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the good, the bad, and the ugly
Jun. 5th, 2010 10:32 pmthe good: the weather improved over the evening. Still beastly muggy, bit cooler and, down by the river, something of a breeze. Also, they've finally opened up the last of the parking lot exits and with the finished resurfacing of Lot 8, the parking at RFK is worth close to half of what they charge for it (earlier in the season it seemed like *we* should be getting paid to park there).
the bad: well, you can guess at the result, given that I'm enthusing about the car park. I simply couldn't believe what a lacklustre effort the team put out in the second half. What was striking was that Real Salt Lake was not doing much better. Their decent players, #11 and #7 were quite energetic and dangerous, but they couldn't carry the rest of the team.
the ugly: there's just no other word for our offense. The defense seems to have found some semblance of balance, which may have something to do with Dejan Jackovich returning to center back to pair with the capable but elderly Pena. Najar looked exciting on the wing in the first half, and Alsopp appeared to be making an effort. Even the normally invisible Stephen King (a bit of a horror story, it's true) took one good, solid shot from inside the 18 straight at the net, perhaps the first such shot I've seen in 2-3 years. But he promptly disappeared into the background for the remainder of the match, and players who were supposed to be dynamic, like Chris Pontius and Tino Quaranta, looked as in effective, arthritic, and unimaginative as the thankfully absent Jaime Moreno on his worst day.
Contrary to Steven Goff's prediction, United has not found the combination to the padlock on the points locker. Instead, they put on a rather embarrassing second-half display of ball watching and slow, unattractive soccer, backstopped only by a somewhat revitalised Troy Perkins. Yuck!
the bad: well, you can guess at the result, given that I'm enthusing about the car park. I simply couldn't believe what a lacklustre effort the team put out in the second half. What was striking was that Real Salt Lake was not doing much better. Their decent players, #11 and #7 were quite energetic and dangerous, but they couldn't carry the rest of the team.
the ugly: there's just no other word for our offense. The defense seems to have found some semblance of balance, which may have something to do with Dejan Jackovich returning to center back to pair with the capable but elderly Pena. Najar looked exciting on the wing in the first half, and Alsopp appeared to be making an effort. Even the normally invisible Stephen King (a bit of a horror story, it's true) took one good, solid shot from inside the 18 straight at the net, perhaps the first such shot I've seen in 2-3 years. But he promptly disappeared into the background for the remainder of the match, and players who were supposed to be dynamic, like Chris Pontius and Tino Quaranta, looked as in effective, arthritic, and unimaginative as the thankfully absent Jaime Moreno on his worst day.
Contrary to Steven Goff's prediction, United has not found the combination to the padlock on the points locker. Instead, they put on a rather embarrassing second-half display of ball watching and slow, unattractive soccer, backstopped only by a somewhat revitalised Troy Perkins. Yuck!
