June 13, 2008
CVI Questions with Coach Clavijo: Drama in La La Land
As always Coach Clavijo took some time out to answer some questions about the game. Enjoy. I'm going to start adding a link for CVI members comments.
I. You inserted Mehdi Ballouchy in the game at halftime, taking Jacob Peterson out. What were you looking for from Mehdi with this substitution and how did you feel he performed?
At half time we knew that LA was not giving us much to do on Peterson side, and the change with Ballouchy was simple to have another creator on the field that could get together with Gomez, may be Mehdi didn’t do incredible well, but his technical ability help us in many other ways.
II. Facundo Erpen has started every game this season, along with Christian Gomez and Nick LaBrocca, but he'll be sitting out next week due to his red card. What will the team miss without Erpen anchoring the back line?
Erpen is going to be very difficult to replace, and also Ugo Ihemelu that was called to play for Canada, we will be very young in the back in Toronto but I hope the young players taking this opportunity to shine and make a case for themselves.
FYI Ugo Ihemelu was called by USA and Canada to play for them, Ugo felt that Canada was the best option for him to play right now.
III. Los Angles dominated the first 70 minutes of play in this game. Is this another case of inconsistent efforts from the team or do you feel there were other specific factors that played into this loss?
On the first 45 minutes of that game I believe that LA had the better play, completely different on the 2nd half,
I believe that error make things easy for the Galaxy, the first goal was a ball into the box that individual players could not control and landed on the fits of Pires (first goal of the season and may be the only one) 2nd and 3rd goal we can argue that offside was not called but also we can blame ourselves for playing flat in the back……. And pushing forward to get a goal back and lacking discipline and not keeping the lines compact.
IV. When the team suffers a loss in which many things didn't work out, what kind of training schedule do you implement to get things back on track for the upcoming game?
I believe that many positive things happened on that lost to the Galaxy, and we are concentrating on those factor, also looking at what we didn’t do well and making sure that they will not happen again.
V. The word is, Greg Dalby is signing with MLS after an unsuccessful spell in Belgium, with his rights still belonging to the Rapids. You drafted Dalby in the second round, 17th overall, taking the chance that he'd sign with MLS some day, and it seems that day is here. As a highly touted player before the draft, what can Greg bring to the Rapids and where do you see him fitting into the team?
When we drafted Dolby he was a player we thought very highly, he can either play in the central of our defense or in the midfield, also can cover the right side of our back four.
With many players in and out because of call ups to the national team, any good player is welcome.
VI. Quite an impressive win by the Dutch over Italy this week in the European Championship. Do you follow Euro 2008 and if so, which team do you think is going to win the crown?
We all follow the games and watch those most of the time together, great win by the Dutch team but Italy will bounce back.
Portugal is looking very good, and if the Orange Machine can keep the same level, those two teams could be on top at the end of the tournament. Sorry I don’t have England up there.
Portugal winner
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Posted by mark at June 13, 2008 01:51 AM