Hudson Fails Basic Leadership

The story of this game didn't happen until in the locker room after it.  Just to quickly recap the actual game though, Hudson rolled out a 2016 Pablo-era lineup of 6+ defenders, tried to play 11 men behind the ball to get out with a 0-0 draw or nick a goal on the counter for a 1-0 win, and gave up 1 goal to one of the worst teams in MLS this year to lose 1-0, now a 6 game losing streak.

Now on to the real story.  In his post-game press conference Hudson uttered these quotes:

“Then, we come to a place where a team full of superstars and big money players and massive, massive gap in class, and we’ve set up a different way.  I’ve just said to the players in there I think that they’re incredibly unlucky. I think the effort they put in today was big considering the position we’re in to come here and to really limit them. I think us and them really had three shots on target each, and we kept a quite a few of their big players quiet for a majority of the game. We had chances ourselves.”

and

“I think this is another game where I hear a lot of people around the place and media and these types of things talk about where we’re at. It’s almost like people see us at the same level as Atlanta or as on the same level as Orlando or DC, but the reality is, I think, every game we’ve played in, it’s been the DPs, big money players up front that are making the difference. Every game that we’ve played in, people think we have those players and we don’t. Today was just another example of the real gulf in class. I think every single game we’re playing against teams and their DPs are making a difference.”

and

“We’re certainly a team that’s down on the bottom and we’re fighting to compete every single week and I think today was an example of that. You can say what’s going wrong and what’s missing, but we’ve just come to Atlanta, and probably most games, really — other than one or two — Orlando and these other types of games where we’ve been in games and been competing and it’s just every single — like today — teams with a little bit more quality than us, well I would say a lot more quality than us, and that’s what we’re competing against. But no one talks about it.”

Up to this point things are almost defensible.  I think most Rapids fans agree with some or all of what he's said so far.  Maybe not he best way to go about making a point but he's in the general area of valid concerns.  Then this happened:

“I just think it’s going to take time. We are fighting at the bottom with a bottom group of players and we have to find a way to pick up results whilst also being a team that tries to play a certain way. And we just have to find that balance.” 

Yeah, that's called throwing the whole team under the bus.  A team that's spending significant money on players hand picked by Hudson who he starts every game (Tommy Smith, I'm looking at you) despite clearly being outclassed in this league.

Even as badly managed as the Rapids have historically been I am a bit shocked that Padraig Smith didn't call Hudson into his office today and fire him after that.  There's only three reasons a coach says that about his own team.

1. He knows he's about to get fired and is setting up excuses to use while finding his next job
2. He's been told there's no chance he's getting fired any time soon and feels he can get away with it
3. He's incompetent at his job

The fact that he wasn't fired today tells me its not 1.  Or if it was 1, Hudson read the signs wrong and now looks like he belongs in number 3.  The problem with it not being 1 is that not Hudson has to go into the locker room and figure out hot to get this "bottom group of players" ready to play for him on Friday night against Vancouver.  You think anyone is going to be real excited to take any coaching from Anthony?  How would you feel about your boss if he said that about you?

I've been calling for Hudson's job since the Houston debacle a month ago but this is beyond just being a bad coach.  This is being a bad leader, somebody who says something like this has no business leading a little league team, much less a professional sports team.  Clearly with a game on Friday if they didn't make a change today they're not going to make one this week.  Barring a quality win (not just eking out a 1-0 victory) over Vancouver on Friday Hudson shouldn't make it past 9am next Monday.  If somehow he does and he doesn't lay an absolute beat-down on FSL the following week then he has to be gone.  If not, Smith needs to be fired for not dealing with the problem.  Two weeks from now if both Smith and Hudson both have their jobs (barring a 2 game win streak), well, that's probably going to be the reality sadly.  But it would be a new low point in the history of a franchise with far too many low points.

Colorado Marches On Atlanta Tomorrow

I expect his invasion will be more successful than ours

Colorado faces the defending MLS Cup champions on their home turf tomorrow.  Atlanta hasn't started well, with only 5 points from their first 6 games, but that's still much better than we've done.  Its an early kickoff for this one at 4pm.  C38 will be gathering in the usual spots.  I'll be watching this on delay later tomorrow night as I have Avengers: Endgame tickets at 3:30.  Altitude will ahve the broadcast with Fleming and 'Celo on the call.

Injury Report:

OUT: D Kortne Ford

QUESTIONABLE: M Kellyn Acosta

Disciplinary Report:

OUT: M Jack Price

I'm not real confident in this lineup, I get the feeling that we're at the point where Hudson might start making some big changes out of desperation.  Given our player availability this seems like our best option though.

Prediction: 3-1 loss, goal by Kamara.  I really can't predict anything but a loss with multiple goals allowed until the team proves they can do something other than that.  Only once this season have we given up less than 1 goal, only twice have we managed not to lose.  Tomorrow will be more of the same.

Up And Down The English Pyramid

Sorry I've been quiet but as some readers know, I spent last week in London.  My plan on returning was to recap the two games (DC and Chicago) that I had missed but, really, nobody needs to suffer through a recap of those messes.  Instead lets talk about something more interesting, my trip up and down the English pyramid.

Last month I wrote an article for the Blackburn fanzine 4,000 Holes (its from a John Lennon song) about how a guy in Denver ended up being a Rovers fan.  I mentioned my Twitter handle in the article and after it was published the week before I left Rob from the London branch of the Rovers Supporters Group reached out to me and invited me to a special meeting of the London group the night before the QPR-Blackburn game.

Picture from Rob's Twitter

After a day at the Natural History Museum and Camden markets my wife and I had dinner in Leicester Square and I headed to the pub where the group was meeting while she went back to the hotel.  The Red Lion pub across the street (literally) from St. James Palace is a small place that claims to be the second oldest drinking house in England.  Upstairs was a small room where I met 25-30 fellow Rovers supporters who had gathered for a chance to have a Q&A with Blackburn Rovers CEO Steve Waggott.

CEO Steve Waggott, picture also from Rob's Twitter

Surprisingly I was one of the 4-5 youngest people there.  Rob and some of the old-timers joked about their average age being 95 and hoped I could bring that average down a bit.  After a bit of socializing Steve Waggott took the floor and talked for a few minutes and then spent close to an hour answering questions from the group.  I didn't have anything to ask but just listening in and hearing about how the business side of a major club works was very interesting.  Rovers may be a recently promoted Championship club, but they are one of only six teams to have ever won the EPL.  Something Steve said probably couldn't happen today with current UEFA Financial Fair Play rules and the ridiculously to-heavy English system.

After talking with him I came to the conclusion that the English system is fundamentally broken and will either result in a collapse or a breakaway of the top teams while the rest of the pyramid resets itself in a new paradigm.  Right now Huddersfield Town is guaranteed to finish in last place in the EPL and be relegated.  They will have gotten $130 million from this year's EPL TV deal plus another $40 million as a parachute payment for being relegated.  Meanwhile (at least) one of Leeds Sheffield United, and WBA will not get promoted and will start the 2019-20 season in the Championship as the strongest non-promoted team.  They will have gotten $7 million for this year's EFL TV deal.  Their $7 million will be competing with Huddersfield's $170 million for promotion next season.  That's almost a 25 to 1 ratio just from TV and parachute payments.  And it only gets worse as you go down the table.  Its no surprise that its hard for any team to stay up for any length of time and even harder for them to compete for anything other than avoiding relegation.

Overall though it was a fascinating evening.  One thing I took away was Steve's understanding about the need to attract and "hook" the next generation and how the digital age and ability to follow any team from almost anywhere on the planet makes it hard to get kids interested in their local team, something that MLS teams have struggled with as well.  Generally though i came away with the feeling that Blackburn should be a pretty solid Championship team for a long time to come and while we may never get back to the EPL, I'd rather be competitive in the Championship than to just fight for survival a level up.

The next day was Good Friday, a bank holiday, so the lower league games had been scheduled for Friday instead of Saturday. After watching the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, I headed to the Shepard's Bush neighborhood of West London to see the Rovers take on QPR at Loftus Road.

Loftus Road opened in 1904 and, well, you can tell.  Its a great experience to go but the stadium has very few amenities and the seats were obviously put in to a stadium designed for standing terraces.  I literally could not sit with my legs closed without kneeing the person in front of me in the back of the head.  That said, the viewpoint, even as an away supporter, was great.  I was dead center behind the goal in the School End Upper Tier, the deck traditionally given to the travelling fans.  It was a gorgeous day for football and everyone was in high spirits.  Blackburn took an early lead when Lewis Travis was taken down in the box and Danny "he scores when he wants" Graham stepped up to put the penalty away.  

The second half started quickly with Bradley Dack getting a goal in the first minute right at my feet (or at least that's how it felt) to put the good guys up 2-0.  After that it felt like Blackburn was going to coast to their 3rd straight win but a goal by QPR just at the start of 6 minutes of stoppage time made thins a little tense before the final whistle and a 2-1 win.  Then it was a quick tube ride back to the hotel to meet my wife for dinner.

On Saturday I had my choice between four games in the London area that were easily accessible on the Tube.  In the EPL West Ham was hosting Leicester City, Arsenal was hosting Crystal Palace, and Chelsea was hosting Burnley.  Also in the National League South (level 6 of the pyramid) Wealdstone FC was hosting Dulwich Hamlet.  After a morning at the British Museum I headed out to the northwestern suburb of Ruislip to Grosvenor Vale, the home of Wealdstone FC.  I've always wanted to see a non-league game and given the price difference it made sense to go see the lower-league game over the EPL.  Ruislip is on the Metropolitan and Piccadilly lines of the Tube with the main Ruislip station a 5-10 minute walk from the stadium.  The Vale is down at the end of a cul-de-sac in a residential area, without the signs on the main drive nearby you wouldn't even know it was there.

The ground reminded me a lot of high school football here in the U.S.  No in areas like Texas where high-school football is a religion but in areas where its something for the town to get behind but not the main topic of the town.  Its listed at a capacity of 3600, with about 700 seats.  There are three different stands with seats, none more than 7-8 rows deep, and the rest is terrace area for standing or just spots on the fence around the field.  The club shop/snack bar, with the PA announcer on top, is clearly built from a converted shipping container but other buildings, such as the locker rooms and clubhouse, are older fully built structures.  Amenities are pretty minimal, a snack bar and a burger place, one team store, and a long-time fan selling pins of every team in England and most of the rest of Europe ever game, and the clubhouse with a couple of different bars.  But at 13 pounds for a general admission ticket you don't expect much.  I wandered around the whole perimeter of the field, stopped in and bought a scarf at the team store, a soda at the snack bar, and a couple of pins from the long-time fan, and settled in on one of the terraces behind the goal Wealdstone was attacking.

Now I'll be honest, the soccer wasn't great.  But these are guys who are semi-pro and hold down other jobs.  They show up to practice 2-3 times a week after work and then show up for the games.  For this they get 200-400 pounds a week.  They're playing for the love the game and, for the younger guys, the hope they can be the next Jamie Vardy (Vardy played non-league football for 5 years before being signed by Leicester City and leading them on their miracle run to the EPL title).  In reality, the best of them might make it to full time professional contracts in League Two or maybe League One.

At halftime I noticed that since the whole stadium was general admission the supporters had an understanding that they would switch sides at half along with the team.  So the Wealdstone supporters moved to the other end of the field and the Dulwich Hamlet supporters filled in around me for the second half.  Dulwich Hamlet is based in the Southwark borough of South London so they had ha decent (relatively speaking) crowd of travelling supporters who came up on the tube.  With the shuffle of fans a spot opened up on the fence and I moved up there for the second half.

As you can see, when I say "on the fence" I mean literally "I could touch the nets".  That last picture is a PK that Dulwich Hamlet earned and I'm pretty sure I was closer to the ball on the spot than some of the players on the edge of the box.  In the end Wealdstone needed a result to keep their promotion hopes alive but Dulwich came to play and ran up a 3-0 lead before giving one up late for a 3-1 final score in their favor.  Dulwich's pink & navy color scheme needs some work though.

I'm really glad I went to see what the non-league game is like.  I'd be happy to go back to Wealdstone or another non-league game on a future trip.  These two teams play in the National League South, with the top team and the winner of a playoff both being promoted to the National League.  The top team in that league and the winner of a playoff gets promoted each year into the English Football League League Two becoming one of the 92 fully professional teams in England.  (Dagenham & Redbridge, the team Tim Howard and his investors in Memphis 901 bought, are in the National League and play in the east of London.  I wanted to go see them but their game was the same time as the Blackburn game.)  I highly encourage any soccer fan who's in England to go check out a non-league game at least once.

So that's a look at the higher and lower levels of the English pyramid.  All these teams have good social media presences and websites where you can follow the team, so if you're interested take a look around and find a team you like and keep an eye on them.  I've been keeping an eye on Chester FC since I visited Chester on our England trip two years ago and now I'll be watching Wealdstone as well.

GAME OFF

Almost as soon as I made my last post I heard from reliable sources that the game is called off and will be rescheduled for September.  Official announcement is expected tonight, I'll update this  post with the link when it comes out.

It didn't come until this morning but the official announcement is here.

Will The Rapids Play The Sounders Tomorrow?

h/t to Centennial 38 for the meme

I'm not doing a full preview because I have serious doubts the game will be played tomorrow.  Right now the forecast from 6-9pm in Commerce City is blizzard conditions.  There's no way the team and league can ask staff, players, and fans to come out to a game in an actual blizzard.  Maybe the forecast changes overnight but if it doesn't they've got to call the game off by mid-morning.

They can't push the game to Thursday as Colorado is hosting DC and Seattle is hosting Toronto on Saturday and 48 hours isn't enough down time.  Looking at Seattle's and Colorado's schedules the biggest gap is the Gold Cup break in June.  Depending on the Open Cup draws you might be able to slip a game in right as the break starts or ends, though I can't imagine anyone being real excited about that.  Other than that there isn't a great time to put a game in, between Open Cup dates and international match dates.  Whatever they do will be annoying, even if its next Wednesday.

If, somehow, the game goes on then I'll predict a 2-1 loss in sloppy conditions.

More Of The Same In Orlando

For the third time in the last four games the Rapids gave up a goal in the last 10 minutes and dropped points.  This time though, they gave up two goals and went from up 3-2 to losing 4-3.  Combined with the KC game where they went from 1-0 up to a 1-1 draw and the Dallas game where they went from a 1-1 draw to 2-1 down, that's 6 points dropped.  This season would look a lot better at 8 points after 6 games than it does at 2.

Hudson remarked after the game about the refs missing the red card on Nani.  I will agree with him, they missed it and Nani should have been off.  Do we win that game up a man?  Maybe, but with our defense you can never be sure.  But it doesn't matter.  No good team should be up a goal in the 80th minute against one of the worst teams in the league and lose, and yet we managed to do it.  The problem wasn't the officiating or the lack of a red card, the problem is a defense that gets overrun faster than the English forces at Stirling Bridge.

Two critical games this week where if we have any chance to compete this year we need at minimum 4 points.  In reality though, we'll be lucky to get 1.  This team needs new leadership.

Its Time For Mickey Mouse Soccer

Question is, which team is the Mickey Mouse one?  Colorado makes its longest road trip of the year down to Central Florida to face Orlando City tomorrow.  The teams have a combined one win and seven points in ten games, so don't expect to be watching top quality soccer.  The Rapids apparently plan to roll out a few changes, but, we've all heard that before.  Kickoff tomorrow is at 5:30 on Altitude.  Centennial 38's big watch party is at Frolic Brewing in Westminster.

Injury Report:

OUT: D Kortne Ford

QUESTIONABLE: D Keegan Rosenberry, M Kellyn Acosta, M Sam Nicholson, F Diego Rubio

Disciplinary Report:

SUSPENDED: D Tommy Smith

Yuck, nothing good there.  Usually questionable means "out" and it almost always means "won't start" which means we're going to see churn in the starting XI regardless of what the plan is.

The backline is all kinds of question marks.  We could see Opare in the middle and Wynne at LB.  We could see Serna on the bench and Vines and Wynne as our outside backs.  Heck, Anderson could get a look (I doubt it).  Midfield positioning is of course up in the air, and we could see Boateng or Blomberg get a start.  I'm pretty sure Kamara and Shinyashiki will be our starting forward though.

Prediction: 2-1 loss, goal by Kamara.  I can't predict a win after last week's shellacking.  With the long road trip and the missing players I don't even see a draw.  Maybe this senior player discussion they had this week kick starts the team but I'm not going to predict it until I see it.

The Kids Are Alright

Two big pieces of news on the youth front this week.  We'll start with our newest player.  Today the Rapids announced the long-rumored signing of 16-year old RB Sebastian Anderson from the Academy.  Anderson trained with the first team in preseason and plenty of hints have been dropped in the last month that this signing was coming.  While nobody expects Anderson to immediately make an impact in MLS, the Rapids leadership are saying that he is ready to play at the MLS level and will likely get some spot time this season (USOC maybe?).  With no natural backup at RB for Rosenberry there does appear to be a need he can fill.

Also this week 16-year old Academy keeper Abraham Rodriguez got the start for the Switchbacks (apparently Academy players can play for the USL side without losing college eligibility) and made 11 saves.  His play was so good that the USL named him the player of the week.  While the Rapids don't need to sign a 4th keeper right now, with Howard retiring and both Irwin and Rawls on short term contracts there should be spots opening in 2019, might Rodriguez be a future Homegrown Player?

Two great signs that our youth system is developing talent.  Now the next step is to use that talent to help the first-team, either by pushing the play of the first-team to the next level or selling that talent to buy players that will help the team.  Shane O'Neill is the best example of the latter, that's the model a small club like the Rapids can use to be competitive against teams with greater resources.

#HudsonOut

Skipping the traditional game review because what we learned from this game is that this team needs a major change ASAP.  Last week I felt like we had a bit of a stumble in Dallas but this week was a full on face plant.  The team was out-coached from the start, Houston couldn't have gotten a better lineup and tactics from us if they had been the ones setting them in our locker room before the game.  The Rapids played directly into their counter-attacking strategy and the Dynamo ate us for lunch (particularly Serna).  Having the wing-backs bombing up the sidelines in attack doesn't work against a team who's got speed on the wings and the ability to play the ball into space unless you've got the centerbacks to cover (we don't) and a midfield dropping back in defense (we didn't).

Anyone who's watched Houston play this year (or last) knows that's their game yet Hudson apparently didn't do any scouting or decided that somehow we could outscore them.  Considering we only got one goal on a PK and only had 1 mores hot on target than Houston had goals, that seems optimistic.  Even after being burned twice in the first 15 minutes for goals Hudson made no adjustments to give Serna help and we all watched Houston beat him and Rosenberry over and over again.  Then his big adjustment was to replace him with Acosta who, guess what, clearly wasn't up to the task.

In the post-game press conference Hudson stated he wouldn't do anything different with the lineup if he had it to do over again, which is just complete stubbornness.  Hudson is clearly outmatched in this league with just 8 wins in 39 games (make it 42 if you add in the two CCL and the USOC game from last season).  He had a shot to play his 5-3-2 formation with his players and failed, now he's failing at the 4-4-2 with better players.

Without a coaching change including signing an experienced long-term coach (not handing the reins to interim coach Casey) or making a major playing signing (like a DP #10) this team will not compete for the playoffs this year.  I don't see how an inexperienced Conor Casey, even if given the title today, gets this team to the playoffs.  We've essentially burned all our room for error (one more loss and we need to play the rest of the season at 1.5 pts/game to make the average playoff number) and we have a slate of games coming up that's not conducive to a coach learning on the job.  Next week we play @Orlando, Seattle, and DC in 7 days.  After that its road trips to Chicago and Atlanta.  We need to win two of those games to have any hope and I'm not sure we win any of them.  Our best chance to get our first win is when the team returns home to face Vancouver on May 3rd after a full week of rest.  Of course we had a full week of rest before this last home game and look where it got us.

Its time for the organization to make a change.  Do they have the will to do it?  If they don't, this season is already over, in March (well, it was March on Saturday night when it ended).