July 22, 2009
First off I want to say that I hope that Darren Kenton and Thabiso Khumalo both have quicker than expected returns from surgery to repair damage that was suffered in separate incidents in last night's match.
Kenton suffered an ugly (Tilley called it Steenkamp-esque) lower leg injury and Khumalo, the man who scored the game winning goal, suffered a broken wrist.
Besides those two injuries, the game had it's fair share of ugliness as well as both teams let glorious scoring chances go by the wayside. While Tim Melia and Milos Kocic came up with some big saves, both teams had chances that they could have converted to make the final score something other than the 2-1 to DC that it ended up being.
But the Rhinos played hard given that they were without leading scorer Johnny Menyongar and Danny Earls being subbed out in the first half, likely due to injury.
Now they need to put this disappointment behind them and focus on the one trophy left to win.
News & Notes:
- I checked my Twitter feed to find that Devo has heard that the Rhinos will announce two signings today.
- Speaking of Twitter, US Open Cup.com has a big announcement today at 6pm. Since they are not affiliated with the US Soccer Federation, I'm not expecting anything Earth shattering.
- John Ball and Johnny Menyongar were named to the USL 1st Division Team of the Week.
- Apparently Seattle's win over Houston in the other USOC Semi was a rough one as well.
- This take on last night's game really annoyed me.
- This take on a farm system set up makes me laugh given the history of trying to get something like that to work between the USL and MLS.
- I like this take a little better. Although, like Devo pointed out last night, even the 1999 Rhinos played a conservative 4-5-1 versus MLS teams.
- If you want to go to Azteca in August, here is your field guide!
The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author, and not necessarily those of the Rochester Rhinos or SoccerSam.com. Feel free to send any comments or complaints to news@soccersam.com. James promises to read (but not to respond) to all of them.
