I was out of town all weekend, so my viewing of the inaugural match of the Beninho Era was necessarily reduced to the "condensed" match on MLSSoccer.com. I'm not going to attempt any analysis based on that little window, but some things I noticed...
* more terrible finishing despite a few nice attacking sequences
* Tino's lack of patience
* another "special" performance from Terry Vaughn
* Pablo Hernandez will probably need to be decapitated on the field before he gets a favorable whistle. Even then, I'm not so sure.
* lots of shirts...not sure if any actual fighting was being done for them or if those wearing them understood what a privilege, honor, and responsibility it was to be wearing Kevin Payne's...ummm, I mean DC United's shirt
* Boskovic's DP-quality "marking"
* another zero added to that miserable goals-scored tally
Same problem on the extremes - poor finishing on one end and a costly mental lapse on the other. There was some nice interplay in between and most people would have thought we were the better team throughout the match -- but pretty only wins you points if your competing in Miss America - and even here we were only slightly prettier than New England - which isn't saying much.
ReplyDeleteWith regard to particular players, Santino played well but just looks slightly off when the time comes to finish off an attack. Burch actually played pretty well out wide and Boskovic was a pretty good link man if not an excpetional defender.
I was in the same boat as you--I'm still out of town and only saw the 5-minute highlights. While Branko's failure to mark was disappointing, it's hardly surprising; as I understand it, he wasn't acquired for defense. That said, it's clear Phelan was his man.
ReplyDeleteHernandez's fluffed shot was another piece of beauty. His soft roll directly to Ries with the entire goal to shoot at after a great set up play. Wonderful.
ReplyDeleteMy highlight was when Cristman bundled into Ries. I just wish he would have used more elbow...