by Geoff McPherson
Friday night as the booming thunder and spectacular lightening show of mid summer night thunder storm rolled through my neighborhood I sat back and relaxed in my basement with a blank Microsoft Word document steering back at me waiting for any form of data input for this weeks report. I cracked open a bottle of red wine, popped in an old Clash cassette (yep…I said cassette) with the very familiar sounds that I hadn’t listened to for who knows how long.
As Mick Jones belted out the lyrics to “Lost in the Supermarket” it made me ponder on will we do any wheeling and dealing with the remainder of the transfer window? Will we upgrade? Buy some things that are soon to expire? Will continue to wear last year’s fashions (like Colin Clark’s “Ritchie Cunningham sweater”)? Or try to get by buy something on the discount rack? Or has Clavjio exceeded the limits of his Rapids corporate credit and “can no longer shop happily” in soccer player market.
For me I’m just happy that I haven’t been traded yet to some random USL2 fan site as my writing has been spotty and inconsistent to say the least, fortunately Senor Bodmer has as much faith in me as Clavjio has in Erpen and his fluorescent yellow boots.
This week both teams have the unfortunate stat of winning only 1 game in last 8 with Toronto’s last win against us back on June 16th. In the same period Toronto had to endure the embarrassment of not winning the Canadian qualifying of the CONCACAF Champions League which resulted in Montréal taking the honors.
Toronto limp into Denver with 5 players missing due to Olympic duty, injuries, and suspensions including the skillful loose cannon\part time cage fighter Amado Guevara out for his off the ball antics against FC Dallas last week. It all seems to have an air and smell of the pregame feel for this writer similar to that before we played Red Bulls and DC United, that these teams were ready for the taking.
With the help of the consistently insightful investigative beat reporting of We Want Rapidman I have the pleasure of know that I will not have to endure the pain of seeing Mastroeni wasted talent as the lone central defender before entering the gates of DGSP on Saturday. This move allows for the creativity of Ballouchy to work with Gomez but no room for one of the fan favorites Herculez to disrupt defenses. On the flip side it does provide yet another chance for Cummings to prove that he is a true out and out scorer. Jose Burciaga Jr slots in for Mastroeni to make up the back three.
I can sit here and go through all the line ups discuss the rhythm and pattern of the game but I’m sorry the game was just mismanaged from the beginning, it was Columbus Crew all over again. Its like if we can’t play fast pace two touch football we have no plan ‘B’, a simple plan be would be chipping the ball over their back four, get them turned around make them loose their shape but we didn’t even have that.
Mastroeni was playing to high in the early part of the game which resulted in Ballouchy looking out of place, Ugo was in his more familiar central roll at the back, Burciaga Jr it had to be said was one of the positives that came out of the game. Erpen played in Neon yellow shoes in the first half and then his Dorothy’s red shoes in the second half; even clicking his heels together didn’t help.
McManus came on late in the second half and showed his class, rightfully he was in the face of his own players from the get go, especially when Omar Cummings didn’t pick him out unmarked in the box and shot high and wide instead. Omar has the skills but his decision making lets him down at the best of times.
Cooke is class but his style is just not designed for the 3-4-1-2 formation we have settled on, it’s not in his blood, if that is going to be our continued direction we need to swap out with someone that fits the system. I’m sure there is a 4-4-2 team out there that would allow him the space and time to cross balls all day, I know for some of you this is just sacrilegious crazy talk.
For the second week we out played the other team, for the second week we were unable to adapt our game plan when things did not go our way, for the second week we were beaten by a team that had two chances on goal, and for the second week we showed our lack of maturity and patience on and off the pitch to be able to beat a lesser team
It all reminds me I need to sign up for Aug 20th Foosball competition, to win all I need to do is play defensively slow and it will get the players out their rhythm. Frank Yallop worked out how to break us down when the Earthquakes came to town earlier in the season and now every team that can’t compete with our speed has successfully applied the same tactics to our detriment
Frustrating to no end for all of us, I don’t even know even if Clavjio gets an increase in his credit card limit with his “giant hit discothèque album” haircut that he can get “that special offer” that will enable us to make a run for this division. Some may say we have the players but we just don’t seem to have the ability to make adjustments on the field when a game that unfolds.
Besides all my frustration as a slightly bewildered fan at the moment the last words this week (and wise words they are) go to our inspirational fan Preston who will always remind us if you keep going, you focus on the good things, and when you do good things will happen just as they did on Monday August 4th when Preston turned 6 cancer free.