Probing The Depths Of The Orange Abyss
By: Jeremy | July 22nd, 2009
I started watching the stuttering internet broadcast of the game last night and quickly concluded that the Dynamo use the US Open Cup Tournament as a training ground for the lesser used players. Well, that was my first conclusion, which I later reconsidered. They didn’t have much choice in their starting eleven. This team has quickly become ravaged by injuries and national duty. Personally, I’m kind of glad the USOC is over with.
But I do get the impression that these extra tournaments don’t mean much to the MLS teams. I’m sure it is somewhat meaningful to the expansion Sounders and their faithful, but that will pass in time. For instance, last season’s SuperLiga final pitted the Dynamo against their long-time nemesis, the New England Revolution. Unfortunately, the Dynamo didn’t win that one and I was fully expecting to see a New England championship celebration, but it didn’t happen. New England accepted the trophy like they had just received a jelly-of-the-month gift card. Don’t get me wrong, I like jelly and I don’t want to offend the jelly supporters out there, but it wasn’t what the Revs truly wanted. The ultimate goal is the MLS Cup and anything else is, well, I wouldn’t say worthless… What’s a word for something a little better than worthless? FC Dallas? OK, winning SuperLiga or the US Open Cup is like beating FC Dallas. It’s nice exercise but not much more than that.
Back to last night’s game, eight of the eleven starters were members of the Orange Abyss. If you don’t know, that’s my name for the Dynamo’s depth players. But where were the regulars? Let’s look at this handy little “Where Were They?” chart.
From last night’s match up, how did the Dynamo starters stack up against the Seattle starters? Hey, look, it’s another handy chart. This one shows the number of goals scored by each player.
The Dynamo are in a rough stretch of road games and international and domestic competitions. Normally, an All Star break would bring relief but that isn’t the case this season. The game is sandwiched in the middle of the week, between games against New England and DC United. At least those are home games, something the Dynamo haven’t had since June 20th.
But here we go again, the CONCACAF Champions League begins August 18th-20th (TBA). Is this a serious tournament or something similar to SuperLiga and the US Open Cup? I enjoy watching the Dynamo compete against teams from Mexico and beyond, but only if it is truly the Dynamo. I want to see how far the Orange can go if they field their true team and not a group pieced together from the Orange Abyss.
FOREVER ORANGE
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Comments | Add your comment
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Tally Hall was class last night. Hold onto him for when Onstad retires.
Good game. Everybody over on the Sounder forums is talking about how classy Houston and their fans are relative to other teams we’ve played.
Posted from
United States
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There’s no sense in spitting hate for getting beat. And Tally Hall is a great keeper, which is something we haven’t had the luxury of having (a quality back-up at GK.) I’m sure he’ll make a great starter if Pat EVER retires.
Posted from
United States -
Great effort by the Abyss, with an unfortunate result
I have always wanted the Dynamo to win this, cause if Dallas can win it anyone can.
That being said…Nate Jaqua is DEAD to mePosted from
United States -
To put your numbers in perceptive, Seattle’s starters on Tues. have accounted for 69% of their MLS goals this season. The Dynamo’s starters, 16%; big difference.
But i am tired of the excuses. I know the Dynamo have lots of legit excuses for the last month or so, but the bottom line is they have NOT looked that good. We all hope to get everybody back and all will be good, but will they gel and return to the form we saw in May???
Posted from
United States -
man, those seattle announcers were sooo terrible. and by terrible i mean horrible. they only knew 3 names off the Dynamo roster. not to mention the semi-racist mixing up of the african american player’s names.
my point is that if the homer announcers had been better, i would have enjoyed watching the game more. i’ll try not to let it effect my view of the seattle sounders, but its hard.
Posted from
New Zealand -
It was a rough match. The boards I saw (below the Seattle internet feed) had the Seattle fans ripping on Houston pretty consistantly. We’re apparently known for our time-wasting techniques one fan said. As well as playing hideous soccer and having no class. I wasn’t aware that Sounder=Douche but I saw a lot of that. But hey, I was a troll on their board so who am I to judge.
Posted from
United States -
For the record, the discussion over on the Seattle board right now is how awful the commentary was. And not sure who did the commentary Tuesday night, but we unfortunately do have a commentator who also messed up OUR darker-skinned players. He’d say, “And Hurtado takes it,” and I’d be thinking, “What’s a central defender doing in our box? Oh, wait, that’s Zakuani.” Offended me too.
Must say, though, that the time-wasting thing is entirely true. Once you took the lead, your guys spent more time on their backs than Cristiano Ronaldo’s paid “friends.”
Sorry about the actual injuries, though. They’re talking about putting in real grass at Starfire, or at least better turf. This would be a good thing for everybody.
Posted from
United States -
Honestly, ive watched the Dynamo for three years and i have never seen anything like this “time-wasting” before. I really think that we werent wasting time, we were just that banged up.
We have had little or no subs and have been on the road playing 2 games a week for 3 weeks. Match that with a physical game on hard turf and we were hurting and dead tired. The Dynamo never waste time; most games they are attacking for 90min.Posted from
United States -
To be honest, I only watched the first 20 minutes. I couldn’t handle the stop and start internet feed, plus seeing all of the backups and their backups in the game didn’t feel like watching the real Dynamo. So, the time wasting thing is absolutely true. I wasted 20 minutes.
Posted from
United States -
Rex, read #10. (The first one.)
http://seattle.theoffside.com/team-news/ten-things-we-learned-in-the-portland-seattle-usoc-game.html
Posted from
United States
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