Almost done in by ten; AGAIN!

By: Herschel | June 25th, 2009

It was the 34th minute in a less than exciting game when New England attacker Michael Videira went up for a ball with KC defender Aaron Holhbein. In his effort to head it he swung his elbow back and struck Hohlbein in the face. Referee Jorge Gonzalez pulled out the red card right away and sent Videira to the showers. Right then and there I knew we were in trouble.

Yesterday’s KC and NE game had the tough task of following the US National Team’s historic victory vs. Spain. Although I’m sure none of us expected the same level of soccer, we were treated to 2 teams that must have been suffering from their exhausting Sunday matches. While NE tried to exploit the speed of their forwards Mansally and Dube, KC lived and died by trying to control the ball and limit the time their opponent had the ball in their possession. The result was one team excessively using the long ball while the other team passed the football easily up to midfield and then did not know what to do with it. Although there were a few plays that brought danger to both goalkeepers, the truth is that most of the game was played in midfield with no real threat.

After the red card it seemed that NE had more space on the field and their runs down the wings got a bit more dangerous until they finally opened the scoring in a play in the box where KC failed to clear the ball and where Rauwshan McKenzie lost his man Dube, who slotted the ball by Kevin Hartman.
At halftime Claudio Lopez came in for a very ineffective Michael Harrington in an effort to get more offense by moving the team to a 4-3-3. This allowed for KC to put pressure on the NE that seems to have decided to pull back and play only one man forward trying to hold the lead. Even with a man up KC could breakthrough the NE defensive effort, so Curt Onalfo went ahead and brought in Hercules Gomez for Abe Thompson to open the play down the wings and try and find the equalizer by forcing crosses into the box. Finally, in the 85th minute a Gomez cross looking for Wolff found the outstretched leg of Darrius Barnes who put the ball in his own goal for the KC tie. A few minutes later Matt Reis saved the Revolution by pushing wide a nice Josh Wollf header. The game ended 1-1

Commentary: A boring game, where KC once again could not take advantage of their extra man by falling behind and then struggling to finally tie the game. In their last game against NE the Wizards were able to buck the trend of not being able to take advantage of being a man up. In this game they again struggled, even to the point of conceding a goal. Something needs to change either tactically or from a personnel point of view so that they can take advantage of these situations. They don’t seem to play good soccer when they have the man advantage..

Hopefully we can see another mixture of starters and reserves for the next game, especially in the back line and in midfield so that Curt Onalfo can look for replacements for the 3 players (Conrad, Arnaud and Espinoza) the team will lose for the Gold Cup.

Player Ratings:
Kevin Hartman (6), Jonathan Leathers (5), Aaron Hohlbein (5)(Michael Kraus (N/A)), Rauwshan McKenzie (6), Matt Besler (5); Jack Jewsbury (5), Santiago Hirsig (5) (Kurt Morsink (N/A)), Davy Arnaud (5), Michael Harrington (3) (Claudio Lopez (5)); Josh Wolff (6), Abe Thompson (3) (Herculez Gomez (6))

On a side note: I will reiterate that the game was painfully boring most of the time, it was even more painful to listen to the New England commentators complain about the Videira red card. At one point I was waiting for them to start playing a violin to go with their crying. Look, Videira jumped and swung his arm up in an effort tot hit the ball with his head; unless you have never watched soccer you know that FIFA has been cracking down on those plays where elbows fly on headers since the 2006 WC because they consider it a “use of excessive force that can result in the injury of a player”. These “journalists” must have decided to ignore the cut under Holhbein’s eye that came from the elbow and that had to be bandaged. Come on, I know you guys need to be homers but to keep going on this topic for the rest of the game was a bit excessive. For your next Superliga game make sure your producers have a nice cheese to go with your whine.

On another side note: This was the Wizards press release after yesterday’s game: Kansas City Wizards Remain Undefeated in SuperLiga with Comeback Draw Wednesday at New England Revolution. I’m not even going to comment on it.

Here are the highlights: