Please Comment On The Match vs UO And/Or Next Week-End

There is a lot of discussion on the national anthem sound system problem on another thread in this forum. Which is great. It should be discussed. However, I am very anxious to hear more of you tell us about what you thought of the match last night and all the interesting components, including the Rapinoes, the freshmen, (four started!!!), the U20's, etc..


I think if we play like we did last night, which was decent, but not great, (which IS perfectly understandable given the loss of such a great senior class, and the addition of six new freshmen and two Rapinoes returning from major knee surgery), we will probably lose next week-end, (or perhaps tie), to at least one of our highly ranked opponents, (UCLA/USC), or possibly both.

Actually, one or two losses wouldn't be the end of the world. The Pilots are going to take a few weeks, I believe, to really start to put their full game together. Don't get me wrong, I WANT two wins because I want to be as close to undefeated as possible, for play-off positioning reasons.

I'm just not sure if they're going to be ready for another couple weeks or so, to handle a monster week-end like this upcoming one. Two wins for the Pilots would bode extremely well for the rest of the season. That's for sure!!!

whether we win or lose this weekend will just be a start either way. of course, if we lose, it'll be a sign that we have a lot of work to do to right the ship for the tournament.

USC and UCLA haven't had a whole lot of time to round their teams up, either. USC just squeaked out a win in overtime against San Diego. Of course, they did it without AROD, but even if she gets back by Tuesday, she won't have much time to integrate with the rest of the team.

UCLA lost Val Henderson and Danesha Adams, Two pretty huge pieces of the team last year. They haven't even had a game yet, Lauren Cheney is in the same boat with AROD, and their coach was still in China yesterday. It sounds like Shannon Macmillan and the other assistants have had to prep the team for the season. Last I heard, they haven't figured out who their keeper will be. They have their first game against UCSD Tuesday. I'll be monitoring how that plays out.

So, while these are two formidable opponents, they are hardly in midseason form. This will just be a glimpse of what the Tournament might be like.

Well, I wanted to hold off on commenting on the actual game (rather than the shaky camera work and the unreliable video feed) until I had a little time to think about it, and now I have.

The offense to me seemed not rusty, but more like an un-sharpened sword. While the early goal was fantastic, it seemed like things were being forced a little more often than not. It will take a little more time for things to sharpen up a bit, but when they do, look out, they will cut you.

Elli Reed is a speed demon, though I wish she'd pass instead of try to take on three players at once. Keelin and Megan were a force in the midfield which made me very happy. Burke impressed me on her first game. Michelle Enyeart proved why she keeps getting the national team call-ups.

The defense will certainly take some time to really gel. That's a whole lot of freshman responsible for the Pilot half. I could see some lack of communication at times that better teams would certainly exploit, but overall I don't think anyone made any boneheaded moves. I will say that Jessica Tsao really blew me away. She looks to be in mid-season form already. I liked what I saw from Olivier and Megan Sweeney's return is certainly not overlooked. Given time, her runs forward are really going to cause some havoc.

Now onto the Rapinoes... Megan Rapinoe has been my favorite player since the U-19 world championship in 2004. I was thrilled with her performance in 2005 and completely heartbroken in 2006 and 2007. Seeing her play for the full 90 for the first time in two years was a real treat. Part of what I love about her game is that she a player with the least amount of hesitation that I have seen. I didn't quite see that on Saturday and it's due, no doubt, in no small part to that two year break. The touch wasn't quite there and the shots were high and wide. But I saw flashes of the confidence I'd seen before, and that gives me a lot of hope. It will be interesting to see how her being captain will change her approach to the game. I see her having a Totti-like influence on the team (while probably being just a tad smarter and more classy) and hopefully she's up to the task.

From what I saw, Rachael definitely has the hunger, if not yet the fitness. Give her time and she'll be a real terror once again.

And I'll just add that my shriek of delight in response to that quick Megan-to-Rachael goal probably woke the downstairs neighbors.

I think this was a great game to get the jitters out. They know what they need to work on this week and I have plenty of confidence they'll get things done for the weekend.

By the way, Fanatic, Popeye's dad was actually named Poopdeck Pappy. Do you know what deformity Popeye magically overcame ?(trick question)

In the original Popeye cartoons, Popeye only had one eye (his left). He lost the right in the "the mos' arful battle" of his life. That's why he's called Popeye.

Bluto used to call him a "one eyed runt"

Magically, the eye later appeared and was only "Squinky"




I'm not 80, but I'm pretty old.

Since UO adopted Donald Duck as an acceptable form of their mascot, I want to know why no UP students "back in the day" co-opted Popeye as an acceptable form of the Pilot mascot...it makes perfect sense to me. Donald isn't actually the Duck mascot, and Popeye isn't exactly Wally (and apparently, we don't even get him anymore... ), but I would have thought some enterprising young student would have screened ol' Popeye on a shirt and worn it into Howard for a basketball game or something.

P.S. I think we derailed this thread, too. Sorry, FANatic!

OK, next weekend I'm going to watch Popeye cartoons.

How's that?

Haha, as long as you don't watch the feature film adaptation.... (Although I must admit I saw that before I saw any of the cartoons, and I hang my head in shame)

Thanks, FANatic. I was just kind of aiming for "not completely full of baloney"

Francesco Totti is the captain of AS Roma and that team's all-time leading scorer. He is really one of the best players in the world, though not very highly regarded outside of Italy (probably because of his preference of club over country) and lately has been plagued with injury. He made a name for himself by staying with his boyhood team instead of packing off to a bigger club with a larger bank account. He's well known for his incredible vision, passing and free kick ability and is often thought of as being a talisman for Roma. He can also be kind of a hot head and will get caught up in the emotion of the game, which will sometimes derail the team as a whole. But when he is on, Roma get a real lift. As el Pupone goes, so goes the team. (He also has wonderful hair, but that's besides the point.)

But mostly Megan's vision and game-changing ability remind me of classic Totti and she can forgo all that other stuff.

Now even I've derailed the thread, KFTC. No problem. I guess thread's just go off in whatever direction they want to. So be it!

Been busy with work and company the past few days so I haven't posted much, but the big thing that stuck out to me about last night... Michelle Enyeart is just really, really good. She dominates. And it feels like she could do so much more too but is always looking to pass and set up teammates and all that. Which is a great trait, of course, and it's good and smart soccer, but seriously... it would be fun to see her just try and take it to goal every time, because she is so fast she can seemingly run circles around opponents. In other words, it would be amazing to see what kind of numbers she would put up if she were not on a team with so much talent and instead had to be the only option. Call me crazy, but I think she could put up maybe not quite Sinclairian numbers but would probably lead the country in scoring.

Was also very impressed by Burk. She stepped right in and was all over the field. I would be surprised if she didn't play just about every minute at the right wing this season.

It appeared to me that Megan was taking it easy this game. I assume there are several reasons for that, including not having played a game in almost a year and playing with new teammates. I suspect as the season progresses she will become the assertive player we remember.

I'm with you Ninjapizza on Elli and passing. The only player I remember who could consistently dribble into a group of 3 opponents and come out the other side with the ball was Tiffany. She was amazing.

Purplegeezer wrote:By the way, Fanatic, Popeye's dad was actually named Poopdeck Pappy. Do you know what deformity Popeye magically overcame ?(trick question)

Question was'nt to me but I will give it a go. Either an iron deficiency which he overcame by eating spinich thereby embuing him with superstrength or as quoted in the wiki:
"In addition to a gravelly voice and a casual attitude towards grammar, Popeye is known for having an apparent speech impediment (a common character-distinguishing device in early cartoons), which either comes naturally or is caused by the ever-present pipe in his mouth. Among other things, he has problems enunciating a trailing "t"; thus, "fist" becomes "fisk" (as sung in his theme song, which makes it conveniently rhyme with "risk") and "infant" becomes "infink." This speech impediment even found its way into some of the titles of the cartoons"

Since Sinclair was a freshman I've believed the Pilots could win any home game (except this spring vs. USA U-23s) and always expect them to walk off Merlo Field with victory smiles. The double battle vs. Amazons from LaLa Land this weekend does shake my faith a bit, in that anything is possible in the sweet game of soccer, and we know these foes come in loaded with talent and experience. But that's what makes for a horse race. For myself, I just want to watch skill vs. skill, strength vs. strength, and see what develops.

My all-time fave Megan Rapinoe moment: vs Notre Dame at Merlo in the 2005 championship year, when she scored 2 goals and carried the team when it looked as if Sinclair was not 100 percent. First goal description: "Top shelf from 23 yards." Look that up in your Funk & Wagnalls under "rocket."

That's the shot Randy Wadrum called the hardest shot he had seen - man or woman.

It was pretty stunning.

purple haze wrote:Since Sinclair was a freshman I've believed the Pilots could win any home game (except this spring vs. USA U-23s) and always expect them to walk off Merlo Field with victory smiles.

Interesting concept. I'm always shocked when someone beats us here, too.

I checked a bit in the archives, and we have a record of 71-10-5 at Merlo , or about .880 winning percentage.

at away games, we are 33-13-5 for a .732 percentage - Still pretty good.

The most interesting category for me was neutral sites. we are 21-3-1 for a .877 winning percentage, almost identical to home.

I think the Merlo winning percentage in the 90's may have been even a little better than that, but there's no way to check.

You know, the archive thing...

Back from vacation after missing the Oregon game. Sounds great and confirmed my expectation that we might have three or four frosh starting.

I agree with FANatic about listening to Garrett's interview. Key points I heard: (1) Sophie will be here for the entire season, which means she won't be playing for the Canadian U-20s -- whoopie! Also, his comments about giving her time to detox from the Olympics are interesting, indicating the Pilot coaching approach that they will do what's best for their players, even if it might be at the cost of winning a game or two now. (2) Getting recruit commitments by midway through high school junior year is a real plus from a coaching perspective, as the players psychologically start integrating into the team right away. (3) Enyeart would be the top scorer in the nation if she were here for the entire season and might be anyway.

Good to have you back, UPSF. You missed a good one.

I also missed your avatar of a well coordinated UP attack. That picture cracks me up every time I see it.

Earlier this week we had this discussion:

Purplegeezer wrote:

purple haze wrote:Since Sinclair was a freshman I've believed the Pilots could win any home game (except this spring vs. USA U-23s) and always expect them to walk off Merlo Field with victory smiles.

Interesting concept. I'm always shocked when someone beats us here, too.

I checked a bit in the archives, and we have a record of 71-10-5 at Merlo , or about .880 winning percentage.

at away games, we are 33-13-5 for a .732 percentage - Still pretty good.

The most interesting category for me was neutral sites. we are 21-3-1 for a .877 winning percentage, almost identical to home.

I think the Merlo winning percentage in the 90's may have been even a little better than that, but there's no way to check.

You know, the archive thing...

It's been bugging me since that post, so I thought I'd put the matter to rest if I could. It turns out, the archives do have a bit of information in them. The archives contain Weekly release #1 from the year 2000, ( It's the oldest article in the archive right now) It contains a good summary of the Pilot results from the previous decade, including this:

SKY IS FALLING - LOSSES ON MERLO FIELD
REACHES DOUBLE DIGITS
Portland’s three losses in 1999 (6-3-1 at home), put Portland’s record on Merlo Field at 85-11-2 (.878). With its’ win, Virginia joined an elite group of three teams to register more than one win over Portland on the hallowed pitch. Virginia is 2-0 at Portland, joining Notre Dame (three wins), and North Carolina (two wins). Only seven teams have ever beaten Portland at home -San Diego, San Jose State, Virginia, Santa Clara, UCLA, Notre Dame and North Carolina.

Are we consistent or what?

Take away the 1999 season to record the first ten years on Merlo field, and the record jumps to .903

Any way you look at it, I'd rather be us playing on Merlo than the other folks.