What a horrible match. The referee had no control over it and made so many bad calls throughout the match. I'm glad that we saw that off even with the Red Bull's lucky goal. I'm surprised that Marsch didn't take out Royer. He was horrible throughout the match, and his only contribution was via that lucky, deflected long shot. I was glad that he remained on the pitch because, whenever he got on the ball, he made mistake after mistake.
We've been waiting for years. Ever since the MLS came into existence actually. They completed ignored us. Atlanta has had a semi professional team in the Atlanta Silverbacks since 98. They have a decent following but their failings were down to poor administration IMO, and they folded once IIRC. Everyone wanted an MLS team
But out of all of the cities of America, some have teams already but get a fraction of the attendance, why has Atlanta in particular grown so much and so quick? Have to admit, until a couple of years ago, I wouldn't have thought of Atlanta as a city if asked for an American city with pent-up football appetite!
Are you sure? We could have nicked a winner if we weren't so negative. When we took them on and became proactive, we had control of the midfield. Bradley, in particular, was excellent in that. For all of the praise that Osorio receives, he was poor in a deeper midfield role. He looked indecisive and unsure, and he frequently tended towards keeping the ball and dribbling it past opponents rather than releasing it quickly to a teammate. Hasler was excellent in his wide midfield role, too, doing a great job at getting in between Crew's midfield and defence, but we didn't get him involved often enough. Delgado was very much underutilised, and I feel that if Osorio and Delgado swapped their roles, we'd have taken more control of the midfield. We badly needed that away goal to relieve some pressure, but we didn't get it. Seattle got an away goal. Why couldn't we? The fact that we now have to win the 2nd leg is going to put more pressure on our players. Yeah, we did it last season, but the Crew have a much better defence and are better organised than Montréal are. Plus, the Crew are very good at springing forward from the break, and if Bradley's going to anchor our midfield whilst we push up and play more proactively, then God help us...
Agreed with pretty much all of your points, in the ideal world. But considering two of our most imp players out, rocking home crowd and a Crew team on form...i’ll take the draw
Fair enough. I'm not disappointed with the draw, but I'm disappointed with the fact that we didn't put more pressure on them when they were feeling it, particularly during the first half. Besides that, am I the only one getting annoyed at Vanney continuously putting Ben Spencer ahead of Jordan Hamilton? I honestly don't see what Spencer offers that Hamilton doesn't...
Giovinco coming back will change things in the second leg. A score draw sees Columbus through, right?
Same. Even though they knocked us out of the cup it would be great to see them stick it to their owner by hosting MLS Cup by beating the highest-salaried team in the league
Nothing spectacular or anything tonight but Bono really is class. He`s good enough to play in Europe surely.
He's really improved as the season has gone on. I remember in his first game against us how he let that Villalba shot sneak its way past him but he's been class for most of the season. For a young keeper it's not his shotstopping that even impresses me, but his aerial presence and command in the box. Not sure if he's ready for Europe yet but maybe after another season like this, why not?
Oh man, I just got home and...wow, what a stressful match. I have quite a bit more to say about the match, but for now, I'll say that it was a rollercoaster ride. The section I was in got quite toxic in the first half as we weren't creating chances, lacked the movement to open them up, and were getting dominated in the midfield. Huge credit goes to Vanney for changing up the team in the second half and improving us significantly. Our section even got more positive as we got more control of the match. The build-up to the goal was spectacular, and since then, we did a great job in containing them. Altidore may have been given MOTM, but I would give that to Mavinga. He was the best player on the pitch and did a great job in shutting down Columbus' attacks. The final's back at the BMO Field, and we might have a rematch of last year!
Fantastic! Was soo close to going to the game tonight but thought I'd watch from comfort and warmth of the condo, the atmosphere sounded awesome. Would the final tickets be realistically feasible to obtain you reckon?
