MLS Form Guide ULTRA, Week 9: Great Leaps Forward, Pathetic Slouches Back

First, I hope the damn Info-Boxes down below hold together. They seem to be compressing horizontally as I had columns to the table, and I’m stopping at 10 columns in any case. All the same, these posts have to go up first time, or the formatting loses its shit.

Speaking of, that happened to a couple teams this week. As elaborated on elsewhere (Orange & Blue Press post; I’ll link to it here later), a total of 10 teams played two games during MLS Week 9, and the cookie didn’t crumble according to universal rules. To wrap up all 10 teams, I’d call it a great week for the Montreal Impact, good for New York City FC and Minnesota United FC, lucky (by the few accounts I follow) for the Los Angeles Galaxy…fine for DC United, pretty damn jolly for the San Jose Earthquakes, something other than for the Seattle Sounders, more of the same for the New England Revolution, not great for the Chicago Fire, and like a wild kick to the groin to Columbus Crew SC (by which I mean, it hurts like a motherfucker in the moment, but it does go away).

In the interest of just getting this off my chest and out into the world, I’ll have to catch up on the links (I mean, does anyone ever actually hit those things or am I just being anal because…never mind, I’ll keep linking.)

All in all, though, it was a pretty damn predictable week – and I mean the odd wild hair aside (hello, Sporting Kansas City!). To short-hand some teams, beyond what I’ve got below: Chicago’s defense is trending tighter, so “hard to beat” might become part of their resume; Orlando City SC looks like they’ll be a pain in the ass all season; I finally watched Red Bull New York play, and they looked clueless and/or like shit; Toronto FC was shocking in its loss to Portland; I trust the mojo I’m getting out of Minnesota, even if I think they’ve got a bit of Orlando in them, and New York City FC seems like they’ve figured some things out. Oh, and I wouldn’t worry too much about Columbus yet, but this is definitely a time to increase those neighborly check-ins.

All of the above will be tabulated and expanded on down below. Oh, and I finally had to add the Last 10 Games slot for the few teams who have played 10 games. In just a week or two’s time, the Info-Boxes will show only each teams’ last 10 games…

New York Red Bulls 1-0 FC Cincinnati: Worry.

Great album for the right people, btw. (Punk.)

Having just completed my penance for missing the first 10 minutes of the second half, I can admit that FC Cincinnati had more chances than I remembered (linked to in order, fwiw; and consider that they got a super-majority of clips in the highlights over all). All I know is that, when I watched the game in real-time, I was as focused on pulling for it to end as anything else.

Jesus Christ, what a discouraging turd of a performance – and that applies to both Cincinnati and the Red Bulls. They dragged everyone who endured the experience through, in terms of competence and technical proficiency, looked like two high school teams bumbling through 90+ minutes that only a parent (or truly dedicated fans) could love. Anyone wondering what’s throttling Red Bulls this season need look no further than their once-lethal passing drying all the fucking way up. Last season, and even a couple before, they would have cut FC Cincy to ribbons, often as they forced all those turnovers and clearances that didn’t get the clearances nearly far enough away.

And that’s really where the source of my concern comes in: had Cincinnati earned this result against Red Bulls 2018, the tone of everything below would read brighter. Meanwhile, back in 2019, Cincinnati barely lost to a bad team that continues to play badly. That takes nothing away from Cincy’s back four – all of whom played well, with Kendall Waston standing rather impressively out (happy that he’s delivering for them too, something I second-guessed on my way into 2019) – but they look increasingly like the sole stable, functioning part of this expansion team. New York’s tactical/technical aimlessness lent them a pretty massive assist, but they stepped well where they had to, and didn’t give the Red Bulls much. The fact remains that they couldn't get it done against that team. They gave them enough sadly – your classic momentary loss of muscular coordination – and that got New York their first win in…six games? (Yep.)

Whatever faith I have in Cincinnati to succeed in its inaugural season is centered on Leonardo Bertone and Victor Ulloa (or whomever they start) being able to smartly manage the traffic heading in both directions through midfield. To give the Red Bulls a little credit, it felt like those two struggled to pass any direction but sideways yesterday, and that’s my theory for why FC Cincy could only snatch for scraps out there. I’m open to other theories, but I didn’t see much in the way of attacking cohesion from the visiting team. Just to note it and/or keep the spirits up, for all their woes, the Red Bulls remain one of the league’s better defensive teams. Perhaps and hopefully that goes some distance to explaining why Cincinnati looked so damn clueless out there (getting an answer to why New York looked so clueless would turn around their season).

Toronto FC 1-2 Portland Timbers: Calling It 3-1 (And Deus Ex Machina!)

Portrait of the typist, and his wife.

In a good and justice universe, Diego Chara would have tucked away the shot on that late, last hurrah forward. He didn’t, of course, but a 3-1 win would have given the world a better read on what happened earlier today, that one time, in Toronto. The final score read 2-1, Portland Timbers over Toronto FC, but, if I was a Toronto fan today, I’d be getting seriously nervous about my team’s defensive shape. 10 goals allowed in four games equals new and bad math…

To switch to fan mode for a second, holy shit, right guys!? The Portland Timbers are now on four games of their last five looking pretty good, and two games into a formation arrangement that looks sound as the blessed and holy Christmas Tree of 2018, while looking more dangerous in the attack. And Portland got two wins in each game with the new formation, and on the road, so this is all gravy right now. I put up a poll before the season started asking people where they thought the Timbers would be at the end of their long…was it Finland where Vladimir Lenin was exiled? Anyway, their opening road trip has been long but, according to the percentages, the general (positive) belief was that Portland would end the road trip with between 12 and 15 points and, looking at the Form Guide, the next four games look…gyuhhh, man, I think I found tomorrow’s poll, so start thinking about it. The next four games for Portland are: @ RSL, @ VAN, @ HOU, @ PHI. With the Timbers currently on seven points, where do you put their odds of getting to 12, never mind 15?

Short answer: way fucking better after today, and last week (and the week before, then two weeks before that). Without delving into prophecy, what’s happening now tracks with what happened in 2018: the Timbers started slow – if with fewer games on the road…hold on [sound of needle tearing through a record, what?], poop just got interesting. A little time traveling just reminded me that the Timbers compiled a 3-3-2 record to start last season, and that was with six games on the road and just two at home. Things aren’t great right now, obviously – 2-5-1, to be exact, and with a defense that has, to this point, looked Twilight-Zone ugly (yes, I got the point of the episode) – but that’s still 11 points versus seven points, and with 2019 all happening on the road. I dunno, maybe the sky isn’t falling? (Or is it just that the Western Conference is better than the Eastern Conference? Shit! I haven’t even started to measure that!)

To step away from the big picture and back into the game, I don’t know where your expectations were going in. Personally, I approached the game from a solidly middling perspective, if a little infatuated with the new formation (e.g., this one, the 4-4-2 that flexed considerably in real time). The first…10 minutes(?) justified that mind-set – Toronto pressed well enough to keep the Timbers pinned in their own end and, even when that dried up, they still stole the kind of sloppy, stressy first goal that the Timbers allow when they’re all sixes and sevens. Portland central defender and on-and-off starter Bill Tuiloma thundered back with a goal so strapping that it all but screamed “not today!” to the reverberating Canadian heavens (Valhalla, I am calling!). And the game just rolled downhill in Portland’s favor from there. Seriously, I had to put effort into feeling stressed out and, absolutely, again, I’d be stressing out right now if I was a Toronto FC fan.

Columbus Crew SC 1-3 Portland Timbers: A Delightful Response...to Everything

Not the Wes Anderson-inspired image I imagined, but still solid.

For your own benefit, drop the phrase “or so it appeared” at the end of every sentence below, and send a thank you to the profit-grubbing partnership of Major League Soccer and ESPN for instituting a black-out policy that forced me to watch this game with one less eye than usual. (Which says so very much.) That’s your caveat for the post below and, crikey, I’ve never used the phrase “I’ll just fucking walk away” about soccer in my life. Well, except that one time I shut down this site. I really did forget about that…

That’s to say, the only version of the Portland Timbers’ 3-1 (three?) win over Columbus Crew SC was the 20-minute one, e.g., the condensed version available exclusively on the app I was compelled to download (GRUBBING BASTARDS! OK, it’s out of my system, but do insert the magic phrase after every sentence). With that, I’ll start to talk about the game…instead of cable TV’s cadaverous grip on what’s left of their profits…sorry. For real this time.

“Again, I really like the response from Portland.”

- Columbus Broadcast-Booth Guy, I think

I totally agree, Columbus Broadcast-Booth Guy! As much as I can only have a head-full of disconnected thoughts on this game, I was delighted to see every Timbers player flying into every 50/50, and in every frame. They didn’t play hungry, the played starved – as well they should have given the start. Even if this loss dimmed their star – perhaps more than a little – Columbus is a 4-3-1 team, with a 3-1-1 home record (no less significantly, do the math on the number of games the Crew have played at home). Given Portland’s record coming in – and their defensive record as much as anything else – this projected as a win for Columbus, maybe even a chance to knock a couple teeth out of Portland.

It went the other way, obviously. The question is why.

MLS Form Guide ULTRA, Week Mostly-8: Of Sun-Belt Titans and Basement Dwellers

I use the phrase approvingly.

I still have to crap out the narrative summary, so I’m going to let the Info-Boxes (TM) speak for themselves, if with a few exceptions. Those are:

- Both Texas teams look good. Ditto for both Los Angeles teams. Some big names are sputtering loudly enough to wake the neighbors – e.g., your Sporting Kansas Citys, your New York Red Bulls, your Atlanta United FCs, but that’s old news for all those teams (and whichever sports dork came up with the phrasing owes the English language an apology). The more surprising entries include that late stumblers – e.g., DC United, (hurts, but) FC Cincinnati and…dare I type Columbus Crew SC? Going the other way, Real Salt Lake is threatening a revival.

OK, that’s everything for this space; the rest will go in the narrative summary on Orange & Blue Press. On with the Info-Boxes, where recent results and my notes on it all live.

LOS ANGELES FC, 7-1-1, 22 points, 21 gf, 5 ga, (5-0-0 home, 2-1-1 away)

Last Ten: N/A

W	W	D	W	W	W	W	L	W
v SKC	v POR	@ NYC	v RSL	@ SJ	@ DC	v CIN	@ VAN	v SEA
2-1	4-1	2-2	2-1	5-0	4-0	2-0	0-1	4-1
N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

Current Judgment: Naturally, jaws dropped around the league when Vancouver stunned LAFC at midweek, but it was as close as it looked, and not many teams do…just this. LAFC went on to score goals against Seattle like they were making up for two losses; seriously, they just carved them apart. Carlos Vela gets the most hype, but Eduardo Atuesta and Mark-Anthony Kaye put every goal on a platter in this game..

Next Game: @ Seattle Sounders, where we will see how well LAFC manages a vengeance-minded team. (Fwiw, I’d cherish the pain that a loss would cause Seattle’s fans, who are the most gratingly brittle in MLS.)

SEATTLE SOUNDERS, 5-1-1, 16 points, 15 gf, 9 ga, (4-0-0 home, 1-1-1 away)

Last Ten: N/A

W	W	W	D	W	W	L
v CIN	v COL	@ CHI	@ VAN	v RSL	v TFC	@ LAF
4-1	2-0	4-2	0-0	1-0	3-2	1-4
N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

Current Judgment: They had some big absences (e.g., Chad Marshall, Raul Ruidiaz), but neither of them play in the area where the Sounders had their real problems. The highlights suggested that LAFC did to Seattle’s midfield what they did to DC’s a couple weeks back – i.e., they kicked both shit and stuffing right out of them. Again, Atuesta and Kaye are ominous.

Next Game: v San Jose Earthquakes, April 24, a must-win on paper, and v Los Angeles FC, April 28, which, together, present as a run of the schedule where anything north of four points feels great.

FC Cincinnati 0-3 Real Salt Lake: A Night When Plan A Failed

No, FC Cincy, the voices are not friendly. Do not listen.

Well, that didn’t go well, obviously. Anyone who doubted the game was over after Real Salt Lake’s Albert Rusnak buried his 59th minute penalty (deserved; also, Jefferson Savarino is one of their guys), and his second goal of the game, should have disabused of any notions of a comeback by FC Cincinnati at the 65th minute when Alvas Powell picked up the ball and a head of steam and he carried it up the field…with somewhere between seven and eight Cincinnati players on the wrong side of the ball, i.e., behind him. Powell had to turn back inside Cincinnati’s defensive third to wait for everyone else to show up and, no, that’s not a good sign.

The rest of the game stretched out in a slow, frog-in-a-boiling-pot experience that ended the same way it started: Real Salt Lake three (3), FC Cincinnati zero (0). Then again, the whole thing projected as a depressing illusion because, even in their moments of dominance – at the start of each half, generally - Cincinnati created more corners than chances…which is factually untrue, but just barely, and also barely relevant. The one decent shot I remember FC Cincy getting – e.g., Allan Cruz’s header off Roland Lamah’s cross during the early, salad days – couldn’t have been their one (recorded, and seriously?) shot on goal, not least because it wasn’t on goal. Ah, hold on. Just remembered where the shot probably happened.

The match had a couple of turning points, but none as decisive as RSL’s second goal. Whether by accident or conscious decision (only The Shadow knows what goes on in the hearts of men), Cincinnati seemed over-eager to push for an equalizing goal after letting Salt Lake catch them off guard and against the run of play to score the game’s opening, game-winning goal. There was nothing irrational about giving it a shot, not with Cincy generally deciding what happened and where for most of the first half. It did, on the other hand, result in the home team getting caught too far upfield, with pants around ankles. The goal was all but scored when Savarino found Damir Kreilach just on RSL’s side of the midfield stripe, who would go on to complete the dissection from there. Kreilach played the ball to Baird on Cincinnati’s right and, in all the backward scrambling, Cincinnati’s three, final defenders pinched too hard to one side, leaving Rusnak free to set up the ensuing, fatal shooting gallery. It took RSL putting half their seven shots on target in a two-second span to score that second goal – a depressing spectacle, really – but that probably put three points beyond reach.

To pick up on what came back to me at the end of the penultimate paragraph, Cincinnati came as close to scoring as they managed all game (again. one. shot.) at the beginning of the second half, when one of their corners got highly interesting. That cracks open the door to what might have been, but only wide enough to where all you can see on the other side is darkness. Overall, though, Cincinnati could hold the ball and move it around, but they couldn’t take it anywhere worthwhile. RSL, meanwhile, took over the second half of each half (my work with legal descriptions comes through…), and found more ways to be lethal when they had the ball.

MLS Form Guide ULTRA, Week Nearly-7: Paring the Data Closer to the Bone

As easy as judging quality cinema.

I’m lifting too much shit in two different spaces, if mostly on those weekends when I do other things with my time like a normal person. (While I’m here, if someone calls you a “normie,” take it for the compliment it is.)

Welcome to the bones of the MLS Week Nearly-7 recap, the skeleton, the abacus, the first draft of the story of what just happened last weekend. Because I’m going to post my best shot at a final draft over on Orange & Blue Press, I’m going to keep the source material fairly minimalist. As usual, all the results from the 2019 season are listed below and it’s all laid out to where you can see which teams did what and where, a history of the season in numbers, plus some raw notes on what I think it all means and, damn whatever problem I have, links to a bunch of supporting material...because I think you think I'm a liar, all the time.

Once again, I listed teams according to my rough understanding of their comparative quality. I wouldn’t read much into specific placement of each team, at least not beyond the premise that the teams closer to the top will most likely beat the teams closer to the bottom. All the same, I’ll close out this preamble with some short declaratives about where I think things down below might be off. In the order they’re listed…

- I haven’t seen Toronto FC look bad or helpless yet. That counts.

- I don’t trust where the Los Angeles Galaxy and the Houston Dynamo are right now.

- I don’t know when Sporting Kansas City will get going. Waste enough time, that’s all I’m sayin’.

- I think FC Cincinnati and FC Dallas are the same kind of mid-table team, and I hope I’m wrong for both their sakes’.

- Orlando City SC is the scrappiest li’l team in MLS. I pull for them every week. And I try to announce my biases.

- The Philadelphia Union is the most mysterious team in Major League Soccer.

- The Colorado Rapids and New England Revolution might be the low-key worst teams in MLS.

OK, that’s everything. On with the Info-Boxes (e.g., where I keep the results).

Los Angeles FC 2-0 FC Cincinnati: A Muted Announcement of Intentions

Of course it involves a chess metaphor...

When you support a team that isn’t competitive (e.g., the Portland Timbers), it sharpens both what you see in, and your appreciation about, another team you follow. Even though they lost 0-2 to Los Angeles FC, FC Cincinnati kept their chances…more or less alive in the game (or on life support), all the way to where you could hear the echo of the final whistle. And, in the context of “already presumed world champion” versus “guileless expansion team,” that’s a decent result for Cincinnati.

More to the point, it was a decent game for FC Cincy. They might not have made so many chances outside the only one I bothered to note (in…my notes), but they had chances. Sure, they got out-played on the math side of things, but, more importantly, they managed to play the game in the middle of the field for the most part, or at least that’s where their press showed up, and that worked for (literally) most of the night. At the same time, I think there’s an issue: if the rest of the league studies where defenders are when that midfield pressure breaks, Cincy might have at least a handful of slack-jaw goals in their future. LAFC’s late, back-breaking goal gives a glimpse of what I’m talking about, but, in my darkest visions, I’m talking about driving around the Maginot Line.

To yank that thought out of my history books, think Cincinnati’s line of engagement has worked for them for most of the season. I believe it works pretty well against teams without a lot of talent at the forward position – e.g., the Portland Timbers – but, against LAFC and Carlos Vela/Diego Rossi, it plays out differently. For instance, Vela can go shoulder-to-shoulder with quality defenders (in this case, an impressively-sized Kendall Waston; for video, see "late, back-breaking"), and Rossi can pull them apart (even if he mostly did not last night), and that’s the difference between LAFC and Portland, and a lot of teams in MLS. Also, Cincinnati did not put up a ton of shots, and that tells you that LAFC didn’t give up a ton on the defensive side either (and now I'm really freaked about my first team (Portland) falling behind). In just about any way you can think of, this was FC Cincinnati against the best team in Major League Soccer, and on the road. And Cincy kept the game within one thin fuck up, or one quality opportunity, of sharing the points until the very end of the game. I’d call that not bad, not bad at all.

At the same time, the approach taken by Cincinnati isn’t exactly sophisticated. I recalled them (or rather summoned up from my notes) relying too much on long diagonals to generate attacking momentum, and I don’t recall it working nearly often enough. By around the 70th minute, I scribbled that they looked like a team that can fight your team all day, only without necessarily winning the game. In that specific sense, the preseason knock on FC Cincinnati came true: they can defend (even if further upfield than the original theory held), but they’re going to scrap for goals against any teams they can't boss around in midfield, glass jaws, please apply, etc.. At the same time, why not interpret last night’s result as a way of placing FC Cincy into it proper spot within MLS? What if, for the time being, it makes perfect sense to call them the team that’s hell to play, but that won’t often win the game?

FC Dallas 2-1 Portland Timbers: On Getting Robbed and Making Peace

Seriously? Again with these same fucking animals?

That was one weird goddamn game, so much so that I would have coughed up a totally different take had I written up it last night (or been able to; I took a wrong fork on the double header). I got one vague impression from watching live last night, and a second, sharper impression after reviewing 2/9th of the action (hello, condensed game). It’s the latter that fever-piqued my curiosity about the box score – of which, it’s worth the look.

For one, it reveals that, after a disastrous, here-we-go-again start to the match, the Portland Timbers wrestled just about every number to either parity or a slight edge in their favor. Everyone noticed that Portland had a very late shout for a penalty kick thanks to a hand-ball in the penalty area, but it’s possible that everyone (including me) missed that Jeremy Ebobisse got fouled on his 75th minute attempt on goal. If you watch the replay, you should see a rather egregious, well-timed shove in Ebobisse’s back. (Related: I’m hoping that Instant Replay reviews that handball because, in what’s become a paranoia-tinged tradition, MLSSoccer.com has started to bury blown calls). Neither call was made, obviously, and FC Dallas walked off the field with a 2-1 win, but neither team should feel good about the ultimate result, if for opposite reasons – Dallas, for almost failing to win at home, Portland for getting lightly screwed.

Close as Portland came to rescuing a point out of this game, and for all the positives I can wring out of it (you’ll be surprised, honestly), I can’t bring myself to calling the result itself positive. Dropping more points sucks, obviously and a team lining up in a 5-3-2 hardly sings “we’re gonna win the league!” in a tune anyone wants to hum along with. Worse, I can’t think of the last time I saw anything demoralizing as the fuck-up cascade that was Portland’s second goal, which achieved the mysterious depths of, say, someone losing his arms or legs, like they just fell off out of the blue for no discernible goddamn reason. (The first was no peach either; for anyone interested in reliving it, click on the “here we-go again start.”) Finally, when I reviewed the condensed game, I kept a loose tally of all the clean looks Dallas got on goal – i.e., massive openings that should haveended in goals (Jesus Ferreira had a good game; just file that away), but that instead ended up as generic “shots” in the box score. (Seriously, some stats are so heavily conditioned that I’m not sure how much sense it makes to count them.)

MLS Form Guide ULTRA, Week Mostly 5/6: Andrew Wiebe Makes Me Do This.

The Timbers have many friends in their new home...

Andrew Wiebe reminded me why I started the Form Guide ULTRA when he opened The Mothership’s weekly round-up on Matchday Central with this: “If you think you know this league, think again.” I’m willing as the next guy to acknowledge that MLS hits its quota of “WTF” games every week, but that thinking always feels like a cop out to me, or maybe just quitter talk.. With fewer exceptions than you’d think - e.g., one team having another’s number, like Portland Timbers have had Real Salt Lake’s for the last two seasons (or the way Columbus Crew SC can’t stop beating the New England Revolution this season) – there’s always detail, some trend, just something that makes sense of just about every result.

That said, the Form Guide ULTRA does better with explaining results than it does predicting them, and spotting the beginning of a trend is anything but an exact science. In some ways, it’s simply the process of holding hypotheses about every team in MLS and letting the results from the games hold ‘em up, or knock ‘em down.

The process continues below, with nine teams now six games into the season, and most of the rest of five games, plus a couple stragglers on four games. A couple story-lines have firmed up into received wisdom – e.g., Los Angeles FC is the early favorite, Columbus Crew SC has quietly taken the top spot in the Eastern Conference, and the Philadelphia Union appear to have their shit together in 2019 – but MLS does have a nasty habit of keeping the majority of questions open. For instance: what to make of the Seattle Sounders and Toronto FC coming off stride while hosting (comparative) lightweights RSL and the Chicago Fire, respectively; are we all still certain that the way Sporting Kansas City keeps dropping points won’t matter down the line; and, finally, to ask the same question every MLS fan asks every season, will the real Montreal Impact please stand up?

Speculation on that kind of thing is down below, along with the blunt reality of results. As with every week’s post, I “ranked” all the teams in the league down below, but too loosely for the specific order to mean anything. I am, however, sure of one thing: the four Western Conference teams all the way at the bottom are exactly where they belong. Shit’s ugly.

FC Cincinnati 1-1 Sporting Kansas City: The Car Is Running All Right, But Where Is It Going?

I mean, what does this dog actually look like?

Just to mention it, ESPN’s broadcast of the game played roughly two minutes behind real-time. That allowed me to catch wind of two of FC Cincinnati’s bigger moments – the penalty call that gave them their first goal, and Nick Hagglund’s late offside goal (um, how is that not in the goddamn highlights? Are you motherfuckers Billy Barring me?) – and now I know that knowing events two minutes in the future would improve nothing in my life. It washes out as existing in a state of suspended animation, really, which I don’t recommend.

As it happens, that’s a pretty good short-hand for the state of FC Cincinnati as a team. Every game they’ve played so far bore some kind of wrinkle. When they played both of 2018’s MLS Cup finalists, they faced shadows of last year’s editions – something that’s only become more apparent since. When they hosted the Philadelphia Union, the rain pouring on the field seemed to weigh on their shoulders just as much. Today’s 1-1 draw against Sporting Kansas City, meanwhile, was lousy with wrinkles. To begin, SKC started a clear second choice team, ignoring general, well-intentioned advice to “focus on the league” after eating five fist-fulls of shit in Mexico mid-week. (Watching SKC’s Johnny Russell at the end of the game, who went the full 90 in Monterrey, makes a solid case that Peter Vermes took the correct approach; poor bastard was gassed.)

The real wrinkles broke into the skin with the unfolding of the match itself; by the end, the oldest, saggiest human being on Earth would have looked at that and thought, “goddamn, get some Oil of Olay up in this thing, stat!”

Where to begin? Players for both teams pissed away perfect chances – Kelyn Rowe for SKC, Kekuta Manneh for Cincy – and on opposite ends of the game. Just….terrible goalkeeping gaffes led to both goals – a bout of confusion by Adrian Zendejas early in the first half (link above), then Spencer Richey reprised something terrifyingly similar early in the second (also, I’m not sure that Greg Garza didn’t poke the ball past Richey when he fell down). With the exception of FC Cincinnati’s first goal – which, as I saw it, came during a time when SKC had recovered from Cincinnati’s strong opening - game-states generally loosely tracked those events. The same goes for Hagglund’s unfortunately offside winner, which capped a late (again, you must release the video), ultimately futile rally by FC Cincy, and that leaves what might have been gasping for life on this game’s cutting room floor.

San Jose Earthquakes 3-0 Portland Timbers: The "Whipping Boy" Crown Has Been Passed

As we've seen, that's one big goddamn space....

I spent most of the second half of the Portland Timbers’ shame-stained slide to dead last in Major League Soccer striving for a title that captured my despair, my disgust…frankly, my shock, especially seeing that I wrote this just one week ago. After the San Jose Earthquakes' (again, that's the San Jose Earthquakes) 3-0, coulda been more win over the Timbers tonight, whatever optimism I had left just sprinted off the fucking plank and plunged into the sea.

To keep the flagellation going (missed a spot, and harder! like you hate me!), I would have allowed San Jose’s phantom fourth goal, and not just on principle. It’d be one thing if Cristian Espinoza carried the ball forward off the initial pass, but he didn’t; his forward position didn’t give San Jose an advantage on the play, because he cut back and passed the ball into Champs-Elysees that drove straight toward the sweet-spot of the Timbers’ goal all goddam night (e.g., 13 shots on goal). What’s an offside call when the Timbers’ fucking endless dipshit defending gave San Jose all the advantage they needed tonight? That’s the one and only story that matters right now because, until the Timbers get that defense straightened into something competent, absolutely nothing else matters for the team’s fortunes.

I’ll start by calling the original sin by its name: when your team can’t fucking defend, you play the 5-3-2 as penance for past, persistent failure. Under absolutely no circumstances do you “flex” back into a 4-2-3-1 to “try to tilt the game forward," because that is a delusion of grandeur, hell, even a delusion of competence (and, to be clear, I'm quoting no one in that sentence; those are scare quotes). Until further notice, the Timbers are the underdog in every game the play, even against a stumbling-drunk Sunday park league, because I'd count on that team to outright fucking own them at this point.

OK, deep breath. Psssh-Ooooooh, Psssh-OOOooooohhhhhh, Pssh-OOOOOOOOOooooh, shit, I’m gonna pass out.

MLS Form Guide ULTRA, Week 4: What the Hell Is Wrong With New York(s)?

Not this, but also this.

With Week 4 now (mostly) wrapped up (get with it, Toronto FC), and eight teams already into Week 5, we have enough data on our hands to scramble some preseason assumptions. To take a stab at one of the bigger ones, 2019 has proved cruel enough to the two New York teams in that neither team’s name pairs with the word “contender” the way they used to do. So, down they went. (To those new to these posts, while I don’t strictly rank all the clubs in Major League Soccer, they listed below in some rough semblance of good to bad.) Careful (or just patient) observers will also find last year’s MLS Cup contenders – Atlanta United FC and the Portland Timbers - down in the depths with New York - where they’ve shown they belong (dammit). Where those teams have covered themselves in shame and vomit, Toronto FC turned has so far produced a flawless rejection of their 2018 flame-out – and they doubled-down with what looks like one hell of an effective new signing in Alejandro Pozuela. (Just watched the condensed game; it checks out.)

Narratives extended from all the numbers down below, even if it’s hard in some cases to say where they’ll go from here (say, Philadelphia Union), and impossible in others (say, FC Cincinnati). I’ll flesh out some of those points in the narrative summary I’ll post on Orange & Blue Press (and, once it’s up, link to it right here; it’ll fuck up some of the spacing down below (dammit), but I’d rather link to that than not), but, overall, it’s the usual dogpile of teams stacking up in the standings as they do. Or dogpiles, rather. After the contenders (the top four, maybe five teams below), you’ve got teams with solid starts/reputations in one pot (say, FC Dallas down to the Los Angeles Galaxy), and, in another, you’ve got teams that have managed to pile up some points, but who could go any which way going forward…or maybe just FC Cincinnati and L’Impact du Montreal.

Shit gets weird after that – and having Atlanta, Portland and the New York teams crawling around the innards of the outhouse only makes it the thought of whatever busts out of it feel more threatening somehow (because it crawled out of a damn outhouse, son). Anyway, details on the most recent results for every team in MLS are down below, along with some commentary and who everyone has next – something that’s already becoming a factor in divining at least the short-term future for a lot of teams. I’ll be digging into that in the narrative, but, till that goes up, enjoy the data!

LOS ANGELES FC, 4-0-1, 13 points, 15 gf, 5 ga, (3-0-0 home, 1-0-1 away)

Last Ten: N/A

W	W	D	W	W
v SKC	v POR	@ NYC	v RSL	@ SJ
2-1	4-1	2-2	2-1	5-0
N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

Current Judgment: Sure, they’re piling up the points by beating up a succession of situationally vulnerable teams (and Portland’s got next!), but that doesn’t roll back the reality that they are actually doing it, and Carlos Vela is playing MVP soccer.

Next Game: @ DC United, which feels LAFC’s biggest test of their young season.