{"id":26683,"date":"2014-07-18T10:01:06","date_gmt":"2014-07-18T14:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=26683"},"modified":"2014-07-18T10:01:06","modified_gmt":"2014-07-18T14:01:06","slug":"technically-speaking-lavne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=26683","title":{"rendered":"Technically Speaking: #LAvNE"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

Photo credit: Chris Aduama\/aduamaphotography.com<\/p><\/div>\n

The Galaxy cleanly beat the Revs, 5 to 1, in a game where two Galaxy players \u2013 Gyasi Zardes and Robbie Keane \u2013 were simply playing at a higher level than he rest of the players on the field. The fact that they each scored two goals, with Keane assisting brilliantly on both of Zardes\u2019 goals, is the most obvious indicator.<\/p>\n

But other indicators are how extremely well they played together as a striker tandem (I\u2019d match them against any other in the league), and how neatly their skill sets complement each other: Keane the seasoned and savvy veteran, Zardes the young, super fast, strong runner who creates havoc all over the field. What they have in common is a soccer sense of a very high order.<\/p>\n

From an offensive standpoint, the Revs didn\u2019t do much in this game, getting no shots on goal in the flow of play. This isn\u2019t to say, however, that they did not create a few good scoring chances. The one that led to their single\u00a0score was Diego Fagundez\u2019s perfect cross in the 36th minute to Teal Bunbury, who was then fouled in the penalty box, resulting in a red card for Los Angeles\u00a0and Lee Nguyen\u2019s successful penalty shot. Before that, set pieces in the 8th and 12th minutes had also caused prime scoring opportunities.<\/p>\n

The main reason for the Revs\u2019 defeat was – you guessed it – the play of the defense. I indict all\u00a0five defenders\u00a0– yes, five – because A.J. Soares\u00a0was\u00a0as much a midfielder on Wednesday\u00a0as Bobby Shuttleworth was.\u00a0\u00a0Soares\u00a0was guilty of fouling stupidly in his offensive half and getting red carded in the 29th minute.\u00a0But Darrius Barnes, Andrew Farrell, Jose Goncalves, and Chris Tierney are all\u00a0culpable\u00a0as well because they didn\u2019t appear to appreciate or even understand the principles of basic man-to-man defense and tracking during Wednesday’s game.<\/p>\n

The whole team must have known in advance that they were up against some good players and a hot Galaxy team. A player of Keane\u2019s experience and ability must be closely watched when he gets 30 or 35 yards away from the goal.<\/p>\n

On\u00a0his first goal, even when he got to within about 23 yards from the goal, Barnes was marking him so loosely that it appeared he wasn\u2019t marking him at all. As he dribbled toward the middle of the field, Keane appeared oblivious of Barnes\u2019s presence \u2013 he certainly was under no pressure. The same thing happened in the 48th minute before Zardes\u2019 second goal, but in that instance Barnes should have had support from a teammate.<\/p>\n

But Barnes wasn’t the only Revolution defender who had a forgettable game. Farrell made a very serious mistake, definitely more mental than physical (given his speed), when he missed a slide tackle on Zardes that nearly resulted in the second Galaxy goal in the 15th minute.<\/p>\n

Then there was Goncalves\u2019s sloppy marking \u2013 and fouling \u2013 of Ishizaki in the 18th minute resulted in Zardez\u2019s first goal, when the onfield ref played the advantage rule. Goncalves stopped playing (bad idea, until the whistle is blown), Ishizaki kept on, and the Galaxy scored.<\/p>\n

Lastly, Tierney simply did not track Zardes in the 48th minute when he (Zardes) ran diagonally across the goal to receive a neat pass from Keane to score. This should not have been a difficult task to follow through on for a top-flight soccer player.<\/p>\n

Overall, the Revs seem to lack a sense of urgency and team organization on defense. Result? Lots of goals for the opposition.<\/p>\n

Dallas will be a challenge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our resident coach and former pro Rick Sewall gives his take on Wednesday’s punishing 5-1 Revolution loss to the Galaxy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":26684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/JoGo1.png?fit=490%2C259&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26683"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26683"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26686,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26683\/revisions\/26686"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}