PLAYER RATINGS:
05/05/07 VS. KC WIZARDS

Paul Vancouver
May 7, 2007

May 5, 2007, Kansas City, Arrowhead Stadium, 0-1

The Crew may not have a potent offense, but pin this loss to the Wizards outstanding defense. The Crew offense was given little space with which to work. The Crew had more room in the second half, and Eddie Gaven did get into positions to score, but he may never be the finisher Kyle Martino is. The Crew defense also played well and a tie would have been well deserved, but a superb finish by José Burciaga ruined the afternoon for the Crew.

The Crew didn't have any better ability to hold their footing in Arrowhead Stadium than they have in Crew Stadium. The grass seemed tall and the ball heavy. Perhaps the ball just sounded heavy from the exceptionally clear audio picked up throughout the match. The excellent audio contrasted with the less than stellar video.

If Curt Onalfo really was all over the referees around the 70th minute complaining that "all they do is foul" he wasn't showing much class. Jair Marrufo called a very tight match. If Onalfo wasn't getting any calls, then he might have had a right to complain. Onalfo did get rewarded for all the egging on he did to get his team to push up in the second half--congratulations to him.

4.5 Kei Kamara

Kei's air game apparently isn't much better than Garey's. Other than that I cannot pin anything specifically wrong with Kamara's play, but he obviously was ineffective in getting dangerous scoring opportunities. At 38:46 Kamara's header redirection from a Pierce throw-in just wasn't good enough. At 50:43 Kamara somehow completely missed a good cross from Hejduk.

4.5 Eddie Gaven

Eddie was good with the ball in the middle of the park and got himself into scoring positions several times but was atrocious with the ball in the final third. At 34:46 Gaven was able to nutmeg Yura Movsisyan on a pass BACK to Marcos Gonzalez, luckily avoiding a very dangerous play. At 45:13 Gaven completely wasted an excellent scoring opportunity. At 60:50 Gaven shot way over the crossbar. At 70:20 Eddie hit is shot so bad from close range referee Jair Marrufo incorrectly assumed Jack Jewsbury must have knocked it out for a Crew corner.

6.0 Ricardo Virtuoso

Ricardo showed strengths and weaknesses in this game. His corner kick taking and ball control were superb. His defense and foot speed were poor. At 27:42 Ricardo appeared to have the angle to the ball from Grabavoy but was easily beaten to it by Jewsbury.

5.5 Ned Grabavoy

Overall Ned had a good game but made a number of mistakes here and there. I'm starting to think he might be faster than Virtuoso. If Virtuoso's head game is any good (I doubt it is), perhaps Ned and Ricardo should consider switching positions, or Eddie and Ricardo.

6.0 Danny O'Rourke

Danny's play was almost error free. True, he got beat by Burciaga on the goal but no one can complain that he didn't step up in an effort to make a play.

4.5 Joseph Ngwenya

The best way to describe Joe's play is inconsistent. At 14:30 Ngwenya hit a horrible shot with Hejduk wide open at the top of the 18 and two Crew players in the six yard box. At 44:10 Ngwenya converted a long attacking pass from O'Rourke but was called offside (it is unclear how close to onside he was).

6.5 Rusty Pierce

Rusty was again strong in defense.

5.0 Marcos Gonzalez

Although he passed well, Marcos was not his usual stalwart self defensively, getting beat on the dribble and with speed. At 17:04 Marcos whiffed on a ball at the top of the six, defended Eddie Johnson well twice in succession to make up for it, but then got beat on the dribble by Davy Arnaud. At 89:44 Gonzalez could have defended Burciaga much better, as he was caught flat-footed on the goal.

5.0 Ezra Hendrickson

Once again Hendrickson got beaten for a goal with a ball blistered behind his back, but it took an excellent shot to do it.

6.0 Frankie Hejduk

Frankie might have had a goal or two with better service (assuming he, unlike the rest of the Crew, could finish). He wasn't the Superman he had been the game before, but he had a solid game nonetheless.

6.0 Andy Gruenebaum

Andy only made one difficult save the entire game, and cannot be blamed for the goal. His kicking game was excellent as usual. His only mistake was to badly shank a kick at 60:18.

4.5 Guillermo Barros Schelotto (65' for Virtuoso)

Guillermo had one moment of dribbling brilliance and was able to get a shot on goal, but also made a number of mistakes in his limited time on the field. At 72:00 Guille ruined a hard run by Ngwenya by taking a hopelessly long distance shot.

4.5 Jason Garey (74' for Kamara)

Unfortunately, Jason wasn't any more effective up front than the man he replaced.

NR Robbie Rogers (88' for Gaven)

Not rated.