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| I need MLS to be a better product. In spite of the similarities... |
How to attack this week’s pile of games? First of all and,
as usual, I watched the now-usual Portland Timbers v. [TEAM], plus two other
games - which, this week, included Atlanta United FC v. New York City FC and
Vancouver Whitecaps v. Los Angeles FC. I have notes about and links to both down below, but...to the task at hand…
OK, full disclosure: I ran out of steam last night. It happened
during one of those monster preambles and, no, stopping right there; preambles
are for posts that draw more than 25 page views. With that, I’m going to list
10 things that stood out in the weekend’s games - hopefully stuff you’re not
seeing elsewhere (but, that’s OK too). I’ll wrap up with extended notes on the
two non-Timbers games I watched (see above), and here’s a link to my write-up
on the Timbers’ squeaky-bum win over Minnesota. I’ll see what my 10 talking
points leave hanging, and might squeeze in a quick, more or less global
wrap-up, one that leads with where Portland fits into the big picture, but that’ll
be it. OK, 10 things about Major League Soccer Week 7….swear to fuckin’ Gahd
they’re counting goofy.
10) Darling. Just to say it, I’m just fucking dying to know how
Atlanta fans feel about Darlington Nagbe. I mention the beauty goal he scored
down below, one that got called back (for good reason), but any Portland
Timbers fan watching this game would recognize every run he made. And probably
tear up a little.
9) Derbies. New York derbies are gonna be fantastic this season. LA
derbies won’t suck either. Things don’t look so tight up here in Cascadia yet,
but…give it time. Or, y’know, fuck it. Off year.
8) Haves and Have Nots. NYCFC deserves special mention, not just for that
magnificent little war they played against Atlanta, but because they just kicked the shit out of Real Salt Lake at home just 5 days prior. I gush about
David Villa down below, but the RSL win showed what they can do without Villa (plenty). And
some of the numbers versus…just holy shit: 665 passes to 374; 26 shots, 8 on
goal versus 11 shots, 5 on goal. The gap between NYCFC and RSL is a matter of
class. (ouch.)
7) New Crutch. My long-distance tracking of the Philadelphia Union and
the Houston Dynamo have turned me into a real fan of box scores. The case is
more acute with Houston, who squander a pretty nutty number of openings (a lot like
this one, only they scored it this week), but Philly ran up the stats against
Orlando like they’ve done most weeks. Before watching the highlights, I’d read
that David Accam, especially, missed a bunch. I saw 2-3 of ‘em, but have only one clip to roll. Whatever, that’ll kill a team. Also, anyone know how Jim Curtin still has a job? Or is he what they hold
up to explain the failure?
6) Best Damn Forward. Bradley Wright-Philips has to be in the conversation for
best forward in MLS, right? His one goal, one assist night takes him to 4 and 2
for the season, but something about the way he paused to line up New York’s
first goal. It’s like he knew he had time. I still rate this team and few
things impressed me like seeing them with 6 guys in the area when Michael
Murillo scored their third goal.
5) Team Brain. In his review for Week 7, Matt Doyle framed Colorado’s win over
Toronto FC smartly when he called it a test for the Rapids; if their A-team couldn’t
beat Toronto’s B, you’d know where they stand. That said, I think the Rapids
picked up a good brain for their side in Jack Price. They’ve got good pieces
(e.g., Edgar Castillo and Dominique Badji) and, playing where he does, Price seems
to hold them all together. I think Colorado will be tricky this season.
4) Messiah with Mileage. I started poking around the comments to those recaps this
week (for example; also game looked terrible), and that’s been interesting on a couple levels. One thing they said,
though, keyed on an idea I picked up two weeks ago, and dropped one week ago:
that the Chicago Fire relies on Bastian Schweinsteiger to do everything.
3) Every Dog. Because my last memory of him starts with gifting a goal
to Diego Valeri in, oh, the biggest game of his career, I got a kick out of a visibly
giddy Steve Clark after DC United’s 1-0 win over Columbus Crew SC. Tempting as
it is to put them down to an undiagnosed team-wide concussion, Columbus
dominated the numbers side just a bit. Makes you wonder if what happens if the
same two teams play, say, three more times.
2) Green Shoots. I’m most impressed by FC Dallas’ win in New England
because I’m still reasonably impressed by New England. Them winning thedefensive side of the numbers game also speaks well of Dallas. The trends tilt
upward, but Roland Lamah is the only attacking player I’ve seen show up for
Dallas every time. Jacori Hayes scored the winner, and that’s cool, because his
first and all, but everyone losing that run ain’t good for New England.
1) Slow Starts. If I remember right (I would have read this at “peak fade”
last night), but the comments to the recap didn’t treat the Seattle Sounders
kindly. Probably has to do with the fact they’re having just a bad a start to
the regular season as their “far-enemy,” Toronto FC, only without the
successful, possibly messianic CONCACAF Champions League run to hold up as The
Higher Cause. I haven’t seen a player quit like Nouhou Tolo since Liam
Ridgewell against the Red Bulls earlier this season, so I get the rage, but
this was still a road draw against a good team. Seattle could be rounding into
form…
OK, to fill in a couple blanks, I’m really fascinated by
Toronto. That CCL run better be worth it because, if they can’t recover
for it, and for any reason. Yeah, yeah, the smart money’s still on them - and
the New Yorks and probably Atlanta. In the Western Conference, meanwhile…yeah.
Yeah. Yep. This could absolutely be the perceptual distance talking, I feel
like I can name “good” teams in the East - and I’d even slip the New England
Revolution onto the margin - but I can’t do the same for the West beyond some
vague, troubling sense that the final standings could look a lot like the current ones. Except probably Vancouver, who I just don't see doing much besides boring neutrals this season.
And that’s a nice segue to the Portland Timbers. If there’s
a muddle for primacy in the West right now, I don’t see the Timbers as being in
it. And, to get really simplistic about it, I’d accept viewing the top 6 teams
in the Western Conference right now as better teams than Portland.
There’s a lot of soccer to go, and I hope I can put together
a weekly MLS wrap that doesn’t bore you and kill me. This felt too long
(apologies to all concerned), but I think these posts will naturally shrink as
the narratives tighten over the season. We’ll see, I guess. And, OK, closing
with notes on the two games I watched. Lucked out, as I see it. Good games,
both of them.
Vancouver Whitecaps 0-2 Los Angeles FC
If nothing else, credit this game for helping me to hate the
Whitecaps a little less. They played most of this game on the ground, a
departure from the 1-2 other times I saw them this season; when they could not
get enough of the long ball (which, I’ve just been given reason to believe will
return with Kei Kamara). A funny side-point grows from both that and something
Vancouver head coach, Carl Robinson said at half-time when he noted that his
team “need to sort out roles in the attacking third.” Vancouver has leaned
toward Route 1 soccer long enough to make a plausible case that they’ve
forgotten how to build an attack beyond saying, “run close to [relevant
forward] because we’re going to hit it long to him and have him knock it down
to you.” Overall, both teams (I mean, why not bring in LAFC) played an open
game, without a lot of pressing and tons of vertical space, both teams had
space to build attacks, etc. LAFC, however, did the better job stepping forward
from a sturdy defensive formation/position - and that allowed them to keep
Vancouver from too many clean shots. On the other hand, Vancouver should feel
at least a bit disturbed about the high-school-JV soccer comedy of errors that
lead to LAFC’s insurance goal. LA’s first goal, on the other hand, Carlos Vela’s Goal of the Week candidate, the
only thing they could have done was get tighter on a key opposition player
inside their own penalty area, so, yes, there are issues. All the same, that’s
what signing the right players does for the local team; every player in the league
could have put a shot on goal and about 25% of them would have scored under the
same circumstances. Vela made it look easy, and that’s arguably the most
telling difference in this game: LAFC has a guy like Vela, while Vancouver
starts Erik Hurtado. Another battle took place Friday night, and that was
between Mark-Anthony Kaye and Benny Feilhaber for LAFC and Russell Teibert and
Efrain Juarez. I’d give that one to Vancouver’s pair, especially the part
shouldered by Teibert. Vancouver having the upper hand in central midfield
really did allow them to set the tone for this game, they just couldn’t get
anything out of it. When the broadcast crew pointed out that Vancouver has been
3-0-0 when Teibert played, I wasn’t remotely surprised. That’s 3-1-0 now, obviously,
but it was good to see the ‘Caps actually play out there and, appalling
mistakes aside (see first goal), they have a good foundation - and I say that
as someone hyper curious about where Juarez fits into this team. He’s got a
resume that makes sense (e.g., Monterrey), but what’s his role on Vancouver?
Because they need something. Good win for LAFC, in the end, one that builds
their legend, and maybe more than it should.
Atlanta United FC 2-2 New York City FC
This felt like the game of the week, one
featuring two teams that know how to attack, that can pull the proverbial
jersey over the other team’s head and fire in one blow after another until
either they score or the defensive team finds a way out. The second half goals
for both teams followed that pattern, in that both capped sustained periods of
pressure (e.g., upwards of four minutes in each case). This was…just what you
want to see in your local soccer league. With the exception of debutante (for
Atlanta, appropriately) Ezequiel Barco, every star player lived up to billing
and, better still, MLS veterans like Jeff Larentowicz and (especially) Michael
Parkhurst showed that truly belonging in MLS means keeping up with a player
like David Villa, if to the best of your ability. All the same, I want to take
a moment to marvel at a player like Villa because, while everyone accepts that
he’s good, the numbers underline, in bold, just how good he’s been: 65 goals,
and 23 assists in 102 games (unless I’m a step ahead of the MLS stats people,
but that’s off by one at most). Those tell you that the work Villa put in
around NYC’s second goal is his normal, but it doesn’t show you that, at the
87th minute, he picked the ball off Atlanta’s Chris McCann deep in NYC
territory, and on the sideline. But that’s the cool thing about both these
teams: their signings have paid off, by and large, and each has a powerhouse
team on its hands as a result. This game was even enough that the erasure of
Darlington Nagbe’s “wunder-goal” (it was really quite nice) for an offside/interference call truly does
count as a pivotal moment. There’s one last thing I want to note: early in the
broadcast, the guys in the booth talked about Almiron and his “expected goals”
given the opportunities he’s finding. In raw numbers, the argument goes that
Almiron should have 5 goals this season instead of the 3 he’s actually managed.
Like a lot of lefties, he is very left-footed, and to the point he’s reluctant
to take a swing with his right even when he’s paved a highway and put up all
kinds of signage to guide the shot. I’m not sure if that’s what drives the
disconnect in Almiron’s numbers, but hearing the statistic and seeing him blow
at least one massive moment drove home the point. That, however, doesn’t take
away from Almiron’s overall game, because he outright tormented New York over
2/3 of the field for half of Sunday. Atlanta played a strong game on both sides of the
ball. Sadly for them, so did NYCFC. Toronto has serious competition in the
Eastern Conference this season, and from both these teams. And the Red Bulls.
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