Inept Metro spun around by DC, 2:1
April 19, 2025
Three wins, three losses, and three ties. A pretty average record, no matter from which side one looks at it. Well, average would have been fine for Metro tonight, as they played their worst game of the season, losing at home 2:1 to DC. The final margin might have only been one goal, but does not describe the ineptitude of Metro's effort.
For some strange reason, despite coming off a shutout, Sandro Schwarz decided to bench his best central defender, Noah Eile, for Alexander Hack. Cameron Harper and Dennis Gjengaar also entered the starting lineup, for Ronald Donkor and Serge Ngoma.
From the opening kickoff, it was obvious what DC's strategy was: let Metro have the ball, hang back, and wait for the counter. It worked like a charm. The Metro offense could do little other than swinging the ball back and forth. When they lost it, DC broke time and again, with only two fantastic Carlos Coronel saves and another one that went off the far post keeping the game scoreless.
In the 35th minute, the dam finally broke. Tim Parker, still somehow starting for Sean Nealis, was spun around by a DC attacker, and Coronel's goal was finally pierced. Then, nine minutes later, the Metro keeper could do little to stop a bicycle kick. Metro looked dead in the water.
Schwarz, who already took off an injured Dylan Nealis for Ngoma, put in Eile for Parker and Julian Hall for Peter Stroud at halftime. Eile immediately helped to stabilize the defense, while what Hall adds to the game continues to be incredibly hard to comprehend. That being said, Metro made a game of it in the 57th, off a corner kick that was sent back by Felipe Carballo into the box, headed there by Emil Forsberg, and finally converted by Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, off a Scum defender and into the net.
Metro had half an hour to find the equalizer, but barely came close. A promising ball off a set piece dropped on the Scum's goalmouth, but the DC keeper grabbed it before two Metro players could get a foot on it. A half chance there, a prayer here... Metro wasn't scoring a second tonight.
At some point, this team needs to look itself in the mirror, and ask, does this style of play actually mesh with its players? If the answer wasn't clear before tonight, it seems like it is now.
Lineup: Coronel, Valencia, Hack, Parker, Nealis, Stroud, Carballo, Harper, Gjengaar, Forsberg, Choupo-Moting. Subs: Ngoma, Eile, Hall, Carmona, Bogacz.
|
