The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly — Columbus Crew 2 – 0 Toronto FC
Another L = LMAO. LMFAO. LOL.
“Rock bottom” is a myth, because we all know that UNDER those jagged rocks is a layer of muddy sediment under pressure. Are we there yet?
This club, man. What a ride.
THE GOOD
Cassius Mailula. Kid’s RAPID and looks electric out there. Already feel bad for him… Seeing Rudy Camacho on the C-Bus starting lineup (in his debut, no less) gave me a sly smile; he’s usually good for a massive error that leads to a good chance for us, maybe even one of those own goal thingamajigs, alas… MB4 at CB; made some good clearances and was generally our best central defender out there, which is so weird because we’ve done this before. We’ve done this a lot:
Darlington Nagbe. What a player. Love watching him cook. Diego Rossi, this week’s example to the Reds that you. play. to. the. whistle. and stop. giving. up. on. plays.
Wilfred Nancy is a superb coach, so yes, they do exist… Terry Dunfield is really leaning into his “hoodie-man” persona… At least the toxic sludge in the sub-basement that is all that remains of our brief run as an actual soccer club allows us to generate tweets like this one:
MB4, Mr. 300:
THE BAD
Oso’s disappearing act… Comical regression in skills and soccer smarts from the entire team… Not that I’m complaining, but what happened to Raoul Petretta and Sigurd Rosted?… LOL, add another new striker to the pile of “What/Where/How/Ahahahahahaha”… More backroom drama and no, it’s not a giant conspiracy by the Athletic to destroy us, we do it to ourselves, we do, and that’s what really hurts… MB4 at CB was EASILY our best central defender, and had the best engine on the pitch, which is beyond hilarious. The man just returned from a long injury and he has more in the tank?… Tomás Romero isn’t the guy. Not even close… Sure, we generated some good looks but with finishing like that, does it matter?…
Complete, utter, hopelessness:
The DPs refusing to even try to play with anyone else…The team selection, game plan, and substitutions. Bring VV on but take Lorenzo off? OK, boss.
THE UGLY
Breaking all the wrong records:
TFC cast-off scores the dagger; becoming commonplace. Come on down, Jacen Russell-Rowe, you’re the next contestant on “Pain and Regret”:
Wooden Spoon, HERE WE COME:
How does the lion’s share of this club’s staff still have a job? This is WOEFUL. The “Energy Kit” is cursed, y’all:
This exchange from the WTR/CSD Slack chat:
JPN: “This Roster is so badly constructed AND Injured”
ANON: “This Roster is so badly constructed AND Injured – Bob Bradley’s legacy”
“MB4 at CB was EASILY our best defender, and had the best engine on the pitch” ??? Jeffery serious question, did you even watch the game? Michael backs off on the first goal and turns instead of getting between the attacker and our goal and on the second goal is no where to be seen as the man he should be marking is alone on our keeper. WHO SCORED website had Bradley rated #9 of our 11 starters last night, Bradley was easily our best defender? C’mon man knock it off with this Bradley lovefest, the guy is stick a fork in him done.
You’re right. He was our best CENTRAL defender. I’ll adjust accordingly.
Kobe Franklin was our best defender on the night.
Disagree: It’s easy to be a Right Back that doesn’t like to get forward, and have errant passes cleaned up by more experienced Mids.
Kobe made some great tackles to put out fires and I thought he got the ball to the mids on the buildup/counter regularly if unspectacularly.
Good: [this response is left intentionally blank]
Bad: yet more losing.
Ugly: that ridiculous and humiliating 2nd goal
Not sure if it belongs in the Bad or Ugly but that miss from Insigne was horrible. Great back pass from Federico… no pressure on you.. in front on the net.. and you hit the post..
While I appreciate that Lorenzo is a great player, I am not sure he has the mental strength for this TFC challenge.
Lukots Have you ever seen a player fire a ball over or wide of the net on a penalty shot?? Insigne doesn’t have the mental strength for this challenge!! Hahaha Do you think the pressure in MLS is greater than Serie A or A European Championship ? Geez the takes on this site never disappoint HahahA
I think what Lukots may be implying is that on TFC Insigne is the top player, highest paid on the team and expected to do it all. But at Napoli or on the National team, he is not that big fish expected to do it all. Hence the pressure to be something he has not had to be in the past.
Yes he was captain for Napoli, but was he their best player? Was he their highest paid player and did he lead them to a championship as a captain.
He’s a very talented player and everyone misses, but that miss speaks of the season we are having (we cannot blame the players he’s playing with on that one).
Romero isn’t the answer but he didn’t play badly enough for the “bad” in a TFC context. He had over 2 dozen shots at him and they scored 2 from field errors.
I see the horror in this trio of TFC seasons. But not every player trying to step up has to be pointed at as a failure when so much is wrong above them in power or pedigree.
Overall Romero had a very decent game! Not sure if Jeff even watches these games before he comments on this site
I would not go above “decent”.
That’s the second game in a row where he coughed up a rebound that got pounced on for an easy goal. For sure not 100% on him ( see my notes about playing to the whistle) but it’s got to be a concern moving forward.
His distribution leaves much to be desired. Sure, he didn’t do another weak clearance right up the gut that was easily intercepted and led to a goal, but he’s still very shaky there.
I’m unconvinced he’s vocal enough to help our woeful defense. This could be down to the fact that he’s trying so hard to protect the net that he’s myopic but we need a leader at the back and so far I’m just not seeing it.
End of the day – what made SJ a better fit was his communication and that little bit of extra skill that allowed the team to relax a bit because he was there. TR – so far – doesn’t instill that same confidence.
Do I think he can’t ever get there? Absolutely! He’s our number 1 now so he’s getting the reps to prove me wrong. I just haven’t seen it yet.
Romero was TFC’s top rated player on the WHO SCORED website Saturday night! but that’s just a world renowned Soccer analytics web site, so never mind we will just trust the WTR boys
While I agree I think it’s unfair to keep bringing up the overall state of this squad as a catch-all to what ails us. That’s a given now. We all know this team is broken.
My position on TM’s performance stands. Allowing for the woeful team, he still didn’t show near enough to not be mentioned. I sure AF wouldn’t put it in the “UGLY” column, just as soon as I’d be remiss to tag it as “GOOD”.
But I hear you.
I think the key phrase here is “this team is broken”.
Right now almost everybody has given up and are forced to play on the pitch when they simply don’t want to be there. The only player I saw smile was Cassius other then that every other players body language is to end the season now.
I think Romero picked up his game from the previous game against Montreal, but he’s not a capable MLS starter. His distribution is worse them Bono’s.
I still don’t understand why we are not playing VV with Insigne and Fede when our offence is the biggest weakness of this team. Not sure what Dunfields agenda is. If we had midfield of Ibarra, Vazquez, Osorio starting with Insigne and Fede on the wings and one of the new youngsters playing as a striker we just might score a couple of goals. But we need to get VV out there for his distribution skills.