 |
| MLS. Only with fewer restraining variables. |
First, the data dump.
Philadelphia Union 0-2 New York City FC
Vancouver Whitecaps 2-1 Seattle Sounders
San Jose Earthquakes 1-1 FC Dallas
Montreal Impact 2-1 Atlanta United FC
Orlando City SC 2-1 Los Angeles Galaxy
Chicago Fire 3-0 New England Revolution
New York Red Bulls 2-0 DC United
Columbus Crew SC 2-1 Toronto FC
Houston Dynamo 2-2 Minnesota United FC
Colorado Rapids 1-2 Real Salt Lake
Portland Timbers 0-1 Sporting Kansas City
Those are all the games played and entered into the official
record in Major League Soccer’s Week 6.5 (look, I know it’s annoying, but the
calendar self-corrects, I think, Week 12). The question is what to make of
them. To take a wild stab at that…
Tangoing Narratives
The low-hanging stories noted the weekend full of comebacks
and late (sometimes late, late) goals. It’s not so much that both of those
things aren’t some combination of fun and important, but San Jose has to squint
tight to see inspiration in its late equalizer and David Villa’s amounts to a genius fuck-around and little more, but teams like Montreal, Orlando and Real
Salt Lake came by the little spring in their steps honestly. I have solid
arguments for all the above (San Jose needed every one of those 90 minutes for
that one goal, Philadelphia is depressingly terrible [sad emoji], any win over
the heretofore nettlesome Atlanta earns a little bump (especially when well
corralled; red card helped), LA has the rep, even as they’re riding it beyond
its legs, and any sign RSL can win sans snow is a good thing, respectively),
but, all the usual caveats apply: we’re only 6 games into the season (for most
teams…hold on…still wrapping my head around how…5 teams have played 7 games…MMMaatttthhhh……….),
and, as always, MLS is a random-number generator in league form – and ain’t it
a downer that I can’t get some crack about 20-sided dice in here? (22 teams…who
does your branding, MLS?)
Even at this early stage of the season, when points are
essentially random and god knows whose form will look like what come fall, some
clubs still have sound reasons to feel good about where they are. To keep
things somewhat exclusive, I’d include only Columbus and NYCFC from the Eastern
Conference and Portland, KC, and Dallas from the West. That doesn’t mean
everyone should, to borrow one from the internet, kill themselves, but those
five teams feel like the ones who appear to have the clearest sense of what
they want to do. Here, Columbus deserves a sporting “atta boy” pat to the
tuckus because, in this past weekend’s win, they had to recover from getting
something close to run over by Toronto over the first 20 minutes at least, and
they still recovered the win, and with a sweetly demoralizing amount of time to
spare. The details differ – and god knows I wish I had time to get into that,
but, jesus god I don’t want to get into all of that, because catching farts in
jars (intended as a metaphor for impermanence) – but, suffice to say that, till
further notice, I expect these five teams to win more than they lose, and
sometimes in unexpected places.
Flipping to the other side of the equation, only a couple
teams should feel outright bad about their early 2017 and, for my money, that
conversation starts and ends with Philadelphia and Colorado – and I’ll get to
at least one aspect of one of those below (choosing just 10 topics feels like
killing my own memories! HELP!). Trends look better or worse depending on the
team, but I think just about everyone has enough parts that feel like legit
building blocks. Yes, even Minnesota…so proud!
By the way, the teams I’ve emotionally adopted for the
season are Chicago, Philadelphia, Montreal, and, yes, Minnesota. San Jose might
slip in there, too, but I think I’m mostly just San Jose-curious. If there is
such a thing. The Winchester Mansion just feels like a fling in college at this
point…
Moving on to 10 talking points from Week 6.5. Six teams won’t
enter the conversation (unless I run out of ideas) because I’ve already put up
longer stand-alone posts on: LA’s loss to Orlando, which, to me, should raise
alarms out in Galaxy-land; Vancouver’s win over Seattle, which, through the
trick of Seattle’s possibly inflated reputation, still reads as the bigger
result for the ‘Caps; finally, yes, I pulled cobwebs from a buried past to
stare at the (double) horror of Sporting Kansas City’s win over my Portland
Timbers. (The assholes. And that’s just for deserving it.)
OH, one last thing up top. I see three “tough teams” in MLS
this season, teams that won’t 100%-necessarily rise to greatness, but all teams
that will just suck to play year ‘round. Those include three teams I saw this
weekend, so I have to get them here: San Jose, Sporting KC, and Orlando. For
what it’s worth, I bet all three will make the playoffs. And I bet that every
neutral in the country will be pulling against all three of ‘em.
OK, now, the talking points…
1) Philly’s Sub-Optimal
Optimal Line-Up and The End of the Rebuild
Glancing at their roster,
and my mistaken opinions about Oguchi Onyewu aside (getting benched always
makes a statement), I’d read that as Philly’s best possible current line-up/formation. And, nope. Not even at home. I heard a couple comments last
week about how Philly’s signings aren’t paying off and that’s kinda crap,
because I remember, say, Roland Alberg’s li’l tear through MLS last summer. Just
this last game, I heard a stray comment about Haris Medunjanin sitting on 2nd
in chances created (or something like that), so it’s not like the Union’s out
there combing Philly-area high schools for new players. They tried, basically (and
reasonably), but it hasn’t come off yet. Maybe the mirror here would be the
Chicago Fire, a team that added parts that didn’t fit going into 2016, but who suddenly
feels real to talk about as a decent rebuild. It’d be one thing to hold up
Bastian Schweinsteiger’s last three (two?) weeks and call it good, but after watching
Luis Solignac torment New England’s JeVaughn Watson into two yellows inside 20,
all that argues for taking an open-minded view as to what makes for a credible rebuild.
As any Philly fan can tell you, sucks to suck, but sometimes it’s about
figuring out who to hold onto, and not just who you need.
2) New York’s Weird Midfield
After last week’s loss to DC, Andrea Pirlo as a liability became a talking point. While I can’t dismiss
that point – because, Philly, and, christ, yes, Pirlo's a defensive liability – I want to stress, again (quite possibly), that
NYCFC’s Patrick Vieira put weirdly good people around Pirlo to keep him in
there, as Taylor Twellman pointed out, as a release valve for the defenders. My
response to all that is a safe (cowardly) maybe, but that choice makes sense in
the context of City’s preferred front-foot approach to the game. Starting Maxi
Moralez, Pirlo and Alexander Ring in that midfield definitely throws some
weight at the back four, but it throws some amount of weight the other way,
too.
3) Maxi Urruti: Argument About Totality
Watching Urruti terrorize
San Jose’s back line some kind of rabid terrier (“look, mommy! the doggie’s
smiling!”) reminded me of how much the balance of his game tilts toward things
besides scoring goals. While 10 goals in a season is nothing to sniff at
(scored for Portland, ‘cause his heart lives here; wrong year, tho), Urruti
makes for the rare forward who regularly starts, but on a return rate of 1 goal
per 3.74 games (27 goals in 101 games played, 61 started). He reminds me of
Colorado’s Kevin Doyle in that regard (who scored bravely this weekend, perhaps
the only way he can score): forwards who bring don’t score but who can still
help the team…even as Urruti does it more reliably than Doyle. So, is Urruti
worth it? On the right team, yes?
4) Colorado’s Collapsing
Ceiling
What the Rapids used to be
able to pass off as a bad break in Kansas City, suddenly looks something like a shitty season
in the making. I mean, Doyle scored and Colorado coughed up two goals (!) at home;
I don’t think they can re-write the script that much without irretrievably
fucking up the story. And somewhere in the middle of it, Bismark Boateng lays
down on the field like his back’s fucked (what was that? Internet mum so far)?
That guy was the logic behind moving Sam Cronin, but if he’s injured, how do they
cover that gap? Both Axel Sjoberg and Shkelzen Gashi will come back, but they’re
just covering gaps on other parts of the field. By common consent, the Rapids
performed miracles last season. As noted here, they did it from the off in 2016. 2017 is already different. That's bad for any team on a narrow margin.
5) Glitches in San Jose’s
New Parts
Florian Jungwirth played what
looked like his first truly loose game in a ‘Quakes uniform Friday night: as (I
think) Matt Doyle pointed out, Fatai Alashe has looked like the rock on which
San Jose’s defense is built. Take away Simon Dawkins – a player who looks too
little like the man he used to be for comfort – and that theme runs through San
Jose’s roster. Harold Cummings broke before his warranty, and that sucks, but Jahmir Hyka, Danny
Hoesens and Marcos Urena have yet to well and truly launch. That’s only weird in the context
of another trend: players who know the team – e.g. Alashe, but also Anibal
Godoy – look good out there, and maybe that’s all about comfort. In my book, it
says something that Tommy “Still Waiting” Thompson and Nick Lima, both look
more at home playing with the 2017 ‘Quakes, because both players are homegrown.
I’m pulling for San Jose, if in a limited way, because, dammit! I like when
people try…
6) Montreal’s Cultured
Comeback
I don’t think more than 10
minutes had gone when Ignacio Piatti sized up the defensive situation and
decided, "fuck it, I'll just do it alone." He later sprung Dominic Oduro in on goal
and, check this shit out, beat a defender cleanly with his ass as the starting position (video, cruelly withheld),
but that’s a day at the office for Piatti. Atlanta went up on a goal gifted by ‘keeper Evan Bush and a defensive posture geared toward attacking, but what stood out
most for me in Montreal’s comeback versus Atlanta, was the fact they kept
Atlanta from breaking from midfield. How often Atlanta forces that comes out
even in the condensed games, so that’s a feat on its own. Between Piatti’s
estimable talents and Matteo Mancosu’s…Italian? Nah, let’s go with
sophisticated positioning to draw the foul, Montreal won this game on savvy.
And a damned slick back-heel. For what it’s worth, I totally think he planned
it.
7) Red Bulls Ain’t Chargin
The Red Bulls comfortable
win over DC surprised me as much as any results from the past weekend. If
nothing else, I assumed DC’s defense had improved enough with Bobby Boswell to
not let this mess walk casually past security. Alex Muyl (who might have just
learned, or shared, the proper pronunciation of his own last name; I get it,
kid, I still have to spell my last name every fucking time) scored another, but
for too much of Saturday, their attack ran on a repeat cycle of “cross to
Garrin Royer, cross to Garrin Royer, cross to Garrin Royer.” I guess this is
just a caveat: DC’s execution looked lazy to the point of indifference.
Something’s off with them, and it could be a touch of too much time under the
same hand. That stuff comes. Given all that, New York would be wise to read
this as blip, not pattern.
8) Columbus, Homegrown Rising
I’ve held onto my doubts
about Columbus past reason – this went deep as 35+ minutes into their win over
Toronto – so it’s time to give them their due…even as I’m sure this means they’ll
lose next weekend. Yes, Columbus is on a legit roll – only SKC matches them,
and only Dallas hangs with both – but the neater sub-text comes with one player
who has featured for the past two games, and one who played a key role in the last
win. That’d be Alex Crognale, a homegrown defender who, for the time being, has
seized a starting spot from Ghana’s Jonathan Mensah, and Columbus’ first
SuperDraft pick, Niko Hansen respectively, a player who surely has Ethan Finlay
looking over his shoulder. Or, factually, from the bench onto the field. As
with San Jose, noted…
9) I’d Rather Have Meram
than Giovinco RN
On current form, and having
them square off in the same game, and having watched Columbus (I think) twice
this season, yes, at this precise moment in time, I’d rather have Justin Meram
on my roster than Sebastian Giovinco. Giovinco has both the time and talent to
turn this around, so I guess what I’m saying is…Meram is tearing it up.
10) That Goddamn Mess in
Houston
Anyone who argues there’s
something concrete to take out of Minnesota smuggling a point from Houston is a
gosh-darn liar (different from a goddamn liar, btw). Just about every goal in
this game turned on the kinds of lapses that professionals simply should not
make. We know how that script applies to Minnesota, but what the hell does that
say about Houston playing this one at home?
I’ve got more, but that
feels like more than enough. Till next weekend. And in random polls between
here and there (and is it just me or have those started to feel tedious?).
No comments:
Post a Comment