Better Effort, Better Play; Same Offense, Same Result

By: Herschel | August 17th, 2009

A different Wizards team came out to play on Sunday afternoon against a Chicago Fire team that was missing 4 of its starters. Although Peter Vermes’ hand/work is starting to show, it wasn’t enough to get the Wizards out of the winless streak and scoring drought that has plagued them for months already.

A new midfield and a defense with a returning Jimmy Conrad looked initially like a positive step for KC early in the game since the passing and the hustle seemed to be showing up and the ball was being moved forward, especially on the right side where Hirsig (in a new position) moved freely up and down the line; the downside of course was that neither he nor Lance Watson could come up with a cross that was met by the KC forwards.

Still, the Fire played the system they needed to play to exploit the weaknesses in the KC defense and used the long ball to overcome the absence of their playmaker Blanco. Although Chicago did have some early opportunities it seemed that the effort by the Wizards of trying to move forward by passing the ball (instead of cracking a long pass every time) might lead to something, but the KC defense again let one slip by. A long ball was not cleared but let go out of bonds near the KC left side corner flag; Chicago brought pressure in on the KC throw in which forced a mistake by Matt Bessler and left the door open for a quick give and go that found Chris Rolfe with the ball in the box and firing it past Kevin Hartman who seemed to have been outguessed.

After that KC continued to try and move the ball with short accurate passes while the Fire kept using the long crosses which were almost successful twice, once on the left side finding Bessler out of position, and then a long high ball exploiting the size of Watson who could not reach it. Honestly, both should have been put in but were horribly missed by the Chicago forwards. On the other side a couple of plays brought the Wizards close, especially a through pass by Kurt Morsink to Josh Wolff where the KC attacker turned and shot but was denied by Jon Busch and a shot by Hirsig who seemed to slow down just a bit and let the Fire defense close down on him just getting a corner off the play. All in all, less long aimless balls by KC and more moving and passing by the midfielders had me in OK spirits for the second half.

The 2nd half started and KC pressured the Fire a bit more trying to get close to the area. The team started to move the ball more, especially when the Hungarian born striker Zoltan made his debut. He brought energy and a desire to impress the new coach. On one of his first plays he was able to slip by the left side of the Chicago defense and send a nice cross to a charging Roger Espinoza, who although shadowed by a Fire defender, could have knocked it in, but instead saw the ball go by him. While the Wizards kept pressuring, Chicago was playing the counter attack hoping for a KC mistake, which came in the 79th minute when a corner clearance allowed for Mike Banner to break free and move towards Wizards’ territory. As he ran he was tackled from behind by Zoltan who earned a straight red and brought his KC debut to an end.

At that point short handed and a goal down KC again got sloppy on another throw in and the Fire countered for their second goal of the game.

Player Ratings:
Kevin Hartman (4), Lance Watson (6), Jimmy Conrad (5), Aaron Hohlbein (5), Matt Besler (3) (Michael Harrington (5)), Santiago Hirsig (6) (Herculez Gomez (5)), Jack Jewsbury (5), Kurt Morsink (6), Roger Espinoza (5), Josh Wolff (5), Adam Cristman (5)(Zoltan Hercegfalvi (5) He deserved a 6 but that tackle was an automatic -1).

Comment: Like I said before, I liked this team more than the one that had been playing for Onalfo recently (not only the Dallas debacle one). The passing seem better, the effort and teamwork seemed better and the chances to score were there. Granted, against Dallas we hit rock bottom and anything else looks better, I think I’ll give the Vermes experiment a few more weeks to pass final juddgement. I think the defense let the team down yesterday, and the left side of the team (Bessler/Harrington and Espinoza) had an overall bad day. Our forwards need to put the clear chances in the net, the 2 Josh Wolff had, and the Espinoza and Hirsig chances should have at least landed us one goal. At least our total shots and the ones on goal did increase which I guess could be considered a step in the right direction.

On the Ref: I like Jorge Gonzalez but it did seem that he let some Fire players get away with a few things, especially the Justin Mapp “delaying a restart play” which he did by clipping Hirsig from behind when he was going to take a free kick (granted the math isn’t always clear cut but according to FIFA it’s a yellow for delaying a restart and as far as I know it’s also a yellow for a tackle from behind; how he only gets a yellow escapes me). Also, while I do agree on the Zoltan red card, Michael Harrington took a stud slide to knee 5 minutes later (which is far more dangerous) and it got the Fire player only a yellow. Still my biggest gripe with Gonzalez was allowing the Fire players to just waste time, especially Jon Busch who took as long as he wanted every time there was a goal kick. After all that I will say that I don’t blame him for the loss, if we don’t score we are not going to win.

Now it’s out to California to meet the Earthquakes. Here are the highlights: