CONCACAF Champions Cup - DC United vs. Olimpia: My take.
4-1? Never in my wildest dreams could I have ever thought that the score line would be 4-1. I was hoping for a 1-1 result at best. This is a great result considering the situation and conditions.
The score line is really very misleading. The four goals are more of a reflection of how bad Olimpia were last night, rather than how good United was. Olimpia looked like they were the ones who were in preseason form and their defense looked like they hadn’t played together ever. I failed to really see one player on Olimpia’s side that was really that threatening. Their goal was more of a failure of Brian Namoff and Clyde Simms than the Olimpia attack. Namoff gave way too much space to the Olimpia winger and should have stepped up and pressured him more before the cross. Simms, who was marking Carcamo at the other end of the cross, failed to get in between the ball and Carcamo. Had he done that the goal probably wouldn’t have gone in.
We had some very good moments in the match and the fact that we were able to continue to work the ball with our starting 11 so late into the match was a good sign. However, I think that this was also a by product of Olimpia being rather poor in their efforts. Considering that most of our guys now have 90 minutes under their belts and that certain key guys didn’t have to log 90 minutes, I am happy with United’s progress in this tournament. Is a three goal lead insurmountable? No, but with another week of training and the expected weather conditions, I like our chances of pulling off a 2-0 victory at RFK to move on in the tournament.
Assuming that United move on to face either W Connection or Chivas de Guadalajara, they will host the first round of that series, most likely on the 14th or 15th of March. That will give them two matches under their belts, along with two and a half more weeks of training. I like our chances, assuming we can get results like last night.
The score line is really very misleading. The four goals are more of a reflection of how bad Olimpia were last night, rather than how good United was. Olimpia looked like they were the ones who were in preseason form and their defense looked like they hadn’t played together ever. I failed to really see one player on Olimpia’s side that was really that threatening. Their goal was more of a failure of Brian Namoff and Clyde Simms than the Olimpia attack. Namoff gave way too much space to the Olimpia winger and should have stepped up and pressured him more before the cross. Simms, who was marking Carcamo at the other end of the cross, failed to get in between the ball and Carcamo. Had he done that the goal probably wouldn’t have gone in.
We had some very good moments in the match and the fact that we were able to continue to work the ball with our starting 11 so late into the match was a good sign. However, I think that this was also a by product of Olimpia being rather poor in their efforts. Considering that most of our guys now have 90 minutes under their belts and that certain key guys didn’t have to log 90 minutes, I am happy with United’s progress in this tournament. Is a three goal lead insurmountable? No, but with another week of training and the expected weather conditions, I like our chances of pulling off a 2-0 victory at RFK to move on in the tournament.
Assuming that United move on to face either W Connection or Chivas de Guadalajara, they will host the first round of that series, most likely on the 14th or 15th of March. That will give them two matches under their belts, along with two and a half more weeks of training. I like our chances, assuming we can get results like last night.
posted by Brian at 8:35 AM
1 Comments:
I saw you took some grief over on DCenters. As I said over there, I filed your comments under "tough-but-fair."
For my part, I took a smily approach in my wrap.
Good work from your bunch.
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