Post-match: Trill Rivals: A Battle for A Cup - Crew v Toronto FC - Match 20 - 7/6/24 7:30 PM

Here's a little fun fact: Christian Ramirez has scored or assisted in every game he has started this season except for the Charlotte game when he had to be subbed off after 20' due to injury. In his 8 starts (not including the Charlotte game) he has 5 goals and 3 assists. Impressive stuff.

 

Remember when some dipshit fans referred to McBride as "McFragile"? In truth, the guy rarely was injured in the traditional sense. And he had every right to be based on the fearless way he played. He just had a string is freakish instances where he'd get head-butted in the face or had that blood clot thing in his arm that required surgery. In any event, anyone who refers to any member of our roster as "injury prone" needs to look at New England's injury list, or remember our injury situation back in 2019.

 

It's "(Goal scorer)'s on fire, your defense is terrified." It's become really popular among the younger, more energetic Nordeckians who are trying to get some jumping and other choreo going in the lower half of the section. Godspeed to them.

Here's a really interesting article on how the song, originally from 1996, came to be a sports and protest anthem. Couple of links to Youtube in there, as well.

When both you and he are ready, it's very easy to Capo. I can introduce you to the Gameday folks that can make it happen. If you need one last arrow in your quiver to keep him off the stand for just a little bit longer: Remind him that Capos don't get to watch hardly any of the game - at least the good ones don't.

 

Easy to have a good passing % when you play the ball sideways or backwards.

 

Which is why my daughter said she would never capo. She's pretty good at starting chants from our spot in 126 anyway.

@Ch(Elsey) My daughter was involved in a display earlier this year, she had a smoke bomb, so there are other ways for your kids to get involved, maybe when they are a little older!

 

I do remember and it was disgraceful. For example he took an elbow to.the face that broke his eye socket and had to come out of the first Dos a Cero because it looked like he had an eggplant glued to his face.

It wasn't because he was fragile, but rather because he refused to back down.

The guy took a hell of a beating because, as you say, of the way he played: full out balls to the wall. And he got shit for it.

And having to sit out for six months because he developed a huge blood clot that should have killed him is not an injury.

Bake was one tough mother.

(And I used to love it when they'd pull him, after another ferocious beating, and put Dante outthere. Sure, go ahead, take a crack at Dante. He'll break you into six pieces. And he looks like he still could.

 

If it’s good enough for Nagbe…

 

I mean different positions, different roles and different expectations. It's hard to have any complaints when your team is as good as ours right now. We are talking about how to improve on the margins essentially. For me, Farsi lacks the offensive skillset to be a difference maker. However, he makes up for that lack of skill with effort, defense and possession based passing.

 

My point was that his passing percentage has risen in a year where he's more involved offensively.

Interestingly, I looked up the current passing percentage stats page and was surprised to see that
Matan has the "4th" best percentage on the team (93.6), behind only Mrowka, Nagbe and Morris. Which effectively means he's the 2nd best passer on the current roster.

 

Every time I look around the stadium and see people clapping, I go back to the comment I read from one person about how the feedback regarding the Nordecke isn't the best because "they're out of synch with the game" or whatever it was that I refuse to look up because it was totally wrong.

It's like the 2008 ECF out there when everyone around the stadium did the Guillermo bow.

It truly is an incredible time to be a fan. Dare I say it's the best ever?

 

He hasn't done much in terms of G/A this year. Nada in MLS, and 1G/2A in CCL. All our attacking players and Morris are all much more impressive (on more minutes):

Cucho 13 goals, 8 assists; 1,722 min
Rossi: 10 goals, 11 assists; 2,215 min
Ramirez: 5 goals, 5 assists; 844 min
JRR: 5 goals, 1 assist; 1,090 min
Matan: 1 goal, 2 assists; 825 min
Hinestroza: 2 goals, 0 assists; 626 min

Even amongst the CMs and wingbacks, others have been more G/A productive:

Morris: 3 goals, 8 assists; 1,723 min
Arfsten: 3 goals, 4 assists; 1,077 min
Farsi: 3 goals, 4 assists; 1,567 min
Yeboah: 0 goals, 6 assists; 1,452 min
Zawadzki (CB/CM/WB): 1G/3A, 1,520 min
Matan: 1 goal, 2 assists; 825 min
Nagbe: 0 goals, 1 assist; 2,139 min
Jones: 0 goals, 0 assists; 362 min
Sands: 0 goals, 0 assists; 285 min
Amundsen (CB/WB): 0 G, 3 A; 1,528 min

But what Matan does do is drop back into the MF to give us better possession and give us a CM triangle. Much more so than any of the others when they are up top. And he can also start in CM (like yesterday and during Gold Cup with Morris absent last year). And play some WB, too.

We dominated possession, got four goals, and created tons of chances. Yes, TFC are awful, but Mayan played well despite not being on the scoresheet. More importantly, we played well with him at CM.

Now, against better teams, or once Chambost is available, we will see. But he is a useful guy atm.

As for Farsi, his short area passing is pretty good. Long distance crosses not as much. But he is probably the fastest starter. He poses an in behind threat and has a tremendous motor and defensive intensity.

 

I hope he gets a new contract and chooses to stay here. We shall see but last year…..

Mățan 31 games 27 starts 2,265 minutes had 1 goal & 8 assist. All Comps 2G 9A

Ramírez 30 games 19 starts 1,612minutes
8 goals & 3 assist All comps 13G 5A

This year
Mățan CCC 1G 2A, MLS 0G 0A

Ramírez CCC 0G 1A, MLS 5G 2A


Mățan has played significantly less minutes and started the season slow with that thigh injury. In a contract year this is not good for him but TrueCrew pointed out he has versatility and brings more than Goals and Assists. Hopefully it benefits the Crew in the long run finically. We went back and forth about who should start last year but Ramírez is excellent off the bench and as a rotational starter. Mățan prior to the season was encouraged to shot more often when the opportunity arises. He is healthy now but hasn’t played great but I think he will get it going and help. Perhaps roles stay reversed and he comes off the bench more but either way we need both guys. We also have more depth at attacking positions with JRR playing a bigger role this year. We may not get a 3rd consistent starter up top with Cucho & Rossi but that’s ok. This entire situation could be a blessing in disguise. If we don’t add another forward this season,I think we will be just fine. We will see what happens with Mățan at the end of the year but with two other young guys added if he leaves the club we will be ok. He just seemed to play better with regular minutes last year and he blossomed under Nancy. Being injured and now becoming a sub and a rotational starter might be affecting his confidence. Whatever the case may be the Crew will be fine either way. But there is half a season left for guys like him to get it going. We sometimes get too caught up in numbers for goals and assists. It’s a very good thing that we have so many different players contributing offensively that it makes it difficult for teams to stop us. Mățan If he wants to start regularly will have to perform better or find a new club next year.

 

I don’t think there’s a chance that Matan is here at the start of the season next year. His cap hit will be ginormous and he’s also going to want to pay raise.

 

I doubt he’ll be here, too. But his current salary is hardly ginormous by current MLS standards, and he no longer being U22 wouldn’t matter much for the team’s overall salary budget. Right now his base salary is $450K. Because he’s U22, he only counts $200K toward the salary budget. So even at his full budget charge, it’s just an extra $250K. That’s not much. I’m sure he’d love a raise, but I doubt he’s worth much more in MLS. If he thinks he can make a ton more in Europe, good luck to him.

 

Did anyone post this yet?

Whoever runs the social media has recognized the existence of the Trillium Cup.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/Ka8HTZ4YWpWGhrQp/?mibextid=oFDknk

 

Ross Paule has entered the conversation. The dude would get concussed from a stiff breeze.

 

Matan is now less than 6 months from the end of his current contract so his agent can explore his options abroad. I wouldn't be surprised if the Crew offer him more on an extension that anyone in Europe is willing to pay.

 

Could be. His capacity to step into a CM role last week, albeit against a shitty team, helps his case. Nancy likes players with some positional flexibility. His almost total lack of offensive production doesn't. Granted, he racked up 11 assist last year. But he's scored 1 regular season and 1 playoff goal in his entire time here; over 4,000 minutes of playing time. Most of it in attacking mid kinds of roles. Plus, I think his defensive skills are lacking. It's hard for me to see Matan starting for this team over the long-term. If he accepts a substitute/occasional starter role, maybe he can stick around. In the end, Nancy's opinion of him presumably matters more than what Matan himself might prefer to do.

 

Pat Murphy mentioned on this week's episode of the MR Podcast that the league makes the decisions on weather delays/postponements and also controls the messaging the teams put out regarding those delays/postponements. I kind of assumed as much, but had no proof until Pat said a source from the team told him exactly that.

So for everyone who was losing their minds about the weather delay, direct your anger to the league office rather than the team.

 

The league may make decisions and control the messaging, but that doesn't absolve the Crew from not having someone on the comms team being downright annoying about getting them to make that decision and/or get that message out. We all know that MLS PR moves at an absolutely glacial pace and that is neither acceptable nor excusable. Going more than an hour between weather updates should be anathema to a communications professional.

 

Do you know for an absolute fact that wasn't happening?

Also, yes, we all know MLS PR moves at a glacial pace, and the team's FO knows that more than any of us. They are used to it but they also have to be strategic with when they decide to harass the league office and when they decide to just deal with their shenanigans.

As an aside, I wouldn't be surprised if the person/group in the league office responsible for this stuff completely forgot the Crew game was schedule to start at 6:30 instead of 7:30. 6:30 is around the time they would usually start monitoring weather that could impact the start of games, and that's about the time the team communicated that warmups and kickoff had been delayed. So the team could have been trying to harass someone in the league office, but they weren't even "on the clock" yet.

 

I posted exactly that on GameDay. The reason I know this is because it is explicitly spelled out on the league website. I believe I used the term control freaks.

Yes, all weather decisions, as odd as it might seem, are made inNew York, but I suppose they have the same info all of us have via the interwebz.