As predicted, a good time was had, as was predictable, United gave up a one goal lead twice at home, and fuck that.
First, read this guy and this guy. As for Hamid's red card, upon seeing the replay, I don't think it was a goal-denying foul, but it was remarkably stupid and reckless; perhaps it should have been a yellow, I have no problem with the red. Who's going to be Cronin's back-up in goal next week? As for St Benny's red, sure it was justified and well-earned. I'm sure he'll be rewarded by MLS with a fine and a scolding while the referee, who was no better or worse than any other shitty MLS referee, will be rewarded with another assignment.
Olsen: “I don’t have to explain it. You guys know exactly what happened. Everybody knows what happened. You’ll see [the goal] and you’ll know exactly what happened. I don’t want to talk about the referees because I don’t want them to be the story.”
But fuck that: this team's defensive inadequacies, especially at home, especially with a lead, are maddening: as Fullback notes, if Pontius was half as good on defense as he is on offense he'd be in the USMNT player pool, and on the other flank Najar (usually) and Quaranta (last night) are hardly better. Left back is a gaping hole named Woolard. In central defense, Jakovic is good for at least one spectacular brain fart a game, and once Hamid was carded there was zero communication between Cronin, Jakovic, and McDonald. And I must beat this drum again: thank you, Clyde Simms, for your years of service, your transmission is blown, you can't get out of first gear. And while it's fair to assign primary blame for all three Toronto goals to Cronin (who didn't give up a fourth that went through his hands only because he was so ridiculously off his line and out of position that he was able to recover), there is still an OMFG! disorganized panic in defense that is inexcusable two-thirds of the way through a season. (As is the inability to build through the midfield, but I'll save that for next week when they tie at home versus the Vancouver Soehns.)
Standard disclaimer of perspective re: improvement over last year/reasonable expectations for this year/yadda this season is about building towards next season, etc. True but old. Older than Josh Wolff.
