It wasn't the beautiful game, today's game between Sporting KC and the New England Revolution will not be a game you are going to show your non-soccer friends in an attempt to get them to like the sport. Neither team looked very good attacking or possessing the ball. Plenty of that had to do with the weather in New England which saw wind gusts of 30 MPH throughout the game causing plenty of issues with passes. Combined with KC being without Graham Zusi and Matt Besler, KC had plenty of excuses. As I said in my preview, "KC's offensive troubles, combined with New England being without Bengston has me thinking this may be a game most people want to forget." Still with all those excuses, KC had a few chances, but the lack of finishing again came back to haunt them.
Neither team had much possession early on, for some reason with the wind teams weren't playing the ball on the ground, instead resorting to balls over the top that ended up getting caught in the wind. KC did have the games first really good chance in the 19th minute. Off a long throw from Seth Sinovic, the ball didn't get cleared and fell to CJ Sapong. Sapong's shot beat Matt Reis in the Revolution net, but a Revs defender got back and blocked the shot onto the bar. The rebound fell to Ike Opara who had his shot blocked, the third attempt fell to Claudio Bieler who took a touch but Benny Feilhaber was the one that took the shot firing it right at Reis who collected the shot. That was about the only chance of the first half that really tested either side. In the 34th Bieler had a freekick that was curling towards the near post, but it didn't have enough pace on it to really trouble Reis.
The second half saw the Revolution with a couple dangerous opportunities, but not really testing Jimmy Nielsen in the Sporting net. In fact it took until a 77th minute free kick from Juan Toja before the Revolution even created a shot, with Toja's effort going just over Nielsen's net, although Nielsen looked to have it covered. Sporting had a few chances themselves, but they too really struggled to test Reis in the Revolution net. In fact, the team's second best chance of the game didn't test Reis, when Opara put a header just wide of the goal off a corner in the 83rd. In the end neither side did enough to win the game today, and neither side did enough to lose the game either. It's a game that is better forgotten and move on to the next one.
Wizards Man of the Match - Aurelien Collin - Collin helped shut down the Revolution offense when they came forward. The Revolution offense looked anemic for much of the game, plenty of that was thanks to Collin taking Chad Barrett out of the game, the other part was that the Revolution just aren't that good without Jerry Bengston and Saer Sene when it comes to attacking.
Player Ratings - Nielsen 6, Sinovic 6, Collin 7, Opara 5, Jerome 6, Nagamura 7, Rosell 7, Feilhaber 5, Saad 4, Bieler 4, Sapong 5. Subs Joseph 5.
A truly terrible match. But always things to learn from playing.
ReplyDelete-- No matter the weather, we need to keep the ball on the ground more. Here we were supposed to be a team with more tactical possession and we played long ball on a windy day.
-- Opara has to learn to pass to his teammates, not just pass the ball away.
-- Jerome has to learn that not every ball at his feet in the final third has to be cleared to the other end. He had loads of space many times and still launched the ball to nowhere and no one.
-- Benny has to learn to let Claudio take the shot no matter what. Claudio was signed to score. Benny was signed to make sure others score.