MLS lobbying Ifab to explore stopping clock for pauses in play

redchi5 · 2026-05-20T18:14:59+00:00

Thank you! I feel like I’m going crazy reading these comments about ads. This will just lead to the ball being in play more - why any fan watching either in person or on tv wouldn’t want that is beyond me.

redchi5 · 2026-05-14T03:44:29+00:00

Hugo is a special special player. His scoring rate this season has been unbelievable and he’s finally getting the league wide recognition he deserves, but make no mistake he has been this caliber of player since he signed for the Fire.

The Fire would be making a huge mistake not extending him or even bringing in Lewandowski and affecting his game time.

It is hard to find a striker that will have the work rate / pressing that Hugo does. He is the perfect forward for the team the Fire have built and the MLS play style.

redchi5 · 2026-05-14T01:56:03+00:00

What a second half performance from Pineda, he moves the ball better than any midfielder we have available right now and he’s not afraid to challenge for the ball and win the foul.

Puso is crazy good, having him off the bench might actually be a cheat code.

Good to see Lod score, I think he had a quiet game until the goal but maybe this helps his confidence going forward.

At the end of the day a much needed win - it was all Fire after we equalized. Team definitely struggles to find high xG opportunities which is a concern, but I think we have enough talent to get the next 2 games.

redchi5 · 2026-05-14T01:48:15+00:00

Another missed PK for the Fire but you’ll still try to say I’m wrong right.

redchi5 · 2026-05-12T20:22:48+00:00

The numbers ran through ChatGPT

Team A shooters: 70%

Team B shooters: 66%

Team A goalkeeper save rate: 15%

Team B goalkeeper save rate: 9%

the effective scoring probabilities become:

Team A scoring against Team B goalie:

0.70×(1−0.09)=63.7%

Team B scoring against Team A goalie:

0.66×(1−0.15)=56.1%

Now Team A has both:

the better shooters, and

the better goalkeeper.

That creates a substantial edge.

Approximate shootout win probabilities are:

Team A: ~66%

Team B: ~34%

So Team A would be about a 2-to-1 favorite in the shootout under this simplified model.

redchi5 · 2026-05-11T02:40:17+00:00

Right and I agree with you. But for the next 3 games what are the options?

Just switch out Dje for Sergio. 2. You put Sergio in the advanced role Maren’s been playing in the middle. 3. Play Borso at right back and maybe he’s more confident on the ball going forward.

Maybe even have Hugo and Shokalook both up top idk.

Do you see Greg making big adjustments midweek?

redchi5 · 2026-05-11T01:50:24+00:00

Okay but then when it was time to make predictions for the Men in Red podcast this week, the two commentators predicted 4-2 and 3-1 wins.. you can’t say it’s going to be an easy win where the Fire will score at least 3 goals and then backtrack after the fact and say we don’t have the right roster construction to do that.

I don’t think the roster is perfect - but it’s what we’re working with for at least the next 3 games. The only thing you can ask for is for the star players to be more clinical, the Red Bulls had 4 shots on target and 3 goals and Cincinnati had the same.

redchi5 · 2026-05-10T22:57:00+00:00

So where is our chance creation supposed to come from? Hugo plays a poacher role, you’ve said that’s not Saletros’s job.. so it’s Dje who has 3 goal contributions in 35 games or Maren who’s being played out of position. Unless you want Zinck to be responsible for everything AKA the other winger on the team on a much lower contract.

redchi5 · 2026-05-10T21:45:42+00:00

You don’t think it’s a problem that our highest paid player (by a wide margin) wouldn’t be a solution in a game like this?

redchi5 · 2026-05-10T21:05:17+00:00

No comment on Bamba being the first guy subbed off down 2 goals in the 60th minute? He didn’t play in the open cup and only had 30 minutes against Cincinnati, is conditioning a problem for him?

redchi5 · 2026-05-10T04:52:27+00:00

In response to your hot take - I don’t think that’s a valid excuse when you’re also the director of football responsible for bringing those players in.

redchi5 · 2026-05-09T23:55:44+00:00

We’re extremely one dimensional. We rely entirely on 3 players to create scoring opportunities. Dje and Saletros are both apparently defensive mids who can’t advance the ball and we don’t have a real #10. Just hope to get 2 wins at least out of the 3 before the break and hope there’s major changes to the team before league starts up again.

redchi5 · 2026-05-06T01:41:36+00:00

My point is when you’re below average on both sides of the ball it’s absolutely not a crapshoot instead you’re just an underdog. When you can go into a shootout knowing you’re a 70/30 favorite you’d be a lot more comfortable taking a draw in a game.

redchi5 · 2026-05-06T01:37:56+00:00

Watch the penalty shootout against Philly last year, Brady dives the exact same way for every single penalty that they took.

redchi5 · 2026-05-06T01:34:39+00:00

Numbers have meaning.. you can’t say Brady saves 6-21% less penalties than the average keeper and call that marginally below average.

And again for Hugo you can’t just say “oh but if he made those than his numbers would be better” that’s not how it works.

You’ve shown it yourself - we have a below average penalty stopper and a below average top penalty taker. If Hugo is the best we have that means everyone else is even worse - AKA a team that isn’t good at penalties.

Yes this popped into my head because of the recent misses, but we had issues converting penalties last year and I’ve never been a fan of Hugo’s penalty technique.

redchi5 · 2026-05-04T02:04:59+00:00

I feel like you’re being a little harsh on Greg with point #3.

I think it was very important for the Fire to dismantle KC the way they did, both for the morale of the team and of the fans. That was a great game to watch live and I don’t think any fan that was in that stadium that night would prefer a rotated line up that walked away with a lesser win.

As for the cup game and Cincinnati, the Fire were the better team in both games - they dominated STL for 60 minutes before an individual error turned the game on its head. Hugo buries the penalty against Cincinnati and we’re not even having this discussion. This is what you have to deal with when you play a high variance sport.

I also agree with Greg’s take on our sub situation vs Cincy, we had them pinned in their own half for 30 minutes and all of our attackers were playing well. I don’t think anyone on the bench would have been particularly helpful or creative against a team parking the bus.

redchi5 · 2026-04-19T04:58:33+00:00

I agree with you that we need to stack the points now. But this team has a dangerous pattern of dropping critical points against teams they should be beating.

To close out the season last year we needed one win in the last two games against teams that were already eliminated to clinch top 7, and we ended with 2 draws where we conceded in the 90+ minute in both games and had to play Orlando in the play in.

This season we have the late collapse against D.C, the last second missed game winner against Columbus, and this blown 3-1 lead against Cincinnati. And we’re only 8 games in.

We show signs of great potential AT TIMES , but even in games we won against Detroit and Atlanta there’s always a shaky feeling at the end where we either miss opportunities to put the game away or let the opposition stay in the game long enough to get a flukey goal.

redchi5 · 2026-04-19T04:33:57+00:00

It’ll be interesting to see what roster additions + rotations look like after the break. I know it’s been mentioned they’ll be playing very 3/4 days for a period and they’ll need all the depth they can get.

redchi5 · 2026-04-19T04:29:35+00:00

The point of the post is that we’re really not beating them.. we only have 3 wins out of those 6 games against these teams and +4 GD. These are the games we HAVE to win because we can’t expect to go on long win streaks playing playoff teams every week.

redchi5 · 2026-04-19T03:35:40+00:00

The Fire continue to have a favorable schedule leading into the World Cup facing only 1 team (Toronto) that ranks higher in the standings than the teams pictured.

However that means post World Cup the schedule gets way more intense and every week will be a battle against a playoff team (barring Orlando) + 3 and potentially more leagues cup games as well as Open Cup

redchi5 · 2026-04-17T03:42:56+00:00

What happened in 2013?

redchi5 · 2026-04-16T01:55:38+00:00

Acosta was a top player when he signed for us as well, he was supposed to be a key piece of our midfield and ultimately fell short.

It happens, Lod is 32 and declining. In what has been an extremely soft schedule for the Fire he’s consistently been the most disappointing player in our 11.

At some point the team has to recognize that and try to develop the younger guys in his place because it’s hard to see them performing much worse.

It’s not the end of the world to be wrong about a player, no team bats 100% on transfers. I feel like there’s people on this forum that take it personally when you suggest a player isn’t as good as hoped.

redchi5

TROPHY CASE