Revolution at Seattle Sounders, 6.26.11

We can learn from success, and God knows we can learn from failure, but can we learn anything from prolonged mediocrity? I asked myself this question during the Revolution’s 2-1 loss in Seattle, the Revolution’s seventh consecutive regular-season game in which they’ve either tied or lost by a one-goal margin. Enduring the kind of bland stretches that New England is going through now probably won’t lead to any epiphanies, but it does tend to make one evaluate a situation.

New England is not a horrible team, just a little below average. They have some good players, even some players—like Shalrie Joseph and Benny Feilhaber—that are probably coveted by other MLS organizations. And whatever one thinks of Steve Nicol’s inelegant style of soccer, he has taken his team to four MLS finals. So the Revs are no joke, and their physically battered opponents certainly know they’ve been in a game when the final whistle blows, but it looks increasingly unlikely that the Revolution will manage to make the playoffs in a format that allows most of the league’s teams into the postseason. The Revolution need to do a better job of maintaining possession, of communicating, of finishing in the final third—all lessons learned long before this game, which simply amounted to another tired reminder of those lessons.

The Revolution went up early in this one, on a corner kick by Feilhaber played on the ground to Sainey Nyassi, left alone at the corner of the penalty box by a sleeping Seattle defense. It wasn’t an especially pretty strike by Nyassi, who hit the ball low and with a lot of English. The shot deflected off a player and past the outstretched keeper, the spinning ball looking like a wounded animal frantically scurrying across the field and into the side netting. It was a play obviously drawn up by the coaches—certainly no candidate for goal of the week—but equally obviously the Revolution will take goals any way they can get them these days.

After that, the Sounders dominated, holding the ball 60% of the time, relying on short triangle passing and patient build-ups. Their first goal came off a pretty free kick by Tyson Wahl in the 34^th minute. The second goal, though, really showed the Sounders at their best. Revs’ right back Kevin Alston had a problem with one of his cleats, I think ripping part of the “upper,” as they used to call the leather part of a shoe in the commercials of my childhood. The Sounders’ players recognized the hobbled Alston and impressively took advantage of him. Seattle started from the back, worked through Mauro Rosales, who passed to Roger Levesque, who in turn passed to Alvaro Fernandez, who ran past the helpless Alston and scored the goal. It’s almost unimaginable that this season’s Revolution team could have recognized an opponent’s weakness so quickly and worked so efficiently to capitalize.

When the Revolution try to maintain possession, I’m often reminded of a novice juggler struggling to keep balls aloft before they inevitably fall to the ground. An example of this kind of shaky soccer occurred in the 60^th minute against Seattle. A few Revolution players made some lunging passes and the sequence ended when Ryan Guy waited too long to make a cross and gave the ball away. At other points, Kenny Mansally made a couple of poorly weighted through passes that went over the end line for goal kicks. Feilhaber and Joseph played two-man keep-away effectively in the 64^th minute until Feilhaber thought that Joseph was going to make a run and Joseph thought that Feilhaber was going to pass it to him where he stood and the ball was turned over. In the 74^th minute, Zak Boggs made a run with the ball near midfield and passed to Rajko Lekic inside the circle. Lekic stood fast to receive the ball and a Sounder streaked in to intercept it, causing Boggs to run at Lekic and very clearly gesture to him that he should have run at the pass to receive it. And so on. 

As usual, the Revolution had their moments, including a great volley by Zack Schilawski in the 85^th minute, shortly after he came on for Ryan Cochrane so New England could go into a three-defender attacking mode. Schilawski slammed the cross bar with that one, and the Revs would likely have gone home with a tie had the ball been two inches lower. Sad to say for the Revolution, soccer justice was served when the shot missed. The Sounders and their loyal fans deserved this one, and New England continues to plod through its middling season.

Revolution v. Chicago Fire, 6.18.11

Rajko Lekic finally had a killer game. We’ve seen that he’s a fiery player, ready to jaw and mix it up with virtually anyone who comes within his field of vision. He’s at his best, though, not when he’s waving his arms and screaming, but when he’s playing in a composed manner. And he was the picture of composure against Chicago.

Lekic’s most impressive play of this game came just before the final whistle. With the game tied 1-1 and deep into additional time, he stood in a crowd at the top of Chicago’s penalty box and managed to settle a long throw-in from Darrius Barnes. After the trap, Lekic juggled the ball three times, all while splitting two defenders and getting into position to fire a left-footed volley from more than twenty yards out. The shot just missed, wide right. It was a calmly and crisply delivered strike that wasted no motion. If it had gone in, the goal would have been a sublime ending for the Revolution, who badly needed a win.

Lekic cracked a similarly impressive volley in the 21^st minute off a chest trap, and seven minutes after that he one-timed a dangerous shot off a headed pass from Kevin Alston. After those impressive but fruitless attempts, it looked to be another night of frustration for Lekic, but he broke through early in the second half. Standing at the six in the 47^th minute, he calmly collected a low bouncing shot from Pat Phelan. Lekic appeared to be offside, but for once the flag stayed down for him. (Replays showed the no-call was a good one.) He turned and side-footed an accurate far-post shot past the keeper. Whatever one feels about his occasional theatrics, it would be hard even for Chicago defenders to deny that Lekic deserved a goal in this one.

Lekic probably would have had another goal against Chicago were it not for the stellar play of Fire goalkeeper Sean Johnson, who is only 22 and looks like he’s never had to run a razor over his baby face. He sure plays like a commanding veteran, though, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he moves on to bigger and better leagues before long. I’d be remiss not to add that Matt Reis had yet another excellent game in goal for the Revolution. He probably won’t get much credit for his play this year because of his team’s lousy record, but he does more than his share to keep New England in games. He also seems notably less inclined than most keepers to fly into flailing temper tantrums when his defenders have the temerity to allow opposing players to get off shots. In my book, that’s reason enough to pull for the guy.

In addition to Johnson, keep an eye out for Chicago’s Dominic Oduro, a 25-year-old striker from Ghana who is strong, fast, and big. He scored Chicago’s only goal, sprinting on to a well-weighted and perfectly timed long pass from fellow Ghanaian teammate Patrick Nyarko. Oduro got the ball in space and ran at a helpless Barnes, who could only retreat from Oduro sideways and hope to break up the play at the last second. He couldn’t, and Oduro side-footed a long, low shot past Reis just inside the far post. The Revolution don’t have anyone that strong and impressive, someone who can run at defenders and finish. Come to think of it, our national squad could use a few of those types as well.

And while we’re on the subject, what’s the deal with Ghana? They’re a nation of only 24 million according to Wikipedia, and they’ve eliminated the U.S. from the last two World Cups. And they should have beaten Uruguay to advance to the WC semis in 2010. I might have been really upset about that result had I not been in Vegas before the tourney and laid a $10 bet on Uruguay to win it all. They were a 150-1 shot that nearly paid off for me. There I was, ticket in hand, all set to take my family to Uruguay on vacation with my winnings if they lifted that golden, venous trophy. I had the odds makers sweating for once, but the long-shot ticket’s now in a landfill somewhere with almost all the rest of them. 

The Revolution have a new player in town named Ryan Guy. He came on for Chris Tierney in the 71^st minute and showed some good speed and footwork. He also saved the Revolution a point in the standings by clearing a hard Oduro header while covering the near post on a corner kick.

Revolution v. Toronto FC, 6.15.11

This is getting serious. The Revolution couldn’t do better than a 0-0 draw at home against a Toronto team that has won only two games this year. To say that the game was “at home” deserves some qualification, as the official attendance was a meager 6,680 and the stands looked as if they held considerably fewer customers than that. Game 7 of the Bruins/Canucks NHL final was being played concurrently, meaning that only the true Revolution faithful (or the deranged) were on hand for the soccer game.

A bit of a coincidence that two Boston sports teams were playing two Canada-based teams at the same time. Presumably the result of the soccer match did not excite the kind of rioting in Toronto that we saw in Vancouver. In fact, Vancouver authorities might have done well to show a replay of the Toronto v. Revolution game on big screens throughout the city to stupefy their rowdy populace. The game was that lame (apart from some excitement in and around stoppage time). By far the lustiest cheers of the night at Gillette—for the record, occurring at minutes 36, 72, and 83—were due to the Bruins scoring goals, not to actions seen on the soccer field.

But enough. As predicted, New England finally abandoned its 4-5-1 formation and started Kenny Mansally up front with Rajko Lekic. Obviously, Lekic managed to avoid finding the net yet again, but Nichol keeps staying with him. I’m still not sure if I like the guy or not myself. He seems to play hard, though he gets called offside a lot, complains to refs incessantly, and sometimes pulls up on his runs when sprinting for through balls. Worse than all that, he continues to occasionally bark at his teammates, as he did in the 71^st minute of this game after a cross from Mansally failed to find his right foot. Mansally did very well to get the cross off, as there was a defender draped all over him and the cross wouldn’t have occurred at all if not for Mansally’s hustle. Lekic’s pissy reaction reminded me strongly of certain NFL receivers who bark at their quarterbacks for not delivering perfect passes, never mind the 350-pound defensive tackles in the QBs’ faces. Still, it must be said that Lekic has a strong personality and an attitude, and those are no bad things for a striker to have. There must be some reason I’m drawn to him.

Don’t expect any such petulant outbursts from the Revolution’s Kevin Alston, who quietly leads the team in minutes played this season and who had a characteristically good game tonight, including a great run down the right side in the 58^th minute. After receiving a pass from Sainey Nyassi—who came on in the second half for Zak Boggs—Alston found himself trapped in front of the corner flag. He still somehow managed to juke the defender, dart a few yards up the end line, and deliver a dangerous cross to Lekic, who one-timed the ball wide of the post. Alston made a few more nice runs into the offensive third over the course of the game and broke up many Toronto offensive build-ups before they had a chance to really get going. He’s fast and reliable. The only egregious play I can recall him making came in the first minute of last year’s MLS all-star game, when he slowly played the ball back to his central defender. Man. U’s Federico Macheda intercepted the pass and buried the shot to get the rout going early.

I’m tempted to say that Nyassi and Mansally also had good games, and they did have their moments, but there’s no way around the fact that the Revolution failed to score and failed to create the kinds of opportunities that they did last week in New York. I thought that after losing their last four regular-season matches by one goal apiece, and after playing particularly well in New York, that the team was due to explode, or at least to beat Toronto 2-0. But that notion was just another example of the triumph of hope over experience.

Two final notes: The Revolution’s talented but glass-like Frenchmen—Ousmane Dabo and Didier Domi—were once again out due to injury. Also, it might be worth keeping an eye on Toronto’s Belgian defender Mikael Yourassowsky, not because of the quality of his play but because of the quality of his acting. In the 63^rd minute, Pat Phelan stepped on his heal from behind and received a yellow. Yourassowsky rolled around on the ground as if something were really wrong with him, prompting Revs’ play-by-play man Brad Feldman, normally a keen judge, to say something along the lines of, “He’s not faking it, this is serious.” I agreed—it looked bad. Phelan and Shalrie Joseph, however, felt that Yourassowsky was malingering and they gave him an earful. Yourassowsky had to leave the field, of course, but within seconds he was trotting back on without so much as a limp, validating the judgment of Phelan and Joseph and making the rest of us feel like dupes. Ten minutes later, A. J. Soares made a nice slide tackle on Yourassowsky and the latter went into his act again. No one was having any of it this time, however, including the ref, who booked him.

Revolution at New York Red Bulls, 6.10.11

I knew the outcome of this game before I had a chance to watch it. Given the Revolution’s recent slide down the standings, I wasn’t surprised to hear they lost 2-1. When I finally did settle down to watch the game, however, I was surprised and delighted by the quality of New England’s play. This was a genuinely good and exciting match, with some of MLS’s best players and characteristics on display: Thierry Henry, Shalrie Joseph, some crisp passing by both teams, lots of opportunities to score, and box-to-box physical play. True, some of the worst aspects of the league were also laid bare, including at least two inexcusably botched finishes by players from both sides. But after the last half dozen or so excruciatingly constipated matches involving the Revolution, this one felt like a gleeful rollercoaster ride on a sunny day.

Any discussion involving the Red Bulls should start with Thierry Henry. Though he’s past his prime, he’s still quietly brilliant on the ball and lends credibility to the league. (And let me add that anyone who doesn’t enjoy watching him play is not welcome to my MLS All-Star Game barbecue next month.) Henry scored what turned out to be the game-winning goal early in the second half. With the Red Bulls up 1-0, he dribbled the ball down the left side of the field and surged ahead of the defense. He then actually came to a stop to let Revs’ center back Ryan Cochrane get between him and the goal, presumably the better to toy with Cochrane. When the defender eventually did get between him and the goal, the striker quickly cut the ball back, causing Cochrane to lunge ineffectually. Henry then put the ball on to his left foot and knifed a shot between Matt Reis and Didier Domi, the ball settling into the side netting of the far post.

Henry used the side of his foot when striking the ball, as he so often does when taking shots. Some diligent soccer statistician ought to go through every one of Henry’s goals—from his national team appearances to Arsenal to Barcelona to the Red Bulls—and determine how many of them were scored off his laces. My guess is that number would be under twenty percent. Henry’s goals are calculated sniper shots, not cannon blasts.

Henry more or less scored the Red Bulls’ first goal as well, when he struck a low cross into the box and Cochrane inadvertently deflected it past Reis for an own goal. Henry was also robbed of a seemingly certain assist in the 77^th minute. He passed the ball to wide-open teammate Mehdi Ballouchy, who was waiting in front of the exposed goal like hominid in before a monolith. Ballouchy somehow missed the delivered-on-a-platter goal, his shot glancing pathetically off his foot and wide of the post. I can only imagine Henry’s anguished reaction, unfortunately not captured by the camera.

As for the Revolution, they probably should have won the game or at least notched a tie. They created a great opportunity in the 33^rd minute when Domi made a stellar pass to Chris Tierney, who was running down the left sideline. Tierney crossed the ball to Rajko Lekic in the middle, but Lekic was brought to the ground before the ball reached him. The foul resulted in a Shalrie Joseph penalty kick, which, in keeping with this frustrating season, was saved by Greg Sutton.

Speaking of good passes from French nationals, Ousmane Dabo played a tantalizing 19-minute stretch before aggravating a left hamstring injury and leaving the game. That brief span was long enough for him to make two excellent, dangerous long passes—one to Tierney in the 11^th minute and one to Domi in the 14^th—and enough to make all Revolution fans close their eyes and shake their heads in disappointment when Dabo signaled to the coaches that he needed to come off. Dabo has played only 148 minutes so far this season. You can only imagine how much better the Revs would be with him on the field for significant minutes.

But let’s move on for once to the unequivocally positive. The Revolution’s lone goal against New York was a thing of beauty. It came early in the second half, just three or four minutes after Henry’s goal put New York up 2-0. During a season in which the Revs seemingly can’t string together three passes, this goal came off a series of nine consecutive passes involving seven different Revs’ players. The build-up started from the back with Stephen McCarthy and Cochrane and featured a characteristically good pass from Domi and a deadly left-footed cross from Tierney. Tierney’s out-swinging ball sailed across the goal mouth to Zak Boggs, who was waiting at the far post about six yards out. He trapped the ball with his thigh and rammed home a right-footed volley. After so many games of failing to produce chances, the Revs worked to produce a good one and effectively finished.

The game opened up considerably when Lekic was joined up top by Kenny Mansally, who came on in the 56^th minute for Pat Phelan. As virtually everyone who has watched the Revolution this year has observed, Lekic has been all alone in the final third of the field in the Revs’ 4-5-1 formation. If this game is any indication, the Revs may move to a 4-4-2 for the remainder of the season. Mansally nearly—and should have—equalized in the 71^st minute when the Red Bulls’ normally reliable right back Jan Gunnar Solli played a slow, lazy ball back to his keeper. Mansally streaked in to intercept the pass, only to push the ball wide with a truly horrendous shot that foreshadowed the Ballouchy miss described above.

The last ten or fifteen minutes of the game were full of scoring opportunities for both teams, but it was clear the Revolution had more left in the tank than the Red Bulls. In the 85^th minute, the Revolution popped up three moon-ball headers in New York’s penalty box before an inexplicably wide-open Mansally struck a dangerous volley over the crossbar. A minute or two later, Lekic snuck a header between Sutton and the near post for the apparent equalizer. But Lekic had been flagged offside. While he and his teammates and coaches were understandably outraged, the replay showed the linesman made the right call. 

Wayne Rooney’s brother John came on for the Red Bulls in the 84^th minute. Unless I missed something, he didn’t have the slightest impact on the game, but it was mildly interesting nonetheless, like seeing Frank Sinatra, Jr.

Revolution at FC Dallas, 6.4.11

The Revolution continue their slow descent into the depths of the eastern conference standings, like a reeling alcoholic who has not yet hit rock bottom. Revolution players certainly looked woozy compared to their FC Dallas counterparts, who outplayed them to a degree far greater than the 1-0 final score would suggest. Once again, New England not only failed to score, they failed to muster a single creditable shot. By the final whistle, they’d actually tallied more yellow cards (3) than shots on goal (2).

Before the game I read an article on the Revolution’s official website entitled “Possession key to beating the Texas heat.” I was rightly skeptical that New England could win the possession battle against a surging Dallas team known for its skill and passing ability. Dallas ultimately (and predictably) did win that battle, keeping the ball for about 60% of the game. The disparity seemed greater than that. Dallas plays a fluid brand of soccer that leads to scoring opportunities. In contrast, the Revolution rely on their defense and occasionally launch long balls up the field. The Revolution players and coach may pay lip service to the importance of maintaining possession, but in thirteen regular-season games this year they’ve only held the ball longer than their opponents on three occasions, and two of those games were against the hapless Vancouver Whitecaps.

The opening minute of the Dallas game contained a sequence that might be seen as emblematic of the Revolution’s season so far. Ousmane Dabo, back from injury, settled a ball nicely with his chest near midfield and crisply struck the ball wide to Didier Domi, also back in the lineup after injuries. Domi then one-touched a well-weighted pass up the left sideline to Chris Tierney. Tierney’s subsequent trap can only be described as leaden, the ball caroming off the side of his foot like a pinball off a bumper. As a result, the Revs were dispossessed and the makings of a promising buildup quickly evaporated.

The doomed three-pass exchange revealed a schizophrenic and ineffective team comprised of aging skilled players that are only occasionally available, and young players that hustle and are dependable but lack refined skills. So far this year, probably only Shalrie Joseph has consistently combined hustle, dependability, and skill (though A.J. Soares, Rajko Lekic, and Kevin Alston might take issue with that; Benny Feilhaber has probably played in too few games to be considered). After the Revs’ lackluster performance in Dallas, Joseph may be regretting his decision to forgo playing for Grenada in the Gold Cup.

FC Dallas goalkeeper Kevin Hartman was named the man of the match by the Dallas TV announcers. However, that honor was akin to a lifetime achievement award. Hartman recorded his 100^th career shutout against the Revs, but he only had to save those two weak shots on goal. The real man-of-the-match contenders were Brek Shea, Fabian Castillo, and Marvin Chavez, all of whom tormented the Revs’ defense. My vote for the best player in this game goes to Chavez, a skilled, fast player who scored the only goal of the game on a blistering run past A.J. Soares. Chavez raced between Soares and the end line and then snuck a low, hard shot between Reis and the near post. Reis was caught flat-footed, no doubt expecting Chavez to cross the ball back towards the six, where a Dallas player was waiting all alone, licking his chops and planning his fist-pumping celebratory run.