Defeat CLB
Kara
0:15
Welcome to another episode of the Queen's Pitch podcast. I'm Kara.
Bridget
0:18
And I'm Bridget. And we're
Kara
0:19
here after a difficult, tough loss to Philly. At Philly, which they're a tough team,
Bridget
0:25
do we really think we was going to go in and win it? I think we tried, right? We wanted to win it. We thought we might win it. We thought in the off chance we would probably pull it off. But 1s I don't know. I went 100 thinking we're going to go win this game.
Kara
0:41
I think we went into this knowing that this is a tough team to beat, but we're all tired, Philly and us included. We've all been playing kind of the same top schedule and so that means it's anyone's game. But at Philly, they've got the advantage of the 12th man. They rarely lose at their own stadium. So the fact that we come out of this with a one to zero loss off an own goal, I just feel like we kind of have to take a little bit of the negatives. 1s And then we'll come to the positives for this game. So, bridget, who'd you like to raft tonight? I'm gonna
Bridget
1:16
wrap bill first and foremost because that dude makes a lot of mistakes. For everything he's good at, he makes mistakes way worse. And I'm gonna have to say, like, I personally think that clinton could have stopped that. But that's not here nor there. But really, if bill would have been in his spot, it would even had gotten to that point. And so if you want to say how many goals or own goals has a bill caused this year? We're going to go with three. We're going to go with three. And I don't understand. I'm going to say, like, I would put SoBo in all day every day. Anyone all day, every day. I would even bring in neely all day, air day over. Bill,
Kara
1:56
I think you have a point there because the goal goes in on the there's kind of a hole on that left side there when they get off the shot for philly, and it just seems like who should be there? Bill. And he gets subbed off about seven minutes after that goal. And you got to think that that's what latancio was thinking was that, okay, bill, we think this is you. All right, sobachinski, get in there and stop that gap. Which is really tough because with carujo coming back and that means all of our center backs are really fighting for time now. And milanda has been in there since crujo has been out, and bill's already been fighting for time. He's had an injury, and they both have injuries, really. But it's going to be more of a competition coming back. And not that that's to mean that crujo is going to be starting anytime soon. But bill's got a lot to work up to. Both him and Alanda have had a lot of pressure, and I don't think he comes off looking great this game. He's
Bridget
2:56
a really nice guy in real life. He really is. My daughter loves him. She likes DMing him and giving him encouragement. So he's super nice. So I think he's a great guy. I just don't think he brings a lot to that line that we really need. I haven't seen that. I see him flashes of hope every now and then, but then I guess maybe he'd be good on the bench, like as a backup, if we needed one, somebody got hurt. But I don't understand why latanzo is putting him in over sobaschinski. Because when sobachinski is in there, then we tend to win or draw. So it doesn't make any sense to me why he's not starting yawning. 1s But he's starting Bill anyway, after when they walked off, I don't know if anybody else saw this, but my daughter pointed out to me when he came off the field, he did shake Lady's hand because I guess that you need to shake the coach's hand when you come off. But Latanzio was talking to him and Bill never even made eye contact with him, didn't make eye contact with him at all, just kept walking. So I don't know what Latanzio was saying to him, but I don't think Bill is happy. I don't think he's thought that LaTanza was happy with him or whatever, but I thought that was kind of interesting. I noticed,
Kara
4:02
well, and he might be blaming himself for letting that opportunity by again. They're under a lot of pressure, especially with the back line changes at that point. It changes around the back three and we haven't been practicing that. We haven't been playing that because we haven't had carujo. So I just really think it was 1s kind of a rough time. And poor, poor Bill gets the shaft on this one. But moving on. Yeah.
Bridget
4:27
Here's your wrath, your first raft. I'm going to do a soft wrath for Mr. Ashley Westwood. And it would be only for the
Kara
4:36
ridiculous yellow card at the 12th minute, which seems just beyond dumb to do when Ted uncle is your referee. 2s I'm glad he didn't continue to make another one, but then he had to be play more careful right this whole game. And I guess I saw more timidity out of going into challenges, out of our team this time. And Ashley to me, just made that very silly one with the play is already over and the ball is out and there's some sort of scuffle or trip or something where he gets a Philadelphia player out of the sideline. Well, after the play, he should have just walked away from it and uncle sees it and gives him an automatic yellow. So it was just a lapse of judgment there in the captain and I really wish he hadn't made it because I think that it limited his effectiveness in how tough he could be in that midfield. And we really needed a tough midfield tonight.
Bridget
5:33
I think he just felt left out. He didn't have as many yellow cards as everybody else on the team, so he wanted to join that crew, you know what I'm saying? So he decided to get him one this time, too. Really? I didn't know why he got one. Thought it was kind of weird. I was like, what in the world is he doing getting the ala card? But then I guess that didn't scare Latonzia because he didn't pull him out. It seemed like Ted uncle wasn't being kind of he gave a lot of fouls today, but he didn't give too many ala cards to us, so I'm not mad at him. Can't really blame the rest this
Kara
6:01
week. No, we had a very clean game from Ted uncle, and I think one of the frustrating things that we've noticed in his patterns when he refs us or when he refs the game that we watch is the. 1s Every time on a corner. If there's any sort of scuffle, he's going to do that. So you have to play a little wiser, in my opinion. Or I guess if you're trying to kill time, that's what you want to do. I don't know. It's just disruption there in the corner box. That to me, just seems silly. But, yeah. If we had had Enzo, I think the momentum would have been very against us in this game. So I can't help but be very thankful that Enzo was not present for this game. With Ted uncle refing, I
Bridget
6:40
don't know what Enzo would have done.
Kara
6:42
So, Bridget, with this being kind of a tough game, do we have any favors to give? I
Bridget
6:46
think my favorite and my favorite person ever in the world. I'm going to give it a burn. I don't even know what's up with this dude. I think that our friend Jorge Torres, our little photo guy. He's so awesome. If you haven't checked out his stuff, you need to. But anyway, we were messaging him and he said that he thinks that burns trying to prove me wrong, that he's out there trying to prove that he's really worth it. And I think that ever since I've been giving him crap for a while, sometimes he just shocks me. But then today really shocked me. He was on fire. He was like literally giving the heat to him. He was everywhere. I even saw him, like, yelling, do this, do that, kind of leading the team a little bit. He was running his little legs off. Given everything, I would think he would be super tired. But he didn't look tired out there. Everybody else looked tired out there. Most of them did anyway. He didn't look as tired as everybody else. So that little guy and I told everybody, if this kid, if he scores a goal, I'm going to buy jersey and put his name on the back, and I'm gonna wear it, and then I'm gonna interview him personally and tell him how awesome he is. Anyways. I will buy his jersey and put his name on the back, though, if he if he scores this year. I thought he was going to tonight.
Kara
7:58
You heard it here. Bridget is going to be on the burning love train if he ever gets a goal. But maybe we can just convince her to stay on this little side of the line here for a while, because Burn really did have a great game today, and I've been trying to tell you that the whole time. He hasn't been informed, but once he stays
Bridget
8:21
informed, he does well. He still has his stuff, but when he's on, he's on. So that's a good thing. I didn't see him getting burnt too much today.
Kara
8:30
I think he was the cavalry today.
Bridget
8:32
Yeah, he was out there, and I think that one little time he ran so fast, he couldn't keep up with that dude. And he tried. He tried really hard, and he was making saves. I thought he was going to foul some people. He didn't. We're getting our money's worth out of him the last few games. Yeah.
Kara
8:44
And I think the times that, you know. 1s He is getting beat or things are happening again, it's more because of the tactics that we want to play. But I feel like he is giving 100% out there. 1s We don't have people who have the youth, talent, et cetera, et cetera, as a fullback that he wants. So you have to make a trade here on what is he looking for. And I feel like at this time, it's understanding your job. And Nathan Byrne knows his job, and tonight it was like to rescue the team from all those balls getting down and the whole back line getting beat. And he was like, Nah, I got you, I'm coming across. So it was really nice to see him play that hard and be recognized this game for how well he's been doing. He played
Bridget
9:29
the whole 90 minutes too, right?
Kara
9:31
Sure did. I mean, he's one of the older guys on the team. Not old in our comparison to how old I am, but he's older than a lot of those guys on that team, and he's holding his own. I like it. I mean, if he keeps it like I said, if he keeps it up,
Bridget
9:47
I'll get a jersey with your name on it, bro, I'll rep you. I don't see that happening. But he does get close to scoring sometimes, which I think is kind of
Kara
9:55
weird. I wish he would actually do it because I want us to have a little more attacking threat that isn't just our front three. I want it to kind of a little spread more round. Well, I guess
Bridget
10:04
food choose to score, right? Yeah,
Kara
10:07
he did. His shots were more on target. You could tell he'd been used to that, especially his penalties, man, he had the prettiest penalties. Moving on. Yeah,
Bridget
10:16
moving on. Who's your
Kara
10:18
first favor? So my first favor will be Carolyn Vargas this game, because I feel like he gave a lot of forward momentum this game and creativity, and we just didn't really see that out of much anyone else. And you saw that noticeably drop once he got taken off the pitch, and of course he took a nice shot, and hopefully one day those will go in when he gets that concussion and comes off. He really was going hard there, and he tries to still stay on, and we don't really know why he was subbed off, except that him and Marim have been playing. 1s Long minutes, and Carolyn just came back from an injury, and I got to think you do see the noticeable difference dropping when you don't have him out there at this point. Now, partially of that is because we don't have any other wingers pretty much to put on for him. And this is not anything negative against Ajimang or Cambridge who came on. They did. Well, I'm glad they got some minutes, but as far as experience, quality, and knowing what choices to make and how to drive into a tough team like Philadelphia, we saw those bits from Kerwin, and we saw those smart things from Maram at times, too. But I feel like Kerwin had the better game this time. Yeah.
Bridget
11:35
Let's just hope that he's good on Saturday. I like Vargy. I like the Gala shoes. Easy to see out there. We wanted him to shoot. He shot, didn't go in, but he keeps it up. I think that just comes a time. I mean, heck, Carol shoots, and they don't go in every time either, so we can give it up to Bargie. At least he tries. And I think he's playing his little heart out. He's being aggressive. He's doing what he can out there. He keeps getting hurt, and then he comes back, and he's getting hurt, and he's coming back. He's just taking a licking and keeping on kicking. Isn't that how we say it? I like that.
Kara
12:11
And you know what else he had? He had 100% of accurate passes today. You know, rarely that happens. All right, man, I'll give it to you. Who's your other favorite? I'm going to give my other favor to the other old man on the team. He's not really old. Like I said, he's still younger than me. I'm going to give it to King Harry. That guy gives it his all, every single freaking game that he's in. He got hurt on Saturday night. He literally got hurt, like, running himself into the ground. Like, gave us all on Saturday. Ran himself in the ground, got hurt, got himself better. Went out there today, played his little heart out. He was running all over the place, trying to make things happen. 1s I just
Bridget
12:49
he amazes me. He can do all that and then still have a smile on his face every day, too. He's the nicest little guy. I like him a lot, so I think he's just so important on our team. What are we going to do without him next year?
Kara
13:03
I think his vision is higher quality than some of our other players. He just has that that great wisdom, and, you know, he brings a big positivity and leadership to that side that I really think Latanzio likes. I hope he is getting his scouting job done, because apparently he can scout till kingdom come and play as much as he wants as long as he's doing his scouting job the other day. So he must be a very busy guy. He
Bridget
13:28
looked tired. I mean, I'm not going to lie, all the guys are tired, but he looked tired at the beginning, too, and I was like, Harry's looking tired. It's been ten minutes in because he kept going, he kept playing, and he wasn't missing, wasn't getting burned on things, he wasn't losing it, wasn't going in the goal because of his mistakes, you know what I'm saying? So he just keeps playing even as he's tired, and I think that shows the guys with him being an experienced player out there, that shows the guys, like, what their work ethic should be, like, how they should go out there, how they should keep playing. They should put 110% in. I just think it's a really good role model for the other guys on our team, and I like having him out there. He's a positive little guy.
Kara
14:10
I really like that moment where it seemed like he was the road Runner.
Bridget
14:14
He does that a lot. We knew he wasn't going to catch that dude either, but he tried his little heart. He somehow blocked it, right? Yeah. And didn't call it foul. So hey, anything of the yellow card? So go, Harry. I don't even think he has a lot of yellow orange, does
Kara
14:28
he? He has three.
Bridget
14:30
Yeah, he's very smart,
Kara
14:31
but he usually makes them on, like, a really easy one. Boop, a nice little arm push or kind of a push in the back that's not like harmful to the player, but more they're usually
Bridget
14:43
tactical when he does it, too. He's trying to save the day or save him from getting a golf. So we can't be mad at him for that either. Good job, Harry. So who's your second favor? My second favor is honestly going to go to this whole team. Philadelphia is a tough team to beat and their last form has been pretty tough. They won against New York City, three to one. They beat New England, which is pretty tough, three to zero. They've won almost all of their games at home in the last anything can remember. Like this is a tough team. We know that they're a team to beat and that they've got great depth and challenge. Of course, that doesn't mean we forget our lovely four to zero victory of last season, Danny Rios. But we went into this match knowing that they're a tough team, knowing that we have to shut down their attacking, especially the new guy. Karanza is their new guy, I think, getting all their goals and stuff like that. But what did we do? I feel like we did nobody really. I mean, they got a few good chances, but it felt
Kara
15:47
pretty even like the loss. This game doesn't feel like we deserve this result. It feels more like a tie game. And of course it was a weird own goal. He got the shot, but it just comes off and ricochets weirdly off of Kalina's hand because it hits the pole and then it bounces backward into his hand where Kalina tries to get it on the other side and he can't because he's already trying to block the goal that should have happened, that hit the post. And so it's just an awkward bobble and he couldn't adjust that quickly to that close of a bobble. So I really think no, this was a team that was evenly matched. We did well to try and shut down their attacking play. I can't be
Bridget
16:26
upset, no, we can't hate on them at all. They did great. They're gritting grinding in that first half and even on to the second half. I think even towards the end they got that goal. Then they kept playing. I thought they were going to give up, honestly. And then it was going to be like boss of the walls, you know what I'm saying? And they didn't. At least they kept playing. They kept trying. That was one of my biggest fears, they would give up and they didn't. And our guys are tired and we're playing with the same guys every single freaking game just because we don't have a bench. So it's not like we have other options out there. We're not going to start our new guys that have never played a whole MLS game. So Carol's out there playing every freaking game. You got Justin out there. You got Vargas. I mean, we don't have any options. How long we think Enzo is going to play on Saturday or Camille, so I don't know. We're just going to have to just. 1s Give these guys a little bit of grace. I mean, I was proud of them. I was really, really proud of them. They should be proud of themselves. They should be proud of themselves. They don't really get much momentum, honestly, out of that own goal, which I really think is a testament to how hard the guys tried after that to try and still shut them down, not let them see that as momentum and get that recognition and they easily could have. It was a tough Atmos here, too, but you're right. We've had guys come back from injury. Mora got to play a lot more minutes this time and we haven't seen him in a while again. And we have Kuruho coming back and he made a very good showing for being in here and he's still not 100% and he's not going to get there. He's only played like 60 minutes before what little bit he got tonight. But he did well for being there. I loved that last big tackle, right as we closed out the game. That was pretty great. And we're like, oh, that reminds us of last year's carujo. We missed that, right. But
Kara
18:16
he's not 100% yet and it's going to take him time to get there. But everyone really gave a ton of effort and heart this game and hustle. I just really love this team for the effort that they made tonight.
Bridget
18:29
Right. It's a big difference in what we saw, I feel like, at that Birmingham game as to what we saw tonight. They played with their hearts. They did everything that they could possibly do and there was times where we could have easily gave up and let them score, but we didn't. We made it happen. And Kudos. Kudos. I hope they get some rest. I really do hope they get a lot of rest. We
Kara
18:53
got to go back again Saturday. So still on the road. Columbus, here we come. Way to
Bridget
18:58
keep it positive there, Kara. Well, nobody's
Kara
19:00
going to get some rest, but hopefully after this we will. I mean, we still got to get a little bit, but I feel like for grit and drive and just composure this game, they did well. They have to count that as and not be defeated from it. They should be encouraged and energized by how they play. They should not hang their heads. I just
Bridget
19:19
don't like the park and the bus tag did crap. I mean, I don't like the inverter fullback mess, but I didn't see that. I didn't notice that today. Me. But I don't like the park in the bus and I think that if I blame anybody, it's going to be Latonzia. I'm not blaming these guys because they did what they had to do and they did what they needed to do to keep them from scoring for most of the game. It's just that whole park in the bus mess, which I understand we got to do it sometimes because we don't have people or whatever, I don't know but like you just texted me one time can we just keep the ball on the other hat? Can we keep it on our side for 1 minute? You know what I'm saying? And I don't understand why we just run the option of, hey, let's just do everything we can to keep it back there and pray that our defense holds up. I just don't understand that tactic. So I think they did a great job. If I blame any fat buddy for today, other than maybe that on goal stupid Bill clean a mess, which was just whatever fluke, I'm going to blame Laddie's little park the bus mess. But then again, I understand it too, to a certain extent.
Kara
20:14
Not that I liked it. I do think you've got. 2s Tough choice in making that. And it's easy to criticize honestly because it hasn't worked out well for us parking the bus this early. And I think we saw some of that. But then again, we also know that he could have been dealing with if Vargas's concussion if he would have actually felt something from that that happened later after the actual call and pull off or and that's why he put him in so early, because I feel like that happens a little bit early. And he puts in Kotarujo for Maram right around that same point. So you got to think, okay, well, he's making some tactical shifts here, as well as maybe adjusting to how Philadelphia was playing in general. We saw there was a ton of threat from Gaussdog. Now, after that, I'm not sure we actually shut him down by making this tactic, but we do some of that. I do think it's a fair criticism to say that he did that at that point and we cannot like it. But he's also dealing with guys that are come back from injury, they've got fired legs. They've been playing game after game after game. He put in some young guys who they're not going to have the same composure against a really experienced, tough team as Philadelphia. I mean, that's a tough team to go against, but I'm glad they tried. They didn't have a great game, but they all definitely try. That being said, I have one more little baby rat. We're not baby Ralph. Let's have a ralph. I was saying that our fans need to take a chill pill sometimes. This is getting ridiculous. I got on the Facebook mostly Facebook Twitter verse isn't as bad as the Facebook verse is, but our fans are the most wishy washy, flip floppy, all kinds of mess get craziness. I saw people write today that through the game that these guys played like crap. I don't know what they saw. They weren't watching the same game. I saw the let's fire, Latanzio. I think I saw maybe ten or twelve posted that after the game. I just see the most ridiculous mess, and I get it. And we might not like his tactics, we might like what he's doing, but none of us thought we were going to go into Philly and like, tear the world up. None of us thought that. So we just all need to take a chill pill as far as fans are concerned. Or maybe I need to get off the Facebook verse for the most part, but it just roused me up. And then I saw there was a fan on the Twitter verse this week that was complaining about the team and tagging the players. Who does that? Who in their right mind does that? 1s And
Bridget
22:45
what good will that do? Right. Like, I don't think that bill did great. Right. So I'm not going to make a post anywhere and tag bill to Iloma on it and so that he sees what I have to say about him. Is that going to make him play better next week or next game? No. Right.
Kara
23:01
I think our mode here is to be respectful of the hard jobs that these guys have to do and only that in the face of so many eyeballs on them and knowing that they're going to get blame from fans and stuff, like, they kind of know that, but let's not throw it in their faces. It's pretty disrespectful.
Bridget
23:19
Right. At the end of the day, they're doing their job. They get paid to do it. We do not we're not coaches. We don't get paid to coach. We don't even get paid to think about that. A lot of us don't. But we sit at home and complain and critique them and do what we want, but in the end of the day, that's their jobs. And we just need to be respectful. Do we have to like it? No. And if it was, like a serious thing and we was, like, going downhill faster than you know what to do, then, yeah, we can all do whatever we got to do, but at some point we just need to take a chill pill and realize that this is a long we still got half a season left, right. And we just got to get through this hard part. Swaderski is going to poland. Kudos to swardershi for getting pulled up, but I think the only game he's going to miss is the seattle one. So let's pray that camille and enzo are better by then. He's
Kara
24:04
not missing seattle. He's going to miss new york red bulls.
Bridget
24:06
Somebody I saw said he didn't miss seattle. He's
Kara
24:08
leaving after seattle. Okay,
Bridget
24:10
well, anyway, he'll be at seattle. He won't be at the red bulls, so that's good either way. He's only missing one game, so let's just pray enzo and camille are back by then. And kudos to him. Yeah. And we
Kara
24:19
really hope that everyone just really thinks about building these guys up for how well and how they've hung in there despite all these injuries and things against them. They have had a tough season and they are really showing their toughness through hanging in there. And to these choices. They are not certainly lying down on the field saying, run over me. Not that they haven't a few times, but they aren't right now, especially in this stretch. This may has been really good for us and and ugly and scrappy and I'm. 1s Constantly watching half the game through my fingers. I feel like I just want to hide my head because I want a good result, but I can't because it's not fair. 2s If they have to go out there and play with these tough things, I should be able to watch it and share them on. So we hope you do, too. Yeah,
Bridget
25:11
I think we just all just needed to just relax and realize that, hey, this is one game that's down, and we didn't lose that bad one. Nothing's not that bad. You know what I mean? To Philadelphia on
Kara
25:22
goal. A crappy on goal. Right? No, exactly.
Bridget
25:25
And I think they've won eight in a row or some craziness. So it's not like we lost the Galaxy, which we didn't. We won. So now we just need to head to Columbus, which we have this Saturday night, 730, and a statistic on that one. The Columbus crew has never beat us. Now, granted, they won tonight, but they've never beat us. So I'm hoping that we can get a win on Saturday, I hope really badly, but if not, maybe we can at least get a draw and keep that streak going so we don't want them to win, and
Kara
25:58
then all guys get a rest after that.
Bridget
26:01
Let's hope Kirwen plays on Saturday. We will talk to you after the Columbus crew game on Saturday night. Until then, stay safe.
Kara
26:10
Here we
Bridget
26:10
are. We're back. We're after this game of Columbus Crew versus Charlotte in Columbus, Ohio. I was supposed to go to that game and now I'm so glad I didn't. We lost four to two. Kara, how you feeling? I
Kara
26:22
mean, I am really glad we didn't lose four to zero because if that was gonna happen, like, I 1s would have had a whole lot more words today than what I will have, so and probably none of them would have been good. Not not a bit. There's going to be some good words because we have at least two goals
Bridget
26:39
and there was one time that we had hope, you know what I mean? There was a glimmer of
Kara
26:42
hope. Small bit. It did not help that offsides and bad luck were the name of the game tonight.
Bridget
26:50
We're not blaming bad luck or offsides, though. We're not going to do that. No, not
Kara
26:55
a bit. Not this one. This was outclassed entirely.
Bridget
26:59
I don't even know what happened. 1s It wasn't even the same team. Charlotte
Kara
27:05
does either.
Bridget
27:09
Maybe the players don't either. That's the crazy thing. I think they just like they're not I don't know, maybe they forgot to show up because they're so tired.
Kara
27:17
That first half, I think Laddie told them to show up in halftime. Laddie
Bridget
27:22
was so upset in that first half. I think at one point bill go over to the side and he ripped him a new one and it was good times. I don't think Bill thought it was good times. He gave him a little push, pushed him back into the field and tell him. But I don't think it helped. It didn't help at all. And I know when they went in at halftime 30, I was like, I think I messaged a group message the group text that we're in. And I said, somebody needs to light a fire under these guys. 1s It worked for a minute. They came out and scored two goals. It did. Then they allowed them to score. So it was good times. So,
Kara
27:54
Bridget, let's just get this pull the band aid off. Let's get this over with. Yeah, let's go ahead. Let's start with the rafts and then we'll finish up with the positives. I mean, usually you're supposed to do the positives and then do the negatives. We're going to do this backwards. So I'm going to go ahead with my first raft. It's going to be Bill snow denying it every week. I don't care. I'd
Bridget
28:13
love to favor that guy, but there's just no favoring him. Kind of ready for Crujo to come back so we can bench him. I don't know. That guy just 1s I don't even know how lady kept him in the game. I thought he was going to yank him at, like the 30 minutes mark.
Kara
28:28
He's out of position here every time. No, I mean legit because Milanda's hurt again.
Bridget
28:35
Wait, he moved one spot. He slid over like 2ft.
Kara
28:38
He did. But again, DJ has been in that spot
Bridget
28:42
2ft so it really makes a difference if you're like 2ft over.
Kara
28:47
It does. It makes a difference on communication. So it made Bill off on what his usual job was, what his usual spot was and everything. And so when he was out and he was out for a while and he was in, but he still hasn't been playing Milan spot and this is what happened. 1s He makes mistakes in Melonda's spot.
Bridget
29:11
Well, he makes mistakes in his spot a lot less. I don't even know why we started him. I guess because we melonda's hurt. We found that out before the game. Melonda. Has Wanda's hurt? We didn't
Kara
29:21
want to be like, here Carujo, go in there and eat alive.
Bridget
29:26
Right? So Melonda's got a hamstring injury. We heard about that. Let's hope it's just a minor one and a precautious one because Lord knows we can't lose him. But yeah, Bill struggles. Bill is on the struggle bus. He's a really nice guy. Like I said, I like him from New Zealand. He's a really cool guy, really like his accent a lot. But being a nice guy doesn't equate to being on the back line. And I think one of the stats that we learned tonight after the game was that we have been scored on 30 times this year, just the most in the MLS. And that's not a good stat to have. And we can blame the goalies and we might get into that later, but I'm not going to blame all of them on the goalies when our backline is just fantastic.
Kara
30:08
Are you wrapping the whole back line now? We've moved on from Bill and now we're the whole back line.
Bridget
30:12
Well, I'm just saying bill is part of that backline and Bill is the problem.
Kara
30:16
He did have a very poor pass at the very beginning that leads directly to the goal. He's not alone in the fault in this, but I do have to say Bill does. After he gets ripped a new one by Latanzio, he at least comes back and is solid for most of the rest of the game. The problems with other things we're going to bring up, but to me Bill just leads it off. But he does not lay down and die. So at least there's
Bridget
30:46
that. No, he doesn't. And I mean, I guess he did well enough to lady didn't pull him the whole game. He let him play the whole freaking game. So if he was doing really bad, he would have pulled him, right? I mean, I was hoping he'd pull him for Carujo, but I guess like you said, we don't want to put crew in and break him right now because we're breaking everybody else. Anyway, let's move on. Who's your wrath tonight? Well, I'm going to go you one better and say that Bill's pass to Yon is the one that leads to the goal. And Yon. 2s Had an extremely poor night tonight. Again, I don't think this is a solo problem, but I do think this was not Yon's night to be bad on the back line. I'll be interested to hear what other people say about it. And that's fine because we I know we do have some Yon supporters. Cool. Great. But in the first goal, he just watches the ball come to him, no matter all the men around him, and he doesn't go to it or he doesn't get into space for the past like he should. He just waits for it. Well, I'm sorry. We're playing MLS. We got to move our feet a little bit. And Yan hasn't been playing enough that he has the excuse of most of the rest of the team that he's, like, tired or whatever. The third goal, I think, is directly because 1s Yon does not cover his man and does not attempt to. I think it gets mucked up in who's covering who and everybody gets confused. But ultimately, I think it was Yon who was supposed to be tracking Kucho Hernandez, and only Nathan Byrne is trying to go down there and save the day, even though he's super far away. And he's like, I see it, I see it happening. I'm going to come help. But like. 1s I'm just gonna go into my second wrath because why not? We're gonna stand here. Yeah, just do it.
Kara
32:36
It's the communication. The communication between all of them. The
Bridget
32:41
lack thereof
Kara
32:42
right. Was nonexistent. Just about
Bridget
32:46
oh, they were yelling, but not to each other. Like, they weren't listening to each other.
Kara
32:49
Certainly not when the problems were happening. It seemed like they were much more likely after the fact to blame each other or fussed at each other after the fact, which, in the case of people are supposed to be leaders out there. That's their job. All right, so I saw Harrison Awful doing that, too. Not to mention that wasn't saying he's perfect tonight, but I liked that he was at least coming up there and trying to be like, what is happening? Was all of their comments necessarily directed in a positive way to fixing a problem? And motivational can't necessarily give it that, but that second goal is just entirely muck up communication. And we know we've had an entire rotating door of defenders here. And possibly once he saw that Moanda was. 1s Not? Well, his typical mo. Has been to put DJ in the back line. Well, we saw when you put DJ in the back line, it shores up. Now, the problem too, is we rely way too much on having DJ and Melonda in there carujo before them. But someone's got to be the stop gap. And no one on the pitch tonight was willing to be that man in the middle and actually stop the gap until we put DJ back out there. That just shows how much we need the right pieces on there. And if this isn't being answered, then we get punished.
Bridget
34:12
Byrne got a red card, right? So he's out. Next
Kara
34:14
game, he got his fifth
Bridget
34:16
yellow. Yes, not a red card, but he has to sit his butt out. Okay, so he gets his butt out and then how many John got? He's got a lot, too. But like you said, yan might not even have that opportunity anyway. But there you go. You got two of them down, so then you only have Lindsay and Mora. So you throw them out there, and when you got a fool but the fool is getting tired, too, you kind of dwindling down. You see what I'm saying? Like, we don't want to use bill. But we don't have anybody else.
Kara
34:42
Yeah. It makes you wonder what the plans are in the front office and for the transfer window coming up. Because we knew that having at least another an actual left back was sorely needed. But so much so that we had to keep awful on, which he's been good in in many ways, and I'm glad we have him, but we just keep getting worn down and it's going to be worn down to nubs or nothing. And where is our actual left back? Are we recruiting them? Are they in the pipeline? Are we just trying to limp to July? It begs the question,
Bridget
35:23
y'all's playing way up and I don't know, the whole dang back line was playing way up there's midfield, and one time Yon was hanging out with Carol. They was just like trotting beside each other. Made no sense. In the final third, I was like, what is Yawn doing way up there? And then he would get he'd get beat. So I have no earthly idea what was going on with that defensive line. They were playing so far up, so far up, and it was like, I get it if you play up, if you're pressing and we're doing a good job, but we were not. So they were killing us every time. We'd be so far up that our defenders be way up there at midfield and all of a sudden, here we go. We're burnt by then. And not just Burn getting burnt, everybody was getting burnt.
Kara
35:59
And again, part of the problem, I think, with Yon was that he was coming up way too far. And then our gaps were just not good tonight, and Columbus Mercilessly used them against us. It's just so painful and I feel like we're all out there going, but why does it hurt so much?
Bridget
36:22
This game hurt really bad.
Kara
36:23
Do you have another wrath that you want to chat about?
Bridget
36:26
Of course I have another one. I wanted to wrath him last time. I didn't do it. Held back, really. This time I'm going to do it again. It seems like I'm going to do him every week, too. This is awful. And it's not awful this time. I'm wrathing kalena again. I'm just not getting it. Maybe I just don't know. If he's not up to par yet, we keep making that excuse for him. 1s It's. His back line sucks, Tastic, which we know that does, too. But I'm just telling you, when he gets the chance to kick that ball, he kicks it to no man's land. He kicks it to no one. And that's just insane. And I don't understand his I don't know, is it just that his has he always been that way, where he just didn't know where to kick it to, and he just was kick it?
Kara
37:09
He has always had a problem with poor distribution. Yes.
Bridget
37:12
Okay, so that's his thing. So, like, burn gets burnt. We know that he gets burnt. Kalina's got his poor distribution thing going on. Well, here's the thing. If you've got poor distribution, then I'm expecting you to block every freaking goal that comes to you. And I don't think that you need to be if we played Clumscrew last year, and I know you get on me for doing this all the time we played Columbus Crew last year, and he had that goal that was over his head and into the goal right kicked over his head. But he was way out this time. That time. But this time, guess what? He had one chipped right over his head, right into the goal again by guess who? Columbus
Kara
37:46
Crew. Yeah, but this one is chipped over his head at his goal box. 2s The small, the smallest line of the goal box. He was out. You can't get mad at that because his job is to close that down. He goes out to that line right where the man is, and Cucio Hernandez just has the talent to chip it over him. Kalina, in that moment, other than him timing, he gets it right. He's supposed to come out because he needs to close down that box. He needs to make that smaller. And we know that his strength lies in being a sweeper keeper. And I don't necessarily think he's caught out in these moments. I just think he isn't either reactive enough or 100%. His defense hangs him out to dry. The communication problem is with him, too. We're used to him railing into his defenders, going, what are you doing? And rallying him up and things like that. And I didn't see that from him tonight. And maybe it's just because they didn't pan to it, but he seemed confused. He seemed literally confused that he didn't know what was going on. He wasn't in the mental head space that you usually see Kalena in or you see the goalie in, or you expect the goalie to be in. You suspect that out of, like, an inexperienced goalie that's not sure what's going on. But for him, he's supposed to control the game. Like I've always heard, the goalie has a lot of control over the game, especially with when they have that backpass, and especially because we love to backpass. That's our thing. And then he's supposed to control the ball, have the good footwork. He's not having that. And I don't know if it's because of his injury and he's not got back into his groove or if he just never had it, but 1s I'm not impressed with him this year at all yet. He did have a clean eat, and I raft them the day I just cleaned cheek, but that was, like, just whatever. Because his distribution is off, but it's not getting any better, and that's what's killing us. 2s You know, like, if he can't kick it down there and get it to our guys so that we have an opportunity and get it out of our back third or whatever the mess we call it, then he's not doing his job either. And
Bridget
39:55
I think he could have stopped that last one. So I don't
Kara
39:58
know. It was a poor game. It was a poor game. Kalina, to me, was off his normal game today. I'm not sure what better I can say about it.
Bridget
40:08
I was reading latanzia's interview that carol carol was so kind to be tweeting it so we know what's going on. Latanzio said that he took responsibility for it, but he's got some guys that are really tired, and they're playing against a good columbus crew team. And columbus crew really hasn't lost a home game, I think, in the last 14 games at home there. So, I mean, it is what it is. They have a good team, but we got ran over. But let's do some favors so that way that we can end this on a positive note. So you want me to go first? Yeah, go for it. Okay. Well, my favorite is going to go to bender. I wanted him to start over adjimon, but he didn't. So when he did come in, though, they subbed him like lady subbed him really early for lady. So I think he thought that adjimon was just tired or something was going on there, or he needed to put carol back up. And the way he could do that was to put bender in. Bender's really aggressive. I like that. Bender is not scared to get in the middle, to do what he's got to do. He makes plays happen. He was on the outside. He gave it his all, and I like that. I like his pinkish red shoes. I can see him. His little hair is growing back, too. Got that little curl wave in the back. Anyway, he was really good. He did a good job. So I'm going to give my favorite to bender.
Kara
41:26
We are glad bender is back. I think bender had the right drive and not letting up attitude that Latanzio really likes to see, and that is not to take away anything from ajimang. In making his official starting debut today. I thought he did a very good job for this. He's a young player, has not gotten this opportunity before. Obviously, this is his first year as well, and he hasn't gotten very many minutes on the pitch in MLS. And so he got to come out there and do enzo's job. And we know enzo already has a tough job. And so today against a team like columbus crew, that was a tough match for ajimang. And I thought he did well for the attempts he got for the hold up play he gave. I think that the difference was is that once we were and this is my feeling not anything negative against Audrey Mong. I think Latanzio was thinking that he wanted to put Bender in. 1s Because he wanted Carol up top. He wanted Carol to play a different game because it didn't seem to be working the same way before, and he wanted bender to be able to drive it to Carol and then play off each other that way. Ajimong. Does not yet have that versatility in his game yet. And also, I think the defensive qualities of bender have come a long way. We know they're there for carol, but Ajimon. Is just not quite ready to as down as we were. We needed to make a change, and I think keeping him on would have been a disservice because I think he just wanted something else out of who was there on the pitch, and he had to take Ajimang. Off so that he didn't set him up for more
Bridget
43:13
failure. I think he did what Ajimon. Did well, but bender just brings that spark, and this year, I think we see a totally new bender. I think all he needs to do is put a little poundage on, put a little weight on him, and get a little tough and just be that little beast that we know he can be up front. I think that as long as he stays healthy, we'll see a lot more out of Bender this year. Okay, so who's your favorite?
Kara
43:35
My favorite is going to go to Justin maram because he tried to get a goal, it was knocked off side, and you know what? He tries it again, and this time it goes in. And so I thought for him tonight, we had what we asked out of him for the offensive quality that we needed. I think there was a disconnect between the offensive and. 1s The midfield and the rest of the pitch, something was just it was like tale of two different sets of the team not connecting. And I think our front line, I think Kerwin did a great job up there making attempts and crosses, and he took that really tough foul. And I know we're trying to keep him healthy, too. And so I was really glad that he was able to stay on and feel well. And I thought he did a good job for what he was out there to be. It would have been really nice if he'd have gotten that curl off his kick instead of the curl not coming off one bit and ricocheting it into the stands. But Maram delivers on what he was out there to do. Even when it goes wrong, he goes out there and he does it again. I was so glad we actually had that today. That second goal, I was actually crying because I was like, thank goodness we didn't have nothing up there. Give up. Right? Right. And him and Carol connected really well there to make one and then two. Him and
Bridget
44:57
Carol do well together. They play well off each other. Maybe it's experience. I like Maram because he's humble. He's just super humble. And it's like, sometimes I wonder what he's doing out there. But he's been playing way longer than I've been watching, so I guess he knows what he's doing more than what I do. He seems to always have his cool. It's calm, you know what I'm saying? And he's just chill. But he does his job. Like you said, he does his job. 1s And he's just tired. He's getting tired. They're playing these guys so much. He was so tired. You could just tell. But luckily, they get a week off, and I think he'll come back out stronger than ever. And, hey, if we can just count on Maram to get a go every week, we just need some other Carol and Maram to get a go every week. Come on, boys. We need some other people stepping up too.
Kara
45:40
They brought a lot of heart, I thought. Justin brought a considerable amount, especially when he was trying to rally the troops. Shall we say, in some moments of vulnerability,
Bridget
45:51
they still forget he's out there. Sometimes, though, he'll be, like, wide open. Just be forgetting that he's on their team. I'm like, dude, Mary's still out there. He's got the yellow shoes on so they can see him. They need to realize who he is. Oh, and by the way, Karen wanted me to let everybody know I'm not crazy about the shoes. But the reason that do this and point out the shoes is because when I'm watching the game, if I notice what their shoe color is, I don't have really good eyesight. So when I'm watching the game, if I notice their shoes, I can tell who's playing what and where their positions is, and it gives me a better view of the game and where everybody's at. So I'm not just crazy and obsessed with their shoes. Okay. I really have a reason for doing that
Kara
46:31
for you. They're a way to adapt your vision to see
Bridget
46:34
what's going on. Yeah, and I can see I can't see the numbers on the back of their jerseys in time, and especially when I'm at the games, but I can see their shoe colors, so I know who should be where. And by their shoe color, I can tell. Okay, this is where so and so is, and this is who this is. So that's how I do it. But anyway, it's not just I'm aesthetic shoes, but by the way, Lindsay had on white shoes tonight, and that threw me way off because he always wears pink shoes, and then he had the white shoes on. Who's this kid with the white shoes on? It was Lindsay. But anyway okay, anything else you got to say about tonight? Before we wrap this up,
Kara
47:05
I just wanted to say I'm really glad to have McKinsey back.
Bridget
47:08
Oh, yeah. It was nice seeing him out there, too. That
Kara
47:10
speed he's got, we needed some depth, and so I'm very happy to see McKinsey out there. He got off a really great cross to no one. Unfortunately, no one was fast enough to come after him. And it was kind of tough today for the struggle for our subs to come in to the run of play with as fast as the game was going. But I thought it was very nice to have him back out there and attempting to give us some more depth. Even if it just didn't settle. We were too far behind. He
Bridget
47:43
did a good job. I like him. He has speed. He had a nice cross to swordski. Just didn't go in there's. A lot of girls that we should have had, should have, would have, could have. Again, Vargy kicked it into no man's land. For some weird reason, instead of shooting it. It just seemed like our guys were off tonight, so they were. We're going to chalk this up to having an off night
Kara
48:00
exhaustion. You know what one of my favorite moments of the game was, though? Oh.
Bridget
48:06
Let us know. At
Kara
48:07
one point it was like all the men were like jumping on top of each other and I was like, who decided it was a good idea to have a dog pile in the middle of the
Bridget
48:13
pitch? Oh yeah, that was fun. Oh yeah. I don't know, I guess they just gave up. They were like, hey, you know, I don't know, but we're gonna shake it off. Who do we play next week? And we have a home game. Kara. Seattle. We play Seattle at Home 730 at the Fortress where hoping that our guys get a very good week of rest. We hope that maybe Enzo and Camille can come back healthy. We hope. George Marks. Hurry up. Some heels up too. I think they said that Diop has like an abdomen injury too. I think those are the four that are on the injury list right now. Yeah,
Kara
48:47
Diop, it looks like he's not going to be back till the end of July. So this is a significant something or other that he's going to need some time to recover from then.
Bridget
48:55
Might have been like an appendix thing or something, you know what I mean? Who knows? But anyway, Legacy plays again next weekend. They had a week off this week so they got some time to rest. So we hope everybody has a great week. Do you have anything else to say about the game? It was
Kara
49:08
a tough game. Let's just forget it all and be like a goldfish and come back and have a really nice match at home in Seattle. But for real, we need to stop this pattern of every couple of games losing three and four. Okay,
Bridget
49:26
well, we're now back. We're back. We had eleven game stretch where it was like every other day and not really that many games, but you know what I mean, it felt like that like I think it was like six games or seven games anyway. And so now we get a break. We'll play Seattle, then we break again, then we play the Red Bulls and then we have a month where we just chill, right?
Kara
49:46
Not quite. We play the Leagues Cup and I think we play another we play a few games in July but they're not as many,
Bridget
49:52
right? So we can chill up july 5 coming. Maybe get us an inverter fullback since that's what we like to do and we can get Enzo back. And like I said, Camille back. As to the
Kara
50:03
AP, hang in there all you Charlotte FC fans. We're trying and have a great week.