The Beautiful Game: Houston Dynamo vs FC Dallas
May 31st, 2008 . 10:16 am . By: Lorenzo de MediciAs a young lad growing up in Europe way back in the day I was a member of my school “soccer” team. I would check the school notice board on the way out on a Friday afternoon checking the line-up for the next morning’s game. If I was in the 11 then I showed up as scheduled; if not then I didn’t bother, as no subs (for any reason) were allowed, and as much as I liked my teammates I could always think of something better to do on a Saturday morning. Eventually, of course, at the professional level (and after a number of high profile games ended in farce as one team were reduced to 10 men) a single sub was deemed acceptable with the caveat he could only be brought in for an injured player. Predictably and in no time flat, players were faking injuries on instructions from the bench and the whole idea became something of a joke. The powers that be then decided on a single sub for any reason and in a very short time this became the situation we now have: three subs per team per game for any reason (including apparently idiocy by the coach/manager). Watching FC Dallas throw away another two points to Houston this past Wednesday got me thinking about several things, not least of which the “good old days” when coaches/managers did their work on the training field and didn’t feel like they had to show their brilliance by making changes for the sake of making changes during a game. The fact that they weren’t allowed any changes was a kind of a mixed blessing, a blessing lost on many of today’s men in charge. Men who feel they are duty bound to “do something” when in fact doing nothing would probably be the correct course. Why, exactly, was Cooper removed in the 88th minute with FC Dallas leading 2-1 ( and please, if you can answer this then do so)? Cooper is an integral part of the team’s defending on set plays; he is back defending on every corner kick and free kick within range of the penalty area. He had, in fact, done a very good job all evening marking Waibel on all of the Dynamo’s set plays. Had he been taken out for another tall defender or midfield player his substitution may have made a little more sense. As it was, he was subbed for another, smaller striker and, just as in the game at Houston early in the season a winning position became a tying position directly as a result of a totally unnecessary substitution. I’ll pose a question: “When was the last time FC Dallas finished a game with the same eleven who started it?” And I could ask the same question of every other MLS team as well as teams in all the top leagues in Europe. Just why are these changes being made? In Cooper’s case it is accepted he is one of the (if not THE) fittest players on this team. In this case two subs had already been made, one through not being used to going a full 90 minutes (Oduro) and one due to injury (Davino). Sala was skating on very thin time wasting ice (had in fact already been booked for same) and with ten minutes left it was far from certain the ref wouldn’t give him a second yellow for the exact same thing. As it was, Dario Sala could barely finish the game– injured trying to prevent the equalizer– and had it got on even 5 minutes longer, chances are Houston would have won as he could hardly move at all. Of course, the final, silly substitution had already been made and Dallas would have had to use a field player in goal (good luck with that) while finishing the game with ten men. This whole debacle harked back to the Colin Clarke/Steve Morrow time as they both made the same idiotic mistake and threw games away. Clarke, most notably, in the play-off loss to Colorado that cost him his job and Morrow earlier this reason in the previously mentioned 3-3 Houston game. I would ask Marco to not make changes for the sake of same, to think long and very hard before removing any player (Cooper especially) in the last few minutes of a game when in a winning position. This team has done that too often in the recent past. It hasn’t worked and there is no reason to believe it will work. Leave well enough alone; you just may win a game you should win, and in this case you may have got yourself a job until at least the season’s end. As it is, that is now very much in the air. It’s time to break the mold with FC Dallas and shelving unneeded substitutions would be a good place to start. 6 Comments Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI Leave a comment |
Grazi, signore. Grazi.
Il posto bellissima.
(Ok, my Italian’s not good.)
One gets the feeling that if it weren’t for players’ self-confidence levels being affected by not starting, far fewer substitutions would happen.
I often think late late game subs are unnecessary – especially Kenny. That being said, maybe it was because of the next game being only 3 days away? Maybe it was check out the player subbed in for some reason?
you want defense at the end of the game you’re leading…not slow (abe) and a guy who’s never played defense in his life (artie).
can’t agree with Chazsoccer about a sub made in the 88th minute because of there being another game in three days time.
Usually the late sub is done as a time wasting tactic of the gimmicky variety. The players of a team in the lead routinely take a minute or two off the clock to complete the sustitution. The player being subbed is always the last guy in the stadium to know he is being subbed. Then he will slow walk (or fake jog) back to his bench, sometimes taking the detour to go shake the center refs hand. Then clap to the crowd until he finally is off the pitch. The ref rarely adds back the wasted time second for second.
In the old days the guideline was to add 30 seconds for every goal and for every sub. Nowadays it seems the only reason they add time is for injuries.
When a coach prefers to resort to time wasting gimmicks over sound tactics, you can’t deny that he got what he deserved.