One Argentinean giveth, another taketh away. End result: we still can’t win.

By: Herschel | July 27th, 2009

On a great evening for soccer in Kansas City those of us who were at the CAB witnessed a beautiful goal by Argentinean star Claudio Lopez but were only able to enjoy it for about 8 minutes before the other Argentinean on the team Santiago Hirsig gave an easy ball away to, of all people, David Beckham who sprung Landon Donovan who scored the Galaxy’s tying goal. At the end of the day, we didn’t win, we again had to rely on Lopez to score and fell another slot in the Eastern Conference.

Saying that the Lopez goal and his 2 free kicks were the most exciting thing that KC had going on Saturday basically sums up the game offensively for KC. The team again lacked the punch and again did not win.

Be it luck, Donovan Ricketts being out of position, just sheer quality or a combination of all 3, the amazing Lopez shot found the top corner and KC, without really deserving it was up by one. Up to that moment it had seemed to me that LA actually was controlling the game with more chances, and the Wizards’ attack, true to recent form, was being kept under wraps by a strong (and big) Galaxy central defense. Although only a few threats came in those first 25 minutes from the teams, one had the feeling LA would eventually open the scoring. Then came the Lopez goal and LA reacted by pushing forward even more trying to secure the tie which was gifted 8 minutes later.

Hirsig lost the ball in KC territory to the Beckham, a player not usually known for his defensive prowess. His effort found an open Donovan who took off towards goal, and outside the box took a hard low shot that beat Hartman (5th giveaway for #10 that has led to a goal this year). The goal did not wake KC from their offensive funk and another Hirsig lost ball in KC territory a few minutes later allowed a deep pass Beckham pass to Donovan who was stopped by Hartman in a great save. It seemed that he entire KC midfield struggled to keep possession and feed the attack with anything dangerous.

Half time came and went and LA slowed the pace allowing for more midfield play from both teams and even less goal scoring opportunities (Total shots on goal KC 3 ; LA 5). The Galaxy opportunities game mainly from Beckham or sub Chris Klein crosses into the box that Hartman was able to control or punch out; while KC lived by the set pieces of Claudio Lopez who forced a nice save from Josh Saunders and then hit the crossbar.

After that the main excitement came from Beckham who again showed how much he hates playing in the MLS when he exchanged words with a fan who commented on his wife. In my opinion Spice boy needs to grow up; in MLS stadiums people can actually get thrown out for using vulgar language and insulting players and refs; I honestly cannot understand what is it with his whining, since except for racist remarks everything is pretty much fair game when it comes to what fans yell out in Latin America and Europe. If he doesn’t want to hear people talk about his wife he can stop playing soccer now.

Back to KC. We still can’t score, we haven’t won in a while, and although some might argue that we have 2 games in hand with the first 4 teams in the East, the truth is they have won those games and we haven’t. Even if we were to win those games, we would only catch Toronto and move to 4th place, which is not a playoff certainty; add to that the fact that New England has 3 games in hand, which if they were to win or at least get 6 points out of them, would push everyone but Columbus down a place. It reminds me of the whole ½ game theory in baseball; if you are tied in the lost column but ½ a game down it means that your opponent has played AND WON his game, the pressure is now on you to do the same. That is the case for KC; a team that is struggling to win, struggling to score and sadly seems to need to play error free football since their attack gets worse by the week; that is the team that has 2 games in hand that it needs to win to keep pace.

Solutions? With Onalfo and Vermes in charge I expect little to no change, since I believe that their definition of accountability or how they applies responsibility when players make game changing dumb plays would seem to be rooted on the principle of the player’s salary. Big signings rarely see the bench regardless of their mistakes while others who make tens of thousands less will be relegated to oblivion when they screw something up. I’m not sure if that is his coaching style or something dictated from above.

I’ve been critical before of the attitude of changing the team on a loss and leaving it put on a win that is sometimes seen in KC regardless of the quality of play. I want to be clear regarding the fact that I believe there should be stability with the team if the play is good even in the rare loss during a string of good games; this is not the case now since the play is pretty bad and the scoring is worse. I would say change would be good NOW. No one on this team should be safe from the bench except Kevin Hartman and maybe Claudio Lopez.

Regardless of opinions out there on Hirsig’s quality and the “pause and control” he brings to the team, I would like to see him benched for a game, he has gotten careless and cost us one goal and almost another on Saturday (in addition to a few others). Maybe play Jewsbury at holding mid now that Davy’s back and give Hirsig a “time out” to think things over. I doubt we will see that next weekend and he’ll get to start again, but it should be food for thought for the Coach who I know once in a while reads this blog.

Whatever they decide to do, they need to do it now.

I do want to make one additional note on Rauwshan McKenzie who I think played his best game last Saturday. The goal was not his fault and he had at least 4 one on one situations against Donovan and he beat Landycakes every time. Great job.

Also, I’d like apologize for the lack of post (not that I’d expect anyone to miss me) but I was on a job a assignment out of town for 2 weeks and time was short and due to the location scoops were scarce. All that is done and the posts should hopefully increase (in variety, not length).

Here are my player ratings:

Kevin Hartman (6), Jonathan Leathers (5), Aaron Hohlbein (5) , Rauwshan McKenzie (6), Matt Besler (5), Herculez Gomez (5) (Adam Cristman (4)), Santiago Hirsig (2), Jack Jewsbury (5), Roger Espinoza (5) (Abe Thompson (n/a)), Josh Wolff(4), Claudio Lopez (6).

Here are the highlights.