Did we all see what happened when Vancouver went up against Manchester City last night? No? Let me recap a few things:
1. Vancouver looked like they actually cared about the match. When you miss a league match, perhaps that is bound to happen.
2. The pitch, as we all suspected it would, did not just look bad. It looked terrible, awful, horrible, regrettable, and most of all: dangerous.
3. Manchester City’s highly paid midfield man Yaya Toure had a bit of an accident on the pitch when he apparently twisted his ankle. The rumblings are largely that it was a pitch-caused injury, but I won’t be so bold. Regardless, it would come as no surprise.
4. Manchester City are a reasonably slow side with a very, very defensive bent, but what we saw last night was a side that was unwilling to run, chase, or move much at all. It wasn’t the “looking for fitness” friendly look, either: We saw that when they took on Club America (and they actually ran, played the ball, and tried to win.) No, I think Roberto Mancini took one look at the pitch (maybe two, three, or more, in reality,) and instructed his players to take every precaution available. You see, it wasn’t just a bad pitch, it was a dangerous pitch, and especially after Yaya Toure went down in a heap, the man was not prepared to lose more players to the green monster that had apparently eaten up the turf at Empire Field.
Who among us would have liked to see any one of our players on that surface?
That’s what I thought. Nobody would be happy about it — and it was certainly worse on Saturday. The postponement of the match, from Saturday forward, was inevitable. Of course, you may well know my opinion by now: This should never have been a problem in the first place, and if not for the ridiculous, meaningless “WORLD FOOTBALL CHALLENGE” (yawn) the match would have gone forward as expected. The players would have been made wet by the rain, and the ground may have been a bit wet too, but that likely would have been the extent of such problems. And if we’d played on that pitch on Saturday, can you imagine what it would have looked like on Monday? On Monday, huge chunks of pitch were coming up, which players would try to push back down. It really was a sad sight to see.
So let’s count our lucky stars that our players will have a longer time to bid for full fitness. It’s been a season that’s battered our players about a bit — some more than others — and a few extra days, mentally and physically, will be a godsend. At FC Dallas, we looked a team that was fatigued. An extra few days, I hope, can correct that.
So, until Saturday, when we will see more, we will simply prepare for yet another match in which we try to reclaim our rightful place as holders of the MLS title. One game at a time, lads. One game at a time.
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