Photo: Barb Colligon
Philadelphia Union
Mark “Yes, I’m in the way” Geiger defeated DC United v Philadelphia Union in a match that featured multiple spectacularly bad calls, six yellow cards, three ejections, two called back goals, one own goal, DC United players fighting with one another, a final ten minutes from bizarro world, and a terrible second half from the Union that displayed the team’s distressing lack of depth of the bench after a first half that displayed the all too familiar inability to finish clear scoring chances. At least we know that a bona fide rivalry is developing between Philly and DC.
Check out PSP’s match report from RFK.
The Washington Post and MLSsoccer.com have several interesting quotes about Geiger’s performance:
Ben Olsen—”It’s the Geiger show. He wants to make a big call to change games. It’s what they do…Coming back from the Olympics, it was his show tonight. It’s not about the players.”
United president Kevin Payne—”He had a very poor night, not just on one call but on multiple calls…The call on the penalty is like a high school call…He is just back from the Olympics. He likes to be on NBC Sports apparently. He was on it a lot today.”
DC goalkeeper Bill “The Shovemeister” Hamid—”I’ve never seen anything like this. This is the most confusing thing. It was like no one had control of the game.” He added, “I’m baffled how this game got how it was. A lot of things were appalling to see — appalling.”
John Hackworth said, “My opinion is that when two teams play each other it should be about soccer. It should be about good soccer in all ways and I don’t think that was the last 5 minutes. Maybe that’s great for TV, maybe it gets people all excited, but that wasn’t what the game was supposed to be about.”
As for the result, Hackworth said, “I am not disappointed. Would I love three points? Absolutely. The fact is, we didn’t play great in the second half, and that was our fault.”
He continued, “A point on the road in this league is really important. And we haven’t had that. For us to get a point on the road, no matter all the craziness, it’s important for the team.”
Freddy Adu said, “We’re not going to get a lot of chances on the road. We got them and we didn’t put them away. I thought we did enough to get a second goal, and we didn’t get it done. At the end of the day, we were able to hold on and hold on, but we took our foot off the pedal.”
Amobi Okugo said, “Honestly, I think we feel like we could have put the game away in the first half.”
Okugo said miscommunication between himself and Zac MacMath led to the own goal. “I was trying to cover [a DC player] and it hit off my hand and it went in. Maybe I’ve got to be more demanding on my part and take out Zac if need be, or he’s got to take me out just to be safe back there.”
That open play goal that was called back? MacMath said, “He was going for the ball, and I had a hand on it, and when they called it, I thought it was the right call.” Ben Olen’s take? “It was an imaginary foul.”
The second yellow shown to Sheanon Williams? Hackworth said, “It was a great play in my opinion, no a fantastic play, one that Sheanon needed to make and I thought he got all ball in my opinion. It’s a play that any player has to make in that situation, and what happens from there is out of Sheanon’s control, out of my control, but Sheanon gets all ball on that tackle and it’s a good tackle.”
How’d Danny Cruz do in his Union debut? Kerith Gabriel writes that Cruz, “showed tremendous work rate in his outside attacking role and bucked the notion that short attackers can’t hang. Listed at just 5-8, 170 pounds, Cruz muscled his way past defenders and used elusive speed to create space, proving – at least in this match – to be the missing link in the Union’s 4-3-3 formation.”
Chris Vito writes at the Delco Times, “The Union aren’t getting nearly enough of a return on Adu.”
Vito also writes, “For two months, midfielder Amobi Okugo has been masquerading as a central defender. United saw through the disguise.”
More from The Daily News, The Inquirer, Delco Times, CSN Philly, Washington Post, the Union website, MLSsoccer.com, ProSoccerTalk, SBI, Goal.com, The Sports Network, SB Nation, SB Nation DC, The AP, and Black and Red United.
Local
Harrisburg City Islanders clinched the final USL PRO playoff spot when they defeated LA Blues on Sunday night, 1–0. Yann Ekra scored the winning goal. Harrisburg, who tied LA 2–2 on Friday night with goals from Bilal Duckett and Lucky Mkosana, will travel to face Charleston Battery on Saturday night. For a look at the complete playoff picture, click here.
St. Joseph’s women’s team kicked off the season with a 2–2 draw after extra time with American University on Sunday.
MLS
The point picked up with the draw against fifth place DC was enough to put the Union into eighth place. In other Eastern Conference action, first place Kansas City defeated last place Toronto, 1–0. Second place New York defeated Portland 3–2. Third place Houston drew 2–2 with seventh place Columbus. Fourth place Chicago defeated ninth place New England, 2–1. Sixth place Montreal defeated San Jose 3–1.
US
The US opened group play at the U-20 Women’s World Cup in Japan with a 4–0 win over Ghana today. Penn State’s Maya Hayes scored a hat trick in the game.
Ticket’s for the USWNT friendly against Costa Rica in Rochester on Sept. 1 will not go on sale to the general public. With some 11,000 tickets already sold through presales, officials at Sahlen’s Stadium are looking to expand capacity. One local report says, “For those who want tickets to the match, the best advice is to get in line early.”
The Huffington Post describes the atmosphere surrounding the Mexico v USA match at the Azteca. Good reading.
The six-year-old case antitrust and racketeering lawsuit brought by the defunct ChampionsWorld LLC against the USSF and Major League Soccer has been rejected by US District Judge Harry D. Leinenweber after he threw out expert testimony supporting ChampionsWorld’s case, “therefore rejecting its antitrust claim and issuing a summary judgment in favor of US Soccer.”
Two other US forwards had a good weekend in Europe with Jozy Altidore recording a brace for AZ Alkmaar and Matt Taylor scoring a hat trick for German third division side Preussen Muenster in a come from behind win over Werder Bremen in German Cup play.
Elsewhere
22 security guards were injured in a match that was eventually abandoned in Tunisia following a pitch invasion. No word on how many spectators may have been injured.
I am not the most learned soccer fan yet, so I have to wonder, can out 4-3-3 be as successful as it could be if we still use Carrol in it. That is – one of those 3 midfield spots is taken up by someone with no offensive skill set at all?
I am not ignoring his contributions to this team, but I wonder if it is hurting us more than helping us to continue playing a 4-3-3 with basically 2 midfielders who can help on offense. I think when push comes to shove in these tough games, we need 3 midfielders who are all equally capable of stepping up and turning the offense back on if it is been snuffed out.
Ideally in a 4-3-3, you have one defensive midfielder and two box-to-box midfielders.
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The defensive midfielder (Carroll in the U’s case) really should not have any offensive responsibilities. You really dont want to see a DMid up field often or at all.
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The two box-to-box midfielders will typically have both offensive and defensive responsibilities and are more in charge of sparking the offense than the DMid (really dont get why people criticize Carroll for his lack of offensive spark because of this).
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Your suggestion that we have 3 mids who push up would create a void at the heart of our defense. Our defense needs a DMid…our offensive impotence stems from a lack of talent (or raw talent, whatever makes you feel better) up front.
Yes I won’t deny we lack a finishing touch right now but I am still really really hesitant to call for a “proven goalscoring DP” like most of everyone else. Because what that really means is “Find some old dude with a half decent goal record in Europe, give him a lot of money and respect, throw him into the starting 11 and hope he actually pays off” without any regard to style or formation or affect on other players.
Do we really want ANOTHER Adu, this time at forward?
I would rather we try to fix this problem by involving all 11 of the players on the field, and working on the TEAM part of offense instead of simply throwing money at the problem.
At this point, we need to let Hackworth build his team before we go revamping it for him. Nowak destroyed a playoff team and put us into the basement of MLS. Hackworth has kept us at 500 while trying to figure out what our weaknesses are. Brian Caroll is not a weakness. NOT EVEN CLOSE. I personnally would have liked to see a more consistent team of Pajoy and MCinerney up top and maybe even move a Farfan or Torres into Adu’s positions, but what I really want is to see what Hackworth can do. A few weeks ago, we were talking about how great it was that we were scoring again. Now with a slight drought and we need a DP? Not for me. We have a DP in ADU and it is not paying off. Lets see if Cruz and Mcinerney build some chemistry. We aint makin the playoffs anyway.
There is never f
There is never for any formation a perfect combination of players. If you are Barcelona, you don’t play with two box to box types because they have Iniesta and Xavi playing as two mids and Busquets as the other. And even if you aren’t Barcelona there is no set formula for three central players. Liverpool in the middle of the decade played with 1 passer (Xabi Alonso), 1 creator (Steven Gerrard), and 1 destroyer (Javier Mascherano). They also didn’t play with 1 DM and 2 box to box mids. It all depends on what players the team has.
Busquets and Mascherano are excellent examples of DMids while Xavi (maybe best ever), Iniesta and Gerrard are all great examples of box-to-box mids.
let us all try to resist the urge to compare our Union with the richest clubs in the world…the only thing Barcelona have in common with Philadelphia is that I can watch both teams on my televi…wait! I can’t! DAMN YOU beIN SPORT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This team is so immature and young as it is, removing the one leader in Carroll could be catastrophe.
Great read about the Mexico game; thanks for posting!
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Based on yesterday’s performance Clint is crazy of he wants to play for Liverpool; does not look like a team that will qualifiy for the CL; Fulham did.
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Amazing goals abroad over the weekend. Our forwards (and midfielders) should learn a bit from them how to shoot and score from just outside (or just inside) the penalty box.
Also worth mentioning: the MLS is doing their “24 under 24” player list thing again. The union should have some players on that list for sure. Maybe a good idea for a PSP article would be to go through our young players and rate their chance of making that list?
Can you guys please give Geiger a negative rating? Is that possible?
Anything’s possible. It’s our site. 😉
I thought Geiger was quite good yesterday. Took two DC goals off the board and only sent one of our guys off. All in all, that’s a pretty good day for Mr Geiger, from a Philadelphia point of view.
If Ben Olsen wants to know why the match devolved in the last ten minutes, he need look no further than his bathroom mirror. For a coach to embarrass himself and his organization with completely unhinged comments about officiating – well he sets the tone. I don’t put too much stock in the opinion of a man who has created an atmosphere in his organization where his own players provide the spectacle of shoving each other. Professional indeed. Ben Olsen and Kevin Payne have a complete lack of class, respect, and even self-respect. To think that The proud legacy left by Bruce Arena has been brought so low. Olsen and Payne will be in the ear of the league office the whole week calling for Geiger’s suspension when they themselves should be missing a few games.