Would have gotten stomped out with Armas.. At least they just needed one goal at the end but there aren't any goal scorers on this roster..
This season was a disaster.. Credit the guys playing above their talent vs Cbus.. Nagbe showed up at the right time and Porter always coaches up...
The future looks good cuz no way is it possible to have a worse season than this.. Thelwell looks like he'll make moves and sure better talent can do more than this.. There was no creative build up and no goal scoring threats all year long
Well, Armas led us to pretty similar result last year to play-off first round loss by one goal with I think the same exact seeding, so I don't know who would have done better, looks very similar to me. If anything Armas made it to OT before losing in full stadium cheering for Philly. As far as not having goal scorers, actually we had a guy who scored 4 goals in 5 previous games. And guess what, he scored as well as sub in this game, just didn't get enough minutes because our brilliant tactician coach went with ... Barlow. Kaku, though not a goal scorer, just had a goal too for a Paraguayan NT, which is way better than Metro.
As far as playing above their talent level, I would have to disagree. Duncan, Yearwood, Davis all played poorly. You know who played above his talent level in Kaku's absence? Stroud. Yet like Armas preferring Valot to Sims, Struber preferred Valot to Kaku (and Stroud too). Also, was it lack of talent that whenever we came out to start game or half, we look inept and concede great chances almost immediately each time? Was it really a hard decision to get Davis/Yearwood out of there at the half (with Kaku and CCJ on the bench after great showings for their NTs) after Valarayan and others beat them basically at will all first half and we were lucky not to concede more? When he finally got best talent we had in, we scored to make it 3:2 and almost tied.
Struber cost us this season, like Armas did last year with his Buckmuster stunt in play-offs. Guess a lot of people were resigned to losing, but I thought this year in play-offs without fans anyone has a shot. Orlando-NYC went to PKs earlier. Who knows who will win this thing. Can't really complain about not having talent when three best players at their positions (Kaku, CCJ, White) didn't play for most of the game due to coach's decision.