Just back from a hot and long trip to Washington DC’s RFK stadium to see our own Chattanooga FC do battle with DC United’ Super 20 team. As you now, we were handled relatively easily and lost 3-0. We’ll give you our full evaluation tomorrow but here are some main notes:

1. Who was that?
I’ve seen CFC play 9 games prior to this one, and this team sure did not play like CFC. We looked out of sorts: hot, confused and mostly nervous. Our best players did not play well (and it did not look like it was all DC United’s doing).

2. Hot Hot Heat
When we got out of the car it was reading 104º F. The heat and humidity were oppressive and draining for us and the hardest thing we did was to climb stairs to our seats. We never seemed to stop sweating. Can’t imagine what it felt like to players actually running hard for 80 minutes.

3. A Good Experience?
This loss may be (I say may be) a good experience for us to realize we are not invincible… A good thing to motivate us as we move into the NPSL National tourney.

More added July 27:

El Conductor’s assessment/comment below is quite accurate and echos our own thoughts here at the Chattahooligan. The DCU defense was quite solid — we really only had 3 shots on goal by our count. However our own defense was easily outmatched by DCU’s strikers too. They were fast, skilled and strong.

Even so, this does not explain why our team seemed to have trouble with trapping the ball and making relatively simple passes. Our traps seemed to bounce six feet away from our players doing the trapping, and unforced errors happened far too often with what should’ve been a simple pass. Neither of these were caused by DC. Was it nerves? Apprehension about putting on a good show and getting ‘seen’? We think so.

Unfortunately almost no one played up to their potential. Salazar, Espinal, Warren, Courtney and Glover were quite disappointing. While the defense (Gambill, Courtney, Stewart and Scott) made some definite stops, they also made gaffs that allowed the three goals. The only pseudo-bright spot seemed to be Viatrov. But even then he missed two goal opportunities himself.

So while the loss was disappointing and a blow to our pride, the knockout punch was to lose Russell Courtney, who was injured in the second half and is out for the season. He will be difficult to replace.

So, the big question is: Does this loss demoralize us or renew our efforts to finish the season with 2 big wins?

Post by John Q. Chattanooga | Chattanooga FC, National
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And — after tallying all the comments and emails — we have a winner by the slimmest of margins: Luis Salazar is a vote ahead of Richard Masters for our regular season CFC MVP!

However, if there is one thing we learned in looking at all your comments, its that you had a hard time thinking of any player more valuable than the TEAM itself. We think that is absolutely wonderful! Chattanooga FC you are an amazing sum of parts! Keep it up!

We will see you in DC and then onto victory in Madison!

Post by John Q. Chattanooga | Chattanooga FC
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We promised to do some research and write up a review of the upcoming NPSL Final Four… well, Madison Soccer Central wrote up a nice brief article that says it better than we could. (Note how they have proper respect for The Chattahooligans).

Click here to read the Madison Soccer Central article.

Post by John Q. Chattanooga | Chattanooga FC, National
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Okay Chattahooligans! You’ve now had nine games (five of them at home) to watch Chattanooga FC play. It’s time for us to name The Chattahooligan’s Most Valuable player of the regular season. Who will it be? Well, we’ll simply go with a democratic approach: whoever receives the most votes by email or by comments posted to this blog entry by 10:00pm on Thursday July 22 will win the title.

Let us get you started. We’ll give you players from each position that we think are worthy of the MVP honor:

Goalkeeper: Richard Masters
Defender: Josh Scott
Midfielder: Luis Salazar or Fynn Glover
Striker: Chris Ochieng or Irvin Espinal

Do you have others? Vote and tell us why! Post a comment here and/or email us at chat@chattahooligan.com!

Post by John Q. Chattanooga | Chattanooga FC
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What a fantastic way to end the home season: 5,000-plus fans, four great goals against a decent opponent and an undefeated regular season! The only things to mar the festive occasion were the oppressive humidity and running out of beer by the 65th minute, but even those failed to dampen spirits.

While Rocket City United had little to play for (save perhaps the role of spoiler, to keep CFC from ending the season undefeated in league play), they seem to wilt under pressure as soon as Irvin Espinal scored in the fifth minute. The second best team in the league started off strong, with a very good first ten minutes (aside from the goal), and then seem to completely cave in when Luis Salazar poked in goal number two halfway through the first period. The complete implosion came with Drew Courtney’s cheeky goal off of a goalie-kick-turned-ricochet-off-of-his-own-defender… with the insult added to injury coming as fan-favorite (and CFC co-founder) Thomas Clark showed off his version of the “one man wrecking crew” approach to goal scoring.

The whole team played so well it is hard for us to name the man of the match, but we think that once again, number 7 and halftime spokesplayer, Luis Salazar deserves the honor. Although we have to say Irvin Espinal showed real class when he sprinted the whole length of the field to dedicate his goal to leading goalscorer Chris Ochieng, who suffered a bad ankle dislocation in practice on Thursday and is out for the rest of the season. This is especially heartwarming considering Espinal (a starter for the last several games of 2009) has had far less playing time and very few starts due to Ochieng’s appearance this year. Yes folks, this is what Chattanooga FC is all about: TEAM.

So what is next for our team?

They travel to DC United to play the Super-20 team (along with some reserves from the MLS squad) this Saturday, then stick around to watch DC United take on Portsmouth later that night. That should be fun. We might just go to see that.

But more importantly, CFC goes on to play in the NPSL Final Four in a semi-final match on Thursday, July 29 at 9:00pm EST (8 CST) in Madison, AL — just outside Huntsville. Chattanooga: lets show up in droves to support our team! We want to come home with that National Championship trophy!

What’s the competition look like? We’re not to sure, but over the next couple days we will do some snooping and will try to write up a little scouting report for you. In the meantime revel in these two facts:

1. Over 22,000 fans attended the five home games this season. That is an average attendance of 4,400. That is just 300 less than the league average for the United Soccer Leagues last year — and these are professional teams with paid players and staff working to drum up fans!

2. Chattanooga went undefeated: 6-0-2 in league play and 7-0-2 including friendly matches. Counting the last six games of last season, Chattanooga FC is 11-1-3 in its last fifteen matches. Only one loss in 15 matches! Not too shabby!

And keep your eyes peeled for upcoming articles: especially for the 2010 Regular Season MVP. We need your votes Chattahooligans! Who was the most valuable player to the team in the CFC regular season in your opinion? Email us or post your votes!

Post by John Q. Chattanooga | Chattanooga FC
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