This Wednesday night in Costa Rica, 9:00 PM. Media: Fox Soccer Channel, 790 AM (English), 850 AM (Español) Aggregate status: 0-0 I'm not feeling too good about this one. We're unhealthy (Eddie Robinson and Pat Onstad are not going to play) and playing in one of the most hostile atmospheres in North America. Although, we lost against them last year, I'll never fully doubt the Dynamo after they played Pachuca last year in Estadio Hidago. Our mistakes there were stupid, but we held our own in a very though environment. We'll see how this one turns out...
No Robinson, no Onstad, no Holden, no Boswell. Davis and Mullan are coming back from injuries. Things aren't looking too good. I'm hoping for the best and if anybody can pull this off it's the Dynamo.
Why do I have the feeling Tony Caig is going to get lit up? Oh, it's because he was lit up against Dallas! The Dynamo were in control of the game vs. Saprissa in Houston. They'll have to stay on the attack and try to poke in one of the billion chances they had a week ago. Is Boswell hurt?
Makes you appreciate Zach Wells that much more. Wish we still had him around. I was worried when they made that deal. Onstead is getting up there and we had a very good back up...not much different than what Rosenfels is to Schaub.
After watching for 10 minutes, I realize its not going to happen. But what would have happened in the event of a tie?
Ugly game. We need to get healthy FAST. I'm tired of watching Caig play out of position and let balls go through his hands for goals. We also need Holden desperately. The atmosphere at Saprissa Stadium looks pretty wild and the field looks incredibly tough to play on. The last two games I've watched us play on artificial turf - Honolulu in the PPC and tonight - we have so much trouble adjusting to the ball bouncing around. We can't control it and can't even make good passes.
Didn't see the game. Was it the old school, short-pile type synthetic turf or the new longer blade type? Disclaimer: leroy420 works for one of the largest synthetic turf manufacturers in the world and hates to see the excuse of "it was the field"...especially when it is one of the newer generation fields. Not to mention that I have played soccer on both types (old and new turf) thousands of times and bad touches were never the fault of the turf...only the player.
It's new, I believe it's FieldTurf. It's approved by FIFA for regulation games. And playing on different surfaces will affect your game, the ball bounces higher and rolls faster/farther than what you are used to. A team that plays on that surface regularly and is used to the differences will have an advantage. But these are professional players that should be able to adjust their games accordingly and if they are that concerned about it there are artificial surfaces here they could spend a week practicing on before the game. Basically, I think it can affect your game, but isn't really an excuse for not performing well. Disclaimer: DrLudicrous hasn't actually played on the newer surfaces and his opinion is based on old turf and watching games
FieldTurf is crap. The newer surfaces (longer, more realistic blades, better infill, better sub bases) make the fields much more real than ever before. Ball bounce, especially for FIFA 1 & 2-Star fields are tested like you wouldn't believe and have to perform as similar to real grass fields. Otherwise, they don't get certified. In otherwords, we've taken the turf out of the list of excuses. That is...if you use TigerTurf and the installers know what they're doing.
