MLS 2018, Form Guide ULTRA, Week 22: One Stray L'il Doggie (and it's coming to Portland)

These posts are my tattoos.

Again, I use the words “IN” and “OUT” to mean teams that are in and out of the playoffs, respectively, at time of writing. That’s a loose identifier for “good” and “bad,” basically.

Moving on, the more I feel better about the data, the less I feel like preambles are necessary. The week featured what looks like an oddity - i.e., an unusual wealth of road wins - until you check out who played who (the more obvious examples: New York City FC 0-2 at Orlando, Atlanta United FC stealing all three points from Montreal Impact FC with a 2-1 win (if with some notable wrinkles; also, on paper went off at least one script), and the Seattle Sounders 1-0 over at the San Jose Jackpot…er, Earthquakes). Sure, there was one oddball win - the Houston Dynamo coughing upa 1-3 loss at home to the Philadelphia Union presaged a terrible weak for East Texas - but, given everything that happened around it (two weeks and some travel for the New York Red Bulls, plus the solid state of the competition), it wasn’t so surprising to see Columbus Crew SC win in New York. Whoops, one more: the Sounders looked like a decent bet to beat NYCFC in Seattle, but the score-line (3-1) bears noting.

Because some kind of clockwork explains all the rest (hold on...what's left now?), I want to close out this preamble with a firm opinion on something. People argue that teams should “start the kids” and, as much as I agree with that, making that call is some serious pre-game dunking on your opposition. There’s just a second side to the equation, that’s all I’m saying.

OK, the usual data-dump unfolds below - e.g., I look at the last 10 games for every team in MLS down below, create a thumbnail profile from that. I wrap it all up with a look back (at last week’s game(s)), then a look ahead (at next week’s game). Caveat lector: I’m looking at highlights and results only, so don’t expect a deep-dive into anyone’s tactics outside the one team I watch in Major League Soccer - i.e., the Portland Timbers - and whoever they happened to play that week (Houston, in this case). Here goes, and in the order of the conference standings, Eastern Conference first:

Portland Timbers 2-1 Houston Dynamo: A Win, a Loss, an Uneasy Sensation

Drafty...

“Timbers fans will never forget the complex emotional rush as he took the Providence Park field as a Timber one last time.”

That’s from The Mothership’s recap and, personally, nothing about the emotional rush was “complex.” I watched the Portland Timbers’ stressful (please, God, not another draw) 2-1 win over the Houston Dynamo with only a couple people, and we toasted Adi at least three times last night. Timbers fans had the fun of watching Adi grow into its first genuinely reliable forward of the Major League Soccer era, and that means Adi will leave a little history behind when he goes. Did I tear up when he scored the game winner? No, shut up…that was…hold on, look over there! (I’ll loop back to this.)

The recap also featured this statement:

“Blanco was in contention for [Man of the Match], given his opening goal and the work he did in breaking down Houston's defense all match. But then Adi stepped on the field, seized the narrative, and made his last one count.”

Nah, it was Blanco, not least because that (frenetic) game-winner doesn’t happen if he doesn’t rescue the ball from (pretty sure it was) Alfredo Machado’s sliding tackle. After a whole damn night of seeing Portland shove the ball forward with the blunt cluelessness of a toddler straining to shove the square-shaped object into the star-shaped hole, that moment of composure really stood out. I’ll skip the over-long back-story for what pops into my head every time I see a team force the ball forward like that* [ed. see note, at the bottom], but, even when you play into the teeth of a team’s defense, you still want to hit around the actual goddamn teeth. The Timbers kicked at one tooth after another more most of last night, and it very nearly cost them two points. And a serious dent to team/fan morale. So, God bless you, Mr. Blanco, and you too, Mr. Adi.

It takes a goal with that much narrative and poetry to it stuff (hold on, 80-12, yeah) 68 minutes of teeth-grating frustration into the place where I keep my repressed memories (e.g., that short hitch in the KGB). Between Houston’s (too-soon!) equalizer and the game-winner, an almost tangible gloom hung over the table where I sat, watching and stewing as Dynamo players seemed to read every pass Portland played into midfield. I’m looking at the box score now and I’m calling it what it is - a damned filthy propaganda. Unless the league has re-defined the word “pass’ to include cases where the player controls it for less than one second, the Timbers never completed 83% of its passes last night, and I think they got the numbers backwards on the duels too. (Maybe they used a random number generator? A rooster pecking corn?)

MLS 2018, Week 21 Form Guide ULTRA: Have You Considered This Side of the Matrix...Shit's Slippin'

In perspective...

Again, I use the words “IN” and “OUT” to mean teams that are in and out of the playoffs, respectively, at time of writing. It’s a loose identifier for “good” and “bad,” basically.

As I carry this project into its third(? fourth?) week, aka, MLS 2018, Week 21, I find myself reevaluating what it actually delivers in terms of information. I pulled the first post together on the theory that MLS results are less “wacky” and “random” than they appear – e.g., the Vancouver Whitecaps are middling at home and bad on the road, and that’s good context for the Seattle Sounders beating them in Seattle last week. The place where my perception around this stuff has shifted comes with looking at this dog-pile of data less as something predictive (e.g., Real Salt Lake will almost certainly lose on the road), than as a way of establishing a sort of base-line for each team, something that helps identify this game as a smashing success or that game as a signpost pointing toward ruin.

In other words, the most useful thing all this provides is a way assign a team some kind of “level” and to use that to parse results as “good,” “bad,” “holy shit,” or, to return to the MLS default (I’m battling against), “Jesus, how did that happen?”

I’m still working on how to read this damn thing, basically, no small part of it following from how to re-wire the data to account for, say, the Los Angeles Galaxy’s high-scoring revival, or the looming (potential) collapse of the New England Revolution (or, to stick with that MLS WTF 2.0, what the holy hell has gotten into Minnesota lately?) Or, to give the sharper example, when I established the “IN/OUT” data in the first post, Vancouver was an “IN” team, while the Galaxy was “OUT.” That not only flipped, it shows no signs of flipping back. That said, those teams are the exceptions and most teams have stayed on the same side of the “IN/OUT” divide as they did when I started; to hang an example on that, with the teams below them struggling as they are, the Revolution may never become bad enough to fall out of the playoffs.

To translate all the above, the softest data below will be the “IN/OUT” splits, even though those will remain roughly accurate. Oh, and I've made multiple corrections in the other numbers as well; think I'll catch 'em all one day. OK, hope that makes sense. Even if it doesn’t, let’s take a look at MLS 2018, Week 21. I’ve already hinted at the biggest surprise (Minnesota), but a couple other teams (e.g., Chicago Fire and Philadelphia Union) underlined rumors that all is not well. Moving on...

FC Cincinnati 2-1 New York Red Bulls II: Who You Got?

It comes with dessert. No way.

Just to note it, I’m reminded that I know something less than fuck-all about the Western Conference every time I check scores for the USL. Please get to MLS soon, FC Cincinnati; because ignorance pains me…

To stick with the subject, the general…mien of FC Cincinnati’s 2-1 win over New York Red Bulls II (“RBII” hereafter) also pained me a little: elegant as an elephant on roller blades, refined as a Salisbury Steak TV dinner, this game played out as pure bumper cars until around the 40th minute (what? I feel like “Salisbury Steak” should be capitalized). It slipped in and out of looking like two teams playing soccer instead of Aussie Rules Football for the rest of the game, but, full credit to them, Cincinnati did look the better team at the sharper ends of the field (i.e., defense and offense). The numbers bear me out on that “slop-fest” theory, btw; I’ve never seen passing accuracy numbers that low, and holy shit, how did anything positive happen out there with that much fuck-uppery going on?

To note something else, RBII was the toughest team (per their record) that FC Cincy has played in a while, and maybe that accounts for all the gore on the field…am I? Yeah, I’m exaggerating that a bit. All I’m saying is the game was physical, and I think Blake Smith could easily have been sent off when he rose from a rough challenge and shoved an RBII player to the dirt. What would have transpired from there is anyone’s guess, but that didn’t happen, and that’s a counter-factual, and I don’t deal in that crap. Back to the factual, RBII came within one wispy whisker of tying the game in stoppage time (and you can see that, and “the numbers” referred to above, via The Match Center). Cincinnati came within one defender’s mid-section of growing their lead one minute later, so the galactic wheels of virtue continue to spin true.

In fewer words, this game was close, but it wasn’t. RBII attacked relentlessly, while FC Cincy attacked ruthlessly, and won the game as a result. The only place Cincinnati came out clearly ahead was the score-line, and that means why is at least one of the questions in play. Having been introduced to RBII just now, I can’t address their side of things - though I will say that Andrew Tinari, Amando Moreno and (especially) Lucas Stauffer showed up for them throughout the game. As for Cincinnati, they flipped a chunk of their line-up in the midst of a busy week and futzed with the formation (not a big fan of that 4-3-3), and part of me blames the inelegance of the close result for that. On the flipside of that, seeing the players who stuck to the roster - e.g., your Manny Ledesmas, your Blake Smiths, your Forrest Lassos - could say something about who FC Cincy views as useful, if not indispensable. (Hold up: I neither watched nor checked on FC Cincinnati’s midweek win over Charlotte Independence; that said, just did and just confirmed the noteworthy rotations.)

Portland Timbers 2-2 L'Impact du Montreal: Thank You, Evan Bush

Anyone have Evan Bush's home address?

To start with the obvious, the Portland Timbers have neither scored so many, nor allowed so many, shitty goals in the 2018 season than they did in last night’s 2-2 draw (at home, dammit) against L’Impact Montreal. They’ve run a tight ship over the past dozen games, but that ship sprang some leaks over their last 90 minutes of play - and, arguably, over their last 180 minutes of play. With their U.S. Open Cup loss to Los Angeles FC, you could point to the subs (as I did in here, David Guzman), the quality of LAFC, and say, “Professor Green, in the bathroom, with that tactical combat knife he ordered online.” The clues don’t add up as easily for last night’s draw.

I’ll start by saying, 1) I’m not panicking, and 2) you lose a little nuance when tracking just the results. I’d heard the rumors that Montreal’s defense had improved, but argued (or held out hope) that the teams their defense had improved against comprised some part of the improvement. That said, if there’s an edge to give in tonight’s game, the Montreal Impact scored the better goals. The Timbers, on the other hand, dredged dark, disgusting things from the grime of the ballast deck. It is what it is, the unbeaten streak continues and, to bright side things a bit, the Timbers came back twice, thereby scooping their points out of some tight spaces.

All that said, this was a bigger result for Montreal. I’m high enough on Portland to think they should have won this game outright and with little complication…and then L’Impact scored the first goal. It was a pick-pocket classic, a toe-poke on a sloppy pass, the kind of play/goal the New York Red Bulls have ridden to success in recent seasons. The Timbers back-line responded…poorly, getting stretched to and fro (Lawrence, Lawrence, Lawrence), but plays like that file nicely under “it all happened so fast.” If anything, Montreal’s second goal was worse, one of those wax-on, switch-off situations that follows from a long ball (by Ignacio Piatti, of all people) to Matteo Mancosu, who had so much net to shoot at that it would have been harder to miss his shot (Jeff, Jeff, Jeff). That was the second go-ahead goal for a Montreal team that should have had none. And yet they did.

If there’s a worrying trend of any kind for Portland, it’s letting in the first goal. If there’s a horse they’ve ridden to success, it’s scoring first, or keeping the other side from scoring at all. That matters because this Portland Timbers team is designed to hold the game together until it takes the lead. That’s the logic of the Christmas Tree - i.e., you can’t score on me, but, if I score on you, you’re fucked, because Christmas Tree, motherfucker. It wasn't clear how regularly Portland managed games until I went back and counted last week, but that dynamic - i.e., scoring first, etc. - has defined the team's unbeaten streak. Back to Montreal, and their defense, I think I read they’ve adopted a similar system - and, with that front three (e.g., Piatti, Mancosu, and Alejandro Silva) they, like, Portland, have the talent to attack on the cheap (i.e., by committing fewer players). Montreal definitely played compact last night, a 4-5-1, with the “4” and the “5” in easy spitting distance of one another (“Stocky Christmas?”); they set up in a way that required the Timbers to break them down…

Los Angeles FC 3-2 Portland Timbers: Asprisgha, and Other Things That Went Wrong Tonight

Never forget. I won't.

Because it’s mid-week, I’m playing my subs. This’ll be short. The Portland Timbers’ 2018 U.S. Open Cup run died a grating death tonight, with a 3-2 loss to Los Angeles FC.

I’m not going to blame our depth, even though the depth failing to either mesh or produce proved the decisive factor. Sure, the Portland Timbers could have fielded their starters, they could have really gone from broke in this one, and let the subs try to manage L’Impact Montreal at the weekend. I would have preferred that, because I thought - and still think - that this was the bigger game.

The biggest problem, as I see it, followed from the Timbers having to chase a game, and with backups, for the first time since the beginning of June (in the draw against the Los Angeles Galaxy). Fun fact: the Timbers have rarely needed to claw back into a game in all of 2018; since this season’s rocky start, Portland has either scored the first goal, or kept a clean sheet in every game this season, except for tonight, that draw against Los Angeles and another draw against FC Dallas way the hell back in March. In other words, this game went wildly out of Portland’s game plan, especially when LAFC scored their second just before the half following the sustained, slow-motion breakdown by Portland’s defense. That made coming back a bigger ask than the depth players showed any signs of pulling off. And I’ll pick on them for a second, but first…

Just to note it, LAFC should have won this game 4-2, because Adama Diomande was not offside when he slotted that late shot under Portland’s Jeff Attinella, while he was…just a massive asshole over those last 15-20 minutes [Ed. - According to rumors, getting called the "n-word" by a Timbers player lit that fire. If that did, in fact happen, the cross-out states my position on it. Had he punched the offending player, I would have been fine with it.] Also, Attinella had some great saves tonight. My point with this paragraph is simply to acknowledge that the Timbers really did lose this game. This one sucked, and more than most. Barring a major flip in form or fortune, the path to the 2018 U.S. Open Cup runs through this bracket. And Portland just cashed out…

MLS 2018,Form Guide ULTRA, Week 20: The Matrix Is Holding Together.

This is all that matters. And also a dated reference.

I’ll start with the key for a short-cut I use through everything down below (of which, there’s a lot). I use the words “IN” and “OUT” to mean teams that are in and out of the playoffs, respectively, at time of writing. And, golly, has that become rather predictably complex. That’s more for context than anything else at this point, a loose identifier for “good” and “bad.” Again, respectively. I mean, you’re either in or you’re out. Heather.

Moving onto the MLS 2018 Season’s Week 20, and, yes, I remember I promised shorter preambles.

I touch on every team in Major League Soccer below, going through both conferences (starting with the Eastern) in the order they stack up in the standings. After listing all the general stuff - e.g., points, games played, record at home and record away - I focus on what each team has done over the past 10 games - especially where they’ve played and who over that 10-game period. I wrench a thumbnail profile from that (and other stuff; still working on translating data to words), then talk about the game(s) they played during the week that’s behind us, then look ahead to the game(s) they’ll play the next week. To share resources, I mostly rely on the match recaps for each game (full disclosure: I didn't watch all of them, not even the highlights), plus the form guide. I also watched this past week's Matchday Central, a show that, no matter how uneven (it's fine), gives me at least three pieces of information I didn't know, and pretty much every time.

With regard to MLS Week 20, only one result surprised me much - the Los Angeles Galaxy’s 3-2 points-smuggling raid at the New England Revolution. After a quick review of everything - e.g., the red card to Cristian Penilla, especially - even that ball bounces off the wall close to true. With every other result, some kind of trend - whether torrential current or a little something slipping under the context - makes sense of the result (e.g., Real Salt Lake sucks on the road).

To circle back, the problem with labeling teams IN and OUT caught up with this project this weekend. To name names, the Montreal Impact stepped into the Eastern Conference playoff space vacated by the Philadelphia Union - if with an assist from the bye week. The  Galaxy pulled the same stunt in the Western Conference with the Vancouver Whitecaps - i.e., replaced them, only they deserved it more, and Vancouver less. The outlines of that shift appeared in the tea leaves, numbers are the answer for everything, and I’ll never wear underwear or deodorant again, swear to God.

EASTERN CONFERENCE

Atlanta United FC - 41 points, 12-4-5 (6-2-3 home, 6-2-2 away), 43 gf, 24 ga (+19), 21 GP

Last 10 Games, Results: LDWDWDWLWD (4-3-3 (2-1-2 home, 2-2-1 away), 16 gf, 11 ga)

Last 10 Games, Home/Away: HAHAAHHAAH

Record v IN Teams: 3-2-3

Record v OUT Teams: 1-0-1

Current Thumbnail Profile: People are starting to ask questions about this season’s early darlings, but people might be overlooking how hard their schedule has been lately (see above, and it's brutal). For all that, good team, but hardly juggernauts.

Last Week: Because I skipped the highlights for this game, most of what I know about it revolves around the top of Josef Martinez’s head hitting Chad Marshall’s chin. However it happened, Atlanta shouldn’t drop points at home to a team that’s struggling hard as Seattle.

Next Week: They have DC United at home. If nothing else, DC knows how to play on the road by now.

6 home games remaining, 7 road games. IN/OUT Split: 5/8

One of the softest end-runs in MLS, period. Another reason why drawing Seattle missed a chance.

Los Angeles FC 0-0 Portland Timbers: Mentioning the Unmentionables

As often happens, what you don't talk about matter most.

Won’t lie. I know where the condensed games live (thanks, @FWjmcg!), but I’m still coming to grips with the idea of watching any video on my phone for more than three minutes. That’s my previous record, by the way. It might have gone high as five once, but…I mean, shit, doesn’t the whole thing feel like a compromise? It seems like we’ve spent a couple decades making big ass TVs, and no we’re watching sports on tiny little phone screens? Ain’t wrong, but it ain’t right either.

Right, the game. The Portland Timbers pushed Los Angeles FC to a goal-less draw in Los Angeles, and with the emphasis on “push.” If anyone tells you that the - just to mention it, visiting - Portland didn’t look the likelier team to win, they watched a different game than I did. This confirmed a couple theories, by the way, particularly as evidence about where LAFC fits into the larger picture of Major League Soccer. On that, and lifts my bluntest phrasing out of this sprawling monstrosity, “they’re dropping points in pretty non-elite ways.” Here, the “they” means LAFC. And they did it again tonight.

I didn’t know what to expect today more than anyone else. I’d heard plenty about the LAFC hype-train, but I think even their fans know to take a shot of that with the famous combination of lime and, yes, salt. LAFC might have beat the Timbers on every facet of the box score (except clearances!) but the highlights better match what I recall; on the quality of the shots and, yeah, that’s all Timbers. One team hit the post (thanks again, Samuel Armenteros), while the other floated a couple vague, wet farts toward goal…to think what could have been had Diego Valeri buried that ball he picked off Steven Beitashour’s ambling toe.

God’s honest truth (also, we’ll see), I don’t have a lot to say about this one. In real-world terms - that is, getting a point on the road against a well-regarded and direct rival, and generally looking like the home team doing it, that’s mission accomplished in any league. Portland looked comfortable for most of the night, even on the back foot. LAFC, on the other hand, struggled to contain Portland’s counter (or just its general hyper-verticality and mobility), and couldn’t punch back with anything Jeff Attinella couldn’t swat away. The field tilted Portland’s way on all that, contra the box score and, no, in no way do I think this predicts how Portland will do in Wednesday’s U.S.Open Cup game against this same Los Angeles FC team. Both teams have had their, “no, you throw the first punch” moment, but the real fight - or some version of it, with or without pearl-clutching squad rotation from either team - comes this Wednesday.

FC Cincinnati 2-0 Tampa Bay Rowdies: A Dream Date with Corben Bone

Most things improve with practice...

The entire experience of watching FC Cincinnati take down the Tampa Bay Rowdies at Nippert Stadium would have felt less like sitting through my kid’s Christmas concert had I watched it last night instead of just an hour or two after watching the World Cup final, but I digress…

After a first half filled with the soccer equivalent of kids’ attention drifting, forgotten words and flat notes, FC Cincy took charge in the second half, and almost immediately. Cincinnati’s Corben Bone made a great case for game MVP (wait for it), throughout the second, but he started early with a pin-point cross to Emanuel Ledesma’s mysteriously elusive run. He nodded home that goal in the middle of 10+ minutes of steady pressure and increasing chaos in the Rowdies' defense. While it didn’t spin totally out of control, Tampa’s defense never recovered. In more ways than one, the Tampa Bay Rowdies played the kid who just stands there for the length of the concert, silently picking his nose while he stares at his parents. That’s with respect to Junior Flemmings, who did his damnedest to make the hosts earn it.

FC Cincinnati wouldn’t get its insurance goal until very, very near the end - that came in the 84th minute, when Emery Welshman dished a smooth pass to Danni Konig one thin minute after Welshman stepped onto the field - but Bone should have bought the policy 30 minutes earlier when he made himself a sitter that he bounced off the crossbar. And, as always, anyone who’s interested can see all the above in the highlights (or see it again), as well as picking through the United Soccer League’s random-access dog-pile of statistics at the Match Center for this game. Still, the story for this game was pretty simple: Cincinnati won it 2-0, and the only real question in play was whether or not they would score. Tampa battled hard, but also clumsily - by which I mean I’m calling bullshit on their (alleged) 66.2% passing accuracy, or questioning the methodology at the very least.

After that, there’s not much to say about this game, beyond cautioning anyone with even the slightest interest of doing so against watching that first half. After writing “10 minutes of dead air” around the 13th minute, I decided against writing “see above” at 10 minute intervals; the chuckleheads in the broadcast booth backed that up around the 35th minute when they noted that neither team had managed as many as five consecutive passes. FC Cincy got rolling, thank god, while Tampa Bay…well, see the kid picking his nose above, then add periodically smacking the heads of the children around him.

MLS 2018, Form Guide ULTRA, Week...man, I don't know (Today is July 12, So...)

The first layer of translation.

I finally wrestled this whale to shore and, with that accomplished, that should leave only slicing off chunks of blubber going forward and, Jesus Christ, and by everything else that’s holy, I apologize for that metaphor. The goal is to communicate enormity. Moving on…

To begin, this post updates and expands on this monstrosity and, if things go according to plan, I’ll set one of these loose each week (barring vacations) to stumble around the Earth, confuse readers, terrify children, etc. All I’m really trying to do with this Son of the Monstrosity (Frankenstein Jr.) is track the results for every team in Major League Soccer over their last 10 games – and it’s mostly big picture stuff like, who each team played during that time, where they played them, and - I see this as the big one - the quality of the opposition. It’s not short, but it’s also mostly numbers, and I’m trying to keep the commentary reasonably brief. I’m fishing after trends for the (potentially) significant reason that I don’t think this league is as random as commonly assumed. Weird results do happen, of course - e.g., nothing in the record explain Columbus Crew SC shipping four goals to the Los Angeles Galaxy, regardless of venue - but more of it follows reasonable patterns than you’d think at first blush.

There is, like, a lot below, but, before starting, I have one thing to identify, and two caveats:

1) The words “IN” and “OUT” that you see below mean teams that are, at time of writing*, in the playoffs (IN) or out of them (OUT). (* I mean this allowing for losing track of the few teams that see-saw back-and-forth over the playoff line);

2) It is probable that I’ve fucked up some numbers below - particularly the W/L/D for the last 10 games, and also the goals scored, but that should even out when I’m tracking fewer things; and

3) I might have misidentified the last 10 games for 3-4 teams down below, but the specific definition will also smooth out going forward. It’s easy to get turned around when building this from scratch.

I built a lot of this using the Form Guide from MLS’s main site, which I still rate as the single-best one-stop page of information available. It’s also hard to use because ins and outs outlined here don’t appear on the surface - hence my little Frankenstein Jr. And, from there, I believe it’s pretty self-explanatory, or at least I’d like to (please tell me it’s self-explanatory!), so I’ll just start sprinting (toward that rich, sweet blubber….sorry). Just start reading and let me know if you have any questions. It starts with the Eastern Conference, and I’m still listing both conferences according to the current standings.

Portland Timbers 2-1 San Jose Earthquakes: Looking for Trouble on the Enthusiasm Express

Went a little abstract. Feels right. Cool drawing...

Dear God, where do I start this one? (Also, I mean not in the “Lord protect me” spirit, but the “holy whirling dervishes whirling in my head” spirit…tricky metaphor…)

I’ll begin by stating that I like everything about Samuel Armenteros, except what he did with his beard. It's his life, and all that, but also please reconsider.

In another vein, I saw a handful of tweets from last night to earlier this afternoon celebrating how the Portland Timbers played last night in their 2-1 win over the visiting San Jose Earthquakes. It’s a hard point to argue against, so I’ll do that later. For now, though, I’m on board The Enthusiasm Express. The last time a win felt possible before every single game, the Timbers won MLS Cup. And that’s the thing: a couple soft spots aside - again, Alvas Powell, but never catastrophically, and there’s still solving the problem of who either complements the team’s core players*, or replaces them when they go down - every player on the field moves and passes as if they know what’s next, and where his teammates should be for support. That applies to both defense and offense, and that is fucking magical, like, a fairy riding a unicorn level magical. The results have followed from too, and I say that as someone who replies to the words “eleven game unbeaten streak” with a tight smile. To put that another way, I’m on board The Enthusiasm Express, but I keep glimpsing troubling things out of the corner of my eye.

Before getting to the meat of this thing, I want to make a point and sort of save it for later. Think how you use a stringer to keep the fish you catch alive. That point: Armenteros should never have scored that second goal, just by the number of San Jose players around him. Moving on...

(* Diegos Valeri and Chara, Sebastian Blanco, Jeff Attinella, Larrys Mabiala and Zarek Valentin; I waited till after mentioning Armenteros because I think he belongs in the core at this point. A case can be made for other players, and that explains a lot of Portland's success to this point.)

Nashville SC 0-0 FC Cincinnati: "Rivalries" and (Re-) Checking the Levels

No, I said "left" at Team Stats. LEFT!

Before getting to the game, I want to repeat something I said on Twitter. I am a Ronnie Woodard stan. She offered that rare commodity to soccer color commentary - i.e., talking cause, effect, and on-field mechanics, stuff it’s easy to miss when you’re watching through a screen - and with a quiet confidence. It’s something you don’t even know you miss after 20 years of listening to, say, a clown like Alexi Lalas express his love for set-pieces. To give just one example, she praised the play of FC Cincinnati’s centerbacks, Dekel Keinan and Forrest Lasso, on the way to damning Emanuel Ledesma, Danni Konig and Nazmi Albadawi for failing to defend enough. Basically, the lack of defense from the forwards made it easier for Nashville SC to find their attacking players in front of FC Cincinnati’s defense, and that put the latter under pressure for most of the night.

She could be wrong, but I still felt smarter. With that out of the way, I want to focus on another in-game comment from the broadcast booth, one pulled from some domestic soccer publication and with regard to FC Cincinnati:

“One of the most impressive teams ever assembled for a lower division American soccer club.”

To flip the script, what does that say about Nashville SC? The home team owned the balance of play and chances in last night’s 0-0 draw between these two teams - or at least until the final 10 minutes. If you go to this game’s “Match Center” (which is pretty one-stop shopping; check there for highlights) and to the “Distribution” tab under Team Stats, you will find the buried treasure…

…sorry, kidding. To give them credit, the USL website arguably puts up more complete data than Major League Soccer’s, but it takes a road map, plus a couple secret handshakes to find it. Back to the game…

FC Cincinnati 2-0 Ottawa Furr...shit, Fury: Good Ruler, Terrible Context

Another layer of meaning? Are you fucking kidding?!

Watching the replay of FC Cincinnati’s 2-0 win over the visiting Ottawa Furry…crap, Fury, begged more questions than it answered. Again, knowing as little as I do about the USL Mark 4.0 (maybe?) makes this project a little like staring at a ruler, only with no idea what it’s measuring. That said, based on the replay, and a growing body of FC Cincy games, I feel confident with the following statements:

Cincinnati clearly looked the better team, but not a dominant one; I described their first half as “a game of fitful probing.” That had everything to do with Ottawa’s defense, a compact organized bolus that tangled up just about everything anyone tried to move through it. That’s their M.O., according to the booth - playing compact and countering down Route One - but, with a losing score-line and a half-time pep-talk blowing a breeze up their backsides (maybe), Ottawa tried to play a little in the second half. That step improved the game more than Ottawa’s chances, with their best chance (from eight shots? when??) coming when team captain/avatar, Carl Haworth, nearly walked in a goal early in the second half. Ottawa is a goal-a-game kind of team - one of those pertinent details one can only find by piercing a layer of mysterious veils on the USL's official website (gateway to Ottawa/hell) - and it showed. Still, I upgraded them from “just no fucking idea what they’re doing” to…well, this, I suppose:

“Who is Cincy? When have I seen them on their game? When off? No sense that Cincy will seize the game and run away with it.”

Even if I barely remember what that meant, it feels pretty fair. That said, one thing I have noticed about Cincinnati is that they tend to find the game all at once - i.e., after 15-20 minutes of half-hopeless dicking around, they sneak in a half-chance, then, two, three minutes later, they put a better-than-hopeful shot in goal. They score more often than not too, nearly two goals a game. Hold on, need to back-track a bit for another note…

Not every player on the field plays this way, but USL Soccer feels closer to rugby, aka, soccer’s twice-removed cousin, because more of the passing looks more territorial than planned. Getting the ball nearer the opponent’s goal holds a thin, yet permanent edge over how it gets there, and that means half-blind, mostly aspirational headed passes and the balance of balls out of the back look like thinly-veiled clearances (wow, second veil reference…whatever have I been watching?) show up all over the field, and attacking means chasing forward passes into space more often than it means deliberate, defense-unlocking interplay.

Happily, both of Cincinnati’s goals worked against that generality - and the reality that Cincinnati has that in them makes as good a comment on the team as I’ve got. Both attacks came down Cincy’s left and both involved Corben Bone, an MLS journeyman who might have backed into becoming a USL journeyman courtesy of Cincinnati’s (so far) steady squad rotation. His career aside, Bone paired with Blake Smith, Cincy’s left-back, nicely as steak pairs with red wine. They combined for the first goal (with Smith providing the final ball), while Bone delivered the assist for the second, a cracking beauty fired back against the grain from just outside the area by Nazmi Albadawi. Between delivering the pin-point cross that let Albadawi kill off the game and pinging the pass that freed Blake for the cross, Bone played a decisive role in the win. And that opens up a couple discussions.

Seattle Sounders 2-3 Portland Timbers: On Confidence & A Larrys Charm in Your Back Pocket

Should make you appreciate the horror of this "good luck" charm...

I posted something late last week as a kind of ambient response to the “wacky unpredictability” of Major League Soccer as a league. I explained the theory behind the response in that original post - and at just plain fucking stupid length, btw - but, here, I mostly want to circle back on how the predictions I made based on that data fared in its first weekend…

…yes, I see the title. I wrote it. It’s relevant, so, please bear with me.

I made 10 predictions on 11 games (on Twitter) - I couldn’t get a clear read on the game that ended with the New England Revolution beating a struggling, game-poor DC United 3-2, so I didn’t call that one - but I got six correct outright. I saw the rough outlines of two more games and, honestly, that New England game broke down about how I expected it to, so that’s either 8-9 broadly correct predictions using what I now feel confident enough to dub The System (and that’s so, so misplaced). As for the games I missed, I think 9 educated pundits in 10 would have called those games the same way - e.g., the Montreal Impact has no business beating Sporting Kansas City and, while Chicago has some legit juice, they’ve mostly been good against weaker teams, so I thought New York City FC would beat them, but, nope, things panned out the other way ‘round…

…I’m also cognizant that NYCFC is adapting to a new coach and they’ve been a little more streaky than the top-, top-tier teams in MLS, so why not a slip? And yet, that somehow doesn’t explain SKC tripping over its own toes in Montreal. I might actually have to watch some tape on that shit, poke around for defects, etc. (Probably not, I got other things, but you never know.)

Contra (what I’m now calling) The SKC Exception, the Portland Timbers' 3-2 win over the Seattle Sounders made sense. It was also a big cold dish of revenge (BONUS!), but key, results-based trends for both teams predicted the distribution of points - e.g., Portland’s steady defense against Seattle’s sputtering attack, the Sounders’ global mediocrity, especially against MLS’s better teams (a-HEM!). Some recent developments - e.g., injuries to Stefan Frei and Roman Torres (aka, arguably the two ventricles of Seattle’s defense) - opened the chance for Portland to run up the score.