This was my first opportunity to watch Marcus Tracy in action. Tracy's play slightly exceeded my expectations. You do get the occasional awkward touch or unseemly loss of balance. But, although not the case in the early going, Marcus was influential on the day against one of the smaller Danish Superliga clubs, with a few nice touches to his credit. At one point in the first half, he blew by a defender (or two!) and delivered a low cross which resulted in a corner but could have very well produced a goal. However, I was surprised that he had hardly won a header the entire game, often choosing not to even leave his feet. Some of this may have to do with the quality of Aalborg's crossing, which would have been subpar even by MLS standards.
He did have some chances, and made at least one nice run. He had a volley (seemingly) on target fired from inside the box which was blocked by an opponent's midsection. This was followed by a collision in midfield, where the opposing captain(?) looked like he ran into a brick wall, with total damage to Tracy amounting to mild annoyance. Just before halftime, Tracy made a clever run, which I wish I had seen from him more often, resulting in a shot off target from a challenging angle, much to the frustration of his coach. Literally right before the halftime whistle, however, Sonderjyske struck with a brilliant goal from distance.
Tracy earned a foul against, again (I think),the Sonderjyske captain after Tracy posted him up. Early in the second half, blatant simulation by again (I think!) that same player produced a whistle against Tracy: Tracy turned him, which would have had Marcus bearing down on goal in the open field, but the guy cleverly crumpled in a heap to stop play. I temporarily lost my feed at some point early in the second half. Then, Tracy came within inches of reaching the ball on a slide, which would have had him stuff the ball into the gaping net from point blank range. Tracy was substituted in the 80th minute with the score still 0:1.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
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