The drought continues, and I started hearing music in my head.

By: Herschel | August 24th, 2009

This might sound cheesy, but while watching the Wizards lose again, and worst of all, not score again a Madonna song from the early 1990s started to go off in my head.

On the game.

Not much to say. Pretty boring and we made a mediocre (at best) team look pretty good and we were incapable of scoring. Enough said, the highlights are down below.

On the lineup.

I had seen some sparks the previous weekend vs. Chicago, but Vermes went back to the team that Onalfo shoved down our throat week in and week out with little or no results; the big changes Michael Harrington going back to his natural position in the back and McKenzie taking Holhbein’s spot next to Jimmy Conrad. The Harrington move was way over due but the McKenzie switch was almost a disaster since he seemed to have been bitten by the often seen Hirsing bug which makes players give away the ball on the KC side of the field to aid the opposition when it comes to goal scoring; luckily his case was mild and San Jose missed on every chance he gave them.

In the midfield the return of Lopez to the left and Hirsig to the middle gave little positives to KC. I know a lot of people “LOVE” Hirsig and his “touch” but honestly I cannot see it as anything more than mediocre and risky and at least when he played on the wing (which was his natural position in Argentina according to my research of Argentinean newspapers) he moved up and down the field. In the middle he neither fills me with confidence nor does he push the team forward much. Lopez kept moving up on the left and would join the attackers which was OK but he did miss easy early goal that was a sitter and painful to watch during this run with no goals. Jewsbury, one of my favorite players had another off game; one of many in a season that has not been his best, while Herculez Gomez had some nice runs early but disappeared after the 20th minute in each half.

Upfront the drought continues, and it is becoming clear that Josh Wolff needs to see the bench and Davy Arnaud needs a strong man up top with him; 2 lightweight forwards do not have the push to be serious threats game in and game out; hopefully a Zoltan-Arnaud combo might be in the works, at least until he chops down someone else while tries to adjust to the whims and tempers of our refs in the MLS.

So the song that came to mind whilewatching the team play, with that lineup, was “Justify my Love” by Madonna, not because of Madonna (although the video is quite unique), but because I was trying to figure out why Vermes would use a lineup that Onalfo tried constantly with little results. Then it hit me. Vermes is not coaching this team with the intent of coming back as a coach, but on trying to stay as a technical director. If he wins with Onalfo’s “base team” and his “discoveries” (players he brought in) the blame of the season goes to Onalfo for not having been able to make it work; if he can’t it, shifts mainly falls back to Vermes for bringing in those players because neither Onalfo nor Vermes were able to win with them. So this lineup was Peter Vermes saying to the On Goal and the fans, “I’m trying to “Justify my (Job) Love” (either word works). I believe it goes something like this:

I’m open and ready
For you to justify my love (job)
To justify my love (job)
Wanting, to justify
Waiting, to justify my love (job)
Praying, to justify
To justify my love (job)
I’m open, to justify my love (job)

After thinking about the lineup in the pre-game show I turned to the game itself and whatever progress and effort I saw here at home a week ago slowly died since we again tried to rely on the long ball, abandoned passing for long stretches of the game and made silly mistakes in the back that could have (and should have) give San Jose easy goal. We ended up doing that at the end but it was only a matter of time. Stupid as it might seem I saw us taking a step back after what seemed to be step forward in our style of play. Staying with the 90s music theme I quote Paula Abdul on the progress of this team by saying:

I take-2 steps forward
I take-2 steps back

Yes it was so bad that these songs not only were in my brain during the game but stayed with me all through my lawn mowing on Sunday. I should have known after the first 30 minutes and gone online and to watch the video for Madonna’s song, at least for me, that would have been more entertaining.

Hopefully, if we do take another “step back” out of playoff contention, we ditch some of the old guys and play the kids to see what they got, at least then we’ll see some spirit in the team.

Player Ratings:

Kevin Hartman (5), Lance Watson (6), Jimmy Conrad (5), Rauwshan McKenzie (3) (Matt Besler (N/R)), Michael Harrington (5), Santiago Hirsig (4), Herculez Gomez(6), Jack Jewsbury (5), Claudio Lopez (5) (Adam Cristman (N/R)), Davy Arnaud(5), Josh Wolff (4)

Man of the Match:

Slim pickings, but once again reliable and mostly error free Lance Watson gets the nod. I still don’t think that is his position, and I hope that once the season is mathematically over we’ll get to see him as a right mid with a bit more freedom

Here are the highlights: