Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Big Win!

A busy week indeed. John covered the Feilhaber signing, an excellent signing indeed. Very excited to have him join the team. He's been one of my favorite players on the national team over the last couple of years. He's going to be a great playmaker in this league, he showed some of it on Saturday and he hasn't even practiced with the team yet.

Revs got a jersey sponsor in United Healthcare. I think the jerseys look really good, I like it. No details were released in regards to the finances involved. It would've been interesting to compare this deal with some of the other deals around MLS.

To Saturday's game, just over 11,000 at the game. Impressive as I though there would be 5,000. We're going to start tracking the attendance numbers for the Revs. MLS daily did it for a while but that site disappeared sometime during last season. We'll have them posted once we put them together.

The game was entertaining, something that can't always be said. Having a healthy squad with the additions of Feilhaber and Lekic certainly helps quite a bit. Lekic actually didn't look very good for most of the game. His touches were off most of the night, he couldn't control the ball at all, but hey, he scored a pretty sweet goal to win it. I'm not worried, give him a few games to get used to his teammates and the rest of the league and I think we're going to have one of the best finishers in the league. Especially if Perovic and Feilhaber can create something out of the midfield.

The coolest thing about the game was that Revs actually played soccer. They didn't just kick the ball forward and run after it, they actually passed the ball, they ran off the ball and got into open space to receive passes, people had their heads up looking to pass. It was awesome! I wasn't the only one to take notice, several people behind me at one point kept saying "The Revs are playing soccer tonight!" It was a pleasure to watch.

Yes, this was only one game, but it does have my hopes up.

Also, since when does Mr. Kennedy (Mr. Anderson nowadays) play in goal for Kansas City?

Every time I saw number 20 (Diop) on Kansas City, I thought it was Chad Johnson, looked just like him.

-Andrew

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Benny Feilhaber

The Revs signed Benny Feilhaber!!!!!!! (One exclamation point denotes one unit of excitement.) I envision a better-than-the-average-MLS passing midfield emerging from this addition.

This is a pleasant surprise; Feilhaber isn't a DP, and it's not a credit to the Revolution's scouting department that they got him. New England had the 3rd waiver priority when he signed for MLS, and Philadelphia and Chivas passed on him. Still, can't wait to see him on the field.

The Revs gave out 2 free tickets to this weekend's game to each season ticket holder. The 7 thousand fans two weekends ago must have scared them into action. I hope all the free tickets are used.

-John

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Season tickets bonus games

We now know that neither the Revolution-Manchester United game nor the USA-Spain game will be included in our season ticket packages. They always include three or so bonus games in addition to the 15 Revolution MLS games. Your season ticket rep will sell this fact to you when selling you the actual season tickets. He may also play up the fact that a Brazil friendly was included one year, and you could end up getting to see some really good games effectively free.

When we found out about these two big games at Gillette this season, I didn't expect both to be given to me, but one would have been nice. They wouldn't lose a fortune on it-- it's not like there are 30,000 season ticket holders here. What do you think this is, Seattle?

We got a slight discount on the Man United tickets. This time it doesn't look like we got any discount at all. There's a presale for season ticket holders; it started at 9am today, and I got the email telling me so at 8:54. The window ends at 8am. That's 11 hours. If you're like me, and can't access email at work, you may have just found out about this tonight. That's not much time to get your plans together, you know? Turns out Patriots season ticket holders also were given access to the presale to this game; their window started at noon and ends with ours.

I don't want to have it on my conscience that I've paid Bob Kraft for this game after the way he's treated the Revolution season ticket holders. However, I really should go. I want to. I'm not sure whether I will, but the way we've been treated is noteworthy to me regardless, and it's interesting that Kraft didn't think it was worth it to offer one of these games to his team's most important supporters. There are precious few of us left.

Support is a two-way street.

John

Revs Fall to Houston

Revs lost in Houston for the first time. Houston pretty much dominated the game especially in the second half. They really kept the pressure on the Revs defense and it was only a matter of time before they scored.

To me that looked like a goal. The actual goal wasn't a goal, it was a foul and then a hand ball.

The Revs really couldn't get anything going and barely had any possession in the second half. They had a couple of counter attacks that looked good and that was it. Houston won the game, which was certainly the fair result.

Hopefully Domi is healthy for this weekend's game, along with Joseph's return from his suspension that would really help.

Here's what my ideal line up for this weekend's game would look like assuming a roster that is 100% healthy.

Reis
Domi Barnes Soares Alston

Sousa Joseph Perovic Boggs
Schilawski Lekic

I'd like to see Joseph as the defensive midfielder and Perovic play as an attacking mid and basically be the number 10 of the team. After talking to someone who saw Sousa play in the preseason I'm confident that he could do a good job in there. Besides, our other options aren't exactly amazing so why not give him a shot.

Anyways, I'd like to see this line up. We're not going to see it but it'd be cool.

-Andrew

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Mike Videira

I didn't get a chance to enjoy the game last night. So no thoughts from me in regards to that.

In a brighter note (not too many of those these days) Mike Videira signed a deal with Chicago and has been starting as of late. I'm really glad to see that. I always thought he had the potential to be a very good player in this league. He never got a chance here in New England. I hope he can prove New England wrong for not keeping him around. He's started 3 games so far this year and has one assist. I still don't know how he wasn't given a chance last year given all the injuries and the poor play. Sometimes I just don't know.

-Andrew

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Revs draw, embarassing crowd

The most disapointing thing about tonight's game, the crowd of 7,114. While the rest of the league continues to see gains in attendance we continue to see a decline. Really, it doesn't come as a huge surprise. The product on the field is average at best, most people don't want to go to Gillete, and DP's are promised and then not delivered. It's just very frustrating to see the league grow and see the Revs decline. Really, 7,000 people. It's embarrassing.

Onto the game, the Revs played a decent game. A 1-1 draw seems like a fair result given the performance by both teams. I was actually very surprised with Portland. I didn't really expect anything out of them. Kenny Cooper had a solid game, but I feel like he should be playing more in the middle of the field. He had to get to the wings to get the ball and he's more effective when he's in front of goal.

Domi played a very solid game. Nothing spectacular, but he didn't make mistakes in the back and he plays with composure. He actually tries to distribute the ball rather than just kick it down field. I'd like to see him attack a bit more, but overall I was very happy with his performance and he looks like a good signing.

My biggest complaint about tonight would be the off the ball movement when the Revs are attacking. It's non existent. When someone has the ball in the attacking third and tries to do something they have no help. There's nobody making a run to get into space and receive a pass. They all seem to be watching the guy with the ball, waiting for him to do something, rather than get into position to get the ball and make something happen. It's very frustrating to watch.

Nyassi was very irritating. It seems like every time he gets the ball and he puts his head down and charges down field like a ram never looking to pass the ball to anyone. It's ridiculous. Keep your head up and look for someone. I don't see what other people see in him. He's got some skill but not much soccer IQ. People keep saying "he's young, he's going to be so good once he develops." He's 22, he's not young in soccer terms. Nyassi is Nyassi, he's not going to get much better than what he is now. Perhaps with another coach he could improve, but I don't think the coaching situation is going to be changing here anytime soon. So expect to see more of the same.

That's my rant for tonight.

Oh, one more thing, Gringo Bandito is highly addictive.

-Andrew

Saturday, April 2, 2011

I'm back, I think

Hey! I'm back from my temporary hiatus. So expect this thing to be updated more often going forward similar to how it was last year.

Seth Sinovic was waived. I liked him. Not the most talented player in the world but a hard worker when he was on the field. I always have a bias for those players who just work extremely hard for 90 minutes. It was getting a bit crowded though with Domi, Cochrane, and Coria. I was surprised at first but when I look at it again I'm not too surprised.

In some non Revs related news Toronto FC traded away De Rosario. It's a great move for the Red Bulls as long as De Rosario is happy, as he hadn't been in a good mood over at Toronto for quite some time now. The Red Bulls are going to be an exciting team to watch this year.

Timbers tonight. Should be a good one. Hopefully we don't get any more snow as I am ready for the spring and summer.

-Andrew