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| Hear ye! Hear ye! Don't sleep on the shitty teams! |
MLS Week 24 was a fun little fucker. That said, the following teams failed to have fun: DC United and Red Bull New York (tied 0-0), the Portland Timbers and FC Dallas (tied 1-1), with dishonorable mention going to Club du Foot Montreal and Inter Miami CF (tied 2-2; though credit to Miami for stealing two points and earning one). So little followed from all those results - i.e., the present fate of all concerned remains unchanged - that they're hardly worth commenting on.
That said, the last game doesn’t entirely belong with the two former – in his (far more thorough) weekly round-up, Matt Doyle took a dim view of DC v RBNY (“...it’s more interesting to talk about all that than to talk about this game, which was… not great. Yeesh”), and can confirm Portland v Dallas flirted with barely-watchable – but, commentary confirmed what I got out of a glimpse of Montreal v Miami, e.g., that Montreal owed the draw to a late (but apparently) rare brain-fart by their ‘keeper, James Pantemis. Moreover, even if they fell asleep this Saturday, Montreal have kept a playoff-worthy 5-3-2 record over their past 10 and they looked 10 points better than Miami; the same can't be said for the other five teams in the discussion. If anything, that draw trumpets a message to the rest of the league – which, some of them did not get: take no game for granted.
Turning, now, to the bright, shiny, record-breaking results and words I never thought I’d type....
After a ho-hum first half, FC Cincinnati straight-up took over the game against the Philadelphia Union coming out deserved 3-1 winners over the East’s (still) top team. Their big players (e.g., Brandon Vazquez, who got a freakin’ ode in Doyle’s column, and Luciano Acosta (see set up on 2nd goal)) delivered and an increasingly strong supporting cast (e.g., Brenner (see Lucho’s link) and Alvaro Barreal combined on goals that flayed Philadelphia’s league (again, still) league-best defense. I only tuned in for the best bits (aka, the 45th minute to the 80th), but FC Cincinnati 4.0 will score goals on your defense: if you pull the goal-less road game at Columbus Crew SC from the sample, Cincy hasn’t been shut out since mid(-fucking-)April. Philly stirred to life after Cincy’s second –i.e., pressing, forcing mistakes, creating chances, etc. - but the Orange and Blue managed it well enough. Cincinnati needed the win, obviously, and it shouldn’t blot out questions about all the draws that preceded it, but they’re over the playoff line and with one of the biggest obstacles to their first-ever post-season cleared. And Philly’s fine, of course. Every team has an off day...
Due to time constraints, I took long looks at just two more games – and, because they involved three of hotter teams in the league, I think I chose a couple good ones. To start with the (arguably) trickier result, I wouldn’t read volumes into Minnesota United FC’s narrow (3-4) loss at the Colorado Rapids. Their ‘keeper, Dane St. Clair, damn-near dug that four-goal hole all on his lonesome – seriously, it was one of the shittiest goalkeeping performance of the season and/or the foundation for Gyasi Zardes’ second-career hat trick - but they recovered from getting run over in the opening 15 minutes and clawed back to one goal down and, significantly, Minnesota did that with key pieces missing, e.g., Emmanuel Reynoso, Robin Lod, and Michael Boxall. Colorado still deserves credit – hat tricks don’t make themselves – and they pushed for their padding (aka, their fourth goal, another Zardes mop-up of a St. Clair screw-up) after Minnesota came within one. Colorado, who have been weird all season – or maybe just less sturdy defensively (they’ve allowed as many goals over 23 games this season than they did in all of 2021) – got really weird this week, i.e., the won back-to-back wild games (this one, plus the mid-week 5-4 scrap away to the Red Bulls). Dueling fuck-ups on corner kicks gifted the Loons two goals on Saturday and their ‘keeper, William Yarbrough, deserves a lot of credit for holding off (again) a short-handed Minnesota team. Bottom line, I’d call Minnesota fine till results prove otherwise and something's going on in Colorado, even if it’s not clear what. Oh, and if The Mothership’s game summary is to be believed, the Rapids lined up in a 4-1-4-1. Weird.
Week 24’s second featured game – Chicago Fire FC’s 3-2 road win at Charlotte FC – offers a more straightforward read: Chicago have started the back nine of the 2022 season strong. They have five wins in their past eight games – most of them against real, in-form opposition (then they go and lose at the San Jose Earthquakes and stumble against Atlanta United FC at home) – and that carried over against a decent Charlotte team on what looked like a drippy night. The win took recovering from a very early goal...and then shaking off a second ugly goal after a rare breakdown, but the Fire’s attack scrambled the bejesus out of Charlotte’s D to score their second and the fresh(/apparent?) combination between Xherdan Shaqiri and Kacper Przybylko handed them one ruthless counter, and it came within a post of handing them a second minutes later. All that, plus a 3.3 xG (to Charlotte’s 2.4), makes the case Chicago was good for the win. As I feared I might, I wrote them off too early (in this behemoth post).
It's all glimpses (aka, watching the highlights, reviewing recent form and box scores from here) and second-hand gossip from here and, with the good results for Cincinnati and Chicago duly noted, now seems like a good time to turn to the team that made room for them.
That said, the last game doesn’t entirely belong with the two former – in his (far more thorough) weekly round-up, Matt Doyle took a dim view of DC v RBNY (“...it’s more interesting to talk about all that than to talk about this game, which was… not great. Yeesh”), and can confirm Portland v Dallas flirted with barely-watchable – but, commentary confirmed what I got out of a glimpse of Montreal v Miami, e.g., that Montreal owed the draw to a late (but apparently) rare brain-fart by their ‘keeper, James Pantemis. Moreover, even if they fell asleep this Saturday, Montreal have kept a playoff-worthy 5-3-2 record over their past 10 and they looked 10 points better than Miami; the same can't be said for the other five teams in the discussion. If anything, that draw trumpets a message to the rest of the league – which, some of them did not get: take no game for granted.
Turning, now, to the bright, shiny, record-breaking results and words I never thought I’d type....
After a ho-hum first half, FC Cincinnati straight-up took over the game against the Philadelphia Union coming out deserved 3-1 winners over the East’s (still) top team. Their big players (e.g., Brandon Vazquez, who got a freakin’ ode in Doyle’s column, and Luciano Acosta (see set up on 2nd goal)) delivered and an increasingly strong supporting cast (e.g., Brenner (see Lucho’s link) and Alvaro Barreal combined on goals that flayed Philadelphia’s league (again, still) league-best defense. I only tuned in for the best bits (aka, the 45th minute to the 80th), but FC Cincinnati 4.0 will score goals on your defense: if you pull the goal-less road game at Columbus Crew SC from the sample, Cincy hasn’t been shut out since mid(-fucking-)April. Philly stirred to life after Cincy’s second –i.e., pressing, forcing mistakes, creating chances, etc. - but the Orange and Blue managed it well enough. Cincinnati needed the win, obviously, and it shouldn’t blot out questions about all the draws that preceded it, but they’re over the playoff line and with one of the biggest obstacles to their first-ever post-season cleared. And Philly’s fine, of course. Every team has an off day...
Due to time constraints, I took long looks at just two more games – and, because they involved three of hotter teams in the league, I think I chose a couple good ones. To start with the (arguably) trickier result, I wouldn’t read volumes into Minnesota United FC’s narrow (3-4) loss at the Colorado Rapids. Their ‘keeper, Dane St. Clair, damn-near dug that four-goal hole all on his lonesome – seriously, it was one of the shittiest goalkeeping performance of the season and/or the foundation for Gyasi Zardes’ second-career hat trick - but they recovered from getting run over in the opening 15 minutes and clawed back to one goal down and, significantly, Minnesota did that with key pieces missing, e.g., Emmanuel Reynoso, Robin Lod, and Michael Boxall. Colorado still deserves credit – hat tricks don’t make themselves – and they pushed for their padding (aka, their fourth goal, another Zardes mop-up of a St. Clair screw-up) after Minnesota came within one. Colorado, who have been weird all season – or maybe just less sturdy defensively (they’ve allowed as many goals over 23 games this season than they did in all of 2021) – got really weird this week, i.e., the won back-to-back wild games (this one, plus the mid-week 5-4 scrap away to the Red Bulls). Dueling fuck-ups on corner kicks gifted the Loons two goals on Saturday and their ‘keeper, William Yarbrough, deserves a lot of credit for holding off (again) a short-handed Minnesota team. Bottom line, I’d call Minnesota fine till results prove otherwise and something's going on in Colorado, even if it’s not clear what. Oh, and if The Mothership’s game summary is to be believed, the Rapids lined up in a 4-1-4-1. Weird.
Week 24’s second featured game – Chicago Fire FC’s 3-2 road win at Charlotte FC – offers a more straightforward read: Chicago have started the back nine of the 2022 season strong. They have five wins in their past eight games – most of them against real, in-form opposition (then they go and lose at the San Jose Earthquakes and stumble against Atlanta United FC at home) – and that carried over against a decent Charlotte team on what looked like a drippy night. The win took recovering from a very early goal...and then shaking off a second ugly goal after a rare breakdown, but the Fire’s attack scrambled the bejesus out of Charlotte’s D to score their second and the fresh(/apparent?) combination between Xherdan Shaqiri and Kacper Przybylko handed them one ruthless counter, and it came within a post of handing them a second minutes later. All that, plus a 3.3 xG (to Charlotte’s 2.4), makes the case Chicago was good for the win. As I feared I might, I wrote them off too early (in this behemoth post).
It's all glimpses (aka, watching the highlights, reviewing recent form and box scores from here) and second-hand gossip from here and, with the good results for Cincinnati and Chicago duly noted, now seems like a good time to turn to the team that made room for them.
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| Orlando and the Galaxy: the Plan for 2022? |
Orlando City SC haven’t been good lately (2-5-3 in their last 10) and they didn’t look any better in a 0-3 loss at home to the...let’s call them improving New England Revolution. Orlando had a couple quality chances, but their defense stepped too high (I mean to the point of clearing out the penalty area) on two of the Revs’ goals, and Henry Kessler’s third goal scrubbed out the two chances. New England is hardly firing on all cylinders (3-2-5 in last 10), but they managed three straight clean sheets and had some familiar names missing in this one (e.g., Bou, Vrioni).
To wrap up the East, Columbus picked up an open-paper win (nearly) as impressive as Cincinnati’s with a 3-2 home win over New York City FC (“nearly,” because Doyle has doubts about NYCFC). Based on what I saw, the visitors were fortunate to get their two goals (both deflected) and I’ll leave it to Doyle to sum up what’s going right for Columbus:
“Cucho [Hernandez]’s got five goals in his six appearances, and [Lucas] Zelarayan has assisted on four of them. Zelarayan himself has six total assists in those six games to go with four goals of his own, and is maybe working his way into the MVP discussion at least a little bit?”
The Crew remain on the wrong side of the goals scored average (34.4, and they have 31) and they’re still fairly up-and-down (4-5-1 in their last 10), but, as with Cincy, this win clears an obstacle on the way to the post-season. It also keeps them ahead of Cincy and Chicago.
Week 24 featured two inter-Conference games and a pair of unlikely teams won it for the East. Saturday’s first game saw Atlanta beat the stumbling Sounders 2-1 at home and/or the death with an Andrew Gutman bomb, but the thing that stood out for me in the highlights: the mutual exasperation among Seattle’s players (more, please). Later in the day, a legit struggling Nashville SC (2-4-4 in their last 10, with zero Ws in their past five) coughed up four goals to Toronto FC in a 3-4 home loss. The visitors didn’t create a ton – though Lorenzo Insigne did conjure a thing of beauty – but the box score points to an efficient game and Nashville needed a lucky penalty just to stay in it. Nashville’s still above the line – courtesy of Cascadia’s collective 2022 stumbles, plus one more thing I’ll touch on below – and the rest of the chasing pack ain’t exactly sprinting, but a team can only slip for so long, amirite?
As with Orlando in the East, the Los Angeles Galaxy’s fall has cleared a lane for teams to overtake (e.g., Seattle and Portland...somehow) and stay (Nashville) above them. Sporting Kansas City deserves credit for their 4-2 home win – and new kids William Agada scored a brace and Eric Thommy tidily finished a great move for SKC’s opener – but the Galaxy was three goals in the hole by the time they woke up...after the 80th minute. Chicharito scored a very Chicharito goal, but the Galaxy need reinforcements yesterday (and they do have a pair in the chamber).
The best teams in the West had different weekends. Austin FC couldn’t shake off a San Jose Earthquakes team that ultimately ran them down for a 3-3 draw in Austin – though, based on a stray comment from the broadcast booth, San Jose has a history of flummoxing Austin – in which the teams traded at least one ugly goal each (though San Jose’s Paul Marie scored one of the weekend’s screamers). Austin’s still on track overall – 6-1-3 over their past 10 games – but they’re just 1-1-2 in their past four and one loss (3-4 at home to RBNY) and one draw (the one I'm picking through right now) looked wholly winnable on paper. Then again, I spent half the season writing off Austin and there they are way up there.
Turning finally to the blind-spot that continually tells me to look at other stuff, aka, Los Angeles FC, they gave hosts Real Salt Lake a 4-1 kicking at Rio Tinto. Gareth Bale’s late, largely irrelevant goal got the most copy (because, of course it did; not linking to it, either), but Cristian Arango did more for the cause with a brace that included my personal Goal of the Week (inventive!). The reason I haven’t really watched LAFC all season is that they keep on keeping on – and at a sprint. They’re 8-1-1 over their past 10 games, most of them credible (the freak 0-1 loss at the Vancouver Whitecaps is the outlier) and, close as a couple teams have come, no one matches LAFC for consistency.
That’s pretty much it. I skipped past Vancouver’s Friday win over Houston Dynamo FC – a win Doyle puts down to getting starters back from health and safety protocols, on top of Houston’s apparent early demise – and ignored most of the midweek games due to time constraints, but this is the state of play as I see it. Till next Monday...
To wrap up the East, Columbus picked up an open-paper win (nearly) as impressive as Cincinnati’s with a 3-2 home win over New York City FC (“nearly,” because Doyle has doubts about NYCFC). Based on what I saw, the visitors were fortunate to get their two goals (both deflected) and I’ll leave it to Doyle to sum up what’s going right for Columbus:
“Cucho [Hernandez]’s got five goals in his six appearances, and [Lucas] Zelarayan has assisted on four of them. Zelarayan himself has six total assists in those six games to go with four goals of his own, and is maybe working his way into the MVP discussion at least a little bit?”
The Crew remain on the wrong side of the goals scored average (34.4, and they have 31) and they’re still fairly up-and-down (4-5-1 in their last 10), but, as with Cincy, this win clears an obstacle on the way to the post-season. It also keeps them ahead of Cincy and Chicago.
Week 24 featured two inter-Conference games and a pair of unlikely teams won it for the East. Saturday’s first game saw Atlanta beat the stumbling Sounders 2-1 at home and/or the death with an Andrew Gutman bomb, but the thing that stood out for me in the highlights: the mutual exasperation among Seattle’s players (more, please). Later in the day, a legit struggling Nashville SC (2-4-4 in their last 10, with zero Ws in their past five) coughed up four goals to Toronto FC in a 3-4 home loss. The visitors didn’t create a ton – though Lorenzo Insigne did conjure a thing of beauty – but the box score points to an efficient game and Nashville needed a lucky penalty just to stay in it. Nashville’s still above the line – courtesy of Cascadia’s collective 2022 stumbles, plus one more thing I’ll touch on below – and the rest of the chasing pack ain’t exactly sprinting, but a team can only slip for so long, amirite?
As with Orlando in the East, the Los Angeles Galaxy’s fall has cleared a lane for teams to overtake (e.g., Seattle and Portland...somehow) and stay (Nashville) above them. Sporting Kansas City deserves credit for their 4-2 home win – and new kids William Agada scored a brace and Eric Thommy tidily finished a great move for SKC’s opener – but the Galaxy was three goals in the hole by the time they woke up...after the 80th minute. Chicharito scored a very Chicharito goal, but the Galaxy need reinforcements yesterday (and they do have a pair in the chamber).
The best teams in the West had different weekends. Austin FC couldn’t shake off a San Jose Earthquakes team that ultimately ran them down for a 3-3 draw in Austin – though, based on a stray comment from the broadcast booth, San Jose has a history of flummoxing Austin – in which the teams traded at least one ugly goal each (though San Jose’s Paul Marie scored one of the weekend’s screamers). Austin’s still on track overall – 6-1-3 over their past 10 games – but they’re just 1-1-2 in their past four and one loss (3-4 at home to RBNY) and one draw (the one I'm picking through right now) looked wholly winnable on paper. Then again, I spent half the season writing off Austin and there they are way up there.
Turning finally to the blind-spot that continually tells me to look at other stuff, aka, Los Angeles FC, they gave hosts Real Salt Lake a 4-1 kicking at Rio Tinto. Gareth Bale’s late, largely irrelevant goal got the most copy (because, of course it did; not linking to it, either), but Cristian Arango did more for the cause with a brace that included my personal Goal of the Week (inventive!). The reason I haven’t really watched LAFC all season is that they keep on keeping on – and at a sprint. They’re 8-1-1 over their past 10 games, most of them credible (the freak 0-1 loss at the Vancouver Whitecaps is the outlier) and, close as a couple teams have come, no one matches LAFC for consistency.
That’s pretty much it. I skipped past Vancouver’s Friday win over Houston Dynamo FC – a win Doyle puts down to getting starters back from health and safety protocols, on top of Houston’s apparent early demise – and ignored most of the midweek games due to time constraints, but this is the state of play as I see it. Till next Monday...
The story arc of your Cincy team has a Rocky feel to it this season. The truly awful times may be over. Good for them.
ReplyDeleteThe story arc of our Timbers is maybe a tale of tribulation, vague disappointment and dim prospects where we slump on our butts at the end and say, "I'm finished." Or not, and we make everyone crazy with an improbable ending. That tie with Dallas had some really flat moments until the plot twists at the end.
My main thought is that I wrote the Timbers off in 2015, 2018, and 2021...
ReplyDeleteAnd the Cincy thing is just plain weird.