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Major League Soccer wrapped up a busy Week 5 about an hour ago (whoops, that's four now), so here I am picking through some low-hanging observations, light, yet broad video review and a quick general staring at of things. Throw that in the mixer, have a couple…things, stick a finger or two down your throat and out it comes. Welcome to the MLS Weakly…
First things first, I think people should spend some time each week looking at the crudest and bluntest measure of success and failure in sports - e.g., the standings. I can give one reason why in a game I know nothing about apart from the final score: the Seattle Sounders’ 2-0 win over Los Angeles FC. Given both teams’ trajectories thereto - e.g., all but flawless for Seattle versus visibly sputtering for LAFC - and with the Sounders at home, I’m not sure what else one would expect. But here’s where staring at context-less numbers in the standings comes in: Seattle has a league-leading +11 goal differential, and they’ve given up just two goals in six games. That’s the kind of game you note, no further observation needed. Also, just to mention, New York City FC has the second best goal differential at +6, Orlando City SC follows them up at +4 and then - real point of interest - it’s +2 or worse from there on out.
And look where those teams are, Seattle, NYCFC and Orlando: 1st in the West, 2nd and 3rd in the East. Of which, bravo to the New England Revolution for its thin claim on first place in the East after Week 5; I say “thin” because Orlando, NYCFC and their superior goal differentials have a game in hand on the Revs. Speaking of games in hand, that segues nicely into the big story of MLS Week 5: all the team that played two games during it and how they survived them. Once again, here is the bluntest possible measure:
Teams that took all six points: Seattle and Minnesota United FC
Teams that took four: Toronto FC, Philadelphia Union, New England
Teams that took three: Club du Foot Montreal, Houston Dynamo FC, Sporting Kansas City, DC United, Inter Miami CF
Teams that took zero points: Columbus Crew SC, San Jose Earthquakes, Vancouver Whitecaps
Some stories up above don’t really need further examination - e.g., DC scraping three points from two home games because 1) like the rest of MLS, they’re better than Chicago, and 2) they’re worse than an impressively reliable Orlando. One game ended 1-0 for DC, the other 0-1 against them, and what does one goal really mean besides a win? With Seattle, that’s just two two-game series of 13 that couldn’t use a little poking and prodding. Here are quick notes on the rest, by clumsy title:
Columbus’ Struggles & What They Mean
The Crew died twice on the road in Week 5 - getting bullied 0-2 by Toronto…in Miami(?) and via death by 1,000-cuts-but-only-one-counts in a 1-0 loss at New England. Columbus looked weirdly small on set-pieces against Toronto, but I’d be more worried about what I saw in the condensed game against New England. Both teams played a tight game - the Revs got 11 shots, Columbus only 6 - but the Revs held real advantages inside those margins. Columbus got out-played twice in Week 5 and in two different ways - worse, the Revs beat them at their own game, the 1-0 win. Despite making some really ominous attacking singings in the 2020-21 offseason and looking deep as it gets in MLS, Columbus has score only three goals in five games. Midfielder Artur probably gave them their best chance over 180 minutes against the Revs and, to flag one positive, that Alexandru Matan kid looks sharp, but I’m confident this was not the Columbus team most people expected. So…what does it mean to have an Eastern Conference favorite sitting on 1-2-2 and 11th in the East?
Toronto just started coughing the CCL out of their lungs, so they’re a ways down the table on five points even after getting four in Week 5, but both the Revs (on 11 points) and the Union (on 8, but also CCL?) look like they’ve found their feet - an argument they stood up by drawing 1-1 in Philadelphia mid-week. Once again, full disclosure, I didn’t look at anything about Philly this weekend, which means I only saw New England take clear advantage of Columbus without Lucas Zelarayan and Kevin Molino, and this is why and where my head is at: I see both New England and Philly as good solid teams. That was enough to make me skip the Union holding it together against Red Bull New York in a 1-0 home win. The larger point is, both teams played two games against decent teams on short rest and they both got four points out of them. Noted, and without further review. In the near-term, and based on what I heard in Toronto's 1-1 draw at NYCFC, "bullying" sounds like a good shorthand for them right now.
Belief & Its Opposite, Western Style
This weekend saw Minnesota sew up a leaking back line and collect all six points from two games. Good for them, obviously, but they only did what any team claiming respectability has to do, especially in the comfy environs of home on both occasions. I opted for an indirect read on their overall achievement, first by watching the condensed game of their 1-0 win over FC Dallas, then by seeing how Sporting KC dropped three goals on the Vancouver Whitecaps - e.g., the team Minnesota beat mid-week. I feel comfortable saying Minnesota looked the better team, especially late - and, related, the way most points in their passing map lead to Reynoso is kinda cool - but that didn’t look like dominance against a Dallas team that’s a couple steps off of strolling. It took a mighty piling on at the dead end of stoppage time to force a break through a top-half-of-average stubborn Dallas defense (again, the standings, I can’t stress this enough). Still, Minnesota did it and that gets ‘em back in the pack and headed in the right direction. Something I mention for a reason…
San Jose started wonderfully, but, golly, did the Cascadia teams throttle them this weekend. I use that verb, throttle, deliberately because both Seattle and the Portland Timbers let the ‘Quakes play. As covered in my extended notes on Portland’s 2-0 road win before the world’s longest outdoor bar, San Jose never quite managed to make all that possession count; from what I saw, that game looked like the MLS in 15 video of San Jose's loss to Seattle, only six-fold. While I wouldn’t call the ‘Quakes a team in free-fall - even if Portland beat them with an A-B Team - that tracks as two of the West’s expected contenders having their number.
I put Vancouver in the same pocket. Sporting Kansas City ran them over so badly, that I had to check the boxscore for SKC’s mid-week loss to Houston - and, sure enough, their numbers looked better there, even if they came late. To wrap up the Whitecaps, I’d call Week 5 a reality check for them: they played against two allegedly strong Western Conference teams and they lost both - one of them badly. And that points to a formula/assumption of this series: any given team is only as “good” or “bad” as the number of teams that you’d expect to beat them any given week. Vancouver added a couple this week, and San Jose did too; that’s how a team’s ceiling lowers - at least until they can raise it.
I want to touch on two other Western Conference teams before moving on: Houston and Colorado. Both of them collected three points in Week 5, but one did it as the expense of the other - this is Colorado’s 3-1 home win over Houston - and with some ease. Michael Barrios, who Dallas has to be missing at this point, set up as many goals as Houston handed to him and Cole Bassett de-pantsed Marko Maric for the third, but, according to video and numbers, the Rapids dominated every facet of that game. And yet, Houston beat SKC mid-week, however they did it. Despite the lopsided win for Colorado…and despite the plain fact they sit at an impressive 4th place in the West against….oh, never mind, Houston’s 6th place, both Houston and Colorado look like powerful trap teams for 2021. I think this week’s result played ‘em true - that is, the Rapids are a bit better - but I wouldn’t count on three points from either of them, and I’d worry about giving up just as many against both.
Well, I think I’ve covered all the bigger take-aways from Week 5, however randomly - i.e., if you squint into that dogpile of information and don’t get some sense of who’s up and who’s down, I’ve failed you. To close on some loose ends…
- Montreal deserves honorable mention because they showed as well as any team this weekend. They kicked Miami’s ass hard enough to (reportedly) make Phil Neville cry midweek and went on to push Atlanta to the limit for their late, desperate win. They looked in it to the end, basically, something that’s bad news for…
- As belabored in my extended notes on FC Cincinnati crapping on their own stadium opener, I think they might finally have a corps of personnel to build on. The argument against that was Miami, who looked a couple steps south of impressive over the 108 or so minutes I watched them this week - i.e., if Cincinnati can’t beat them at home, who can they count on beating? Miami might have been better than Cincinnati today, but, based on what I saw, I can see that changing. The real issue comes with all the teams who look above them - a category that could very well include both Montreal (who they play this Saturday) and Atlanta. Add Columbus, Toronto, Philly, and New England to that and what do you have left? NYCFC belongs there, so does Orlando…now what if the Red Bulls get a nose ahead? The math gets bad fast, basically…
- The West, meanwhile, looks a little more mysterious from Portland’s point of view - and I’m thinking about the LA Galaxy’s stroll of a win over Austin as much as anything. They had the brains to exploit Austin FC’s (as it turns out) risky high defensive line, one for a failed penalty and again for the go-ahead goal; they bagged the insurance goal through a play that had Austin so stretched and behind that the play was over the second it started. Again, it’s a matter of doing the math: Seattle looks great, teams like SKC and the Galaxy look pretty damn good, and there’s this…muddle behind them that have some of last year’s heavy hitters lagging behind - with Portland among them. For what it’s worth, I think most people still expect Portland and LAFC to come good - something I can see more clearly for Portland right now than I can for LAFC - but that still leaves points-thievin’ teams like Colorado and Houston lurking in the shadows. And what if Minnesota wakes up? Slip up enough times and you’ll find yourself below eighth place…
- Oh, and Nashville SC tied Real Salt Lake in Utah 0-0 and I don’t care. Doo dah, doo dah.
Overall, and for what it’s worth, I think the divide from the haves of MLS and the have-nots will show up more and more in the head-to-head encounters. And sooner than most of us think. You might have to pick who fits where out of the above, but I promise I didn’t try to make it hard. It’s the head-to-head encounters between the haves that feel hardest to sort out. Until the next one…
First things first, I think people should spend some time each week looking at the crudest and bluntest measure of success and failure in sports - e.g., the standings. I can give one reason why in a game I know nothing about apart from the final score: the Seattle Sounders’ 2-0 win over Los Angeles FC. Given both teams’ trajectories thereto - e.g., all but flawless for Seattle versus visibly sputtering for LAFC - and with the Sounders at home, I’m not sure what else one would expect. But here’s where staring at context-less numbers in the standings comes in: Seattle has a league-leading +11 goal differential, and they’ve given up just two goals in six games. That’s the kind of game you note, no further observation needed. Also, just to mention, New York City FC has the second best goal differential at +6, Orlando City SC follows them up at +4 and then - real point of interest - it’s +2 or worse from there on out.
And look where those teams are, Seattle, NYCFC and Orlando: 1st in the West, 2nd and 3rd in the East. Of which, bravo to the New England Revolution for its thin claim on first place in the East after Week 5; I say “thin” because Orlando, NYCFC and their superior goal differentials have a game in hand on the Revs. Speaking of games in hand, that segues nicely into the big story of MLS Week 5: all the team that played two games during it and how they survived them. Once again, here is the bluntest possible measure:
Teams that took all six points: Seattle and Minnesota United FC
Teams that took four: Toronto FC, Philadelphia Union, New England
Teams that took three: Club du Foot Montreal, Houston Dynamo FC, Sporting Kansas City, DC United, Inter Miami CF
Teams that took zero points: Columbus Crew SC, San Jose Earthquakes, Vancouver Whitecaps
Some stories up above don’t really need further examination - e.g., DC scraping three points from two home games because 1) like the rest of MLS, they’re better than Chicago, and 2) they’re worse than an impressively reliable Orlando. One game ended 1-0 for DC, the other 0-1 against them, and what does one goal really mean besides a win? With Seattle, that’s just two two-game series of 13 that couldn’t use a little poking and prodding. Here are quick notes on the rest, by clumsy title:
Columbus’ Struggles & What They Mean
The Crew died twice on the road in Week 5 - getting bullied 0-2 by Toronto…in Miami(?) and via death by 1,000-cuts-but-only-one-counts in a 1-0 loss at New England. Columbus looked weirdly small on set-pieces against Toronto, but I’d be more worried about what I saw in the condensed game against New England. Both teams played a tight game - the Revs got 11 shots, Columbus only 6 - but the Revs held real advantages inside those margins. Columbus got out-played twice in Week 5 and in two different ways - worse, the Revs beat them at their own game, the 1-0 win. Despite making some really ominous attacking singings in the 2020-21 offseason and looking deep as it gets in MLS, Columbus has score only three goals in five games. Midfielder Artur probably gave them their best chance over 180 minutes against the Revs and, to flag one positive, that Alexandru Matan kid looks sharp, but I’m confident this was not the Columbus team most people expected. So…what does it mean to have an Eastern Conference favorite sitting on 1-2-2 and 11th in the East?
Toronto just started coughing the CCL out of their lungs, so they’re a ways down the table on five points even after getting four in Week 5, but both the Revs (on 11 points) and the Union (on 8, but also CCL?) look like they’ve found their feet - an argument they stood up by drawing 1-1 in Philadelphia mid-week. Once again, full disclosure, I didn’t look at anything about Philly this weekend, which means I only saw New England take clear advantage of Columbus without Lucas Zelarayan and Kevin Molino, and this is why and where my head is at: I see both New England and Philly as good solid teams. That was enough to make me skip the Union holding it together against Red Bull New York in a 1-0 home win. The larger point is, both teams played two games against decent teams on short rest and they both got four points out of them. Noted, and without further review. In the near-term, and based on what I heard in Toronto's 1-1 draw at NYCFC, "bullying" sounds like a good shorthand for them right now.
Belief & Its Opposite, Western Style
This weekend saw Minnesota sew up a leaking back line and collect all six points from two games. Good for them, obviously, but they only did what any team claiming respectability has to do, especially in the comfy environs of home on both occasions. I opted for an indirect read on their overall achievement, first by watching the condensed game of their 1-0 win over FC Dallas, then by seeing how Sporting KC dropped three goals on the Vancouver Whitecaps - e.g., the team Minnesota beat mid-week. I feel comfortable saying Minnesota looked the better team, especially late - and, related, the way most points in their passing map lead to Reynoso is kinda cool - but that didn’t look like dominance against a Dallas team that’s a couple steps off of strolling. It took a mighty piling on at the dead end of stoppage time to force a break through a top-half-of-average stubborn Dallas defense (again, the standings, I can’t stress this enough). Still, Minnesota did it and that gets ‘em back in the pack and headed in the right direction. Something I mention for a reason…
San Jose started wonderfully, but, golly, did the Cascadia teams throttle them this weekend. I use that verb, throttle, deliberately because both Seattle and the Portland Timbers let the ‘Quakes play. As covered in my extended notes on Portland’s 2-0 road win before the world’s longest outdoor bar, San Jose never quite managed to make all that possession count; from what I saw, that game looked like the MLS in 15 video of San Jose's loss to Seattle, only six-fold. While I wouldn’t call the ‘Quakes a team in free-fall - even if Portland beat them with an A-B Team - that tracks as two of the West’s expected contenders having their number.
I put Vancouver in the same pocket. Sporting Kansas City ran them over so badly, that I had to check the boxscore for SKC’s mid-week loss to Houston - and, sure enough, their numbers looked better there, even if they came late. To wrap up the Whitecaps, I’d call Week 5 a reality check for them: they played against two allegedly strong Western Conference teams and they lost both - one of them badly. And that points to a formula/assumption of this series: any given team is only as “good” or “bad” as the number of teams that you’d expect to beat them any given week. Vancouver added a couple this week, and San Jose did too; that’s how a team’s ceiling lowers - at least until they can raise it.
I want to touch on two other Western Conference teams before moving on: Houston and Colorado. Both of them collected three points in Week 5, but one did it as the expense of the other - this is Colorado’s 3-1 home win over Houston - and with some ease. Michael Barrios, who Dallas has to be missing at this point, set up as many goals as Houston handed to him and Cole Bassett de-pantsed Marko Maric for the third, but, according to video and numbers, the Rapids dominated every facet of that game. And yet, Houston beat SKC mid-week, however they did it. Despite the lopsided win for Colorado…and despite the plain fact they sit at an impressive 4th place in the West against….oh, never mind, Houston’s 6th place, both Houston and Colorado look like powerful trap teams for 2021. I think this week’s result played ‘em true - that is, the Rapids are a bit better - but I wouldn’t count on three points from either of them, and I’d worry about giving up just as many against both.
Well, I think I’ve covered all the bigger take-aways from Week 5, however randomly - i.e., if you squint into that dogpile of information and don’t get some sense of who’s up and who’s down, I’ve failed you. To close on some loose ends…
- Montreal deserves honorable mention because they showed as well as any team this weekend. They kicked Miami’s ass hard enough to (reportedly) make Phil Neville cry midweek and went on to push Atlanta to the limit for their late, desperate win. They looked in it to the end, basically, something that’s bad news for…
- As belabored in my extended notes on FC Cincinnati crapping on their own stadium opener, I think they might finally have a corps of personnel to build on. The argument against that was Miami, who looked a couple steps south of impressive over the 108 or so minutes I watched them this week - i.e., if Cincinnati can’t beat them at home, who can they count on beating? Miami might have been better than Cincinnati today, but, based on what I saw, I can see that changing. The real issue comes with all the teams who look above them - a category that could very well include both Montreal (who they play this Saturday) and Atlanta. Add Columbus, Toronto, Philly, and New England to that and what do you have left? NYCFC belongs there, so does Orlando…now what if the Red Bulls get a nose ahead? The math gets bad fast, basically…
- The West, meanwhile, looks a little more mysterious from Portland’s point of view - and I’m thinking about the LA Galaxy’s stroll of a win over Austin as much as anything. They had the brains to exploit Austin FC’s (as it turns out) risky high defensive line, one for a failed penalty and again for the go-ahead goal; they bagged the insurance goal through a play that had Austin so stretched and behind that the play was over the second it started. Again, it’s a matter of doing the math: Seattle looks great, teams like SKC and the Galaxy look pretty damn good, and there’s this…muddle behind them that have some of last year’s heavy hitters lagging behind - with Portland among them. For what it’s worth, I think most people still expect Portland and LAFC to come good - something I can see more clearly for Portland right now than I can for LAFC - but that still leaves points-thievin’ teams like Colorado and Houston lurking in the shadows. And what if Minnesota wakes up? Slip up enough times and you’ll find yourself below eighth place…
- Oh, and Nashville SC tied Real Salt Lake in Utah 0-0 and I don’t care. Doo dah, doo dah.
Overall, and for what it’s worth, I think the divide from the haves of MLS and the have-nots will show up more and more in the head-to-head encounters. And sooner than most of us think. You might have to pick who fits where out of the above, but I promise I didn’t try to make it hard. It’s the head-to-head encounters between the haves that feel hardest to sort out. Until the next one…
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