace helped push LA back a little and would have been good idea from the beginning. It underlies that FCD remains to on dimensional and could use a dose of pace in the first team. Dom came in, played hard, looked like he cared, and scored. What the heck, give him the start against RSL.

El Camino Central (Middle of the Road)

Ricchetti played with his full heart, you shoulda seen how gutted he looked in the press conference. But he wasn’t good and he knew it, his passing was very poor today. He was a real pro in the press conference and took the blame onto the players even after Morrow said it was his fault.

“We were running too much and playing too little. We just need to hold possession but we can’t do that right now. We need to get better as a team.” – Pablo Ricchetti

Man plan to mark Becks with Wally I think was a good one. It was working fairly well early. Except that when Becks would clear the wide area there wasn’t anyone to mark Klein and FCD got punished for it. The strategy needs to be adapted just a little bit to cover other people that come into that area. Don’t abandon it totally when Becks goes central. The hard part is do you have Wallace let Beckham go or do you stick with him and have others cover.

This in no way excuses the Serioux tackle on Beckham, it’s just a general observation. Shortly before the Serioux tackle, Abel Xavier put in a studs up tackle on Oduro. Xavier got in clean and won the ball, there was no foul there. But the second Xavier tackled Oduro, I thought to myself, “That’s not good, someone will retaliate from that one.” Sure enough, bang: Serioux on Beckham. You may recall the LA game early in the year against Colorado when Xavier made the same tackle on Ciaran O’Brien and missed to get himself carded (and ejected for bumping the ref). Shortly thereafter Ciaran O’Brien took out Ruiz and knocked Fish out for two months. My point is that when defenders tackle like Xavier did, or as Chris Gbandi also used to do occasionally, star players get the retaliation. Beckham knew it was a bad tackle, but he also knew it was part of soccer. Beckham was up front about it after the game when he was baited by a media member to say something he shouldn’t. Yes, his reaction was warranted but he didn’t complain about the yellow card he got for pushing back. That’s a cheeky blown kiss and waive bye-bye to Serioux though, Becks.

“No, (it wasn’t an overreaction on my part) because it was a terrible tackle. I could’ve broken my leg. I think that was a bad tackle personally. He told me, ‘Welcome baby, welcome.’ These tackles happen in soccer and we don’t want them in soccer but this is a man’s game. You have to get up, play on and get on with the game. We did after that.” – David Beckham

No Tan Bueno (Not So Good)

FCD just wasn’t ready, several people in the press box made note of the poor standard even in the warm up. 15 minutes I had made a not about FCD playing like it was a Sunday park game. Did they take LA to casually? They for sure did in the first half. Did they think they were better? Was it the heat and time slot that they didn’t like? I know LA has a horrible defense, but when you haven’t scored in several games maybe one might want to come out guns blazing. Morrow took the blame for it afterward.

“It’s an embarrassing performance. We’re all very much ashamed of ourselves in the locker room. Ultimately, I’ll take responsibility for that as a coach.” – Steve Morrow

I didn’t like the pattern cut into the PHP grass. It looked like someone didn’t give a crap when the cut it and just drove back and forth randomly.

Toja was horrible today, even worse than last week. In the first half he didn’t do anything at all, second half he got into some better spots and still didn’t do anything. Here’s a stat I found… Last year Toja led MLS in fouls committed with 83, he even out fouled the King of Physical Play Eddie Robinson by 13. Toja also got fouled a lot with 41, second most on FCD behind Dax McCarty. That’s a + 42 in fouls committed to suffered. This year? Toja doesn’t even lead FCD is fouls committed. Through 8 games Toja has committed 10 fouls, that’s tied with Cooper and behind both Rocha and Serioux. The league leader Paulo Nagamura has 18, nearly twice what Toja has. Toja has been fouled 9 times so he’s basically even on the year. That tells me flat out that Toja is not putting in any effort. That tells me that Toja for some reason this year doesn’t care. The time has come to drop him from the lineup and try someone else. The problem is the team is built to revolve around Toja.

With a midfield of Pires, McConald, and Franchino; FCD should have been able to dominate the center of the park. It’s a joke that they didn’t. Even when you include Beckham; Ricchetti, Rocha, Toja, and Wallace should have controlled the game. The failure to do so was for me the thing that killed FCD. Which is why I wasn’t shocked that Tobias Lopez asked morrow what was missing from midfield.

“There was nothing missing (in the midfield). We’ve just got to get back to hard work and we’ll do that on the training field. We’re confident, believe in ourselves a lot and what we’re doing. We’re confident that we’ll turn it around.” – Steve Morrow

And it’s why as much as I dislike watching Saragosa kill possession, I couldn’t help but think what he would have changed in that game just by being in the midfield.

Cooper and Moor looked really cute in their matching red shoes. Gosh dang do I hate colored shoes. It’s like wearing a “look at me!” sign. Most of the young players who grew up superstar players wear them: Rico, Wallace, Alvarez, Cooper, Moor, Shea… the list goes on and on. White shoes I can almost handle, but I’m still not a fan unless the entire team does it. So I looked around and I could find only two players wearing black shoes. Guess who they were? Yup, Abe Thompson and Pablo Ricchetti. What does that tell you? Two gritty heard working, no ego players. Until FCD plays better as a team and stops thinking they are better than everyone else I would like a black shoes only rule. Maybe it will get some people to work harder. Maybe I’m an old fart, but if you are gonna play like FCD did against LA you shouldn’t be wearing those colored shoes. You gotta earn those crazy colored shoes by stomping the crap out of teams on the scoreboard. If black copas were good enough for Beckenbauer, they should be good enough for FCD.

Categories: 120 Fahrenheit.

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