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| My wheels of steel in the 70s. |
Teams across Major League Soccer scored plenty of goals over MLS Week (probably) 25. And, as with last week, all those goals didn’t do much besides throttle a couple of dreams. With one exception - a rather pathetic one too - the rich teams got three points richer, the poorest teams saw what little credit they had run out, and, again, with a couple exceptions, the Joneses fought tooth-and-tong to keep up with one another in the middle.
In other news, I can’t explain the games I chose for longer review, so I won’t. It is what it is, aka, less than what it could be, but....never mind. The original impulse came from a good place, for what it’s worth. When I looked at a couple results, a thought came to me, one inspired, perhaps, by the/my Portland Timbers’ 1-3 (bad, as in neither close nor good) road loss to Toronto FC: which teams are shaping up the ones who will trip-up some other team’s last, desperate grasp at the playoff line? I’ll round up results/thoughts from the little-long-playing video review sessions below, but first, I wanted to mention the games I didn’t watch and why (I linked to the game summary in the score).
Philadelphia Union 4-1 Chicago Fire FC
A) The game summary never got the full highlights posted, B) the only thing that surprised me was the magnitude, C) I should have done the little-long-playing thing with this one, because this result took a hard shot at Chicago’s moment, and D) I have no excuse, this one even fit the fucking profile, sorry, and E) I’ll do better. Maybe.
New England Revolution 1-0 DC United
“The Revs took care of business at home, riding an early Carles Gil goal to a 1-0 win over visiting D.C. United, who never truly threatened.”
From Matt Doyle’s weekly round-up. Felt sufficient.
Red Bull New York 0-1 Orlando City SC
My understanding of both teams boils down to they can beat or lose to anyone, case in point. Also, heard Pato went down. Also, this (Doyle, again):
“But there is no Bradley Wright-Phillips on this team, and there is no Sacha Kljestan on this team, and I’m not even sure if there’s a Daniel Royer on this team.”
Houston Dynamo FC 2-3 Club du Foot Montreal
I think Houston is dead by consensus (but don’t quote me on it), and while keeping up with Montreal feels like something I should do – especially seeing as they’re second and with a 10-point cushion over a three-team dog-pile – the seem to get shy when I do pay attention to them. But then they do this shit behind my back....
Moving on, the next talking point will summarize three teams in one go. I watched only the highlights for the Atlanta United FC’s 2-2 draw at FC Cincinnati, but that result illustrates something all on its own. The particulars of the game – though, honestly, it looked fun, both teams scored good goals, Andrew Gutman, of all people, played a starring role, Cincinnati came crazy-close to winner at the 88th minute...but they didn’t get it. That’s something they’ve done a lot lately and, this weekend, it finally ran them down. And this same point/lecture applies even more to the Timbers, who have 12 draws to Cincy’s nine.
Atlanta scored a nice pair of goals, they gave Cincinnati a game by every low-hanging indication, but the draw itself matters less than a longer-term trend I’ve been playing “hide the football” with for 75+ words: Atlanta has scored nine points in their last six games, while Cincinnati has scored just seven. Cincy has just two wins in their past 12 games; the three losses hurt most, obviously, but the seven draws over that same period amounts to 14 points, good or bad, left on the table. You can measure that as ceding a two-point gap to a team that still sits four points lower in the table, on the one hand, or you can see that Inter Miami CF picked up 11 points over their past six and now Cincinnati’s staring at their asses, if from close proximity, which, in this case, is good. And yet, about that...
Miami’s 3-2 home win over a New York City FC team that’s about one more bad result from turning a trip into a stumble was one of the games I little-long-playing review this weekend (the time intervals: 30-45, 55-65, 78-90+). NYC edged the numbers games, expected goals, aka, some of the good things you’d expect., but then Alfredo Morales killed the relevance of all that with a flaccid back pass to Sean Johnson that Miami’s Alejandro Pozuelo pounced on and slotted home. That sad little brain-fart won the game, but, after watching them die through the five minutes before Talles Magno’s go-ahead goal for NYC, I also saw Miami genuinely come back into the game twice – by that I mean, they took the upper hand and made it count - and that gave them the chance to win it. Even if they’re level on (33) points with Orlando, Cincy and the Revs, this win got the Herons on the right side of the playoff line. So, yeah, Miami could be a team that will fuck up your team’s season.
In other news, I can’t explain the games I chose for longer review, so I won’t. It is what it is, aka, less than what it could be, but....never mind. The original impulse came from a good place, for what it’s worth. When I looked at a couple results, a thought came to me, one inspired, perhaps, by the/my Portland Timbers’ 1-3 (bad, as in neither close nor good) road loss to Toronto FC: which teams are shaping up the ones who will trip-up some other team’s last, desperate grasp at the playoff line? I’ll round up results/thoughts from the little-long-playing video review sessions below, but first, I wanted to mention the games I didn’t watch and why (I linked to the game summary in the score).
Philadelphia Union 4-1 Chicago Fire FC
A) The game summary never got the full highlights posted, B) the only thing that surprised me was the magnitude, C) I should have done the little-long-playing thing with this one, because this result took a hard shot at Chicago’s moment, and D) I have no excuse, this one even fit the fucking profile, sorry, and E) I’ll do better. Maybe.
New England Revolution 1-0 DC United
“The Revs took care of business at home, riding an early Carles Gil goal to a 1-0 win over visiting D.C. United, who never truly threatened.”
From Matt Doyle’s weekly round-up. Felt sufficient.
Red Bull New York 0-1 Orlando City SC
My understanding of both teams boils down to they can beat or lose to anyone, case in point. Also, heard Pato went down. Also, this (Doyle, again):
“But there is no Bradley Wright-Phillips on this team, and there is no Sacha Kljestan on this team, and I’m not even sure if there’s a Daniel Royer on this team.”
Houston Dynamo FC 2-3 Club du Foot Montreal
I think Houston is dead by consensus (but don’t quote me on it), and while keeping up with Montreal feels like something I should do – especially seeing as they’re second and with a 10-point cushion over a three-team dog-pile – the seem to get shy when I do pay attention to them. But then they do this shit behind my back....
Moving on, the next talking point will summarize three teams in one go. I watched only the highlights for the Atlanta United FC’s 2-2 draw at FC Cincinnati, but that result illustrates something all on its own. The particulars of the game – though, honestly, it looked fun, both teams scored good goals, Andrew Gutman, of all people, played a starring role, Cincinnati came crazy-close to winner at the 88th minute...but they didn’t get it. That’s something they’ve done a lot lately and, this weekend, it finally ran them down. And this same point/lecture applies even more to the Timbers, who have 12 draws to Cincy’s nine.
Atlanta scored a nice pair of goals, they gave Cincinnati a game by every low-hanging indication, but the draw itself matters less than a longer-term trend I’ve been playing “hide the football” with for 75+ words: Atlanta has scored nine points in their last six games, while Cincinnati has scored just seven. Cincy has just two wins in their past 12 games; the three losses hurt most, obviously, but the seven draws over that same period amounts to 14 points, good or bad, left on the table. You can measure that as ceding a two-point gap to a team that still sits four points lower in the table, on the one hand, or you can see that Inter Miami CF picked up 11 points over their past six and now Cincinnati’s staring at their asses, if from close proximity, which, in this case, is good. And yet, about that...
Miami’s 3-2 home win over a New York City FC team that’s about one more bad result from turning a trip into a stumble was one of the games I little-long-playing review this weekend (the time intervals: 30-45, 55-65, 78-90+). NYC edged the numbers games, expected goals, aka, some of the good things you’d expect., but then Alfredo Morales killed the relevance of all that with a flaccid back pass to Sean Johnson that Miami’s Alejandro Pozuelo pounced on and slotted home. That sad little brain-fart won the game, but, after watching them die through the five minutes before Talles Magno’s go-ahead goal for NYC, I also saw Miami genuinely come back into the game twice – by that I mean, they took the upper hand and made it count - and that gave them the chance to win it. Even if they’re level on (33) points with Orlando, Cincy and the Revs, this win got the Herons on the right side of the playoff line. So, yeah, Miami could be a team that will fuck up your team’s season.
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| Dry to the point of being a trace of liquid, and....mingle! |
I got sucked into the Western Conference for the rest and, yeah, this is where the bad choices hang out. Well, fuck it. May as well work the room while we’re here...which has some interesting conversations going on.
I mostly sat through Austin FC’s 4-3 home win over Sporting Kansas City because I wanted to see the latter – who, just to mention, play the Timbers next Sunday. SKC got all over Austin early, and to the point of having a two-goal lead twice, but I mainly tuned in because I wanted to see more of SKC’s new guys – Erik Thommy and William Agada. Can report: they both look really good, maybe even SKC’s best players on the day (Roger Espinoza, of all people, looked most elegant/effective after them); Agada has good speed and size, and he does a solid job of dropping back to help the attack forward (mostly back to goal), while Thommy buzzes all over the right (mostly) and does many good and wonderful things, up to and including giving SKC’s captain Johnny Russell (who is struggling, along with Daniel Salloi) the penalty kick he earned (that's somewhere in here). I credit Austin for both comebacks – the attack works like an olive press, just squeezing and squeezing until one player or another (Sebastian Driussi got the winner, but “Yes, That” Danny Hoesen had a strong game) squeezes out the pip. Still, the answer to the question, is SKC a team that can fuck up....oh, say, the Portland Timbers season? Put it this way: those two players alone will challenge the weakest parts of the Timbers defense structure/collective psyches. Going the other way, is this the team Portland dropped seven goals in far fewer months ago? Here’s my preview: throw your expectations out the window and just hope you enjoy it by the end.
Big picture, though, Sporting KC is closer to dead than nearly every team in MLS; only DC lingers closer to the grave. Very much related, I sat through the San Jose Earthquakes' 1-4 road loss at FC Dallas and I don’t know why. First, some framing:
“We should not feel bad about regaining our shape quickly and forcing them to lose the ball so we can transition quickly.”
- FC Dallas head coach, Nico Estevez
Matt Doyle read a little something into that – mostly through the result and not too deeply – but he still risked a one-game analysis with an argument, no matter how careful, that Dallas did something different in this game. And the very relevant counter-point to that is, or was it just playing San Jose (in Texas; so, yeah, he caveated the bejesus out of the point). That doesn’t erase the fact Dallas was up 3-0 by the 40th minute and that the biggest thing standing in their way to even that was their own inability to find the first pass out of the defense (and credit to the broadcast booth for catching it: “If you can’t connect that first pass, you can’t get out of that low-block defending”), but the brute reality is that San Jose has allowed the most goals of any team in MLS. That doesn’t mean Dallas has nothing to celebrate – the win bought them six points' worth of breathing room, for one, but the understanding of space and movement between Jesus Ferreira and Paul Arriola on Dallas’ third goal was actually impressive (if three bits lucky in the end) – but this game felt like the biggest waste of time for my own personal MLS Week 25....until I noticed that Dallas pulled out of its swoon that started at the end of the June break (circa June 19) with three wins in their past five (@ RSL, v LAG, and v SJ). Only one of those wins should impress anyone (away to RSL), but they’re all six-pointers.
That leaves just one more little-long-playing review: the Los Angeles Galaxy’s seemingly outta-nowhere 5-2 home-thrashing of the Vancouver Whitecaps. Tuning into this one tallied...at least until you realize that Vancouver’s mid-summer hot streak was more of a hot flash; they’ve won just once since July 9, which translates to a 1-3-3 and, four road games in there notwithstanding, against the kind of teams your team has to beat if it wants to go anywhere. This game ended shortly after it started (I heard something about Julian Gressel missing a sitter, even if I didn’t see it), but the Galaxy took over the game – and Vancouver let them have it, and I mean that – to the point where they went up 2-0. And then they went up 3-0, this despite the two whole minutes of pressure Vancouver applied in the five minutes before LA scored that third goal...which felt equal parts depressing and apt in context. Vancouver pulled back one freak goal, but LA slapped that down a literal minute or two later with the same kind of play that fucked up the Whitecaps back-line. And, in that sense, this game provided an answer to the question, is Vancouver a team that can fuck your team up? It looked even less likelier after this game than it did since July 9...and that applies to the Galaxy as well...just notlosing track of Samuel Grandsir at the back post goes a long way.
Unless I lost track of something (and fuck it if I did), that leaves only Nashville SC’s 1-2 home loss to Minnesota United FC and the Seattle Sounders' 1-2 loss to Real Salt Lake. First, both games are about the home teams. Even as I’ve moved to seeing Nashville’s inability to launch as something more predictable than it looked at the start of the season (and was it this week or last that I saw Gary (probably?) Smith lower expectations for his team?), both results track with where these teams seem to be right now, so what’s to analyze? Enjoy Sergio Cordova’s opening goal for RSL at Seattle, by all means (the right people will find it very, very funny), but this hands Seattle their seventh loss in 10 games (the other three are wins, huzzah!), and Nashville has just two wins in their past 10, and that’s with six games of four at home. To borrow one last quote from Doyle:
“Nashville created a ton of half-chances but don’t have the sort of attacking structure or talent to turn dynamic superiority into full, big chances.”
All in all, Week 25 dropped a couple hints that either real (e.g., Dallas should be all right, Montreal too; while RSL will fight any motherfucker who says they won’t be), or cautionary (e.g., wake up any fucking time, Portland and Cincy?!). We’ve reached that time in the season where marginal teams have to figure out how to jump to the right side of the margin....which makes the teams playing dead the ones that should worry you most.
I mostly sat through Austin FC’s 4-3 home win over Sporting Kansas City because I wanted to see the latter – who, just to mention, play the Timbers next Sunday. SKC got all over Austin early, and to the point of having a two-goal lead twice, but I mainly tuned in because I wanted to see more of SKC’s new guys – Erik Thommy and William Agada. Can report: they both look really good, maybe even SKC’s best players on the day (Roger Espinoza, of all people, looked most elegant/effective after them); Agada has good speed and size, and he does a solid job of dropping back to help the attack forward (mostly back to goal), while Thommy buzzes all over the right (mostly) and does many good and wonderful things, up to and including giving SKC’s captain Johnny Russell (who is struggling, along with Daniel Salloi) the penalty kick he earned (that's somewhere in here). I credit Austin for both comebacks – the attack works like an olive press, just squeezing and squeezing until one player or another (Sebastian Driussi got the winner, but “Yes, That” Danny Hoesen had a strong game) squeezes out the pip. Still, the answer to the question, is SKC a team that can fuck up....oh, say, the Portland Timbers season? Put it this way: those two players alone will challenge the weakest parts of the Timbers defense structure/collective psyches. Going the other way, is this the team Portland dropped seven goals in far fewer months ago? Here’s my preview: throw your expectations out the window and just hope you enjoy it by the end.
Big picture, though, Sporting KC is closer to dead than nearly every team in MLS; only DC lingers closer to the grave. Very much related, I sat through the San Jose Earthquakes' 1-4 road loss at FC Dallas and I don’t know why. First, some framing:
“We should not feel bad about regaining our shape quickly and forcing them to lose the ball so we can transition quickly.”
- FC Dallas head coach, Nico Estevez
Matt Doyle read a little something into that – mostly through the result and not too deeply – but he still risked a one-game analysis with an argument, no matter how careful, that Dallas did something different in this game. And the very relevant counter-point to that is, or was it just playing San Jose (in Texas; so, yeah, he caveated the bejesus out of the point). That doesn’t erase the fact Dallas was up 3-0 by the 40th minute and that the biggest thing standing in their way to even that was their own inability to find the first pass out of the defense (and credit to the broadcast booth for catching it: “If you can’t connect that first pass, you can’t get out of that low-block defending”), but the brute reality is that San Jose has allowed the most goals of any team in MLS. That doesn’t mean Dallas has nothing to celebrate – the win bought them six points' worth of breathing room, for one, but the understanding of space and movement between Jesus Ferreira and Paul Arriola on Dallas’ third goal was actually impressive (if three bits lucky in the end) – but this game felt like the biggest waste of time for my own personal MLS Week 25....until I noticed that Dallas pulled out of its swoon that started at the end of the June break (circa June 19) with three wins in their past five (@ RSL, v LAG, and v SJ). Only one of those wins should impress anyone (away to RSL), but they’re all six-pointers.
That leaves just one more little-long-playing review: the Los Angeles Galaxy’s seemingly outta-nowhere 5-2 home-thrashing of the Vancouver Whitecaps. Tuning into this one tallied...at least until you realize that Vancouver’s mid-summer hot streak was more of a hot flash; they’ve won just once since July 9, which translates to a 1-3-3 and, four road games in there notwithstanding, against the kind of teams your team has to beat if it wants to go anywhere. This game ended shortly after it started (I heard something about Julian Gressel missing a sitter, even if I didn’t see it), but the Galaxy took over the game – and Vancouver let them have it, and I mean that – to the point where they went up 2-0. And then they went up 3-0, this despite the two whole minutes of pressure Vancouver applied in the five minutes before LA scored that third goal...which felt equal parts depressing and apt in context. Vancouver pulled back one freak goal, but LA slapped that down a literal minute or two later with the same kind of play that fucked up the Whitecaps back-line. And, in that sense, this game provided an answer to the question, is Vancouver a team that can fuck your team up? It looked even less likelier after this game than it did since July 9...and that applies to the Galaxy as well...just notlosing track of Samuel Grandsir at the back post goes a long way.
Unless I lost track of something (and fuck it if I did), that leaves only Nashville SC’s 1-2 home loss to Minnesota United FC and the Seattle Sounders' 1-2 loss to Real Salt Lake. First, both games are about the home teams. Even as I’ve moved to seeing Nashville’s inability to launch as something more predictable than it looked at the start of the season (and was it this week or last that I saw Gary (probably?) Smith lower expectations for his team?), both results track with where these teams seem to be right now, so what’s to analyze? Enjoy Sergio Cordova’s opening goal for RSL at Seattle, by all means (the right people will find it very, very funny), but this hands Seattle their seventh loss in 10 games (the other three are wins, huzzah!), and Nashville has just two wins in their past 10, and that’s with six games of four at home. To borrow one last quote from Doyle:
“Nashville created a ton of half-chances but don’t have the sort of attacking structure or talent to turn dynamic superiority into full, big chances.”
All in all, Week 25 dropped a couple hints that either real (e.g., Dallas should be all right, Montreal too; while RSL will fight any motherfucker who says they won’t be), or cautionary (e.g., wake up any fucking time, Portland and Cincy?!). We’ve reached that time in the season where marginal teams have to figure out how to jump to the right side of the margin....which makes the teams playing dead the ones that should worry you most.
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