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| A view of the playoff line in East and West. |
Gods willing, I’ll figure out a more elegant to clock the weekly comings and goings in Major League Soccer at some point. Next year looks a hell of lot better than this one, obviously…
The crush of games at mid-week dropped enough weight on the timeline to make a glance the most an amateur can give when it comes to analysis (say…that sounds like a good brand). The biggest-picture takeaway of MLS Week 31, Part I goes something like this:
Progress in the West, Choking in the East
I’d call the Portland Timbers’ (painful, leggy, stupid) loss at home to the Vancouver Whitecaps the only actual miss in my mid-week forecast, the Nashville’s record-chasing draw get undeserved honorable mention. I gave myself enough wiggle room everywhere else (ah, the blush-sparing beauty of “on one hand, but on the other” phrasing). Looked at from the other side, however, Vancouver’s win tracked with a broad trend in the West - i.e., the teams that needed wins to stay viable - e.g., Vancouver, Los Angeles FC, the Los Angeles Galaxy, and even Minnesota United - all got them. Hence, “Progress in the West.” Their results came either against teams already out of the running (e.g., FC Dallas, Houston Dynamo FC) or a team from another conference (the Philadelphia Union, all listed respectively), meaning they didn’t draw blood from any of the teams above them. Portland drew their own blood (thank you very much), while the Colorado Rapids and Seattle Sounders nicked one another in their 1-1 draw up in the Rockies.
Over in the Eastern Conference, the theme switches (or reverts) to a mass, collective stalemate among all the competitive teams (as in, not including except the New England Revolution, so nothing new there). The two biggest surprises in that regard were Atlanta United FC (who hosted the typically road-stoned New York City FC) and Nashville SC (who hosted Columbus Crew SC, who have…not been good). The former had a shot at climbing to the mid-40s for points, while the latter could dipped over 50 points. Both of those games ended up knotted at 1-1 - as did Orlando City SC v Club du Foot Montreal - all of which combined to keep the spread between fifth (Atlanta) and tenth (Columbus) in the East at five slim points.
“Progress” notwithstanding, the situation in the Western Conference isn’t so different, though the grouping there comes in between…let’s call it fourth place (the Timbers) and ninth (LAFC), where the spread is six points. Which brings this to the match-ups for MLS Week, 31, Part II (probably):
Seattle Sounders v Sporting Kansas City
Columbus Crew SC v Red Bull New York
New York City FC v DC United
Philadelphia Union v Nashville SC
Toronto FC v Club du Foot Montreal
Chicago Fire FC v Real Salt Lake
Inter Miami CF v FC Cincinnati
Minnesota United FC v Los Angeles FC
Colorado Rapids v Portland Timbers
Los Angeles Galaxy v FC Dallas
San Jose Earthquakes v Vancouver Whitecaps FC
Austin FC v Houston Dynamo FC
Orlando City SC v New England Revolution
As with last week’s forecast, the games above not in bold may be reasonably ignored, the feeble battling the feeble, the mighty battling the strong, and so forth. The rest have some form of either a likely outcome or stakes, or a combination of the two, so let’s pick through those.
First up, four of the games - Toronto v Montreal, Chicago v RSL, LA Galaxy v Dallas, and San Jose v Vancouver - file as low-stakes/likelier outcomes match-ups, if with the Galaxy as the isolated case where playing at home against a consistently shit team should give them a win. That’s a big(-ish) deal because, in the event Portland either loses or draws (more on that later), the Galaxy jumps over them into one of spots for hosting the first-round playoff game. Toronto’s comparatively shit home record and recent wobbles give Montreal the second-best odds of taking three points, followed by RSL (think I saw Chicago is hobbled), followed by Vancouver. Even if all teams’ odds aren’t equal, Montreal, the Galaxy, and Vancouver are currently above the playoff line, while RSL is playoff-competitive, which means they should all beat teams who are not, if only for the future good fortune and sanity. All those teams should have a better than even chance of winning and, in all cases but LA’s, they should at least draw.
Now the actual question: what would the likely(ier) results mean for the teams around them? The games to watch there would be Minnesota v LAFC and Colorado v Portland. LAFC has a respectable road record (4-9-2), but they beat mostly crap teams for those four road wins (Austin twice, Dallas last week and RSL back in Week 13); Minnesota, meanwhile, has largely held firm at home (9-4-2), if with some late wobbles. As for the Timbers, they actually revived their season with a string of road wins, but it’s damned hard to look at the last two games and feel that rush of confidence. Anyone looking for solace can find it in the Rapids’ recent shaky home form: drawing Seattle looked good, but the Rapids have dropped some stupid points at home - e.g., against a mid-swoon Galaxy, Vancouver, and (wow) Toronto on either side of a piss-ant Austin team. A draw won’t do either team much good, but it’ll hold the Rapids’ six point lead over Portland.
In broad terms, I like both Minnesota’s and the Galaxy’s chances for three points, and give RSL something like even odds for the same. The Timbers have to win to stay ahead of all that, but…see above. I expect The Galaxy to takeover fourth with Minnesota and Portland in fifth or sixth below them, though in which order I know not. None of the blood splattering from below will (immediately) affect Seattle or SKC, but their game sets up as a nice chest-thumper (e.g., display of dominance)…and who doesn’t want Seattle to lose that one?
Over in the East, Atlanta has Week 31, Part II off, but there’s a literal feeding frenzy on either side of them. No one’s catching the Revs, of course, but I don’t think they’ll find getting points out of Orlando easy - and Orlando won’t be all that bothered if they do because none of the teams below can catch them this week. Montreal can get close with a win (and they’ve got a few tiebreakers on Orlando), but the real dogfights come with NYC v DC and Columbus v Red Bull. Both DC and NYC have wobbled on the road (LDLL for DC) and at home (DLD for NYC), which makes that a tougher read when it would have been mid-season (when NYC was fleetingly perfect), so a draw wouldn’t throw me - or help either team. In the other one, Columbus has four straight home wins (v CIN, RBNY(!), MTL and MIA), which improved them to grasping at the playoff line, but the Red Bulls have that masters of the grind thing (see four 1-0 wins in their last five games) to make that either team’s game.
Gun to my head, the likeliest outcomes I see has Montreal leaping Atlanta into fifth and a bigger knot at sixth through tenth. Columbus has the most to lose - worst (plausible) case, they lose to Red Bull and DC and NYC tie, and they’d get one more point to make up by season’s end - and I’d call that the biggest potential shift that the East could see this week. The stuff above all that won’t notice, at least not this week, but the biggest question for the upper echelon is whether the Revs can throw the Lions…into the lion’s pit.
That’s all for this one. Folks.
The crush of games at mid-week dropped enough weight on the timeline to make a glance the most an amateur can give when it comes to analysis (say…that sounds like a good brand). The biggest-picture takeaway of MLS Week 31, Part I goes something like this:
Progress in the West, Choking in the East
I’d call the Portland Timbers’ (painful, leggy, stupid) loss at home to the Vancouver Whitecaps the only actual miss in my mid-week forecast, the Nashville’s record-chasing draw get undeserved honorable mention. I gave myself enough wiggle room everywhere else (ah, the blush-sparing beauty of “on one hand, but on the other” phrasing). Looked at from the other side, however, Vancouver’s win tracked with a broad trend in the West - i.e., the teams that needed wins to stay viable - e.g., Vancouver, Los Angeles FC, the Los Angeles Galaxy, and even Minnesota United - all got them. Hence, “Progress in the West.” Their results came either against teams already out of the running (e.g., FC Dallas, Houston Dynamo FC) or a team from another conference (the Philadelphia Union, all listed respectively), meaning they didn’t draw blood from any of the teams above them. Portland drew their own blood (thank you very much), while the Colorado Rapids and Seattle Sounders nicked one another in their 1-1 draw up in the Rockies.
Over in the Eastern Conference, the theme switches (or reverts) to a mass, collective stalemate among all the competitive teams (as in, not including except the New England Revolution, so nothing new there). The two biggest surprises in that regard were Atlanta United FC (who hosted the typically road-stoned New York City FC) and Nashville SC (who hosted Columbus Crew SC, who have…not been good). The former had a shot at climbing to the mid-40s for points, while the latter could dipped over 50 points. Both of those games ended up knotted at 1-1 - as did Orlando City SC v Club du Foot Montreal - all of which combined to keep the spread between fifth (Atlanta) and tenth (Columbus) in the East at five slim points.
“Progress” notwithstanding, the situation in the Western Conference isn’t so different, though the grouping there comes in between…let’s call it fourth place (the Timbers) and ninth (LAFC), where the spread is six points. Which brings this to the match-ups for MLS Week, 31, Part II (probably):
Seattle Sounders v Sporting Kansas City
Columbus Crew SC v Red Bull New York
New York City FC v DC United
Philadelphia Union v Nashville SC
Toronto FC v Club du Foot Montreal
Chicago Fire FC v Real Salt Lake
Inter Miami CF v FC Cincinnati
Minnesota United FC v Los Angeles FC
Colorado Rapids v Portland Timbers
Los Angeles Galaxy v FC Dallas
San Jose Earthquakes v Vancouver Whitecaps FC
Austin FC v Houston Dynamo FC
Orlando City SC v New England Revolution
As with last week’s forecast, the games above not in bold may be reasonably ignored, the feeble battling the feeble, the mighty battling the strong, and so forth. The rest have some form of either a likely outcome or stakes, or a combination of the two, so let’s pick through those.
First up, four of the games - Toronto v Montreal, Chicago v RSL, LA Galaxy v Dallas, and San Jose v Vancouver - file as low-stakes/likelier outcomes match-ups, if with the Galaxy as the isolated case where playing at home against a consistently shit team should give them a win. That’s a big(-ish) deal because, in the event Portland either loses or draws (more on that later), the Galaxy jumps over them into one of spots for hosting the first-round playoff game. Toronto’s comparatively shit home record and recent wobbles give Montreal the second-best odds of taking three points, followed by RSL (think I saw Chicago is hobbled), followed by Vancouver. Even if all teams’ odds aren’t equal, Montreal, the Galaxy, and Vancouver are currently above the playoff line, while RSL is playoff-competitive, which means they should all beat teams who are not, if only for the future good fortune and sanity. All those teams should have a better than even chance of winning and, in all cases but LA’s, they should at least draw.
Now the actual question: what would the likely(ier) results mean for the teams around them? The games to watch there would be Minnesota v LAFC and Colorado v Portland. LAFC has a respectable road record (4-9-2), but they beat mostly crap teams for those four road wins (Austin twice, Dallas last week and RSL back in Week 13); Minnesota, meanwhile, has largely held firm at home (9-4-2), if with some late wobbles. As for the Timbers, they actually revived their season with a string of road wins, but it’s damned hard to look at the last two games and feel that rush of confidence. Anyone looking for solace can find it in the Rapids’ recent shaky home form: drawing Seattle looked good, but the Rapids have dropped some stupid points at home - e.g., against a mid-swoon Galaxy, Vancouver, and (wow) Toronto on either side of a piss-ant Austin team. A draw won’t do either team much good, but it’ll hold the Rapids’ six point lead over Portland.
In broad terms, I like both Minnesota’s and the Galaxy’s chances for three points, and give RSL something like even odds for the same. The Timbers have to win to stay ahead of all that, but…see above. I expect The Galaxy to takeover fourth with Minnesota and Portland in fifth or sixth below them, though in which order I know not. None of the blood splattering from below will (immediately) affect Seattle or SKC, but their game sets up as a nice chest-thumper (e.g., display of dominance)…and who doesn’t want Seattle to lose that one?
Over in the East, Atlanta has Week 31, Part II off, but there’s a literal feeding frenzy on either side of them. No one’s catching the Revs, of course, but I don’t think they’ll find getting points out of Orlando easy - and Orlando won’t be all that bothered if they do because none of the teams below can catch them this week. Montreal can get close with a win (and they’ve got a few tiebreakers on Orlando), but the real dogfights come with NYC v DC and Columbus v Red Bull. Both DC and NYC have wobbled on the road (LDLL for DC) and at home (DLD for NYC), which makes that a tougher read when it would have been mid-season (when NYC was fleetingly perfect), so a draw wouldn’t throw me - or help either team. In the other one, Columbus has four straight home wins (v CIN, RBNY(!), MTL and MIA), which improved them to grasping at the playoff line, but the Red Bulls have that masters of the grind thing (see four 1-0 wins in their last five games) to make that either team’s game.
Gun to my head, the likeliest outcomes I see has Montreal leaping Atlanta into fifth and a bigger knot at sixth through tenth. Columbus has the most to lose - worst (plausible) case, they lose to Red Bull and DC and NYC tie, and they’d get one more point to make up by season’s end - and I’d call that the biggest potential shift that the East could see this week. The stuff above all that won’t notice, at least not this week, but the biggest question for the upper echelon is whether the Revs can throw the Lions…into the lion’s pit.
That’s all for this one. Folks.
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