Arnaud should not be captain of the Wizard’s or any other football team. He is a reckless, stupid, hot head who has no business being in a position of leadership in any professional or amateur capacity. 3 red cards so far this season? And today’s was beyond stupid. The sad thing is nobody is surprised by this anymore.
Teal Bunbury should be given starts over Josh Wolff. I’m not going to bash Wolff, lets just say at his age he has about as much to offer in the future as woolen socks and pig skin balls. Lets face it, this season is over. Let Bunbury get the starts, learn the game, score some goals and start 2011 stronger than he is now.
Craig Rocastle. Off to a shaky start but he had a decent game tonight against the Red Bulls and that is not something you can say about the majority of the rest of the squad. He is physical, but tonight he showed control and restraint and actually was quite productive with the ball. I appreciate this might be blasphemous, but given time to get used to the finickity refereeing in MLS I think Craig Rocastle can be more productive as a defense, holding midfielder than Stephane Auvrey who I like but who also has a nasty knack of giving up possession at key moments. Can Rocastle tame himself? He appeared to do very well tonight and I’d like to see him out there more.
Our defense is a complete fail. It is not necessarily the personnel but the system that leaves them exposed, and in doing so exposes their weaknesses. Jimmy Nielsen has proven himself to make mistakes, Conrad has lost a step. Escobar should be put on a boat and sent back to wherever the hell he came from in Columbia. We really need a solid central defender.
Espinoza has been great … kind of. I keep hearing that anyway but the reality for me is that he is merely and above average player in a pretty weak squad. His switch to defense has helped him, in that it has gotten him into the squad and his defensive play has been decent however his link up play and his ability to get caught out of position up field, or to fail to get up field when its needed undermines the already weak 4-3-3 hybrid formation we are playing.
Free kicks …. largely horrible. At least with Escobar out of the team we have stopped hitting the corner flags from 45 yards.
Goals. We do not score nearly enough of them. Blame Wolff, the formation, bad luck, the wicked witch of the west, my left nut or the ghost of Patrick Swayze. Take your pick. We don’t create chances in the penalty area, we have a target man he is about as dynamic in the air as a step ladder and no invention. The forwards are a problem, but we also lack any form of guile and creativity through the center.
Zoltán Hercegfalvi – we sure could use him now. Does anybody have news on how his recovery is going and estimates on when he will resume his career playing for the Wizards against college kids again?
Indian Sunil Chhetri should also be given a start or two. I don’t believe he is ready, but hell as I have said the season is over, lets see what the kid has got. We are not scoring goals now anyway so if he fails to find the back of the net we have lost nothing. If he fails the Indian fans might stop blathering on about him not being selected, and if he succeeds we might have something we currently do not possess. A striker.
Jack Jewsbury. Ever reliable, ever solid. In many respects the best player on the team so far this season, at least the most consistent.
Kei Kamara has come on a bit from last season and thank god we have him. Without him and his goals we would actually be a complete laughing stock now instead of a marginally snicker worthy rag tag group of wanderers and journeymen. Peter Vermes’ dirty dozen would be anchored to the bottom of the table without Kamara yet he frustrates the living hell out of me with his sloppy crossing, and his unwillingness to look before he passes. He could be such a better player if he just worked out some of these kinks, and if he used his ample pace to stretch defenses with quality runs off the ball rather than plodding around. All in all I am glad he is here, but I feel at a decent MLS side he is a substitute rather than a starter.
Losing games is one thing, but it appears more so than ever that we have a culture of losing at the Wizards which needs to be addressed. I am tired of reading Kei Kamara talking about putting the latest defeat behind us and moving on. That might be appropriate for Bruce Arena to say if his team lost a game now before continuing to run away with the MLS Support Shield but its starting to sound like a mantra.
Chance Myers. Not that exciting after all….
Using your face to make saves is rather epic however Jimmy Nielsen in my mind has been little upgrade over Kevin Hartman. I say this with caution as I like Jimmy, it is hard not to however he is starting to show the flaws Wizard’s fans were warned about by Danish fans and it has cost us a few goals of late. People might point to Kevin Hartman’s horrible performances so far this year but that is a pretty weak comparison on a small body of work akin to looking at Wayne Rooney looking like absolute shit so far in the World Cup and writing him off as a bad player. I’m not saying Nielsen was a mistake, but I am saying I’m not sold on him being this superstar goalkeeper.
Onalfo was practically run out of town on a rail after a dismal run during the summer months last year culminated in a 6-0 defeat to Dallas in Dallas. At current the 2010 Wizards team has a worse record than Onalfo’s 2010 team.
Pablo Escobar. Epic Fail.
Quitters. The performance tonight, had no heart, no courage and simply smacked of going through the motions. If you endured the tail end of last season when it was obvious we had no chance of making the playoffs you should have noticed the similarities as we bent over for New York and handed them the Astroglide.
Ryan Smith has been good. I know people think he is lazy, I don’t. I just think running all over the place with little purpose just makes you a fool if nothing is on. Static forwards, no runs, no overlapping — nothing in this side is geared to work well with wingers, especially as Wolff can’t win a ball in the air to save his life and neither can Kamara. He needs the team to have another credible threat to get him out of double and triple coverage.
Santiago Hirsig. Forgotten Man. Guess while Auvrey is out I am surprised that he isn’t on the bench in case Rocastle or Jewsbury are injured. Hirsig the next roster cut for KC? No point paying the man to play the Brass.
The Kansas City Soccer Stadium …. anybody really up for paying more to see the Wizards play this badly next season than we do now? Things need to change if the stadium is to be filled. Infuriating as this is, what really pisses me off is that the Wizards had a prime opportunity to radically expand the fan base this season. With the World Cup, the Stadium Construction, and the Royals and Chiefs looking like a couple of special ed teams the Wizards had an opportunity to provide a winning alternative in a town so starved for success that people are buying season tickets to watch a pissant minor league hockey team that has a hint of being able to compete about them. Instead if you watched USA vs Ghana today, and then flicked the TV over to channel 12 later in the day because you were in the mood for a bit more of the beautiful game … you’d probably never watch MLS let alone the Wizards again.
Unexciting. Under-performing. Unimpressive. Unimaginative. The perfect words to sum up the last X Wizards games. Things have been so completely dull and disappointing … the second half of the recent Union game was about the most bored I have ever been at a sporting event. I hate to say it but its a good thing for MLS that the Wizards are only on national TV three times a year. I am sure KCWE viewing figures are sliding ….. they have to be.
Peter Vermes. Technical Director. Coach. The guy that re-invented our squad. The only man pulling the strings. He should be fired. Maybe no now, but ultimately if things do not improve by seasons end he needs to go.
World Cup Watch Parties. Kudos front office, you did good. 2014 is but four years away — start planning now so you can … advertise … and promote this next time. 12,000 people turned out for today’s USA game which was marvelous, but there could have been so many more for so many of the other games.
X&Y : It looks like we are back at Square One. What If we get Robb Heineman to sing Fix You softly to the team or at least Talk and send A Message to Peter Vermes about expectations and quality. It seems like it will take Til Kingdom Come to sort this team out. The Hardest Part is that the team was built around running at the Speed of Sound and keeping the ball Low and none of these things seem to happen. Twisted Logic says that they should improve as the season moves onward but any hope I have for this year seems to have been Swallowed in the Sea. Now you know that I like Coldplay and am therefor quite gay.
Zusi needs more starts. Whenever he has been on the field he has looked impressive. He is every bit as industrious as Davy Arnaud without the very obvious downside of being a petulant, undisciplined ass hat. We look better with him on the field and he makes things happen.
First off, the “Goals” paragraph made me laugh. Sorry, but that was just plain funny. Sad, true, but funny.
Secondly, I think you were spot on with almost (if not) all of your comments. This team needs to make some tough cuts, shore up the defense (above all else), and get people forward/scoring on runs. It seems similar with the USMNT. We’ll get someone booking up the wing and when they go to cross it in, we have two guys in the box surrounded by six defenders, and our next closest player is at midfield – and that’s not even on a counterattack.
I mentioned to a friend that the Wizards’ need to sell/trade some combination of two or more of the following: Arnaud, Wolff, Conrad, and Jewsbury. I think these are decent enough players. Hell, I like Jewsbury and Conrad. However, I would argue that, logically, if you make changes and it doesn’t fix the problem, then you didn’t make the right changes. We’ve repositioned or replaced almost everyone else on the team except these four. Sometimes you have to make decisions you don’t like.
I’ve noticed with football (soccer), 100 different people will have 100 different opinions about a league, a team, or a player. Getting a common consensus is like trying to trying to get a loan from a leprechaun or go snogging with sasquatch: it ain’t going to happen. That being said, you know the there is something wrong and that the Wizards’ are in trouble when every blog and comment I read is in agreement about the teams deficiencies and woes. Something has to change.
Comment by Moop — June 27, 2010 @ 10:54 am
By the way, sorry for the lengthy comment. Again, really good article/blog.
Comment by Moop — June 27, 2010 @ 10:55 am
Great piece. What is funny is how quickly we went from MLS Cup contenders by beating DC United to nothing and how quickly we blamed Onalfo for our failings when the man behind the scenes was Vermes. Vermes blew up a team he helped put together and brought a new one which with a few exceptions has been another failure. I’d like to know when the FO will grow a pair and send him back to little league soccer.
By the way, let’s not forget that Mr. Vermes is who kept Josh Wolff and got rid of Hercules Gomez (top scorer in the Mexican League) and Adam Cristman (a 25 yr old striker with 2 goals and 1 assist for a dismal DC team vs Wolff’s 1 and 1 in twice as much time (900+ min vs 450+min)). I’m not saying they would have done better with us but it comes to show that the man CANNOT evaluate talent.
Comment by Roger — June 28, 2010 @ 1:19 pm
@Moop — appreciate the long comment – its actually quite a compliment to think anybody would take time out to write something longer than 3 lines in my comments section.
“That being said, you know the there is something wrong and that the Wizards’ are in trouble when every blog and comment I read is in agreement about the teams deficiencies and woes. Something has to change.”
I think what is sad is that I do not think most of the bloggers want to actually write this stuff, we are fans – we want to promote the team and say happy things. We have chatted about the suffering Wizards casually on and off for weeks but somehow this week seemed to be the straw that broke us.
I know Mike over at downthebyline.com – which I assume you also have read, I can’t imagine he could have been anymore let down after the game than he was.
@Roger – Gomez is a bummer isn’t it? Funny thing is when he left I thought “good riddance” myself. Its one of those hindsight is 20/20 situations we can all kick ourselves about but I am not sure anybody really saw his season in Mexico coming. One thing for sure — Vermes has blown up the team, he owns this mess right now. All of it. Talent eval … Chhetri has worked out awesomely. Kostrov … waived. Escobar … complete shit.
Comment by James Starritt — June 28, 2010 @ 9:09 pm
I’m in agreement with both of you. One of my friends and I get in these discussions after every game about what we do and don’t like. We try to stay positive. We point our the places where the Wizards seem to lack, but follow it up with a encouraging comment about someone’s play or that the next game they can work the kinks out. I think the series of losses and missed opportunities is wearing on everyone and forcing fans to be more vocal about the real issues the team has. I just wish the coaching staff and front office would do the same. It’s more there money on the line than ours.
I never like being a Monday morning quarterback (sorry for the American football reference), but I have to say I always liked Gomez. I thought he had hustle. He just had an off year in 2009.
As for Cristman, he didn’t have a huge impact in K.C., but I’m not sure how much people should fault him for that. It was really his first year back from a lengthy injury.
In both cases, it seems like one off year meant their curtain call with the Wizards. It makes me wonder why players like Arnaud and Wolff are still here. Arnaud has been touted at the beginning of the last two seasons as our big hope, but hasn’t produced like it. Wolff had the most goals last year, but for a team with the third lowest point total in the league, that’s not brag-worthy.
I’ll shut my yap now. I really appreciate blogs like this, DownTheByline.com, and BackPost.net. It’s refreshing to see intelligent, honest commentary from Wizards’ supporters as opposed to the lack of coverage from most news outlets or the overly-biased, uneducated opinions I find on soccer forums.
Comment by Moop — June 29, 2010 @ 12:23 am
New fan of KC Wizards because of Sunil Chhetri.
Comment by Dilip Madappa — June 30, 2010 @ 7:32 am
Dear James,
When do you think that Sunil Chhetri will be given an oppurtunity to come on the bench or maybe play in the starting line up?
How many more days or months we need to wait to see him play?
Comment by Dilip Madappa — June 30, 2010 @ 7:34 am
Sunil Chhetri — I dunno Dilip, I really don’t. The bottomo line though is this team is neither scoring goals or making chances. I think Chhetri might struggle to score given the latter, but I do believe with some decent service he can find the back of the net. He has enough natural talent to do so.
I don’t expect we will see him for another month or two. Once the coaches are ready to give up one the season he will get his shot. Frustrating in a way because it will be to late if it works out.
I am unhappy that he hasn’t made the bench yet, its not like our second string is brimming with talent.
Comment by James Starritt — June 30, 2010 @ 7:41 am
Welcome back James. Since you said I get to pick, I choose to blame Patrick Swayze’s ghost. Espinoza gets a little hype because like you said, he’s a decent player on a below average team, but LB has always been a problem for us, and I think he’s better than most we’ve had around here for awhile.
Comment by szazzy — July 5, 2010 @ 2:34 pm