MLS 2018, Week 24 In Brief (as I Can Get It)

It's just...I put a lot of work into the other thing. Like more.

‘Twas a big week, Week 24 in Major League Soccer, full of real fucking stupid sendings off (sending offs? fuck it) red cards, a good balance of curve-ball results (but no scratched spit-balls), and one just brilliant fucking moment. You know what that is. (Spoiler: I think my fascination with crying British people somehow started with seeing Wayne Rooney turn in a sweaty lobster-red in Manaus, Brazil). Oddly, the week didn’t feature a ton of beautiful goals (my Goal of the Week selection starts here and ends here (because I'm a sucker for team goals), but perhaps an over-sampling of timely goals.

To restate the purpose behind all this: I have this other post, which I call the “Masochist Edition,” that contains an irresponsible amount of context for the post you’re reading now. If you’ve got, 30 minutes to kill, check that out. If you’ve got five, just find the teams that interest you, because there’s no narrative flow to that thing: it’s just a pile of numbers (that, Full Disclosure, I fuck up with disturbing regularity; if any numbers in there look weird or, personal favorite, the math doesn’t add up, trust, but certainly verify). This post, on the other hand, boils down to me rendering all those numbers, and all that formatting, into something closer to a story about the week just past, Week 24, in this case.

Another difference, and it’s a big one: I’ve actually watched all the highlights, did some reading, checked box scores, etc. I know more now than just the scores now, so, grab your favorite beverage, sit right down, and have a read!

For me, this weekend’s top-line result was Sporting Kansas City blanking a suddenly-stumbling Los Angeles FC in LA 2-0. LAFC’s late charge should stifle any rumors of their demise, because they had some good shots (this is one of those, "but, for" scenarios, and it stars Team Melia (but you have to find them in the full highlights). Know what’d revive those rumors? LAFC picking up anything less than (hmm) four points from this week’s games against Real Salt Lake and the Colorado Rapids, both in LA. As for SKC, they’re back on the winning side of things over their last 10 (4-4-2!), and getting Gerso Fernandes going has to be a good sign for them. Having a player like that, someone you bought and bought into, start producing gives a team that little edge, you know? Think what the Philadelphia Union could be if C. J. Sapong scored regularly. And the season would already be over if the New York Red Bulls Daniel Royer could finish…sigh.

And that’s a good, sensible segue to my second biggest result of Week 24, the Red Bulls' personnel-matters(!) 1-0 win over the Chicago Fire in the sad, Windy City. While their game-winner is the most Red Bulls thing you’ll see this week (‘cause they’ll do it again next week), and that’s Bradley Wright-Phillips getting ‘er done at one and, complemented by Louis Robles doing the business on the other. In so many words, they’ve got the guys to do shit. While it’s not right to call this game pre-ordained, New York has that sense of…fucking hate this word, but…identity, Royer just knowing BWP would be where he was, is how the Red Bulls have quietly become, and remained, the best team in MLS. 8-2-0. Quibble all you want, but no other team in the league (and most others) is on that kind of  run. That’s against good teams too. I double-checked. Just now.

The only other big result that didn’t turn on something weirder than defensive gaffes (and, as I argue here, a team a couple steps off sharp), was the Vancouver Whitecaps heart-breaking(? -depends on where you live) win over the Portland Timbers. Because most of that post (e.g., "a team a couple steps," etc.) tracks Portland, I want to add this: this was another case of having good, useful players on the roster; Vancouver plays from the depths for the same reason Portland used to - i.e., to unclutter the field in the attack which isolates defenders against one-on-one nightmares like Kei Kamara and Brek Shea. Portland outplayed the ‘Caps, even if it took them a half to get there, and had the chances to win it, two of them penalty kicks (and only one of them converted). They didn’t, and I’d never argue that Vancouver didn’t deserve it. Their past three games - a home pounding of Minnesota and four points away against New York City FC and Portland - have returned the 'Caps to polite society. Another team to keep an eye on.

As for the rest of the “big” results - this includes NYCFC’s 3-2 win over Toronto, Philly’s three-point thievery at New England, the Seattle Sounders' 2-1 win over FC Dallas - all of them turned on something goofy. Before anyone’s brain goes on walk-about, that does not diminish those three wins in any way: these are all big deal results in their way. One turned on one of this week’s dumbest red cards (2nd to this week's America's Most Dumbest), another on this month's dumbest handball, and the other on a(nother) fluke - and, yes, that’s respectively. As for the fallout, Toronto’s window has fucking inches left to it and, after (literally) two winnable games (@ SJ, v. MTL), they’ve got four games of Burning Hot Hell (@ Portland, v. LA, v. LAFC, @ Red Bulls). And these guys are “Orlando out” of the playoff picture right now. As in, they are tied with Orlando, and how do you feel about Florida's Finest?

Incidentally, Orlando’s (yes) inspiring 1-2 loss to DC featured another one of the week’s stupid red cards. First, my god, you guys, knock it off with the dumb shit. After that, and even though this game probably didn’t mean a damn thing (I’ve seen the rest of DC’s schedule, and would bet against them at any (reasonable) odds), I have a personal tell for Rooney finding his comfort level. Go back and watch highlights from his first games with DC and watch him during the goal celebrations. See him squirm as the hugs pile up? Fast forward to this week, and he and (hat-trick Hercules!) Luciano Acosta look chummy as two guys who’ve played together for…well, months at least. It’s getting better, that’s my point.

Crap, the other two games. Sorry.

(Fucking) stupid handball aside, the Union looked good for that win over New England (per these numbers). They punched even on the road and, again, if Sapong could score, this team would be a fuck-ing handful. For New England…they’re drifting to nowhere good, but can’t seem to stop imploding. Cristian Penilla still shows up every week - and glorious goal by Andrew Farrell - but they’ve still got one point from their last five games - and to get a handball like that? As for Seattle’s win over Dallas, there was a game a couple weeks back where Seattle looked lucky to get it - and this one turned on something similar. If you stack Dallas’ goal against Seattle’s winner, that should give Dallas something to feel good about.

As for the rest of Week 24’s games, whatever the internal narrative - e.g., the Houston Dynamo got fucked hard in their 1-0 loss to Columbus, Patrick Mullins was offside and crazy involved in that play (Mark Geiger) - the rest of the results don’t translate as all that meaningful to me. Whatever devastation and injustice Houston feel about that loss, nothing about the result changes either teams’ trajectory. Sure, Columbus has mini-run going, but they’re still just sort of floating between 2-4 in the Eastern standings, like they have all season; Houston, meanwhile, still hangs out on the wrong side of the tracks. The Rapids beat the San Jose Earthquakes - and with one of those timely goals I talked about way up top - but, who gives a shit? These teams are terrible (even if Colorado somehow reaches the playoffs; that said, see below). I give the same shrugging response to the Los Angeles Galaxy drawing Minnesota United FC 1-1 in LA, and RSL and Montreal’s pointless draw in Utah (nice equalizer, though). Subtle little narratives come in and out of all that - e.g., RSL and Montreal are both playoff marginal teams, and Minnesota can fuck up, then fuck up even dumber (Calvo, aka, "America's Most Dumbest"), and that’s gonna be their ceiling till they push past it.

It’s here that I state, for the record, that any failure on my part to mention your team in the above is absolutely my way of saying they didn’t interest me this week. That could be the function of a bye week (Atlanta United FC), or just that they continued being awesome, average, or awful any given week.

To close with a glance at the week ahead - and the damn thing starts too goddamn early (dammit!) - my personal game of the week is the Red Bulls at Vancouver. Either team winning makes a statement. NYCFC v. Philly could be something too, but I’d argue that the key points of interest there include Philly noticeably punching up, or NYCFC…gulp, punching up. It’s the handful of teams that got a  lot (too much?) shoveled on their plates for Week 25, though, that make the biggest stories. First, all eyes on LA, because, 1) that’s where Colorado could (doubtfully) revive their season with back-to-back games in LA, and against both LA teams; 2) on the flip-side, this week should give a solid measure of where the Galaxy are right now - that’s between playing Colorado in LA Tuesday(?), then playing away to Seattle on Sunday(?); and 3) the Portland Timbers have…won’t lie, an awful week ahead, with two road games, each venue miles from the other, and that looms larger in my mind as I worry about fatigue biting into a couple performances. All the same, the Timbers have defied my expectations all season, and, to make it a little more personal (and I repeat myself), Diego Valeri is that rare player who will fight all the way through a bad game. Details aside, all the teams listed that play two games this week could be in different places by next Monday.

What else? There are a bunch of games I don’t care about over the next week - we’re talking All-Star-Game-level lack of interest - and those include San Jose v. Toronto and Montreal v. Chicago [ed. - that's both of them; change of subject]…wait, crap, I missed another big pair of games: RSL has two road games this week, one at LAFC, and the next at Houston. One team is better, the other is good at home; with how bad RSL is on the road, either sticking to, or reversing that script will say a lot about where RSL will wind up by season’s end. And I know where my money is going (e.g., that RSL will end 2018 treading the path that Colorado now treads: out of contention, but a nightmare, nonetheless).

To wrap up…just all the above, it’s funny how much Seattle’s rise, or New England’s fall, changes season’s-end trajectories in MLS. Shifts in the Western Conference, more than in the Eastern Conference, have turned the whole thing into jelly - at least in the finer neighborhoods. By that I mean, I think eight teams have a real shot in the West, and I have no useful clue where everyone will be when the kicking stops and the dust settles.

And that’s where I’ll leave it tonight. Bis spater!