Counter Punch
September 14th, 2008 . 6:31 pm . By: John CarltonSo many of the league-high nine draws that FC Dallas has amassed during the course of an up-and-down 2008 MLS campaign have felt more like losses when the final whistle was blown. To the relief of the Hoops, last night’s 2-2 draw against DC United at RFK Stadium in Washington felt more like a win. The result props FC Dallas up on one leg as they enter the crucial stretch run towards the playoffs and, more importantly, demonstrates that the team can come back from a deficit on the road under undeniably nihilistic conditions. The Red Stripes came out of the gate swinging and punctuated their early attacking phase with a wonderful turn-and-shoot missile from Kenny Cooper to get on the score sheet first. Cooper’s blast, his 14th on the season, came off a deflected pass from midfield that found him at the top of the area one-on-one with United defender Brian Namoff. Cooper shielded Namoff, turned to his left to face goal and fired with his left foot to the roof of the net. United’s reserve Liberian goalkeeper, Louis Crayton, did much to reduce the sting of solid attacking moves from Dallas. His save of a close-range shot from Cunningham in the 20th minute proved big because nearly five minutes later, United equalized on a goal from Jaime Moreno. The score came in an all-too-familiar fashion: DC’s Thabiso Khumalo spun free from defenders on the right wing and hit a perfectly weighted cross to the wide-open Jaime Moreno in the middle of the penalty area, who easily headed it into the open right side of the net. For what seemed like the fifth game in a row, right back Adrian Serioux was trailing the play leaving Moreno completely unmarked in the area. And poor marking played a role in the go-ahead goal by DC United, as well. United’s left back Gonzalo Martinez crossed a ball from the left flank into the area, where FC Dallas found themselves outnumbered and exposed at the back post. The cross fell to Santino Quaranta, who hit his shot first time at Hoops’ goalkeeper Dario Sala. Sala got a piece of the hard shot, but could only deflect it sideways, and the ball pinged into the right side of the net. Down a goal on the road, with their season hanging in the balance, two stalwarts of the 2008 season bailed the Hoops out of a would-be death knell. Rookie Eric Avila had come on for Dax McCarty just moments earlier when he took the ball to the byline on the left flank and skitted a low ball at the perfect angle all the way across the box to the vicious right foot of Andre Rocha. Rocha’s first-time strike came in the 79th minute, a late phase of the game that the Brazilian has not experienced much of over the last two months. Coach Schellas Hyndman’s decision to keep Rocha on the field, in light his pattern of subbing him off early in recent weeks, which in turn led to a feud between coach and player, proved Hyndman’s best non-move of this season. Avila’s assist also vindicated a player who has found himself benched in favor of the raw, but talented coach’s pet, Bruno Guarda. Now comes the question, what has Schellas Hyndman learned about his team, and what can we expect him to do in the final weeks of the season? With all the talk of earning a place in the team through performance and a two-way mentality, it remains to be seen whether such bluster has an active ingredient in it. When a season-saving equalizer comes from one player in the doghouse, and the assist from another player benched for quasi-nepotistic reasons, Hyndman should take a long look in the mirror and ask whether the performances are coming because of, rather than in spite of, what could be fairly called some dubious personnel decisions in recent weeks. FC Dallas (6-9-9) vs. D.C. United (10-11-3)September 13, 2008 — RFK Stadium Scoring Summary: FC Dallas – Dario Sala, Adrian Serioux (Michael Dello-Russo 36), Aaron Pitchkolan, Blake Wagner, Dax McCarty (Eric Avila 72), Bruno Guarda, Pablo Ricchetti, Marcelo Saragosa, Andre Rocha, Kenny Cooper (Dominic Oduro 56), Jeff Cunningham, Substitutes Not Used: Ray Burse, Andrew Daniels, Anthony Wallace, Jamie Watson D.C. United – Louis Crayton, Bryan Namoff, Marc Burch, Devon McTavish, Gonzalo Martinez, Quavas Kirk (Fred 46), Santino Quaranta, Clyde Simms, Ivan Guerrero (Rod Dyachenko 72), Thabiso Khumalo (Luciano Emilio 68), Jaime Moreno, Substitutes Not Used: Ryan Cordeiro, Francis Doe, Craig Thompson, Zach Wells
Misconduct Summary: referee: Baldomero Toledo 15 Comments Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI Leave a comment | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
we’re so defeated by the bruno-over-avi decision that it’s just not worth asking anymore. it’s like going thru that dallas cowboys 1-15 season where you knew you were gonna lose…but something inside tells you that there is a chance.
and definintely, SH doesn’t seem to be holding his end by playing a guy who isn’t XI worthy at the moment.
Considering the ammount of playing time his 12 year old grandson gets in practice just be glad he’s not in the starting 11, at least not yet. Even the commentators in this game mentioned how invisible Guarda was.
guarda isn’t doing bad at all, but avila has much more confidence, and seems to get wide much better…i would much rather see avi out there than guarda at this point. i did think the sub for kenny was a little odd though…
saragosa and guarda, i’ve never seen a more dismal central midfield, particularly when your 3 best central midfielders are all playing out of position
Avi is going wide because that’s his job. Guarda is really tasked with being the linking player in the diamond – passing it out to the wings and getting back to defend. At least that’s the way I think SH intends it…
Problem is that he’s not doing either of those things well. I haven’t yet seen him take the ball off anyone and while one or two of his passes have been nice, he’s not nearly consistent enough.
On top of that he’s frequently robbed of possesion because he’s not really reading the game properly.. He’s about two or three steps behind it. He’s saved himself a couple of times by thrusting himself in front of the ball and getting a foul, but frankly I would rather see him maintain possession and play a good pass.
Perhaps after a season in the reserves he could become a good player, but this is just way above his level right now.
I feel bad for him in one respect.. he is only doing what the coach tells him.. but I understand why fans the knee jerk reaction is vent directly at Bruno… after all, if SH played him and he turned out to be a Freddy Adu/Theo Walcott, it would be a different story.
I’m a guy who’s always thought Dallas was just a nudge away from being a really good, really entertaining team. Looking at the team on the pitch against DC, though, good lord.
I know Hyndman’s probably delighted we’re all second-guessing him – he’s got enough of that old-coach contrariness to believe he’s got the secret keys to the castle. In the long run, though, talent plus commitment wins, not one or the other. Seems like Hyndman has the latter on the brain and only pays lip service to the former.
Specifically, unless there’s disciplinary stuff we don’t know about, Guarda over Avila is at this point egregious coach’s-kid style nepotism.
I bet Guarda tore it up vs West Texas State and Centenary, a pity they don’t play in MLS though.
wow 13 corner kicks to nil
I guess it’s alright figuring we don’t score on set pieces anyways
Hey, Ronnie O’Brien (all washed up so Dallas traded him) scored the MLS goal of the week on a cross from A. Alvarez (all washed up so Dallas traded him). Weird.
Juan Toja’s new team in Bucharest won their Champion’s league game this weekend (the only eastern Europe team to remain in the game against the big money teams.
Alvarez has 3 goals and 1 assist in 6 games. Wow…i guess he was all washed up. Good call SH.
PS Denilson is coming off a career season in Brazil…weird.
Now we just need to cut Rocha so he can go to Serie A and win the Scudenti…all in all we should dump our talent and only go with people (either 12 year olds or SMU grads) who demonstrate commitment.
our future never looked so bright.
corner kicks: 13 (Jaime Moreno 8 ) 0
no tan bueno
I’m with Kevin, we could list more players who’ve found success after leaving FCD. Goodson, Gbandi, Mulrooney, Davis, Gibbs, JK9 and others come to mind but for one reason or another they aren’t here anymore and we suck.
Where do you see Gbandi’s stats? From what I can see he’s only scored one goal all year. I could be wrong, though – please post a link with English-language stats for him if you have one. He is a forward for Haugesund, right?
Now Goodson, there’s a guy the FO screwed up with royally. My guess is he’ll be back with the Nats next year as a backup.
I think that are various reason why those players went on to do well at other clubs… and not all of them necessarily reflect poorly on Dallas.
I’ve always like O’Brien, but if he’s a locker room problem, no matter how good he is, you have to let him go.
Everyone knows Toja was great, but I think he was frustrated and not playing his best.. No point in holding onto a player who doesn’t really want to be here.
Same goes for Alvarez. Decently skilled player, but didn’t really perform this year and I think mentally he was checked out and ready to move on. That’s hard to overcome.
I am one of the few people that liked Denilson.. sure he wasn’t worth the salary he was asking.. More than anything I think his problem was a lack of fitness.. If he was fully fit and brought in at the start of the year, it could have been a different story for him.
Gbandi.. frankly after his last few performances I was glad to see the back of him..
Goodson was good.. but I think he really wanted to go to Europe more than anything else. He probably wanted a fairly big pay bump to stay here… something competitive to what he was being offered in Europe. MLS teams are just never going to be able to do that. They have to let these players have their turn in Europe. Some will succeed and stay, others will realize that standards are higher, their playing time may be less, and that Europe doesn’t have nice tastey American food everywhere.. they end up returning e.g. Wolff, Jaqua, Noonan, Donovan (that last comment was for him).
Nathan – your post doesn’t address WHY the various talented athletes that you mention wanted to be ELSEWHERE.
Neither does yours.