I can't remember a longer weekend, and I don't mean that in a good way. From Friday's late, late night with the Galaxy-Houston power outage-filled Western Conference Final to Sunday and a terrible trip to the local NFL stadium, I think I could use seventy-two hours of recuperation.
Instead, I'm fighting through a foggy Monday morning. Despite the fog, I wanted to share a few thoughts:
The phrase "hard done by" seems about right for the Dynamo.
If it wasn't for momentum-stealing power outages and a disallowed goal, the Houston Dynamo would be your 2009 Western Conference Champion. The foul called on Landin on Andrew Hainault's goal-that-wasn't didn't appear too egregious when I saw it live on Friday night; the problem is that I haven't seen a replay since, so I can't definitely state that it was or wasn't the right call. Still, Dynamo fans weren't too happy, and I can't really blame them. It's the type of controversial call made all the time (maybe not the specific instance, but judgement calls like that change matches regularly; it's a part of the game), but that doesn't make it any easier to swallow. I'm just happy to see that the conspiracy crowd isn't as vociferous today.
The US isn't as good without Donovan.
Duh. As much as I would love for the Americans to have another player of Donovan's creative quality, it just isn't the case right now. It's why I don't put much stock in the shutout loss to Slovakia on Saturday, even as I recognize that it was far from a good performance. The US controlled much of the match, and while the ability to create goal scoring opportunities was almost non-existent, I find it difficult to be overly upset. Without Donovan, and with Casey paired with Altidore, the US had little to no speed on Saturday; with the system built to take advantage of speed that is normally there, the team just couldn't adjust. Again, while it would be nice to have players capable of playing more slow buildup in light of those missing elements, I'm not upset that it didn't happen with that team that was out there. Besides, the defense played fairly well, and Spector's play in the middle of defense was a highlight.
Taking your penalty kick low and to Rimando's left is probably a bad idea.
On three different occasions when Fire players took their spot kicks in that general directions, Nick Rimando made the save. After the first (or second), wouldn't it dawn on the Fire to go somewhere else? Speaking of bad penalties, what was Espindola doing? I suppose I'll never in my life feel the amount of relief that the Argentine did after Ned Grabavoy put in the RSL winner.
Back later. I hope.
