Unlucky off side rebound gives Titans the game. Inter toil on.
The team spirit is there for all to see.

What a team though, Marc and Julian’s work ahead is cut out for them.

That may be a bit harsh but that’s how I felt yesterday. In case you haven’t figured it out by now…I hate to fucking lose. But I can accept a loss where we played hard and came up short. I can accept losing like we did in the semi-finals last season. We fought our asses off and came up short. This team wasn’t as good as that team but you wouldn’t know by the score line. We dominated this game, lost focus and served it up on a silver platter.

Those of you who are new may not realize this…but those who know me by now know I am going to stop way more PK’s then I am going to let go in. The fact that I did it again yesterday and you all stood at the line while the shooter got the rebound and scored their first goal shows your head wasn’t in it. He may still have gotten it but none of you were near it. You were all taught since you were five…crash the net and clear a rebound.

Goal #2 was on the next play because we hung our heads after dominating the whole game to that point. Their guy just walked through three of us then I did enough to stop his progress but no help came and he had all the time to gather the ball back and put it in. That was a result of not regaining focus after the last play. Way to stay with it guys!

Goal# 3 was the worst. We had too many people up and out of position. By now their whole game was centered on counter attacking and the same guy on my left came down, led the 3 on 2, crossed it to a wide open man in the center who crossed it to the wide open man on my right who shot and…oh wait…I stopped that one too…but most of us were still watching the play so they got the rebound and scored again.

All our time in their half eventually paid off in a nice chip by Saul. Hopefully that earned you more time on the pitch bro.

Goal #4 This was the old Dinamo we don’t give a shit anymore play. Nobody did much to stop their progress, mark a man or clear the ball. So it left a guy with a clear, unchallenged shot from about 7 feet out that a brick wall wouldn’t have stopped. Top corner.

They were a team and we were a bunch of individuals masquerading as a team. Now I am not here to say that we need to run together, stretch together and warm up together or all speak the same foreign language like they do, but we need to play as a team. Realize that what you do on that pitch is not for your own glory but for the good of the team.

If you are a center back. For Gd sakes stop trying to dribble the ball all the way up to the front like you are a midfielder. Then when you lose the ball (which you always do) get the fuck back to the back line faster than the guy with the ball because that is why we are always outnumbered on a counter.

If you are in the back line…get on line with the last man. Too often wing backs are up too much without knowledge of what is behind them…then when they lose the ball somebody from the other team ends up with it.

If you are in the back line…and somebody from the other team happens to have skills and goes around you…don’t foul on purpose to get the ball back…especially in the box. Then attempt to do the same thing a few more times all over the pitch in the same game. That is selfish AND caused the momentum to completely swing the other way.

If we have two center mids….and the other team has the ball, they should probably NOT both be on that side while the middle is wide open…and all mids GET THE FUCK BACK ON DEFENSE.

Can we stop just launching the ball and hope our strikers end up on the end of it and hope they end up with a good shop and hope we score? Take a note from the other team – very patient and once they had possession made the most of it. They all knew their roles and acted accordingly. Pass the damn ball, move into space. Strikers need to play off each other. Check to the ball, lay it to your partner and run into space. Not difficult.

Samir tried to blame himself. Very valiant. Not true. Without that guy we are nowhere..much of the time he was playing D all by himself. I heard talk of the formation being the problem. Um…so a different formation would have changed the team attitude?

Guys I play on Thurs for Spartak…Sat for Red Star…and have played for every other team in this club at one time or another (well…Turbine hasn’t asked yet). This is the team I look forward to playing with. This is the team that is going somewhere. This team will be in the playoffs and will make a showing. Now get your collective heads out of your asses and show up like a damn team. This division is still right there for us and we should win it. I don’t want to hear that we moved up a division so we aren’t going to dominate blah blah blah. Have we played a team we couldn’t beat yet? Continue to beat the teams we have already beaten. Beat the Roma team with that chick and beat these guys next time and it’s all ours. Stop worrying about calls, refs, kicking the shit out of players on the other team and play fucking soccer.

Peter get your ass back to the pitch.

But more on that later….

So it feels like summer officially began yesterday….and with it returned the normal Zenit score line vs inferior competition. We started out kind of lazy. Our stalwart defense anchored by Samir and shored up by Zach and Ryan (with great supplemental help from Sou and Phil later on) was tasked with having to build the attack. Although he again gave a great dribbling exhibition, Olman showed why he was Zenit’s defensive anchor over the past few seasons. The midfield certainly controlled the game but didn’t really hit the boosters until about 20 mins in. The strikers checked in and out and waited patiently for their opportunity.

After several near misses, Yossi finally snuck one in. Saul followed up with another sure fire hit (as nervous as it made Scott). Up 2-0 half way and it seemed like it would be enough as it could’ve been much more.  2 goals later – including Yossi’s PK (was it hard to select yourself for that shot Yossi?) we were comfortably up 4-0.

So, less than 24 hours being in goal for a hotly contested Red Star match I found myself comfortably admiring the weather. It was Sunday and I was wondering if I was flying out that day, was thinking about my NY girl and wondering how to break it off with the LA girl, getting hungry and wondering where I would go for lunch later. Were the Lakers playing later? Then I saw a ball floating in my direction. I thought, “Hey…I should go get that huh?” So I moved towards it. “Should I let it bounce? Nah, I should catch it on the fly. Ok…I’ll it bounce.” Well the ball bounced, hit off me, went over me and one of their very excited guys scored. Sonofabitch! Way to blow a clean sheet moron. All I can say is if we blow this thing by one Goal Against I humbly apologize.

Well…Now I was focused. We scored two more to put it away. They somehow broke through the defense and now that I was alert, gave my salute to the NHL playoffs kick save and proved my worth somewhat. Those of you that know me feel safe I’m sure that no ball will eat me alive like their goal did in a close game.

Alex was dominant in the middle for 90 minutes. Our strikers were havoc up top. Fernando showed why he is so dangerous on the wing. Souh and Olman were tough all game. If you are not mentioned somewhere in here it may be only because I do not know your name yet. We are really coming into our own guys and your goalie will remain awake for 90 mins going forward.

Dinamo Red Star () | 1 – 2 | Playa Rovers

Up 1-0 at the half, Red Star managed a “What was that?” 2nd half and fall to Playa Rovers 2-1. Marc was still stellar in goal.

Dinamo Red Star (Wilson) | 1 – 3 | Angel City

Red Star w/10 men hang in w/league leaders Angel City, fall 3-1 in the end.  Horrible foul, no PK given, would’ve made it very interesting.

Dinamo Red Star (Wilson x2, Browne) | 3 – 1 | Cosmos

Red Star beat Cosmos 3-1 on Sat. Wilson scores 2 & Welcome Back Browne scores 1. Sloppy 2nd half made it more interesting than need be.

Boy this was a weird one…as weird as the turf was, I hate this field…:(

We got one in very quick which was very much anticipated, and as I was talking to our Injured Berlin Wall Samir about how is this a good game for him to recover…boy, didn’t know what’s coming.

Yesterday, for a long period of time we played like 10 individuals. No chemistry, no more than 2 passing we just wanted to score. That is why we were offside, never get a chance to really score and got VERY frustrated.

But, it was a good game for us to learn, as we did. And, once we did, things happened in a more creative way, less offside’s, and opportunities we can convert.

We have a VERY solid defense, and even a better mid field, we MUST work  out our attack from defense to Mid then to our strikers, long balls are good for a field that you can measure it, and ONLY when we are playing together for a while.

We have a lot of talent on this team but yesterday showed that no matter how much of that you have, if you don’t play smart and disciplined- you NOT going to win. Period.

We are going to face stronger teams, that will punish us when we make mistakes like yesterday, so next game we continue from this and not regress.

Unfortunately, no games next week (leagues off) so we meet again 5/1 to continue our new ways!!!

We had a better team and outnumbered them for the first half. They pretty much posed no threat as Souhleil, Olman and Phil held down the back line while Samir cleaned up any mess that came his way. Meanwhile we could not get out of our own way from our midfield to our top line. We either dribbled too much, passed way too much at the back and never started a successful attack. We can blame the refs and the flopping Romans but truth be told we lost the game in the first 30 mins.

Halfway through the first half we found ourselves out of position in the back and we gifted them an own goal. It happens…but can we make sure it doesn’t happen again? My stats and I appreciate it. We finally made some headway at the top…Saul blasted a few shots, Fernando then broke a few ankles but was snuffed on the shot. Lo and behold, He Who Shall Not Be Named (Yossi) found himself in front of the net, one on one with the goal post and missed. It might help to open your eyes next time bro.

Finally we played it out to the wings first. It looked like Glen drove in from the wing, played a nice ball into Scott who placed it perfectly. 1-1. There was no doubt we would cash in a few more and bring this home.

The only thing stopping us would be to lose a player or two. Right?

First their skinny flopping striker with the mop for a head showed up for the 2nd half. She was amazingly brittle and pretty much fell down if she was near any one of us. About 10 mins into the half Saul had the ball in their box and was brought down hard. No call. Not 2 mins later Yossi breathed wrong near mop head, she went down and Yossi got his 2nd yellow. Soon after that Olman hit a long ball into the box and then cursed at his own teammates for not getting on the end of it…and got a yellow. That was bullshit but then Olman said something equally not so nice to the ref who was apparently playing go fish and played the next card…it happened to be red.

Now we were down a player. We held them off for most of the 2nd half. They had a free kick outside the box and I finally got to make a save. It’s always nice to show up and feel a part of things. I got to take down mop head in the box and blame it on her. Unfortunately she got on the end of a one on one again and although I got a chunk of the ball I could not misdirect it and we have our final score.

Dudes….we know better. Every year we have to say the same thing. Do not let the refs or the other team get into our heads. We lost focus and lost the game. Every year we waste an effort just for this reason. Like I said…we were the better team and blew our chances in the first half but gifted them the game in the 2nd. Shut the fuck up and play! That goes for all of us (me included).

We have a lot of new faces. We will gel and the goals will come. Our defense is already strong. But we can’t continue our string of strong seasons and post season appearances if we shoot ourselves in the foot.

Get it together dudes.

Ah, the ignominy. But, they were really up for it after we’d done the double over them in the season.