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“One of the few teams with only one or two identities over its history in MLS. The big picture wasn’t much different back in 2002 – solid, reliably made the playoffs, only without going anywhere – but they’re also always unearthing talent that would later explode – e.g., Irishman Robbie O’Brien and, especially, Eddie Johnson.”
That’s my commentary on the Dallas Burn/FC Dallas in the 2002 post in this series. I quote it here in order to do two things to my bottom: first, give it a little “attaboy/good hustle” pat for recalling the two next big things for Dallas – e.g., O’Brien and (especially) Johnson. That’s one cheek (left, right, your call): the other gets a soothing massage, because I wrote that about Dallas’ identity – i.e., “solid, reliably made the playoffs, only without going anywhere” – immediately before Dallas missed the playoffs…uh, two straight seasons after 2002. And, by one account I’m choosing to trust, 2003 was their worst in league history.
I still think that “identity” for Dallas rings true, but that’s the point of all this: it’s not just remembering some names and faces, but also reconnecting to narratives, aka, the short arcs in Major League Soccer history. With 24 years behind us, I have loose identities for every team in MLS at this point – well, except Nashville SC, and Inter Miami CF, which is odd, because FC Cincinnati absolutely has an identity (and it’s bad) – and I think I can back up most of them. On the other hand, I’m learning where, for instance, I’ve got the right player and team, but I’m some number of years off (say, the San Jose Earthquake’s Ronnie Ekelund, who I would have placed later in their life-span), or when I forgot when each team hit whatever peak it had. Which brings me back to the Dallas Burn, now FC Dallas (and does the latter name really improve on the former?)
That’s my commentary on the Dallas Burn/FC Dallas in the 2002 post in this series. I quote it here in order to do two things to my bottom: first, give it a little “attaboy/good hustle” pat for recalling the two next big things for Dallas – e.g., O’Brien and (especially) Johnson. That’s one cheek (left, right, your call): the other gets a soothing massage, because I wrote that about Dallas’ identity – i.e., “solid, reliably made the playoffs, only without going anywhere” – immediately before Dallas missed the playoffs…uh, two straight seasons after 2002. And, by one account I’m choosing to trust, 2003 was their worst in league history.
I still think that “identity” for Dallas rings true, but that’s the point of all this: it’s not just remembering some names and faces, but also reconnecting to narratives, aka, the short arcs in Major League Soccer history. With 24 years behind us, I have loose identities for every team in MLS at this point – well, except Nashville SC, and Inter Miami CF, which is odd, because FC Cincinnati absolutely has an identity (and it’s bad) – and I think I can back up most of them. On the other hand, I’m learning where, for instance, I’ve got the right player and team, but I’m some number of years off (say, the San Jose Earthquake’s Ronnie Ekelund, who I would have placed later in their life-span), or when I forgot when each team hit whatever peak it had. Which brings me back to the Dallas Burn, now FC Dallas (and does the latter name really improve on the former?)
Whatever you call them (I’m leaning Burn), Dallas had a flaming shit-show of a season in 2003. They barely missed, however, in 2004 finishing just two points behind the (champions!) San Jose Earthquakes in the West. Still, that 36-point finish in '04 put them above not just the league-worst Chicago Fire than season, but also above a New England Revolution team that would scare the holy shit out of the DC United team that went on to win MLS Cup in 2004. In an alternate universe where MLS continued the playoff rules they used in 2002 (link above), Dallas would have made the 2004 MLS playoffs instead of New England, thus delaying the first known Rimando-ing in MLS history, and for who knows how long? (I’ve carried details from this game in my head – e.g., Taylor Twellman’s finish, Steve Ralston’s in-game PK bouncing in off Nick Rimando’s back – but the mini-documentary puts those details in their place within a freakin' incredible game. More to the point, Rimando and PKs go way back.))
I know. I’m still not really back to Dallas, but there’s a point to all this. 2004 was a really tight season, another defensive clinic with the average goals scored coming in at 39.2. No team went all that high on either side of that average – in fact, the (still/then) New York/New Jersey MetroStars topped MLS in both goals for (47) and goals allowed (49). With the swings on either side of the average staying tight as they did, teams that could do one or the other well enough, had a fighting chance – e.g., the Colorado Rapids were the lowest-scoring team in the league, and by quite a bit in context, but they also had one of the league’s better defenses (tied for second best, fwiw).
Now, finally and entirely back to Dallas, they fell furthest on the wrong side of average on both sides, so they deserved to miss the playoffs, specific competitive rules be damned. Of course, it’s no shock to see the team with the worst goal-differential bow out (-11 for Dallas), but, Dallas still managed to score more points in total than two other teams. Moreover, O’Brien (2 g, 10 a) and Johnson (12 g, 3a) did not deserve their fate; they deserved a better team. I can still see both players in Dallas’ respectably dull uniforms, red some days, white on others, the same basic design. They were fun to watch too, and I remember them winning. I also remember Dema Kovalenko breaking O’Brien’s leg, and know that’s coming (nope; it'd already happened). Dallas only got better after the defense improved; they even get to MLS Cup shortly after this season, and I’ll be damned if I can say whether Johnson or O’Brien played on that team, but I hope they did, because I’ve got such fond (vague) memories of both players (quick question: why do I see them smiling on a sunny field after they’d done something amazing instead the said amazing thing; the hell is wrong with my brain?).
To finally get to the point I want to make (my subtlest preamble ever!), Dallas playing in the Western Conference had real consequences. The way MLS built the 30-game schedule (specifically, the 4 games against conference rivals) threw Dallas against the three toughest defenses in MLS – the Kansas City Wizards, the Rapids, and the ‘Quakes, all comfortably-to-well under the goals-against average. The only team in the Eastern Conference to beat the goals average on defense won the Supporters’ Shield that season: that'd be the Columbus Crew. Related, in another note on the thin margins that year, Columbus tied Kansas City on total points and tied them on goal differential, only to fall (probably) on goals scored, 40 to 38 (and I’m not about to look that up).
There’s this cliché about MLS and how “wacky and unpredictable” it is. I did that whole explication about Dallas because it made sense for them to suck in 2004. I mean, at least the numbers backed it up. What didn't make sense was DC United winning MLS Cup.
The league-elite stats for 2004 looked something like this: Kansas City (38 goals for, 30 against, +8), Columbus (40 goals for, 32 against, +8) and (shockingly) 4th-in-the-West San Jose (41 goals for, 35 against, +6). All the numbers look playoff-marginal after that - +2 for the Los Angeles Galaxy, +1 for DC, -1 for New England, -2 to for the MetroStars, and -3 for Colorado. You had favorites, in other words, only two of them played in the same conference, and the other one (that’d be Columbus) stopped mattering in semi-decisive fashion after the Revs knocked them out of the Eastern Conference semifinals. DC made shorter work of the Red Bulls, but there was a certain logic to that one, as explained in the grand theory below, but the Red Bulls didn’t win the Supporters’ Shield, they didn’t post league-best numbers…
…again, neither did DC United. So…what happened?
In so many words, they pulled a Seattle Sounders circa 2016-2019. They spent a lot of the season struggling to figure out (then-)recent Fire legend, Peter Nowak’s system. In fact, their season went something like this:
“The club earned a 5–5–5 record at the beginning of the season, including a 271-minute scoreless streak and a four-match unbeaten streak that was capped with a 6–2 win over the MetroStars. After a four-match winless streak to start the second half of the season, D.C. United found a more consistent rhythm and finished the season with a winning record and a ten-match home unbeaten streak.”
Their numbers weren’t great either - 11-10-9, 41 points (just over a .500 record, in other words), 43 gf, 42 ga (+1) – and the defensive side of that makes you wonder a bit. It was a mediocre season under a new-ish coach, but they finished strong – something several future cycles of MLS fans should recognize (looking at you and the 2015 season, Portland Timbers fans) because that’s become a fairly generic template in MLS since that time – i.e., how a team starts matters less than how it finishes in this league, amirite?
The Seattle template stands up even better seeing that DC threw everyone else a mickey with an impactful summer signing. His name was Christian Gomez, and he played in just nine of DC’s regular season games (and only started in eight of them). Gomez didn’t post that many goals in 2004 – just four, in fact, but he also scored a massive, brilliant goal in that playoff win over New England – but he would later go on to become DC’s most reliable attacking player for (at least) the next three season (I stopped checking after confirming that argument). The point (or, better, the argument): Gomez’s had real talent - the next generation of DC’s attack started in latter 2004, even if I can’t state when the system actually started to hum – but, in that moment, Gomez gave them a strong attacking threat that the rest of the league hadn’t seen much of, therefore couldn’t game-plan against. That he improved even after they could makes a powerful statement about Gomez’s quality.
As for the players who did the heavy-lifting in 2004, a returned/rejuvenated Jaime Moreno played a big role, but Alecko Eskandarian (10 g, 2a) stands tall too – especially in MLS Cup (hello, the first brace after Landon (Fucking) Donovan) – and there’s a story in that too. I just watched the highlights of the 2004 MLS Cup final, and it ends with this striking line:
“As the whistle blew, DC would take the Cup for a record fourth time. MLS Cup glory had returned to DC United. And a rookie coach, and a rookie player had proven themselves under pressure.”
Nowak became the first person in history to win MLS Cup as both player (with the Chicago Fire) and coach, and I don’t intend to diminish that. That said, he would be gone two years later and, if memory serves (and does it?), under a considerable cloud (can’t wait to find out!). Adu did better than well for a 15-year-old kid playing on the biggest stage (5g, 3a) – he scored a penalty in DC’s shoot-out winner over New England in the conference final, so he had nerves o’ steel, if just in that moment – but he also fizzled out with an abruptness that mirrored the hype of his arrival. He became a cautionary tale, fer crissakes. The 2004 MLS Cup Season/Cup was a high point for all three of these people…and that feels like a deeper story of the 2004 season.
Two teams would dominate the middle part of The Aughts - New England and San Jose, but after they became the Houston Dynamo. Like New England did to DC, San Jose gave Kansas City a scare in the first round of the 2004 post-season when they beat them by two goals on the home leg of the series. KC clawed back the series by winning the return leg 3-0 (in stoppage time too; Jack Jewsbury scored the winner (hi, Captain Jack!), but even that took an own-goal by Brian Ching to get there. The years that followed revealed that as a “win the battle, lose the war” kind of situation, because that San Jose team that became Houston would compete in four of the next eight MLS Cups; the (then/still) Kansas City, meanwhile, would have to wait till 2013 (and a rebranding) before having another shot. Because I’ve covered this before (my 2003 post, I believe), I’ll give the short version: San Jose had built a strong enough team – e.g., Craig Waibel and a young Eddie Robinson in defense, Brian Mullan (I believe) converted to an attacking fullback (his numbers (3g, 8a) sure look like it), a strong two-way midfield spine built around Richard Mulrooney (1g, 8a) and Ekelund (who, factually, would move along before the move to Houston), and with Brian Ching up top (12 g, 4a) – that they could thrive even after Landon Donovan defected to the Los Angeles Galaxy. Having Dwayne DeRosario waiting in the wings gives a team that kind of flexibility…
Now that I’m 2,000+ words into this, it’s probably well past time to mention that DC beat Kansas City in MLS Cup 2004 by a final score of 3-2. I’ve (half-intentionally) sat on that because it provides the final, and strangest, twist in DC United winning its fourth and final MLS Cup. The Wizards had relied on the same basic set-up since winning MLS Cup 2000: they dropped a defensive brick in front of its goal – e.g., Jimmy Conrad and Nick Garcia as centerbacks with Kerry Zavagnin and Diego Gutierrez (sometimes (maybe?) Francisco Gomez) in front of them – and dared everyone else to break it. They ended the regular season as the league’s best defensive team (e.g., 30 goals allowed)…only to see it wilt down the stretch. What happened with San Jose is noted above, but the Wizards lost MLS Cup in a defensive collapse that saw them cough up three (3) soft goals in less than 10 minutes. One was controversial – e.g., did Eskandarian get away with a (meaningful) handball (and does it matter since KC later got a penalty kick for a handball by Brian Carroll that Josh Wolff scored)? – and another was an Alex Zotinca own-goal, but very few teams can survive giving up three goals like that, even after scoring the first (on a screamer by Jose Burciaga, Jr.).
At this point, I see every Major League Soccer season as four essentially disconnected events: in order, the CONCACAF Champions League (even less of a thing back then), the regular season/Supporters’ Shield, the U.S. Open Cup, and MLS Cup. The way they fit together – e.g., how many MLS teams play scrubs in the Open Cup, at least at the beginning? – in one “event” often barely relates to what they do in the others. Sure, the truly good teams carry their form over from one competition to the next, and the bad ones suck globally, but it's literally rolling dice (a 20-sider too) and catching all the breaks you can for the large muddled middle. The extent to which that holds for the regular season and MLS Cup, and as often as it does, is one of MLS’s biggest quirks. While I can’t say 2004 was the first time that happened, it serves up a pretty damn clean example of the phenomenon.
I touched on a lot of teams in the above, but I’ll wrap up this post with notes on each of the 10 teams in the league…just know there’s very likely a spot when I’ll have to stop doing this, or that I’ll have to do very differently, once the number of teams gets past a certain point. For now…
Chicago Fire (5th in the East, 2nd worst numbers, no playoffs)
They had some solid players – e.g., C. J. Brown and Jim Curtin in defense, Andy Williams (4g, 9a), another year before Damani Ralph went to (I think) Russia – but Jesse Marsch missed a lot of 2004 and Logan Pause wasn’t up for covering. I forgot how abruptly the wheels came off…
Colorado Rapids (3rd in the West, counted score in a brothel, etc.)
They had a great defense built around Kyle Beckerman in front of Nat Borchers and some guy named Antonio de la Torre (who?), but all their key attackers (e.g., Mark Chung, John Spencer, and Chris Henderson) fell off and the “who’s that?” posse of replacements didn’t pay off.
Columbus Crew (won the Supporters’ Shield, then…poof!)
The first year of the post-Brian-McBride era and this is when Brian Maissoneuve’s injuries got real, but the Jeff Cunningham/Edson Buddle tandem made up for McBride and Robin Fraser and Chad Marshall gave them a super-strong defensive core. Still can’t say what went wrong besides New England’s quality showing through.
DC United (see above)
The “two Brians” – Carroll and Bryan Namoff – plus Joshua Gros (who I will always picture wearing that cast) gave them a surprisingly robust midfield engine that deserves credit for ’04.
Dallas Burn (discussed at length above)
Nothing to add.
Los Angeles Galaxy (11-9-10, 43 pts., 42 gf, 40 ga; 2nd in the West)
Still good, but just not good enough: Carlos Ruiz continued to slow down (11 g, 2a) and, based on their number of games played/started, it looks like the defense battled the injury bug all year. This was also “former Manchester United trainee” Jovan Kirovski’s first season (seriously, you never heard the end of the “Man. U.” thing; this is when that stopped impressing me).
New England Revolution (8-13-9, 33 pts., 42 gf, 43 ga; 4th in the East)
I’m still baffling unable to sort out how the Revs defense lined up, but they had enough different ways to hurt a team, even during a relative off-year for Taylor Twellman (9g, 1a), thanks to Pat Noonan tying Amado Guevara as scoring champion (30 points each), and Jose Cancela giving them a creator (3 g, 10a) and Rookie of the Year Clint Dempsey giving them a wild card.
NY/NJ MetroStars (11-12-7, 40 pts., 47 gf, 49 ga; 3rd in East)
Guevara won the MVP for his 10 goals, 10 assist season, and they had some fun contributors (I always loved Eddie Gaven (7g, 7a), who would being attending his prom either this season or next), but that defense, held down by an aging Eddie Pope (more DC diaspora) killed them. People used to say, “that’s so Metro” for a reason…
San Jose Earthquakes (9-10-11, 35 pts., 41 gf, 35 ga; 4th in West)
Nothing to add.
Kansas City Wizards (14-9-7, 49 pts., 38 gf, 30 ga; again, crazy close to Supporters' Shield)
Ditto.
And that’s it for 2004. I’m going to try to get through 2007 by next weekend, but we’ll see how it goes.
Two teams would dominate the middle part of The Aughts - New England and San Jose, but after they became the Houston Dynamo. Like New England did to DC, San Jose gave Kansas City a scare in the first round of the 2004 post-season when they beat them by two goals on the home leg of the series. KC clawed back the series by winning the return leg 3-0 (in stoppage time too; Jack Jewsbury scored the winner (hi, Captain Jack!), but even that took an own-goal by Brian Ching to get there. The years that followed revealed that as a “win the battle, lose the war” kind of situation, because that San Jose team that became Houston would compete in four of the next eight MLS Cups; the (then/still) Kansas City, meanwhile, would have to wait till 2013 (and a rebranding) before having another shot. Because I’ve covered this before (my 2003 post, I believe), I’ll give the short version: San Jose had built a strong enough team – e.g., Craig Waibel and a young Eddie Robinson in defense, Brian Mullan (I believe) converted to an attacking fullback (his numbers (3g, 8a) sure look like it), a strong two-way midfield spine built around Richard Mulrooney (1g, 8a) and Ekelund (who, factually, would move along before the move to Houston), and with Brian Ching up top (12 g, 4a) – that they could thrive even after Landon Donovan defected to the Los Angeles Galaxy. Having Dwayne DeRosario waiting in the wings gives a team that kind of flexibility…
Now that I’m 2,000+ words into this, it’s probably well past time to mention that DC beat Kansas City in MLS Cup 2004 by a final score of 3-2. I’ve (half-intentionally) sat on that because it provides the final, and strangest, twist in DC United winning its fourth and final MLS Cup. The Wizards had relied on the same basic set-up since winning MLS Cup 2000: they dropped a defensive brick in front of its goal – e.g., Jimmy Conrad and Nick Garcia as centerbacks with Kerry Zavagnin and Diego Gutierrez (sometimes (maybe?) Francisco Gomez) in front of them – and dared everyone else to break it. They ended the regular season as the league’s best defensive team (e.g., 30 goals allowed)…only to see it wilt down the stretch. What happened with San Jose is noted above, but the Wizards lost MLS Cup in a defensive collapse that saw them cough up three (3) soft goals in less than 10 minutes. One was controversial – e.g., did Eskandarian get away with a (meaningful) handball (and does it matter since KC later got a penalty kick for a handball by Brian Carroll that Josh Wolff scored)? – and another was an Alex Zotinca own-goal, but very few teams can survive giving up three goals like that, even after scoring the first (on a screamer by Jose Burciaga, Jr.).
At this point, I see every Major League Soccer season as four essentially disconnected events: in order, the CONCACAF Champions League (even less of a thing back then), the regular season/Supporters’ Shield, the U.S. Open Cup, and MLS Cup. The way they fit together – e.g., how many MLS teams play scrubs in the Open Cup, at least at the beginning? – in one “event” often barely relates to what they do in the others. Sure, the truly good teams carry their form over from one competition to the next, and the bad ones suck globally, but it's literally rolling dice (a 20-sider too) and catching all the breaks you can for the large muddled middle. The extent to which that holds for the regular season and MLS Cup, and as often as it does, is one of MLS’s biggest quirks. While I can’t say 2004 was the first time that happened, it serves up a pretty damn clean example of the phenomenon.
I touched on a lot of teams in the above, but I’ll wrap up this post with notes on each of the 10 teams in the league…just know there’s very likely a spot when I’ll have to stop doing this, or that I’ll have to do very differently, once the number of teams gets past a certain point. For now…
Chicago Fire (5th in the East, 2nd worst numbers, no playoffs)
They had some solid players – e.g., C. J. Brown and Jim Curtin in defense, Andy Williams (4g, 9a), another year before Damani Ralph went to (I think) Russia – but Jesse Marsch missed a lot of 2004 and Logan Pause wasn’t up for covering. I forgot how abruptly the wheels came off…
Colorado Rapids (3rd in the West, counted score in a brothel, etc.)
They had a great defense built around Kyle Beckerman in front of Nat Borchers and some guy named Antonio de la Torre (who?), but all their key attackers (e.g., Mark Chung, John Spencer, and Chris Henderson) fell off and the “who’s that?” posse of replacements didn’t pay off.
Columbus Crew (won the Supporters’ Shield, then…poof!)
The first year of the post-Brian-McBride era and this is when Brian Maissoneuve’s injuries got real, but the Jeff Cunningham/Edson Buddle tandem made up for McBride and Robin Fraser and Chad Marshall gave them a super-strong defensive core. Still can’t say what went wrong besides New England’s quality showing through.
DC United (see above)
The “two Brians” – Carroll and Bryan Namoff – plus Joshua Gros (who I will always picture wearing that cast) gave them a surprisingly robust midfield engine that deserves credit for ’04.
Dallas Burn (discussed at length above)
Nothing to add.
Los Angeles Galaxy (11-9-10, 43 pts., 42 gf, 40 ga; 2nd in the West)
Still good, but just not good enough: Carlos Ruiz continued to slow down (11 g, 2a) and, based on their number of games played/started, it looks like the defense battled the injury bug all year. This was also “former Manchester United trainee” Jovan Kirovski’s first season (seriously, you never heard the end of the “Man. U.” thing; this is when that stopped impressing me).
New England Revolution (8-13-9, 33 pts., 42 gf, 43 ga; 4th in the East)
I’m still baffling unable to sort out how the Revs defense lined up, but they had enough different ways to hurt a team, even during a relative off-year for Taylor Twellman (9g, 1a), thanks to Pat Noonan tying Amado Guevara as scoring champion (30 points each), and Jose Cancela giving them a creator (3 g, 10a) and Rookie of the Year Clint Dempsey giving them a wild card.
NY/NJ MetroStars (11-12-7, 40 pts., 47 gf, 49 ga; 3rd in East)
Guevara won the MVP for his 10 goals, 10 assist season, and they had some fun contributors (I always loved Eddie Gaven (7g, 7a), who would being attending his prom either this season or next), but that defense, held down by an aging Eddie Pope (more DC diaspora) killed them. People used to say, “that’s so Metro” for a reason…
San Jose Earthquakes (9-10-11, 35 pts., 41 gf, 35 ga; 4th in West)
Nothing to add.
Kansas City Wizards (14-9-7, 49 pts., 38 gf, 30 ga; again, crazy close to Supporters' Shield)
Ditto.
And that’s it for 2004. I’m going to try to get through 2007 by next weekend, but we’ll see how it goes.
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