No, I didn't misspell the title. It's a reference to a TV show that nobody watched. And hey, that page is still using the old stylesheet. Dammit.
Anyway, I've been meaning to rewatch the Fire-Red Bulls match from the weekend to see if I could come up with anything more meaningful to say about it, but I haven't found the time. So I'll have to go from five-day old memory.
- Luis Arroyave is going after the story of Logan Pause wearing the captain's armband over C.J. Brown or Diego Gutierrez. I've been curious about this myself, but as I mention in the comments on Luis' blog, the fact that Brian Plotkin wore the armband in the reserve match playing what looked like the same position makes me wonder if there's some formation thing behind this.
- Speaking of formations, we looked like we ran out a 3-3-4, because I don't really buy into Blanco and Rolfe embracing all their responsibilities as midfielders. And by responsibilities, I mean getting back into our defensive third when necessary. I guess it did help the problem we've been having linking the midfield and the forwards, just on account of us getting actual chances on goal, but I'm not feeling it.
- I had a great view of the sequence in the first half where Blanco lobbed the ball into Dave van den Bergh's head and then VDB got a yellow for time-wasting. Hilarious. Less so if you're Dave van den Bergh, who had some choice words about Blanco in the paper on Sunday. No, I'm not going to go find the link.
- Chad Barrett is getting better, but still isn't anywhere near as effective as we need him to be. I thought he made some good runs, but still puts his head down when he gets the ball and has a hard time getting the ball off of his foot as a result. Maybe he would be better at right mid than Rolfe, as long as we're running out forwards at that position? That would give him more time to make decisions.
- The party line is to make him out to be the answer for all our ills, but I'm still not sold on Wilman Conde, and picking up two yellows -- including a dumb handball -- isn't going to help.
- In the second half, it looked more like 4 defenders, going Conde, Segares, Brown and Robinson from left to right. Which was another odd choice -- if it was matchup driven, that would be saying that Segares couldn't keep up with Dane Richards, and Segares had a pretty solid game. Unless there was a central matchup that Conde wasn't handling, in which case, see my point above about not being sold on him yet.
- Three goals and five assists in eight matches. Is anyone still questioning the Blanco signing?
- The shenanigans just before halftime bothered me a bit. Anyone who knows the Fire's history knows Dema Kovalenko, and you don't let Dema get under your skin. So Wanchope coming in and shoving him after the play struck me as a subtle repudiation of tradition, much more than, say, the existence of an OK Go song for the Fire.