Game 3: I want a redo on minutes 1-25. Except for the 8th minute. Can I keep that?

Hey all.

I can hear you now.  Why is a detailed recap of a game that happened three days ago showing up on a Tuesday night? Well sometimes one just wants to sit in front of their TV and watch old episodes of Life (starring Damian Lewis and Sarah Shahi) for hours at a time.  Of course this has consequences.  It makes you think about Buddhism, contemplate the teas in your cupboard (hot cinnamon spice is delicious) and delays your second viewing of the weekend game.  

Now I'm ready.  I've got Tacos, and diet Pepsi at the ready.  Join me after the jump for a 3 day old autopsy!

Our referee for this game is Hilario Grajido.

Matchday live continues its attempts at harming my ears by making me deal with Arlo White this week.  Arlo is actually a competent announcer but is such an incredible homer that he drives me insane because he could be decent.  You would think by listening to Arlo that Seattle never dives, ever.  If they do its just "professionalism" in the best sense of that term.  Oh wait he is English so everybody likes him.  I wish Matchday live would provide Spanish language feeds for all games so I could just listen to that instead.  

Here we go:

1st: Arlo immediately mixes up Dasan Robinson and Cory Gibbs which he continues to do all afternoon.  It is going to be a rough one.

4th: something happens!  O'Brien White is offsides.

5th: Gibbs nearly flubs a ball back to the keeper but Johnson clears it out avoiding trouble.

6th: Seattle is having a long stretch of possession here.  Clearly controlling play.

7th: Goal O'Brien White.1-0 Seattle.  Nice whipped in ball that Dasan Robinson clearly whiffs on.  Great header from White sandwiched in between two Fire defenders.  Ball goes in the lower 90 of the net.  Johnson had no chance.  On the replay its clear Johnson's positioning could have been better but it was still an excellent header.

8th: Nyarko puts weak shot on frame, Keller easily scoops up.  OK so he should have passed there but its nice to see him try and shoot every once and a while.

8th: Goal Diego Chaves 1-1.  Puerari received the ball in the midfield and made a nice pass to Nyarko who makes a nice run to just outside the six on the right hand side.  He puts a terrific ball into Chaves who puts in an excellent finish to pull the Fire even.  

9th: Let the poor refereeing commence!  Friberg steps right on Pause's ankle, no call.

10th: Dasan with some nice work to hold up White to let the ball roll out of bounds.

11th: Pappa back tracks to play some decent defense.  Maybe he will figure that part of the game out yet.

12th: Zakuani dives and gets no call.  Then Rosales dives and does get the call.  Exasperatingly inconsistent refereeing.

13th: Poor pass from Pappa in the offensive third.

14th: Pappa dives and does not get the call.  

15th: James Riley with a hilariously bad challenge on Pappa.  Free kick awarded.

16th: Dasan looks to have White covered just outside the box near the goal line but White manages to get off a great cross that Anibaba ably heads away.  Not sure how Dasan managed to let that cross off.

20th: Alonso with a good tackle on Chaves in center circle. Chaves stays down.  Arlo screaming about theatrics, yet its pretty clear after Chaves gets up that he was in quite some pain.  He limped around for a minute or so after this and walked it off.  

22nd: Poor pass from Anibaba.  The Fire are just hemorrhaging possession right now.  Can't hang onto the ball and its not good as they are very shaky at the moment. 

23rd: Videira passes to no one.  Poor decision.

23rd: Johnson flaps at cross.  Friberg misses open net.  Fire get lucky break.  Johnson was very late on this just a poor decision by him.

24th: Here starts an awful sequence: Mike Videira makes a bad pass that leads to a turn over.  This leads to Steve Zakuani getting the ball on the wing where he calmly brings it down and then makes a pass and gets a return pass quickly.  Please note on the return pass Dasan Robinson goes towards a ball that he has no chance of getting and dives at it leaving the passing lane wide open.  Zakuani beats Anibaba down the side.  Anibaba has a hold of Zakuani just outside the box but opts not to foul the crap out of him.  Once inside the box Zakuani rips a shot past Johnson's right hand on the near post. Goal. 2-1 Seattle.

Shall we count the awfulness on this play?  Mike Videira makes a horrible pass, Dasan's poor defensive work leaves Anibaba solo on one of the best wingers in MLS.  Anibaba shows his youth and fails to take the yellow card and chop Zakuani down outside the box.  Johnson makes a young keeper error getting beat to his near side post.  Just an awful mess all the way around.  

29th: Chaves with a hilarious dive inside the Seattle box.  I laughed and laughed.  Good times.

30th: Nyarko wins free kick.

31st: Jalil makes a great 60 yard diaganol ball to Pappa who takes it off his chest.  

32nd: Pappa is fouled and advantage was not given.  Perplexing call back there as Puerari and Chaves were on the attack.

35th: The weird reffing continues: Chaves with an aggressive shoulder to shoulder challenge earns him a foul call.

36th: Dasan with a diving header to clear danger in the box.

37th: Pappa with a poor free kick on the offensive third.  Not playing up to par right now.

38th: Sega ably heads the ball away off the bounce and leads it out of danger.  He passes it to Anibaba, who panics and makes a surprise pass back to Segares who promptly turns it over.

39th: Fire back on offensive attack but Pappa underhits a cross.  Unfortunate as Chaves had inside position on his man and space to work with.

41st: Nice through ball from Nyarko to Puerari just misses

43rd: Chaves quickly shoots a bouncing ball, Keller is there for the save.  Good idea and he put the ball on frame.

44th: Sega down the left hand side and he puts in a great cross to Puerari who heads it over the bar.  I expect Puerari to do better than that with that kind of ball.  If that's Chaves that is a goal.

45th: Chaves earns free kick and a yellow card for Alonso.

Easily the worst half the Fire have played in a league game this season.  The last 20 minutes of the half stabilized the team after a very rough beginning 25 minutes.

Second half:

No subs for either team.

The Fire look to be a bit more in their preferred 3-5-2.  Segares is pushed up the left side.

47th: Nice parry by Johnson off a Steve Zakuani chip.  He pushed it to safety.  Nice play.

48th: Good ball from Puerari to Nyarko.  Nyarko appears to reach the ball before it goes over the end line but he ends up dribbling it out of bounds.

50th: Videira continues his trend of weird passing with an odd pass towards Chaves that had no chance of reaching him.  There was a much simpler option available to keep posession.

52nd: Videira blasts a shot of Jeff Park's face.  Park ends up being OK.  How this didn't turn stoppage time into 4 or 5 minutes I will never know.

54th: Puerari earns free kick.

56th: Nyarko and Anibaba combine for some nice defensive work on Zakuani.

57th: Videira with a good pass (!) to Puerari who earns a free kick.

58th: Pappa hits free kick right at Diego Chaves who is standing in the wall.  Ball squeaks through the wall and Chaves ends up with a shot on goal forcing a great save out of Keller.  Excellent save.  Should have been 2-2 there.

60th: Alonso with a long shot that Johnson has covered.

61st: Videira with another (!) nice pass this time to Chaves. Chaves employs some nifty footwork creating space to put an excellent throughball onto Puerari.  Puerari's shot is stopped by the bottom of Keller's right foot.  Excellent save from Keller again.

63rd: Seattle's Evans makes a nice pass to an oncoming Zakuani who dribbles into the box and makes a pass but Dasan makes a saving tackle and forces the ball just barely outsdie the box where Evans picks up the ball and is promptly tripped by Videira.  No call.  Lucky break for the Fire.

65th Videira crushes Friberg with a late tackle.  Foul on Videira.

66th Videira again with a pass behind Pappa disrupting his run.  Pappa manages to get the ball and creates what appears to be an awkward one two with Chaves but he manages to put a shot on goal and forces another save out of Keller.

69th: Set piece for the Fire.  Keller with an aggressive punch to clear danger.

70th: Johnson comes out to grab a bouncing ball away from Zakuani.

71st: Dasan gets a yellow card for something.  Really weak yellow considering the physicality of the game so far.

74th: Nyarko with a nice run to the end line waits a bit to long to pass and the ball is cleared for a throw in.

75th: Zakuani gets free on a counter attack.  Logan Pause ably defends him one on one and Zakuani puts his shot wide of goal.  Dangerous situation there.

77th: Marco with some nice work possession down the right sideline.

78th: Dasan misses the ball while trying to hit it and takes a nasty spill hitting his head on the ground.  Looks like he might have been pushed off balance by Zakuani but hard to tell.

80th: The Fire's play is getting a little raggedy and Seattle is starting to control the midfield for the first time this half.

82nd: Chaves wins free kick.

83rd: Anibaba gets a bit nervous with Zakuani coming at him and pounds the ball out of bounds.  Needless giveaway.

83rd: Oduro on for Segares.

84th: Johnson badly shanks a goal kick out of bounds.

86th Carrasco on the counter attack puts the ball just wide.  On the replay it looks like Johnson would have had it covered if on frame but it would have been close.

87th: Oduro falls down after getting hit in the chest.  Its an obvious dive but he also got smacked in the chest.  Free kick awarded.  I'm am overjoyed at how much Arlo dislikes that.

88th: Pappa puts the resulting free kick right into the wall.  Just awful.  That needed to be much, much better.

90th: Nyarko's leg eats a studs up challenge from Carrasco.  On the replay its a clear red card but only the yellow is given.  It takes two and half minutes for Nyarko to leave the field.  Orr Barouch comes on as a substitute.

94th: Friberg goes down and lays there for no good reason.  Arlo calls this "professionalism".  Arlo is a hypocrite. 

95th: Alonso with an odd chip attempt on goal when he should have take the ball to the corner.  At this point considering Nyarko's injury in stoppage time there should have been another 1-2 minutes remaining.

Ref blows his whistle right after shot attempt.

2 minutes of stoppage were actually played out of the three that were supposed to be.  Just awful work by Hilario Grajido today.

 

The second half was quite good for the Fire.  They created chances, held possession and looked like a team dangerous to score. This was an encouraging bounce back from their troubled first half.  I don't mind losing a game like this.  They played hard and created chances.  Sometimes those chances don't go in but at least this team gave itself a chance to come back and win.  Last year's squad would have folded and died out there.

Thursday night's game should be fun.  I would like to see Videira out of the starting lineup.  Thought his play offensively was pretty poor and his defense was just OK.  Perhaps Paladini should get the call.  I also expect Ristic to play on Thursday, possibly in place of Nyarko considering there is a game on Sunday as well.  Ristic is an excellent defensive player when on form so that would offset Paladini's apparent (just assuming here since Videira won the starting job) lack of defensive prowess.

Hopefully I find a place to watch the game Thursday night.  I'll should be back this weekend with a recap of that game.  I'm sure you can't wait for that.