USA 3-0 Panama: Perfectly Adequate, Utterly Undramatic

There are many fruit-based comparisons available, but this one is mine.

I'll start with this: if you've missed Major League Soccer during the offseason, the U.S. Men's 3-0 win over Panama should have scratched that itch. Even going beyond (MLS-exclusive) personnel, that match came as close to, say, Columbus Crew SC pushing around, say, the Colorado Rapids as you're likely to see outside the real thing (yeah, yeah, the latest edition ended differently, the three points wound up in the same column). Better still, it all held up, all the way down to the U.S. fucking around with fire inside its own defensive third; pure Gregg Berhalter that, the high-risk, high(?)-reward of playing out of the back...god knows what a more accomplished national team than Panama will do with that high-wire act.

Credit where it's due, though: even if Panama put a couple chances on the American goal (I'd call Abdiel Arroyo's near-self-assisted goal they're best look), the U.S. never looked worse than strained - pretty much exactly what one would expect from a U.S. C-team playing Panama's B/C team. For what it's worth, I'd argue Panama ceded possession more than the U.S. maintained it, but the beginnings of something good lurk in that detail. Whether or not the Central Americans played to practice defending deep (who's to say?), their relative comfort on the ball when they had it stands as the only real warning sign I picked up from Berhalter's first outing as U.S. Men's coach. It's hard to lose sleep over that because, if a game between the U.S. and Panama's A-Teams is an apples-to-apples comparison, this was tangerine-to-tangerine, and nobody really starts its tangerines in the games that matter. Still, it was good to see the tangerines have their day. The question is, how many will one day become apples? (And...thus ends the fruit analogy.)

I'll get to that, but I want to flag one deeply and personally satisfying shift from the Jurgen Klinsmann era to tonight. In his post-game comments, Berhalter made a very clear point in directing a question about what coaching his first game for the U.S. Men meant to him (from a notably close-talking Sebastian Salazar) to praise for the players. If he follows this up by taking full responsibility for the first crushing loss, Berhalter will get a solid year of slack from me. Now, back to the tangerine thing...

A fairly constant stream of chatter plays under friendlies like this, one that acknowledges that the "real starters" wait in the wings to take over when the real games come to town. Anyone who wants to change that equation has to stand out - and several players did that for the U.S. Men tonight, including the San Jose Earthquake's Nick Lima's balls-out tackle and next-level cross to pick out Walker Zimmerman for the U.S.'s second goal; or just everything Zimmerman did with his head all day long (that he might be better with his head than he is with his feet speaks volumes about how goddamn good he is with his head); there was also Jonathan Lewis' nifty change of pace against [Panamanian fullback] (sorry!) to set up the U.S.'s third goal; which went to Christian Ramirez who, in his few minutes on the field, managed to play a cleaner, striker role than Gyasi Zardes managed all night and, golly, did anyone else feel the weight of Taylor Twellman going after Zardes' game? Jinkies....

MLS Tourist Journal, Calendar Week 4: The Freighted Meaning of U.S. v. Panama and Pity Martinez

Why do they call me Pity, you ask?

Yeah, yeah, I won’t get to the Portland Timbers and FC Cincinnati until the end. But a little something significant takes place tomorrow evening, tomorrow night for the east coast audience, and things will just flow better if I bury that. Won’t blame anyone who spot-reads these things, ever. Moving on.

Professional soccer players (as opposed the Kombine Kids) will kick a ball around for the first time in 2019 tomorrow night. It’ll be a competitive experience, even if it isn’t a competitive event. When the U.S. Men’s National Team plays formerly lowly Panama tomorrow night – formerly, because who made the 2018 World Cup? – I can’t say how many eyes will be on them, but I expect fairly intense interest among the eyeballs they do draw. Here’s why:

“Hire the wrong coaches? Yes. Cut the wrong players? Yes. Pick the wrong teams? Yes. Fail to develop or integrate a half-decade's worth of young talent? Yes. Show gaps in the regional armor with losses to teams we should dominate like Guatemala, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago? Yes. Miss the Olympics twice? Yes. Miss the World Cup?”

That commentary, lifted from Matt Doyle’s 48-hour preview, covers just about every ingredient that led to the bad taste that’s lingered in your mouth since the U.S. Men last played. I can’t even say when the U.S. played last for the same reason you don’t go to a substitute teacher for parent-teacher conferences. Everyone understood that Dave Sarachan wouldn’t be guiding the team to 2022, so it made sense to wait until the guy who will stepped up. And, hello, Gregg Berhalter!

I read the usual handful of sources (so, so lazy) to get myself prepared for tomorrow’s game, both mentally and emotionally, but, with this being Berhalter’s first game out, no one really knows what to expect. Jurgen Klinsmann (one of my obsessions) changed my understanding of U.S. Soccer, in that he expanded the range of what is possible. In so many words, I’d grown up on steady progress, I’d internalized the idea that the team would improve, maybe without much in the way of style or excitement, and certainly with a couple set-backs, but steadily. Jurgen undermined all that in such an insidious way that one has to wonder whether he wasn’t some kind of Manchurian candidate. I remember watching Klinsmann’s first game in charge. It wasn’t pretty, but that also didn’t seem important given that Klinsmann would slowly make the U.S. his team…I don’t know that that ever happened. I’m not sure anyone knows whether that happened…

MLS Tourist Journal, Calendar Week 3: Trades, Progress and "Progress"

My li'l all-Homegrown team, in my head. And who they'll face...

To start with a happy thought, preseason dates are now bubbling up to the top of the crawl on MLSSoccer.com, and that means people will be kicking balls and people very, very soon (maybe even people’s balls). Wait! I’ve just received word of people kicking with intent! Sporting Kansas City knocked around Sporting AZ FC pretty good only yesterday, and thus the ball rolls forward for 2019. (What?! Rodney Wallace moved to SKC? Was this in between black-outs or something?) Based on the crawl, my personal preseason starts on January 30 when FC Cincinnati plays L’Impact de Montreal (show it, plz?). I’ll delve into all (available) things FC Cincy, and Portland Timbers down below and, after that, take a tour by all personal points of interest around MLS. But, with a big date on the domestic soccer calendar coming before everything that isn’t SKC getting amped (Peter Vermes is involved, obviously) for the CONCACAF Champions League (CCL), let’s start there.

Meet the New Boss, Nothing Like the Old Boss (and thank gods for it)

This time next week, I’ll be getting on my giddy about the U.S. Men’s National Team for the first time since U.S. Soccer finally and correctly terminated The Jurgen Klinsmann Experience. It makes sense to restate my beef with Klinsmann, briefly – i.e., I felt like he never prepared the team tactically, never mind conceptually, and that, like most self-help people, he had a horrible knack for blaming everyone but himself when things went wrong – because, per some soccer porn put out by U.S. Soccer (Behind the Crest, I think they call it), Gregg Berhalter takes a different approach, maybe even its micro-managing opposite. When the U.S. Men play Panama next Sunday, then Costa Rica the following Saturday, I don’t need to see the U.S. beat both teams badly enough to have to peel their boot out of their collective asses after the final whistle; I just want a team that doesn’t take the field seized with existential doubt about what the hell the coach actually meant by “expressing yourself" and “getting a little nasty.” Hearing Tyler Miller talk about Berhalter’s system not as gospel, but as a plan to “fall back on,” played in my ears like a chorus of angels.

We’re All Getting a Baby Brother (mom and dad have been doin’ it again!)

Now, back to MLS, I have a couple league-wide notes. First, the league confirmed Austin FC as the league’s 27^th team – and one with a much firmer plan/vision for the future that New York City FC or whatever the fuck they’re calling Miami’s boondoggle. Austin will officially join in 2021, and without shivving the hearts of another city, and, if all goes well, playing in a privately-funded stadium of their own. Don Garber said something about “a non-linear process” for getting a team in Austin, but all the above strikes me as doing things a damned site better than the two “glamour teams” named above.

MLS Tourist Guide, Calendar Week 2: "Super"Draft, Signings and Sayonara

My relationship to MLS, a visual.

Another week, another round-up, in which I put my hand on MLS like I’m guarding the bucket. (Is it March 2^nd yet? For the love of GOD, can somebody please kick something?)

I’ll start with the big events, then talk about the U.S. Men’s National Team (FC Cincinnati’s fault for picking Frankie Amaya; I’ll explain), then my two favorite children (Cincinnati and the Portland Timbers), and I’ll wrap up with whatever team-specific activities interested me over the week just past.

MLS CaveatedDraft 2019

The week’s marquee event was the MLS Superdraft, and I won’t be the kind to put on airs and pretend I didn’t peek at the results through the first round, because I did. I will, however, say the same thing I say every Superdraft: it’s a veritable "who’s that" of American soccer (and it's “who will never be” for too many of those players). The few details I know come from the Mothership (MLS’s main site), which handed out for grades for each team’s draft. On that, what does an “A+” at an event most cognoscenti dismiss do for a team, really? On one level, this is ping pong at The Olympics, only the Chinese don’t always win.

All the same, it’s the first event of the annual MLS calendar and I love it, and I’ll go for the eyes of the first person to cast aspersions at it. (Who knows? Maybe the vestigial panic about the league going under never left?) From what I read, this year’s edition had moments of real beauty (even if I can’t find them), like FC Cincy’s Logan Gdula’s choking back tears as he took his first step toward his dream (wishing you many more steps, kid, and why not start early!). Getting excited about a player whose 2019 ceiling projects to starting for your MLS team’s USL team doesn’t come easy, but it’s not a terrible system. Call it a good way for your late-bloomers to reach the other side of puberty – your Davy Arnauds and Chris Wondolowskis – players who want it bad enough to figure out a way to get there. They can be better captains than players sometimes, but it takes a village, yeah?

MLS Tourist Journal, Calendar Week 1: Combine, Coaches, Players

How my people say "love."

Welcome to the first of the weekly spins I plan to take around Major League Soccer’s points of (personal) interest for calendar year 2019. Because I can go deep on only two teams (the Portland Timbers and FC Cincinnati), I am truly embracing “tourism” concept this season. It just feels right. As always, or at least when it doesn’t trip up the narrative flow (which ranks high for me), I’ll start with those two teams and branch out from there.

Portland Timbers, Neither Holding Nor Folding

All quiet on the Timbers front for the past week – and how one feels about that corresponds directly, no doubt, with one’s sense of the state of team (i.e., I want action, baby). Barring some draft-day monkeyshines, the Timbers aren’t likely to do much during the first “real” event on the MLS Events Calendar – e.g., Friday’s Superdraft (scare quotes = real). To note an impulse, however, when I saw Logan Gdula identified as a right back (and one with a(n alleged) 40% chance of starting five games or more (see the “senior prospects” link below), one of the voices in my head whispered “Timbers,” and that tells me where I see a need for Portland. Besides that, and thanks to this brief article (and the artist’s rendering therein), I finally seee The Master Plan for the East side of Providence Park. (What? That really could be the first artist’s rendering I’ve seen. I ride by Providence every weekday and, every time I’ve ridden by, I’ve looked at it and thought, “huh”?). Next.

FC Cincinnati's First Steps

Call the point arguable, but participating in the Superdraft makes FC Cincinnati in MLS official for me (it’s like Don Garber gave them his lettermen’s jacket and his class ring). As nearly everyone points out these days, MLS’s broad evolution means that most teams look to the Superdraft for “depth pieces” rather than starters. Or, to borrow a really efficient phrase from Matt Doyle’s mock Superdraft:

“Homegrowns, TAM signings and young DPs are investments. A drafted player is found money.”

I glanced at two more mock drafts to see what Cincy might do with its Number 1 pick – Top Drawer Soccer’s and Ives Galarcep’s – and, on evidence even of seasons where the Superdraft mattered more, the next time you’ll see a majority of those names will be on USL rosters or the name tag of a guy selling you your next hi-def TV. Before the mock drafts, I searched for hidden gems among a list of senior prospects and didn’t turn up anything obvious – and that could explain why the three mock drafts tabbed Siad Haji, a midfielder (Doyle and Top Drawer), and Tajon Buchanan, a forward, for Cincinnati’s first pick.

Translations on Someone Else's Notes: An MLS Round-Up

Useful, but A Plan is better. And other obsessions.

This won’t be complicated – at all. I read an article posted to The Mothership (mlssoccer.com) last night, asking my computer questions as I read. Yes, I mean out loud, rhetorically, and at an inanimate object (that will one day enslave us all); god forbid I look anything up. Some questions crawled out of narratives I’d concocted for each team while tracking league results last season, while something the author wrote triggered others. Either way, it felt like a good way to pass on a resource and to yak a little about MLS, league-wide.

The article in question was a fairly robust transfer tracker/analysis piece and, to make one thing clear, you’ll learn more reading it than you will reading this. I'm just adding value over here (arguably). In his piece, the guy (the author, Tom Bogert) listed all the teams, touching on subjects like “Biggest Move,” “Biggest Hole,” and projected starting Xi’s. For this post, I’ll only quote what I need to and trust those so interested to read the rest Bogert’s comments. Also, he goes through alphabetically, which I’ll do, but only after lifting Portland Timbers and FC Cincinnati to the top. I want to get to the good stuff early because I hear most people check out of articles as early as…jesus, never mind.

To those hanging in there, let’s get started.

FC Cincinnati

Bogert hypes the defense (“abnormally deep and talented defensive unit for an expansion club”), and sees a hole where FC Cincy needs a playmaker, but, of all the new guys on this new team, Leanardo Bertone carries the biggest question mark. Between glimpses, history and word of mouth, I have something to work with any of Cincinnati's MLS guys, and I’ve got a grasp on anyone who’s donned Timbers green and gold that a stalker would envy, but a midfielder from a team in the Swiss first division, even a good one, just tells me the guy held down a job in a slightly more desirable neighborhood in the greater soccer universe. I see his name in Bogert’s projected starting XI, and assume he’s going to be there (otherwise, why bother with Switzerland?), but doing what, exactly, and how well? Prove me wrong (I beg you), but I’m not as convinced on the defense, either. Chalk all the above to expansion season jitters. Questions surround this team like a zombie horde, so I’ll be skittish they make it to the well-fortified safe-house…at which time other emotions will surely come to the fore.

Portland Timbers

“What are the options when Diego Chara and Diego Valeri, both set to turn 33 in 2019, need a breather?”

Since Portland counter-punched their way to MLS Cup with Jeremy Ebobisse coming in only at the end, the question above feels like the big one. That said, I’m no less concerned about Portland’s back four. Chara and Valeri aren’t the only players bumping against retirement – see, Ridgewell, Liam – and the Timbers defense leaned closer to solid than lock-down in 2018. Also, even if Zarek Valentin grew all over me last season, I think teams will key on him – especially the ones with faster, more technical players, while also feeling like they're probably on to something. I heard Gavin Wilkinson’s talk about bringing in 3-4 new dudes, but still don’t expect to see a bigger rebuild until 2020. For good reason too: as a twitter correspondent (very patiently) explained to me, Portland can’t afford to carry ready-made replacements for Chara, Valeri, Ridgewell, or even Sebastian Blanco on the roster, so I expect Portland to get another group of understudies, maybe with a DP forward thrown in. All I know is, the closer we get to 2019, the more 2018 feels like the Timbers bought it on credit. If Portland can’t figure out another, reliable way to play, whether by tactics or personnel, I don’t see a return trip to MLS Cup unless Chara, Valeri and Blanco somehow raise the limit on the credit card.

Now, for the rest of ‘em….