Hall conjures a point from thin air vs Wiz, 1:1
September 7, 2024
As the vacuous clown Alexi Lalas keeps repeating on his somehow-omnipresent role on Fox's soccer coverage, you need to score goals to win games. Well, duh. (Discounting the scenario where you advance in a knockout tournament after a series of 0:0 draws and subsequent PK wins. This team is not doing that.) Goals! You need to score goals.
Unfortunately, this team, as constructed, is not that good and scoring goals. Tonight, missing their only true scoring threat to international duty and their only true playmaker to continuous injury, they scrapped out a 1:1 tie against a bad Kansas City team. It could have been worse, as the goal came out of nowhere, with one minute left in regulation.
How did we get there? Well, Sandro Schwarz (probably not Volkan Bulut, coaching as Schwarz sat out with yellows) elected to start Cory Burke. Our disdain for Burke is well known, and he didn't disappoint. (Well, he did disappoint. Duh.) Midway through the first half, a perfect through ball from Ronald Donkor found the Jamaican in the box, with only the goalkeeper Tim Melia to beat. The confused Burke tried to round the keeper, failed, but the ball somehow landed at the feet of an unmarked Elias Manoel in the center of the box, with nothing but the empty net in front of him. He missed.
That was it for the boring, tedious, unwatchable first half. Then, ten minutes after the break, Metro defense failed to clear the ball (Burke, a supposed defensive forward, lost the ball twice on the lead-up), and the Alan Pulido just beat the offside line to loop it over Ryan Meara from close range. Metro was lucky not to go down two, as another KC goal was called back for offside.
It didn't look like they were going to score. Dante Vanzeir, who entered for Burke after the goal, barely touched the ball. Late in the game, he did manage to get a foot through traffic from close range, but the shot was saved. It looked like Metro will go down to is second straight scoreless home defeat, when John Tolkin found Julian Hall in the box. The Wiz defense tried to poke the ball out, failed, and the youngster sent the ball towards the net and past the frozen Melia.
The Wiz went down to ten early in injury time, but Metro wasn't scoring two tonight. Hell, even one seemed like a miracle...
Lineup: Meara, Tolkin, Nealis, Reyes, Nealis, Edelman, Donkor, Stroud, Harper, Manoel, Burke. Subs: Carballo, Gjengaar, Vanzeir, Ngoma, Hall.
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