Game Grades: New York vs FC Dallas
July 7th, 2009 . 12:40 pm . By: Peter WelptonJust keep your expectations in check. Yes, FC Dallas is unbeaten in seven of their last eight and are climbing the charts. In fact the team is only four points from fourth place and 10 from 2nd place. That certainly looks more hopeful that the dark cellar position that FCD fans have come to know this season. The flip side is that Dallas remains a frustrating side to watch. Dallas stormed out to a 2-0 lead on the heals of Jeff Cunningham’s two minute brace beginning in the 15th minute. It looked like Dallas would have their first punishing victory of the 2009 season to celebrate, but NYRB, and their generally lousy play decided that they would lay in wait for Dallas’ almost equally lousy play to serve them a chance to get back in the match. You know the saying, “2-0 is the most dangerous lead in soccer”? Dallas proved that to be true not only by giving up a shamelessly soft goal in the 43rd minute, but making the 14,000 at Pizza Hut Park want to shoot a firework in their eye with an endless stream of missed chances, turnovers and defensive errors that thankfully failed to bare fruit for New York. Red Bull came into Frisco on a horrid streak of road losses, featuring the stat of having scored only a single goal outside of NJ this season. FCD was only kind enough to allow them to double that number. The nice thing was to see almost 90 minutes of Brek Shea (side note, my wife has given him the genius nickname of “Shampoo”) and he delivered what you can expect from a teenager playing at the highest level of American soccer. In fact, Shampoo is a refection of the team. Moments of shiny greatness, and moments of disappointment . The problem is that you expect that from a teenager, not from Hyndman’s collection of veterans. The team, as a whole, still is plagued with unforced errors. NY served an almost uncountable number of counter attack opportunities to Dallas that ended with either a bad final pass or a butchered chance on goal. Of note (but not to pick on) is Ferriera: Are his lost passes his fault, or his teammate’s inability to play to David’s level? And is there another player that works so hard only to blow a good goal opportunity? He has improved, but David was brought in to be a difference maker, and that hasn’t yet happened. This easily could have been a 5-1 win for Dallas, or a 2-2 tie, or 3-2 win for New York. As for every good thing FCD can produce and almost equally poor thing is sure to follow. Frankly the result is more telling of Dallas’ reality than New York’s. There were some good performances, especially Dax who quietly is turning in a MVP season as his tireless work rate of making himself available to build the attack is one of the few positive consistencies the coach and depend on. In the end, everyone knows that Dallas is soccer team with a lot of weaknesses, a depleted roster and injuries. So getting a win, no matter how it comes about is a good thing. Its just that Dallas in beating Red Bull at home is no great feat and certainly not evidence that Hyndman has the squad on a playoff run. Grades:Burse: 8 – Might have single handedly kept this three pointer for FCD Subs: 4 Comments Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI Leave a comment |
Off topic –
If Brek is committed to such an absurd haircut, he should go all the way and dye red stripes into it. Someone please bring this up with him at some point.
With a 2 – 0 lead dallas should have just possessed the ball more & make NY chase. instead they became too direct & gave NY some counters that could have cost them.
On a side note I was glad to see SH use all 3 of his subs.
“The problem is that you expect that from a teenager, not from Hyndman’s collection of veterans.”
Peter you said collection of veterans. You have five veterans on this game day roster. Every one else is in the first year or two of playing in MLS if not professionally. This is not a collection of veterans who have been playing together for a couple of years and should be working better together.
I know there are some players who have been around for a while like Wallace and Ferreria who could be considered veterans but This is really Wallaces first year to get much playing time and as you said Ferreria is not in synch with the players he is playing with. So I am not considering this a veteran squad as of yet.
I don’t generally comment, but there should be a rather considerable difference even between Shea and the young likes of Avila, Wagner, Davies, Wallace, Burse all of which have at least college, if not national and other professional experience.