The Weakly, MLS Week 3 Preview: Observations and Expectations on a Slow Bus to an Expanded Station

My money's on Pennsylvania...

Seems like it was only yesterday since I wrapped up MLS Week 2, and yet here comes MLS Week 3, barreling toward the 2023 post-season with the speed and urgency of a Greyhound milk-run puttering from Maine to Cincinnati, Ohio (which I do not recommend, btw). A couple early narratives have taken shape – and I’ve laced those into the notes on Week 3’s games below – but, as we all know, there’s plenty of road ahead and they added a new wing to Cincinnati’s bus station. [NOTE: This is not accurate, please do not rely upon. So far as I know, Cincy built its Greyhound station in the 1950s and promptly forgot it existed.] In case it's not clear, all the above is a tortured analogy for the long regular season and expanded playoffs...

I cobbled together the observations below based on what I saw last weekend (my notes on that), some glassy-eyed staring at the soon-to-be invaluable Form Guide, and some stray stuff I’ve picked up, mostly from half-reading Sam Jones’ Daily Kickoff newsletter...whoa, just realized I haven’t so much as glanced at a Matt Doyle column since First Kick...

To be clear, I don’t really do predictions. It’s more kicking around expectations and pulling for results that amuse, baffle and, on the best of days, titillate. Anyhoo, there’s plenty below, so I’ll shut up and get to it. Starting with the two teams followed in this space, and in the order they’ll play on Saturday.

FC Cincinnati v Seattle Sounders
If someone told me to kick a dent into Seattle’s reputation, I’d try the three following arguments:

1) They’ve played both games at home.

2) One of the teams they hosted, the Colorado Rapids, has a history of being their punching bag (18-7-2 all-time) and Colorado’s Lalas Abubakar played part in two of those four goals. [Ed. - Fun fact: the Sounders actually have a losing historical record against Real Salt Lake at 11-12-5.]

3) Neither Colorado nor RSL has what FC Cincinnati has in the attack...when it’s rolling.

A lot of that boils down to another way of asking, how optimistic do you feel about Cincinnati in 2023?

MLS Weakly, March 15, 2022: Results from Week 3 and the MLS Class System

Again, portrait of the author.

You know what I haven’t done yet for 2022? Lay down my markers. Shit, what the hell did I stop taking?

I had opinions going in, of course, teams I expected to do well, others I expected to struggle, and a handful I expected to stare at for 30 weeks before they made any kind of sense, and probably not even then. And, yes (be a drag), the season is very young, though, if you take the 34-week season and match it against the life expectancy for the thoroughly average American (as in, we’re all in this together (for once), and it looks like 77.3 across races and genders in 2020), the MLS Season is damn-near 7-years-old in human years. Young, sure, but it’s a pretty good bet it’s wiping his/her/their own ass.

Still, you don’t judge any kid based on what she’s done by age 7 (tap dance harder, Cassidy!) and, to be clear, this post passes absolutely zero hard and fast judgments on any team in Major League Soccer. The goal here tracks with my…more or less completely unobserved understanding of how the British documentary 7 Up works (and did I even do the title right? Nope!) - i.e., I’m going to organize all the teams in MLS according to how I see at seven in human years, and continue update my thoughts/judgments as the season progresses. Also, don’t worry: I won’t post something like this every three games; it’ll be more of a slow process of picking through “the bounty” The Mothership delivers for content every week. Now, if have nothing more to work with but the fully-abbreviated (e.g., the four-plus minute jobbers) and Matt Doyle recaps, it’ll be like looking out the wrong end of a spying glass. I’ll have more to work with if/when The Mothership ramps up production the MLS in 15 videos; those at least get you in the rhythm of the game and to where you catch stray snippets from the broadcast booth, so, please, hire more interns. And pay them. It’s not like I’m asking for your first-born, Don Garber…

With all the above in mind, I’m going to use the result from MLS Weeks 1-3 to show how what passes for my process works. Now, a week before the 2022 MLS regular started, I listed all the teams that interested me at that point in time. I didn’t nail the categories - made ‘em too broad for one and didn’t control for personal eccentricities - and that goes some distance to explaining the need to fine-tune, or even correct, how I think about all the teams in MLS, and a little early in the season. Now, to reorganize every team in the league based on what I wrote in that post, and to establish more functional categories. And, for the record, I’m doing my level best here to go back to where my head was before First Kick - and I’ll add brief little notes to explain my…let’s call them WTF choices. Finally, think I’ll go with a medieval theme this season - and, yes, these are loosely ranked: