Monday, July 4, 2011

"Kill The Game"

In Jeff Lemieux's RSL preview piece on Revolutionsoccer.net, he says the Revs will try to "kill the game" in Salt Lake this weekend. Notice I used the word "will" instead of "should"; this is not an opinion piece. It's a beat-writer-type of article. The kill-the-game attitude comes from Nicol. Here's an excerpt:

"'The game was dead,' said head coach Steve Nicol. 'It was ideal for us. It's exactly what we spoke about before the game. Try to kill the crowd, try to take the heat out of the game and that's exactly what we did until the free kick that was given against us (which led to Seattle's first goal).'"

Why is a professional team's ideal game "dead" and ambition-less? I could take this as unimaginative coach-speak, but it's actually very descriptive of their style.

Later in the piece, Nicol says of the upcoming RSL game: "It's a bit of the same as we did at the weekend...we want to go there and kill the crowd, kill the game, try and get ourselves ahead again and this time hopefully things will go with us and we'll stay that way." It seems that Nicol can find a different reason to kill every game he's involved in, as long as he's not facing a team of eleven cones. His attitude toward offensive production is actually funny: the Revs will "try and get [them]selves ahead," and "hopefully things will go with [them]" as if they are powerless to affect their scoring production, and need to just "hope" they get lucky every week.

Again, I could choose to read this as if it's typically vague coach-speak, but I know better, because the team really plays just like this. When RSL came to Gillette, they played their B team because they were resting some of their best players for the Champions League final. RSL still won 2-0. This time it could be uglier. But hey-- maybe "things will go with us."

-John

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