MLS Week 32/33 Countdown: Because I Had to Do Something to Get Me in the Mood

That's to say, people were still on the big boat.

Despite what you see online, I haven’t stopped thinking about our clumsy little domestic league, but, GODS, how the monstrous, charnel house that is Qatar 2022 (aka, the Winter World Cup) put the just, regular and long-established rhythms of the MLS regular season through the blender. In years past, October was the month for checking out on the league/pissing off for the anniversary. Thanks to FIFA hitting new heights of corruption and venality, it’s entirely possible I’ll miss the decisive moment of my Portland Timbers’ 2022 season. And that's after missing so many for FC Cincinnati down the stretch. On the plus side, if some very reasonable things break the right way, fans may get a Decision Day 2022 chock-full of momentous decisions.

And I’ll do anyone who finds this post the favor of not pretending I’m doing anything new here, results and schedules are my bag, I’m reaching in again and generally, etc. I am, however, going to sharpen the focus to back up two half-bold statements:

Why FC Cincinnati Will Make the 2022 Playoffs; and
Why the Portland Timbers Will Make the 2022 Playoffs

I went with “half-bold” because only one of those feels at all risky. So, let’s start with the safe one:

Why FC Cincinnati Will Make the 2022 Playoffs
First, and funnily, the positional range of teams in the Eastern Conference with a reasonable shot at making the playoffs has barely shrunk since Week 32. Due respect to the New England Revolution, but they have more teams above them than places in the lifeboat – i.e., they have to win out to top out at 7th and it would take every team above them failing to make it happen. Related, I only kept Charlotte in the mix due to their game in hand. With that, here are the teams I can call alive in the East without getting shady about it, their total number of points and their remaining opponents and where they play them:

FC Cincinnati, 46 points, v CHI, @ DC
Orlando City SC, 46 points, v @ NYC, @ MIA, v CLB
Inter Miami CF, 42 points, @ TFC, v ORL, v MTL
_________________ (aka, the playoff line)
Columbus Crew SC, 42 points, v RBNY, @ CLT, @ ORL
Atlanta United FC, 40 points, @ NE, v NYC
Charlotte FC, 38 points, v PHI, v CLB, @ RBNY

Columbus Crew SC 1-1 Portland Timbers: Comedy Gold

My birthday came early this year!

Did the Portland Timbers deserve their late, late equalizer? No, they did not. But that also feels like the wrong question for the moment. So, try this:

Was it funny? Yes, yes it was. I’d sit through a three-hour insurance seminar with an hour devoted to "team-building" and a bologna sandwich and Kool-Aid for a lunch if you told me I could see sad Caleb Porter at the end of it.

Still, smart shot by Santiago Moreno. And, oh, the whimsy of the assist coming off Bill Tuiloma’s head! As for Columbus Crew SC: I’d pity them under literally every other circumstance, but when your team needs a point (and FC Cincinnati needs someone to trip up there rival) you harden your heart and point and laugh....still, you gotta wonder which god Columbus pissed off...

As I said when I sat down to a frog in a tray way back in junior high, there’s so little to dissect here. Columbus played the better game, just slower than they needed to. Despite what the calendar says, the game as a whole had a mid-August vibe. With few exceptions – and those will be noted below – the Timbers played the first half as if they didn’t even want the points and they didn’t raise their game all that much in the second. A great feed to an increasingly anonymous Yimmi Chara and a flurry of corner kicks aside (all around the 58th minute), Portland rarely got close enough to see Columbus’ goal, never mind threaten it.

In their defense, Columbus didn’t do much better. They came within a stray shoulder of scoring an insurance goal, of course, and Cucho Hernandez got loose a couple times, but, apart from "that magic moment" when Kevin Molino put them ahead, I think the xG does a swell job of translating that sleeper of a game into numbers. Again, that felt like nothing so much as sitting through a long, pointless movie that slips in a great joke right before the credits rolled.

And, because I don’t think we learned much of anything today, let’s just do talking points and get on with our day.

MLS Week 32 (or Thereabouts) Narrative Preview: A Look at the Mid-Section

Today's area of interest.

With the finish line looming, I thought I’d circle back to where things are in the Major League Soccer playoff race. And, because I couldn’t handle the constraints of another twitter thread…don’t fence me in, baby…

Here, I’m less concerned with what’s ahead (with the unusual exceptions; see below) than where teams are going into, for most, their 32nd regular season game of 2022. About that, some teams have a game in hand right now – e.g., Orlando City SC, FC Cincinnati, Columbus Crew SC, Inter Miami CF, the Los Angeles Galaxy and the Seattle Sounders – but it’ll take a little aligning of the stars for most of them to make said game come good.

Moreover, this quick post focuses on the middle of the table – i.e., fourth place through tenth in both conferences. I don’t know how the question of who will finish first in each conference remains open – it’ll be the Philadelphia Union in the East and Los Angeles FC in the West – but figure it’s a math thing; the second-place teams look safe as well, even if the math’s a little tighter there, but the battle to finish third ain’t over…though it could get there in either conference or both if the results go a certain way this weekend. And yet all of that strikes me as far less important than the bleached-bones existential question of who will make the 2022 playoffs, hence the focus on (over-)broad middle of the table…

…which, truth be told, reminds of a mosh-pit at a Jimmy Buffett concert – i.e., inexplicable, hard to watch and by and large a race to nowhere. Now, for a closer, narrative look going by conference.

The Eastern Conference Scrum

While I still can’t see New York City FC going under – they’re still seven points over the line – they’ve stagnated badly enough to join the conversation. And if there is a theme to the East, stagnation ain’t a bad fit. Only two teams can lay a positive claim on momentum – Cincy and, of all teams, Atlanta United FC – but neither can argue they’re moving fast: Atlanta kept themselves relevant on the back of two straight wins (v Toronto FC and at Orlando), while Cincinnati has done nothing more than win games they should (v Charlotte FC and v San Jose Earthquakes). Orlando had a good run going till Atlanta tripped them up – four straight wins, a couple of them impressive – but it’s pretty goddamn bleak from there. Each of Columbus, Miami and New England have just one win in their past seven games and all them are fairly agnostic when it comes to whom they fail against and where they do it. With that in mind, here are the match ups for the relevant teams in the East (and where they stand on points, organized according to the standings):

Portland Timbers 1-0 Minnesota United FC: Say, That Was Lucky. And Ugly.

A metaphor (I couldn't find a better image to represent)

I feel like this was one of those nights where I saw every misplaced foot in defense, every stumble (remember, that one time, when Dario Zuparic almost fell on his ass watching Mender Garcia dance?), every over-hit pass, every touch that sent a ball flopping like a trout jumping for a mosquito, and more standing around and contemplating what some other player could do.

If anything went well during that first half, I either didn’t see it or failed to record it. And listening to the chatter from the broadcast booth was positively hallucinogenic. Felt like listening to goddamn propaganda half the damn time. And yet, I’m left wondering whether saw some darker, shadow-version of what everyone else saw tonight.

The one thing no one could miss: Dairon Asprilla power-glancing home a header from a Santiago Moreno free-kick. Yessir, that was the rock on which the Portland Timbers 1-0 win over Minnesota United FC was built...and then I rewatched said header and saw that Asprilla didn’t have to move at all to win it; Moreno casually dimed it onto his head while Minnesota’s near-side defender (looks like Luis Amarilla from the still I’m looking at right now; gonna savor the mystery) stepped out of the way. Think it’s Michael Boxall who’s asking the same question I am right now: what the fuck, man?

While it’s not 100% borne out by anything more concrete than the eye test and some parts of the box score, I’d call makeshift Minnesota the better team tonight. They moved the ball smarter, they teed up better chances (and a lot more of them) – I mean, I’m looking at the passing accuracy stat right now and suddenly wondering whether I even know how that’s calculated (and whether the Illuminati are involved) – and, all in all, believe a fair case could be made that, but for the Aljaz Ivacic/Claudio Bravo double save, like, five minutes into the game, this one would have slipped away from the Portland. Seriously, think of it: if either of those shots go in (or, for that matter, any of Minnesota’s five shots on goal, or any of their 21 shots), that’s the Timbers trying to breakdown an actually compacted Minnesota defense. And, based on what I saw out there tonight, I don’t think that’s a game Portland would have won...but instead this game wound up as a lesson in what happens when one team lets the other hang around for too long.

Honestly, if either Garcia or Kervin Arriaga could shoot; Arriaga’s wild swing to nowhere were a comic delight, but, this could have been Minnesota’s game at least half a dozen times over.

MLS Week 30(? Roughly?): The End-Run Review/Preview

Feeling equal parts grandiose and Luddite.

Not so long ago, I made myself swear I’d never do something like this again, while I also swearing that I’d figure it out one day, dammit. Ahem....

WHEREAS, everything below explains itself well enough; and

WHEREAS, it’s already a goddam whale of a post (but also a template I’m brainstorming);

LET IT BE RESOLVED, that’s it for the preamble, but for some light housekeeping. Below is information on every team in Major League Soccer. And, for this edition, I used very few sources – e.g., the (current) Form Guide, the (current) Conference Standings, plus a lightly-jumbled memory – and most of it is pretty damn big picture. That said, it also has the very simple goal of looking at 1) where each teams is in the standings and against their peers, 2) what they’ve done over the past 10 games, and 3) what they have left for games. That’s it....

Oh, and all the references to average or either side thereof references the present average number of goals coming and going across all teams in MLS: 42.8.

One last thing: assuming I carry this thing to the end of the season, you’ll start to see teams fall off the bottom. For what it’s worth, I’ve got seven teams listed as “The Dead” below – that’s against The Quick and The Lingering – but they’re mostly only present In Memoriam. Let’s just say I was generous.

Finally, are the teams ranked? Yeah, but only loosely.

The Quick
Philadelphia Union
Top-End Data: 1st in the East, 60 points, 21(!) above the line, straight-up killin' it on O and D, more blemished than flawed at home (10-0-5), and better on the road than most teams are at home (7-4-4). Have to be the new favorites, yeah?
Week 20 Theory
“I’d put money on more progress for Philly, even if it isn’t linear.” And then this happened...
The Last 10: WWWLWLWWWW (8-2-0)
Strength of Schedule: There are literally three consistent playoff teams in that mix, but when you’re taking care of that much business and running up numbers at a sprint (i.e., 32 goals for, 7 goals allowed) that’s not so much announcing intentions as threatening violence.
The End-Run: v ORL, @ ATL, @ CLT, v TFC
Updated Theory
Even with LAFC’s game in hand, between their form and that schedule, Philly looks to have the inside track to the Supporters’ Shield...not to mention an outstanding shot at momentum going into the games that truly matter. If the Union aren’t the consensus top contender...I don’t understand. My only concern: when’s the last time Philly played a tough stretch?

Portland Timbers 2-1 Atlanta United FC: The Raw Art of Sufficiency

In the same way this is food...

To start with the biggest happy picture, three straight wins goes a long way toward getting a team out the hole it dug over the first half of the season. The Portland Timbers’ 2-1 home win yesterday afternoon over a winded and dizzy Atlanta United FC capped that hop, skip, jump run of games and hoisted them a little higher over the playoff line. That the Los Angeles Galaxy played two games over the past week and pissed away four points in what arguably should have been winnable games makes it a little sweeter still.

Another happy thought: the Timbers have scored two goals in each of those three wins, which bought the defense a little credit for the one goal it has inevitably given up. All that’s the say, the foundation look good, at least until you take a closer look at it.

First, and to finally get to the game, Atlanta hasn’t been good all season – i.e., they leave three-game gaps between wins and this game came in a trough – they’re crap on the road (1-9-5), and they kicked off the game under the playoff line and there they remain. So that’s at least three reasons the Timbers did no more than what they should have yesterday. And, to their credit, they looked the better team. Atlanta had a nice, crisp, organized opening period where they took the game to Portland, though in retrospect all that activity wasn’t materially different than a ‘keeper bouncing and flapping on his goal line ahead of a penalty kick...and how apt is that metaphor?

To sing a couple more bars of praise, I like the way the Timbers took over the game. Both midfielders and defenders snapped at most things played toward them – even when they had to step ahead an Atlanta player to get there first – and that did a number on the visitors’ confidence in moving the ball. When they finally started finding and prying at little seams in the channels, the three-man back line of Bill Tuiloma, Dario Zuparic, and (about damn time) Zac McGraw held the right positions to cut out the passes or generally get in the way. Atlanta’s too-late goal aside – and pour one out for the late tragedy of Josef Martinez’s great MLS career – they managed just one other clean look on goal, e.g., that clever ball over the top by Santiago Sosa to Ronaldo Cisneros. And Aljaz Ivacic got his leg in the way of that one. Moving on to the caveats...

Portland’s attack didn’t look great. Missing Eryk Williamson had something to do with that, of course...at least until you remember that, for all his utility (i.e., help us, Eryk, you’re our only hope), the Timbers’ attack hasn’t look much better when he’s there. A good way to phrase the phenomenon came to be as my attention wandered during the second half yesterday (and, lo, it went far and freely): the Timbers have arrived at place where they cause goals, as opposed to creating them. I can’t remember the last time Portland did anything particularly impressive, never mind artful, on the approach to goal; as much as I admired the indirect inventiveness of Eryk’s assist on (I think) the second goal in the win over Austin, they haven’t waltzed one in over the last three wins. It’s been a lot of free kicks and, yesterday, penalty kicks.