The last time the Wizards saw former MLS MVP, Amado Guevara, he was busy scoring a hattrick to keep the Wizards out of the 2006 playoffs. Fast forward to 2008, and he puts the boots to the Wizards again, this time scoring 2 goals to lead Toronto FC to a 2-0 win over the Wizards at BMO Field.
The Wizards never truly looked into the game. The poor passing and control of the ball that plagued KC in Chicago followed them up to Toronto, where on the artificial surface, the Wizards had just as much trouble stringing passes together. Too many passes were long, short, behind or too far in front of players, It was a poor performance overall.
After looking shaky, but holding the lead in the first half, the Wizards defense finally allowed a goal, the first since Sainey Nyassi scored in the 40th minute of the Wizards game against New England. A poor clearance by Tyson Wahl off of Michael Harrington fell to Guevara who made no mistake beating Hartman. The Wizards best chance of the game came soon after that, when Claudio Lopez was played in behind the Toronto defense. He played a square ball into Ivan Trujillo, who put his shot right into Toronto keeper, Greg Sutton. Soon after that, Guevara made it two, scoring off of a great free kick, that Hartman had no chance of stopping.
Overall it was a pathetic performance by a team that wants to be one of the best. The passing for the second game in a row was crap, and it was on two completely different surfaces. This "all out attack" that Onalfo likes to brag about bring has shown very little over the last 4 games, yielding a total of 2 goals in that time frame. It's just not good enough, Lopez isn't getting enough support, and the defense is young and shaky, I cringe every time I see a defender other then Jimmy Conrad handle the ball in the defensive third of the field.
Wizards Man of the Match - Claudio Lopez - Got into dangerous positions and should have been rewarded with at least one assist, but his partner up top today, Trujillo couldn't finish. Onalfo has to find him a good partner up top or his going to become extremely upset really quick.
Honorable Mention - Kevin Hartman
Saturday, April 26, 2008
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2 comments:
Good take Mike.
We have been pretty punchless up the middle without Marinelli. I hope he'll be starting again soon.
You are so right about Claudio. It's going to get old for him soon. He does need to take some guys one on one or the word about him (push him outside) is going to get around the league and severely limit is chances.
Let's not leave the disastrous performance of Roger Espinoza. The fact that he made it to the 60th minute is unforgivable. Please go back and watch the tape. His first 3 (maybe 5) touches resulted in him turning the ball over. Not to mention later in the game when he decided to dribble the ball from the top of our box to -- somewhere, I don't know -- and was unceremoniously stripped resulting in a shot that Hartman had to save. They have looked awful the past two games. Desperately need 90 mins out of Sasha and to get Arnaud back on the field.
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