I screamed in my car last night, driving back from the game. There's not much else you can do after watching 35 shots turn into only two goals. ~3 Zardes open headers. ~3 Driussi point blank misses. A handball and offsides preventing two others. Another penalty that sure looked like a penalty. I'd have to watch the replay to really know if we got jobbed, but I'm not watching that match again. I'm never watching soccer again.
Every other game this year, this team has found a new way to disappoint us. I really wonder how Colorado is going to ruin my night in two weeks.
This loss is squarely on the strong jawline of our handsome coach. His failure to rotate in both legs of this tie caused this downfall. First, to rotate the entire team in the first leg. To play REDES. To play VALENCIA. To play TAREK and LIMA at the back. It was the bench plus Fagundez. This was a game that mattered. He did the same thing against San Antonio last year (picture below to prove I'm a good fan).
Wolff put about as much effort into CCL as I did into the picture at the top of this article. So, like, 4 minutes. When I saw the roster yesterday, I didn't understand. It's been two days and you're trotting out the SAME ELEVEN!?!?!
The lesson he learned from the first match was to start everyone BUT Fagundez? There's a lot of reasons you can point to for why we didn't snag three goals in this one. But one stands out to me. The lack of quality rotation. This squad needed some legs last night. The midfield was GASSED. Gallagher only had enough juice for thirty minutes. ZARDES SHOULD NOT HAVE STARDES! Finlay continues to be a minus on both ends of the pitch.
This team NEEDED rotation last night. A few key rotations and we would have given us the legs to sneak another goal past their BACKUP KEEPER. Start Djeffal with Pereira (and use Wolff as a sub later). Start Fagundez in the Finlay role. Use Gallagher as a sub to bang home the goal. Urriti for Zardes.
We had them were we wanted them, multiple times, and we were just a whisker off, again and again. That's what a team looks like when they've had 2 days rest. That team looked tired, and that's all it took to keep them from missing tens of chances. Blame the refs. Blame the players. I'll blame the skipper today.
Highlights
None. Nothing good happened.