MLS 2020 Down the Stretch: Expectations, Oddballs & Watercoolers

Valeri's goal, amirite?

Before getting into the details, I’ll start with an observation: I see almost no real give in the Eastern Conference standings - i.e., I don’t really see any of the bottom four climbing out of the outhouse - while the Western Conference looks decently interesting from 6th place on down. Do note, however, the 8th-place Colorado Rapids’ two-three games in hand on everyone around them.

As threatened last week, I’m back to handicapping MLS as a whole, if from a greater distance. The formula will likely evolve from the original plan of separating expected results from the oddballs, but the general idea is to dig deeper on the results that don’t make sense to try to figure out how they happened. I want to go Monday-to-Monday for the long haul, but I got this itch to drop a prototype and that’s what this is. Plus, I wanted to see (some of) what happened when FC Cincinnati visited Philadelphia last Wednesday. (The short, familiar answer: nothing good.)

What I’m fishing for with these weekly posts is enough information to clock some general trends, maybe drop some names about who did what and how often. Call it an acquaintance level relationship with Major League Soccer in sum, enough to join a water-cooler conversation about comings and goings and talking from somewhere more sophisticated than my ass.

Most weeks, I’ll start by ticking through the expected results, touching (very) briefly on stray points of interest. I’ll then close with as many of the oddballs as I can get to - which, for this week, included only two games (though it should've included one more) - and dig deeper into those. The biggest difference comes with the amount of video review - e.g., “baby highlights” + box scores for the expected results and MLS-in-15 plus box scores for the oddballs.

I’ll start this edition with a (very) late round-up of FC Cincy’s midweek loss to Philly, a result that was…so very expected.

Philadelphia Union 3-0 FC Cincinnati
I’m willing to take the FC Cincy’s in-house report on faith - that the team looked composed, pressed well and paced the first half - but the MLS-in-15 highlights told a very different story, which must have shown every Philly steal and shot over the opening 45 minutes, while sweeping all of Cincy’s positives into the bin of revisionist history. To translate into a frame, the Orange and Blue might have had most of the ball, but the Union (Anthony Fontana stoodout) got more and better chances out of less time. And, once Ilsinho’s ping off Maikel van der Werff put Cincy in the hole, the countdown to the Union’s second goal - by Alejandro Bedoya - felt as inevitable as the passing of time on a Tuesday…and let’s not talk about why any one would assign Joe Gyau and Haris Medunjanin to mark Jack “The Beanstalk” Elliott on a set-piece.

In Cincy’s defense, Philly’s broadcast booth kept calling it anyone’s game - they even talked up how much better they responded to the Union’s opener - and that supports the in-house chatter, but…how does it matter when there’s nothing between them and ignominy than a crashing, burning, and soon-to-be-interim-coached DC United? They’re still grasping after chances instead of creating them, there’s not one player in the attack you’d call go-to; as much as I used to hype Gyau, he presents as too much of a soloist, someone riffing on his own thing while everyone else watches. Worse, the options keep drying up thanks to knocks of unknown severity to Jurgen Locadia and (again) Greg Garza…not that Locadia, in particular, has done anything but get Cincy’s fans’ hopes up. Cincinnati might host the next two games, but, between Toronto FC tomorrow evening and Columbus Crew SC on Wednesday, the guest list looks rude and horrific.

Christ, that’s depressing. Time to talk about anything else. Moving on to the expected results…

Atlanta United FC 0-0 Orlando City SC
Escape for Atlanta, loss for Orlando: call it want you want, but it took Brad Guzan (two-three times), the post (Robinho) and the crossbar (Nani) to save a point for Atlanta and keep them above the slow-rolling pack chasing them.

New England Revolution 0-1 Toronto FC
It look like TFC let the Revs play and pocketed the win by breaking a dangerously high line through Ayo Akinola. The Revs prize pony, Adam Buska, couldn’t make it pay off, not even from the spot.

New York City FC 4-1 DC United
Call it the game that ended Ben Olsen’s career - emphatically too (the numbers are brutal). NYCFC will have to make due after sending Alexandriu Mitrita closer to home, but Tata Castellanos and Ismael Tajouri-Shradi looked up to it - at least in this one - but they can count on steady help from their magic elf, Anton Tinnerholm.

Seattle Sounders 2-1 Real Salt Lake
RSL posted zero shots in this one, so it’s lucky that Seattle’s Nouhou Tolo poked one home for them. Both team posted wimpy numbers, but Seattle doesn’t need much with Jordan Morris humming like he is. Also of note: RSL’s defenders slept hard on both Seattle goals, plus a couple more.

San Jose Earthquakes 3-0 Vancouver Whitecaps
Two weeks ago, some number of people writing post-mortems on Matias Almeyda’s man-marking system, this would have filed under surprise, but with this being the ‘Quakes third straight win, there are signs of reanimation. They couldn’t break the ‘Caps until the second half, but two more goals and as many red cards later, Vancouver has now dropped four straight and joined the LA Galaxy in the race to the bottom. Speaking of…

Los Angeles Galaxy 3-6 Portland Timbers
Here are my extended notes, but the short version is pretty simple: LA’s defense could cough up anything. (That said, Diego Valeri scored a goal well worth a second look.)

Houston Dynamo 2-0 FC Dallas
I pulled this one out of chronological order, because this result…kinda sorta presents as oddball, even if both teams have struggled enough lately (Houston went DLDLDL over their prior six games; this puts Dallas at winless in four, LDDL). Dallas ran up decisively lopsided numbers, but that could have been Houston playing the second half with 10. Darwin Quintero, who opened the scoring (and missed a prettier shot before that) is quietly having a solid season.

Finally, the past week’s featured oddball results:

Red Bull New York 1-2 Inter Miami CF
After briefly threatening to right the ship (or stop sinking it), the Red Bulls have posted two straight losses. The fact this came, 1) at home, 2) against the same Miami team they wailed on just four short weeks ago, and 3) with that same Miami team missing some high-profile regulars (e.g., Leonardo Gonzalo-Pirez through suspension, Luis Robles through injury and Rodolfo Pizarro through international duty), this was another WTF result for New York in a season full of them. They came close early only to have new-kid Blaise Matuidi kick one off the chalk of the line and it looks like the played the aggressor throughout, but they could only score one through Omir Fernandez (who looked offside to me), gifted Matias Pelligrini an equalizer within two minutes of that one (and with arguably worse defending), and Gonzalo Higuain took the other one with a blazing free-kick. Aaron Long battled hard (and saved at least one likely goal) and Tom Barlow got his chances, but, if I had to sum up REd Bulls' 2020 in one word, it would "fragility." There was nothing elegant in either performance (save Higuain’s masterpiece). You couldn’t read how sloppy Miami was from the MLS-in-15, but the box score shows a rare low-60 for passing accuracy. Having watched New York strain to breakdown the perennially vulnerable FC Cincy defense twice already this year, I have a sense for what they look like when they’re shitting the bed. Miami, meanwhile, can probably count on catching this kind of break about as often as Cincinnati has in 2020. Between a new coach for the Red Bulls (Gerhard Struber) and an expansion/COVID season for Miami, I don’t see any reason not to write off both of them.

Finally, the wildest one of the week.

Columbus Crew SC 1-2 Montreal Impact
Montreal did what they usually do - absorb and counter - and I noted Columbus’ road woes in the prior post, but Columbus’ formerly air-tight defense has settled into league-normal. Worse for them, they looked windy and, despite forcing five saves out of Montreal’s Clement Diop (at least one of them epic) sloppy in the attack; Pedro Santos stood out (see ALL the secondary assist on Columbus suitably hideous goal), but even he under-hit half the passes I saw him play (if in 1/6 of the actual game). Youness Mohktar gets second billing for usefulness, and Fanendo Adi posted one good, late header that would have rescued the game and changed the subject, but the 19 shots showing in the box score flattered what I saw from Columbus. Two players for Montreal - Bojan and Lassi Lappaninen - provided enough to keep the Crew defense honest, as well as both goals. I think Montreal’s first goal - which featured three shots by those two players - sums up the nature and weirdness of the result as much as anything. (Also, was it just me, or did it take until after halftime for the score to update to show Lappinen’s goal?) After that, L’Impact mostly had to clutter the box and invite Columbus to fire through the trees. Maybe they’re missing that little bit of (pain-in-the-ass) finesse that Darlington Nagbe brings to the table…

All right. That’s it for the dry run. I’ll aim to get the next edition - which will cover the rest of this weekend - posted early next week…before it all starts again...