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| That's a "harley davidson riding for glory." |
Even in this (blissfully) short MLS “Week” - pretty sure it’s
Week 4 (and this site is going strictly calendar week till season’s end; I couldn’t
give fewer fucks about your team's games in hand….hold on) - I see signs of X, Y and
Z, where X = a couple teams rather saucily announcing themselves, Y = injuries
killing a team here, hobbling a team there, and Z = an abrupt fascination with the
formation/personnel mix. I went into that last one with the one team I know
well enough to speak to - the not-yet mighty Portland Timbers (who might need a
rain-check on mightiness till 2019) - but that’s the way I hope to understand any teams as possible
in this league by the end of the season.
To give an example, the Timbers (allegedly) lined up in a
Christmas tree, which translates to 7 guys in something perilously close to a
defensive posture. That shift made all kinds of sense given Portland’s first
two games of the season - i.e., 180 minutes of neither attacking nor defending well - so why
not pile up the human shields and defend the goal first, second and third? On the other hand,
that’s hardly the Harley-D one rides to glory, at least not without
apologizing for the poor taste. More to the point, it makes all kinds of sense
given the Timbers’ personnel. I expect Diego Chara’s return to bring more
stability to….just everything (but there are no guarantees), so, with the team
struggling to reliably generate offense - and with reliable offense getting harder
to imagine with each passing week - that calls for playing the personnel you have
in the formation/personnel alignment most likely to gain a result of any kind, even if it means playing...unattractively [imagine the sound of a child sobbing in the night].
Easy as that is on paper, the real question about playing defensive is when a coach
is just being a chicken shit. Speaking of, know who doesn’t have one single ounce
of chicken-shit in him? Jesse Marsch. If that guy unlocked the code to MLS, by
which I mean the lowest-risk domestic treble - and the potential looks like it's there, if only
for a year or two - all future coaches of the next…let’s call it 10 years will
be in his debt. The guy that draws the map. The guy that draws the map.
(Repetition for effect. Stay with me.)
For all that, Portland got its best result of 2018 Saturday against FC Dallas (link above…under "I expect"), which kind of
sells me on starting from a defensive posture till something better comes along
- then again, see above notes on “chicken-shittedness.” To loop in the Los
Angeles Galaxy, they’re facing the same problem, if on some slightly askew, yet
parallel plane. This weekend saw them arrive in Vancouver without their two
attacking mainstays in Nicolas Alessandrini and Giovanni dos Santos. Even if Zlatan
Ibrahimovic’s arrival ushers in dos Santos’ exit (um…), the Galaxy still have
to bridge the time before Zlatan shows up, so injuries matter. They matter all
the time, of course, but for more teams more than others - apparently, at
least.
I’ll walk through the rest of this week’s games from here,
with more emphasis on New England v. New York City FC and Colorado Rapids v.
Sporting Kansas City, because those are the two games I watched all the way through (apart from Dallas v. Portland). That said,
there’s an interesting theory or two getting tested this season, so pay
attention.
New England Revolution 2-2 New York City FC
I'll start by saying that I have not seen NYCFC this rattled
since the middle of last season. This weekend featured at least three teams
committed by philosophy to the high press (I’m calling the Colorado Rapids
fourth, maybe invalid team), but the Revolution pressed higher and longer than
I’ve seen any team do in a while. It paid off, too, with Diego Fagundez’s
opening goal. Trouble is New England missed a problematic number of the several chances they created, and that let a by all accounts good New York City team back into the
game. That press, though…New York passes better than most team in MLS, and they
did it yesterday, but New England made them work for 3/4 of their passes, and
looked like they had the legs to do it for a while. As for specifics, the Revs
have good pieces, and all over: Wilfried Zahibo played a strong game (despite
his strictly semi-pro ball-watching on New York’s first goal), while other new kid
Cristian Penilla at least whispered “game-changer.” Almost as important,
Fagundez looked strong in his central attacking role - none better than his
quick swivel to set up his opener. As for NYCFC, it’s hard to choose between Yangel
Herrera’s best moment - was it the snap-shot he managed against in the first
half against an absolute fucking tide of play (for the way it hints NYCFC can punch its way out of the ropes), or was it his slick feed to set
up New York’s second equalizer? (The former feels like more of a warning shot.) Anyway, and more significantly, New York demonstrated a real
capacity to slice through an opposing defense on their opener: Ismael Tajouri
Shradi deserves full credit for both finishes, but he also got great feeds on both (e.g., the first showed Saad Abdul-Salaam picking the
absolute correct pass in the moment and delivering it flawlessly). New York City
FC still looks like a good bet - and they managed big injuries through this one to boot
(David Villa and Alex Ring…there may be more I know, but I don’t feel qualified
after those two). That's not to say this didn't pique my interest in New England either. (Two suitors...)
Oh, before going forward, I read a tweet today - think I
retweeted it too - about how the top six teams in the East are better than the
teams in this year’s West. One, I’m not sure that isn’t true - not least
because it’s a continuation of what MLS looked like at the end of 2017. Second,
is New England within that Top 6? They are on paper, if nothing else, but this
afternoon convinced me.
Right, sticking with the games I watched most closely…
Colorado Rapids 2-2 Sporting Kansas City
Colorado thinks it’s playing rugby. Swear to god. Nothing
else excusing the sheer hideousness of what I saw from them yesterday, because I
haven’t seen that many long balls since the senior center. OK, yes, terrible metaphor, but I'm at least half-reacting to Marcelo Balboa talk up the Rapids playing through
midfield only to see them play over it just about every time. Pissed me off a little. I
had dreams of seeing what the Rapids got in players like Jack Price, Johan
Blomberg, Joe Mason and Enzo Martinez (the latter, assuming I can find the
highlight for it, showed a good long dribble with no decision at the end; not
promising). To his credit, Price utterly flustered SKC’s defense to free Edgar
Castillo on the Rapids’ opening goal, but, after that, I only saw him get
smothered by SKC defenders any time he fought for a ball in midfield. Of which, once SKC learned to contain Colorado’s
long balls, and the few other things the Rapids tried (and these guys were
notably appalling on fucking throw-ins), SKC clawed back into the game goal by
goal. I started the game thinking that maybe Peter Vermes has got all he’ll
ever get for SKC with his stoned-on-athleticism philosophy, but this season
does feel different and, for what it's worth, I wonder if Vermes doesn't sees it that way too. Colorado, meanwhile, is a mess.
In Marlon Hairston and Castillo, they have the league’s two wispiest wingbacks
(Hairston, especially, took a mauling in this one; Castillo mostly dove around
the pitch), but they also feel pathologically averse to playing through the
field, relying instead on punting the ball forward and having Dominique Badji
(or anyone else) either hold up the play, or draw the free-kick that will allow
them a 3-5 pass sequence that will open a shot on goal. Worse still - and, in
fairness, this could be opponent-specific (as in Sporting Kansas City specific)
- the 3-5-2 they started in retreated into a 5-3-2 with alarming readiness; SKC’s
Ilie Sanchez had a pair of 40-yard runs through midfield in the first
half and those showed the rest of his team the way to the doughy softness of the Rapids' interior; the Rapids, in fact, came
perilously close to retreating off the damn field. All in all, SKC looks like
the better, more complete team - also, this is where it gets tricky. The Rapids
pressed SKC's defense very, very effectively, but only at the highest line, and mostly early in the game. When that line broke, however,
everything behind it collapsed, all but inviting SKC forward, but without the
vastness of the Russian plain behind them, Jesus, this is not a land war in
Asia, people…going the other way, SKC just needs to tighten up that defense (like, now!),
while Colorado looks like it has to re-familiarize itself with the basic
concept of a midfield. One divide feels larger. Just…noting it.
OK, on to the rest of this week’s games, which will
necessarily be shorter and less-informed.
Columbus Crew SC 3-1 DC United
“DC United, meanwhile, have yet to win in 2018.”
Everything about that sentence, down to the “meanwhile,”
comments on (how I understand, via the box score, highlights, and recap, aka, "The System for a Full Head of Hair") this
game. On watching the (miserly) highlights, my first thought was that David
Ousted might win goalkeeper of the year this season, just by being the busiest ‘keeper in
MLS. Columbus, meanwhile (and to their credit), put away a game against - face
it - lesser opposition. Columbus played the ball into the box from the flanks with ease - and
on the ground - too often, even for a highlight reel, and that’s on DC’s
defense. Against that, and against what I expected, Federico Higuain is playing
possessed this season. With him locked in, all it takes are smart finishes and/or
smart runs to pick up all three at home against a struggling team. A good team puts away the easy ones…
New York Red Bulls 3-0 Minnesota United FC
Call it a nice, arguably necessary return to earth for both
clubs…it’s just New York had a loss to cope with, while Minnesota had
unjustified expectations, no matter how cherished. The recap told me New York
struggled till Alex Muyl put one past an out-of-position Matt
Lampson (Shep Messing agreed, so I stand by that), but, as the box score tells
me (with a couple caveats going the other way), New York beat Minnesota badly
on every level that mattered. The talent/cohesion gap between these two clubs
is vast - i.e., New York can slip in Florian Valot and Marc Rzatkowski and
expect to do well, while Minnesota counter with Wyatt Omsberg (what is he doing in that picture, and why would anyone keep it?) and Carter Manley, rookies who look the part (absent the system....hold on)....
When I was talking about “cracking the code” for MLS, I mean
what New York is doing this season. They are rotating their squad like mad,
giving untried players starts week in and out (for instance, this week marked
the debut of Valot and the second game for Rzatkowski - again, on a 3-0 stroll), and that’s different
even from who they lined up against Portland. In a 4-0 rout (that still stings,
if locally). At this point in the season, in New York, the rest of the league faces a team with both a viable Plan B and a second gear: a team built with a plausible
chance of winning everything, basically, because they can get away with resting
players, not to mention plugging holes from injury, better than most, if not
everyone. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s fucking neat-o.
Moving on, finalizing…
Vancouver Whitecaps FC 0-0 Los Angeles Galaxy
And…goddammit! This was supposed to go into the main body up
top, but fuck it, reward the travelers. (But that assumes this oasis doesn’t
serve piss instead of water.) I check box scores because I’m forever in search
of a stat that means anything for soccer that doesn’t follow porn logic (e.g.,
you know it when you see it). Nothing rubbed that raw tonight (unfortunate
metaphor?) quite like looking at the possession/passing accuracy numbers
between New York’s apparent walloping of Minnesota (on the low side) versus the
same in whatever the fuck Vancouver did to LA (or vice versa) in their game
(e.g., fail to threaten the other for a full 90?). For all that they managed
some good chances, I don’t see Vancouver as a team built to win anything this
season. Not even the Canadian Cup. Los Angeles, meanwhile, is still coming together.
They’ll have new players showing up, good players getting whole (insofar as
that isn’t mutually exclusive), and they did add a couple bones to their spine
- e.g., a player like Jorgen Skjelvik. In the here and now, though, this looked
like a muddled mess for both teams…so it’s just about one side (LA) having more
apparent upside than the other.
And…yeah, that’s this week wrapped up. Hope I wrote
something that helped anyone see things with fresh eyes. If not, there’s that
hot take/messianic mission for the New York Red Bulls in the middle. Till next
week…
…and, yes, I think I’ll try to squeeze in all the soccer in
the weekend, keep the music stuff to the weekdays. And there’s no way I’ll hold
either line…you know I’ll kill you eventually, Westley…
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