Friday, May 02, 2008

Continuin the Road Trip

The Wizards continue their long road trip heading to Columbus this weekend to take on the first place Crew. The Crew are undefeated at home this season, and their only loss was a 2-0 loss in New York earlier this season. This will be a tough match for KC, as Columbus has been the in form team early this season, Guillermo Barros Schelotto has been playing well in his second season in the league, and Alejandro Moreno is second in the league right now with 4 goals. That said, the Crew are currently having a bit of injury problems fromer Wizard, Will Hesmer and defender Gino Padula appear unlikely to play in the game tomorrow. Last season against the Crew, the Wizards scored 4 of their 5 goals in the 90th minute or later.

The Wizards are getting healthier, as the only two players on the injury list are Davy Arnaud and Lance Watson, which is good news for the Wizards. Now if they could get Arnaud back on the field, the Wizards midfield would hopefully start to look a lot better. As for the starting line,
Hartman
Myers - Wahl - Conrad - Harrington
Zavagnin
Jewsbury - Marinelli - Morsink
Lopez - Sealy
Pore could get back into the starting lineup over Morsink, but Onalfo may like the ability of having Marinelli and Morsink switch on the field. Espinoza could also step into that left midfield spot. I think Trujillo makes his way back to the bench in favor of Sealy.

PREDICTION
The Wizards midfield needs to step it up, while they are 1-1 on this road trip, the midfield has not looked very good at all. Hopefully the return of Marinelli to the starting lineup will help settle that. I'd like to see Claudio Lopez be more selfish and shoot the ball more as, he hasn't been doing enough of that in my opinion. All that said, I think Columbus' form is too good right now for KC.

KC - 1 (Lopez)
Cbus - 2 (Moreno, Schelotto)

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