by Ethan Johnson
June 15, 2007
The trouble with facing the absolute rock bottom team in the league is that theoretically, the game should be a "gimme" for the better team, and the score should be some lopsided affair like 10-0. Then the actual game happens, and nothing works out like it did in fantasyland. On June 2, 2007, New England got a huge dose of this when they played RSL to a 0-0 draw. The trouble was, despite everything (on paper) favoring NER they just couldn't put much in the way of scoring opportunities together. FCD could have been the new NER last night.
The game dragged on for a small eternity, deadlocked in a 0-0 draw. FCD had plenty of scoring opportunities, but the shots either went way wide, or the RSL goalkeeper did the unthinkable and actually made saves. To his credit, so did Dario Sala. I'd like to say this game was a defensive battle but outside of the GKs making saves here and there, this was more about the offense not connecting than some spectacular defensive display by either team. Not sure if FCD wrote off RSL too early, or what. I have read many complaints about the Salt Lake turf on the fan forum.
FCD was totally racked by injuries or MIA players. Cooper is out, Mina is out, Ruiz is in the Copa Oro for now, Nunez is out... I was wondering if someone like Alex Yi would have to step up and go coast to coast or something. For as much of a beating he is getting on the fan forum lately, I'd day FCD really needs Guatemala to lose quickly in the Copa Oro so Ruiz can come back. If he flounders around and doesn't accomplish anything after that, I'd say let the trade baiting begin.
Just when things looked hopeless for anyone to break the stalemate, Dominic Oduro came through with a clutch goal during stoppage time. He got a yellow card for taking off his shirt, but in my book, he can strip naked for all I care after putting points on the board. Pablo Ricchetti received a yellow card for getting kneed in the gut. Since unlike the NFL there aren't millions of officials on the field, the main ref didn't see what happened and assumed Pablo was milking a phony injury. The guy visibly was having trouble breathing but that didn't factor in. Hopefully there is some sort of appeal process for this or else FCD is down yet another player this coming weekend.
For today's marginally soccer-related subject, the game was on ESPN2 HD. The network wasted no time in featuring hunky Colombian Juan Toja. They didn't go so far as to tack on "...ladies" to every mention of his name, but the message was obvious: Hunky Colombian stud + mad skillz = men and women can enjoy soccer together for different reasons. He reminds me of a guy I used to work with who was fairly "buff" for a delivery truck driver. Enough that women checked him out when he took his shirt off. There was a stupid TV commercial running about that time for Diet Coke, where an office full of women conspire to take a "Diet Coke break" and ogle a hunky construction worker while he took off his shirt to swig a soda. This co-worker owned that schtick, and liked to draw a crowd of women from the office complex by taking off his shirt on the loading dock. The signal for this was to say "Diet Coke break." They came a-runnin'. Anyway, clearly MLS/ESPN is flaunting what they've got...ladies.
All praise be to Oduro for mailing home a win. Hopefully things firm up better for the next game in Toronto. See you on the couch! <EM>
(Much, much more virtual ink has been spilled by me about Major League Soccer. The fledgling but growing MLS article archive may be found here.)
