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| EXTREME Seal Experience was the best I could do... |
Between nearly every team in Major League Soccer having five to six games in the bank (Don's Golden Boys, Miami, have seven), a week off coming up for me, and another so-so self-destructive game by my Portland Timbers this past weekend (and should that read “so, so destructive” or “so-so, destructive”?), I’ve decided to use this Week 6 review to take stock of where things are all round. As for the point of it all, it comes from a thought exercise around where Portland fits into the big picture of the Western Conference – i.e., how much room for experimentation/failure they’ve got. The same exercise should work the same for your local team, too, so I went nuts and fleshed out some data for the Eastern Conference as well.
I think the format and information speaks for itself. Every team in the league is listed below and blurbed over in the order of the present standings, along with their record and top-level statistics. The next line talks about how closely I’ve watched the given team this season – there, G = watching a 50+ minutes of a game plus checking the box score and H = reviewing the highlights and checking the box score – and, as you’ll see, I ignore multiple games entirely (they’re not paying me, I’m getting too old for this shit; now picture me swinging on a vine with an explosion in the background). The final section in each blurb gives a vague, overall impression of the team I’m what I’m basing it on.
With that, time to dig in, starting with the…
Western Conference
1st - Los Angeles Galaxy
Facts: 12 pts., 3-0-3, 13 gf, 9 ga (+4), Home 1-0-2, Away 2-0-1
How Well I Know Them: HGHGG (i.e., two highlights reviews and three game reviews)
The Overall Impression: Balanced, capable, and they’ve got a third-hand kind of attack to throw the punch you can’t see coming: everything I’ve seen and read treats the Galaxy as legit. To anyone arguing they haven’t played a tough schedule, I’d counter with everything looks tough to a team that’s missed the playoffs four of the past six seasons. Barring traumatic injury [Ed. – NOTE: Read this though into literally every entry below.], the Galaxy may not finish this high, but they look like a great bet to finish high – i.e., the top 3.
2nd - Vancouver Whitecaps
Facts: 10 pts., 3-1-1, 10 gf, 6a (+4), Home 1-1-1, Away, 2-0-0
How Well I Know Them: HGG (i.e., one highlight review, two games; last reminder)
The Overall Impression: Sturdy as they are, I just don’t see the ‘Caps staying this high. Most of their wins came against bad (e.g., San Jose and Dallas) to wobbly (Portland) teams and, now that I’ve watched them fold against RSL and almost do the same against the Timbers before yanking three points out of their asses at the death…I don’t see the firepower to keep them this high. As for how that pencils out over an entire season? Can’t tell ya. What I can say is that Vancouver’s history isn’t on their side: they’ve missed the playoffs more often than they’ve made them over the past six seasons and have backed in when they’ve made them.
3rd - Real Salt Lake
Facts: 10 pts., 3-2-1, 10 gf, 7a (+3), Home 2-1-0, Away, 1-1-1
How Well I Know Them: GHHGG, so a pretty good handle on them
The Overall Impression: The past two wins make their snowy Week 3 win over LAFC look less like a fluke than it did at the time. Add the fact they’ve looked as good or better than the opposition every time I’ve watched them have me reading RSL’s Version 2024 as a Top 5 team in the West. Between a good roster and a level of buy-in that elevates it, this could be this season’s small-market miracle. And yet…
4th - Minnesota United FC
Facts: 10 pts., 3-1-1, 8gf, 6 ga (+2), Home 1-0-1. Away, 2-1-0
How Well I Know Them: GHGG, aka, better than most
The Overall Impression: This weekend’s road loss at Philly sucked some wind out of a glorious start, but the Loons count as another surprise team in this young season. They’ve looked poised, competitive and incisive in every game I’ve watched. They’ve done it all against “real” teams and, early in the season, with a couple key absences. Onboarding a new coach could cause some disruption, but I’m comfortable calling Minnesota playoff steady, even this early.
5th - Houston Dynamo FC
Facts: 10 pts., 3-1-1, 6gf, 4 ga (+2), Home 2-1-1, Away, 1-0-0
How Well I Know Them: GGG, about 50%
The Overall Impression: A Ben Olsen (aka, boring) team that’s just getting back its highest-upside player(s) – e.g., Hector Herrera (and Sebastian Ferreira, apparently). They followed a half-lucky win against the Timbers with wins against…in fairness, not great teams like Colorado and San Jose. I’d bet my actual house that they can’t win a trophy this season, but I expect them to return to the 2024 post-season as one of those competent teams with just enough to sneak one past.
6th- Sporting Kansas City
Facts: 9 pts., 2-1-3, 9gf, 7a (+2), Home 1-1-1. Away, 1-0-2
How Well I Know Them: HHG
The Overall Impression: The road win over Toronto, which I did not watch, impressed me. Dropping three on a team that had only given up two goals has everything to do with it…but this team still presents as middle-aged in 90% sense of that word. They may or may not make the playoffs, but they also don’t track as an easy out – as demonstrated by the three tough draws that started their season (@ HOU, v PHI, @ LAFC). Think of them as the first, unmistakable step into the mushy middle of the Western Conference.
7th - Colorado Rapids
Facts: 8 pts., 2-2-2, 8 gf, 10 ga (-2), Home 1-1-1, Away, 1-1-1
How Well I Know Them: GG
The Overall Impression: I’ll start with a pair of confessions: I almost certainly saw them at the worst they’ve been all season (i.e., the 1-4 loss at Portland in Week 1), but I also see two eye-catching wins – e.g., at RSL and, last weekend, v LAFC. For all my doubts about the roster, and knowing they don’t have a ghost’s chance in Hell of competing for silverware, continuing the kinds of results they’ve had so far should get them in the playoffs. Which matters because…
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| Things have been better. |
Facts: 7 pts., 2-3-1, 11 gf, 11 ga (0), Home 1-1-1, Away 1-2-0
How Well I Know Them: Intimately. Like we’re married – and all that implies.
The Overall Impression: In case it’s not clear by now, this entire project seeks to answer the singular question of how much room the Timbers have to fuck up. Which they are presently testing. Once it’s up, this will be a link to my longer notes on this whole thing.
9th - Los Angeles FC
Facts: 7 pts., 2-3-1, 9gf, 9ga (0), Home 2-0-1, Away 0-3-0
How Well I Know Them: GHGG, aka, I'm giving them a chance to impress me.
The Overall Impression: The crap road record jumps out (zero wins, baby!), of course, and I would have put some of that down to playing tough venues (at RSL and Minnesota), but then they went and lost at the Rapids; at some point, the manner of a loss matters less than the fact of it. Throw in the goal-less, reportedly toothless, draw at home against SKC and you get an unfamiliar sense of fragility in a team that has strutted through most of its seasons since joining MLS. Unless they reload at some point, I don’t know where to place this team.
10th - St. Louis CITY FC
Facts: 7 pts, 1-1-4, 11 fa, 11 ga (0), Home 1-0-2, Away 0-1-2
How Well I Know Them: HGHGH, huh, better than I thought.
The Overall Impression: Full disclosure: pressing teams may win more than they lose – a lot more, with the right mix of players - I haven’t seen anything in MLS to make me trust it as a trophy-winner. [NOTE: I don’t track the global game. I have a family and books] As shown by their first, plain-jane-average six results St. Louis have their share of battling draws. That’s good for 10th, as it happens, and tracks with a loose impression this would regress.
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| Be the woman doing the splits, Portland. |
Facts: 6 pts., 1-2-3, 7 gf, 9 ga (-2), Home 1-1-2, Away 0-1-1
How Well I Know Them: GHH, barely.
The Overall Impression: The only pundit I read pointed the Wooden Spoon at them and that feels like smart money to me. They’ve looked scrambled and loose on both sides of ball every time I’ve watched them. I also have this vague idea that they have limited-to-zero capacity to improve the roster. These are the kinds of teams you want beneath you.
12th - FC Dallas
Facts: 3 pts., 1-4-0, 6 gf, 10 ga (-4); Home 1-2-0, Away 0-2-0
How Well I Know Them: HGHG, better than I should.
The Overall Impression: First, how the hell have I put that much time into 12th place team? Answer: I sincerely thought they’d hover in the top 5. Meanwhile, back in 2024, Dallas has played a schedule (v MTL, @ RBNY, v VAN, @ ATX) that a good team would spin into at least four more points. One thing that stood out when I’ve watched was an offense that created more half-wild half-chances than anything else. Ah, and here comes Paxton Pomykal’s semi-annual surgery…
13th - San Jose Earthquakes
Facts: 3 pts., 1-5-0, 7gf, 13 ga (-6), Home 1-2-0, Away 0-3-0
How Well I Know Them: HGHHH, ships passing in the night.
The Overall Impression: What can you call them but a bad team and go-to punching bag for points for the rest of the league? The glimpses/li’l flashes of leg I saw in them in the middle of last season evaporated against the numbing, present weight of San Jose’s early returns. And, now, the punch-line.
14th - Seattle Sounders
Facts: 2 pts., 0-3-2, 4gf, 7a (-3), Home 0-0-2, Away 0-3-0
How Well I Know Them: GH (in all honesty, I heard they suck and that was enough)
The Overall Impression: Bluntly, not worth the attention until they start doing anything of interest/besides losing. Those league-low scoring numbers speak to that issue as well as the larger one. One detail sums it up nicely: Seattle bagged just two points from this run of games: v ATX, v COL, @ SJ. If any team will rise, yadda, yadda, yadda, but the Sounders are just bad right now.
Eastern Conference
1st - FC Cincinnati
Facts: 12 pts., 3-0-3, 6 gf, 3 ga (+3), Home 1-0-2, Away2-0-1
How Well I Know Them: GHH, it's okay, I have memories from a long-term relationship.
The Overall Impression: I know. And, yes, I do feel like a traitor up to the point I realize it’s them, not me. Cincy looks like a bad spin on last season’s edition: a low-scoring team with a defensive rock behind it. When most games end with Cincy winning by a single Luciano Acosta goal, the sense of watching the same game wears you down a bit.
2nd - Inter Miami CF
Facts: 11 pts., 3-2-2, 14 gf, 10 ga (+4), Home 2-1-1, Away 1-1-1
How Well I Know Them: GHGHHH, they tell me to watch, I do, etc.
The Overall Impression: If I’m being totally honest, I do believe MLS’s on-air talent is contractually-obligated to hype Miami. For all that, someone somewhere made the wholly salient case that Miami can hold Messi & Friends for the playoffs in loosely-match-fit reserve, so long as the rest of the team can keep them above the playoff line. They have a little trouble on the points-per-game level, in that six teams could leap-frog them in the standings if they win and Miami loses – and that set of teams goes all the way down to 8th in the East. Because all of the relevant permutations can’t be played, Miami can’t sink that low. Still, I’d be stunned, not to mention profoundly amused, if they miss the playoffs and you really can see them running that like they ran the Leagues Cup last season. I think the rest of the team is up for it.
3rd - Columbus Crew SC
Facts: 11 pts., 3-1-2, 9gf, 6a (+3), Home 3-0-0, Away 0-1-2
How Well I Know Them: HHHHH, at a glance.
The Overall Impression: A little like Cincy, if more entertaining. Columbus will make the post-season, they’ll almost certainly remain relevant to the end of 2024. There’s too much talent and rhythm in this team for anything else.
4th - Red Bull New York
Facts: 11 pts., 3-1-2, 9 gf, 6 ga (+3), Home 2-0-0, Away 1-1-2
How Well I Know Them: GHHH, I mean, don't you feel like you know them already?
The Overall Impression: Think of it as same thing, different season, plus Lewis Morgan, Emil Forsberg, and Dante Vanzeir, apparently. I don’t know what to call what they’ve done so far besides working pretty damn well – also, please note they’ve played twice as many games on the road. Full disclosure: The abiding affection I have for their 2010s teams have conditioned me to where I would love to see a good Red Bull team win an MLS Cup, so I’m a little in the tank here.
5th - Toronto FC
Facts: 10 pts., 3-2-1, 6 gf, 5 ga (+1), Home 2-1-0, Away 1-1-1
How Well I Know Them: HHHG, if they scored more, I'd watch more
The Overall Impression: When news of Lorenzo Insigne’s signing came in, I doubt anyone thought Toronto’s defense would carry a team he starred on, but here we are – oh, and he’s out for at least six weeks. Still, a good defense goes a long way, certainly far enough to wait for Insigne’s return. I’m not 100%-clear they need him, but this bowel-obstruction of a team needs someone to show up on the attacking end if they hope to aim any higher.
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| Like this beautiful man... |
Facts: 9 pts., 3-1-1, 9gf, 4 ga (+5), Home 3-0-0, Away 0-2-0
How Well I Know Them: HGHG, i.e., they're a mild obsession
The Overall Impression: One of my greatest fascinations and one of the bigger mysteries of this young 2024 season. They have plenty of weapons, they look good and smart on TV and, at the end of it all, they’re three points off first place…and yet, watching that loss at Toronto made an impression. They’re perfect at home, killing one reputation at a time – New England, Orlando, then Chicago – but road wins, not just points, have to follow if they hope to rise.
7th - Philadelphia Union
Facts: 9 pts., 2-0-3, 10 gf, 6 ga (+4), Home 1-0-1, Away 1-0-2
How Well I Know Them: HHG, from the wrong side of an ass-whuppin'
The Overall Impression: I made some joke about a “sleeping giant” in my preview to what became the Union’s rout of the Timbers. The Union followed that up with a home win over a hot-‘n’-spicy Minnesota team and, would you look at that, they haven’t lost yet this season – and while competing in the CONCACAF Champions’ Cup. I don’t have a firm sense of where they go from here and I don’t know where or how Philly fits into the ceiling above them, but I do expect them to get up in it.
8th- DC United
Facts: 9 pts., 2-1-3, 9 gf, 8 ga (+1), Home 2-1-0, Away 0-0-3
How Well I Know Them: GGHH...we dated in high school?
The Overall Impression: A nightmare to play against and with a dangerous, good-sized forward (Christian Benteke) running loose up top, I expect them to compete in every game until heat waves or injury knocks them off stride. I think DC will spend the season yo-yoing up and down the middle of the standings and I’ll eat the stretchy shorts I’m wearing right now – no washing allowed - if they miss the playoffs. Where they’ll fall at the first or second hurdle.
9th - Charlotte FC
Facts: 8 pts., 2-2-2, 6 gf, 5 ga (+1), Home 2-0-1, Away 0-2-1
How Well I Know Them: HHHH, and this is despite their alleged surprise start. See below....
The Overall Impression: Only now do I understand how weird it was to hear people talk about Charlotte as some kind of surprise. 9th in the East is their fucking jam, if with a worse goal differential in over their past two (and only) seasons. A fair chunk of their success follows from being a tough nut to crack – which, again, goes a long way.
10th - Club du Foot Montreal
Facts: 7 pts., 2-2-1, 8 gf, 8 ga (0), Home 0-0-0, Away 2-2-1
How Well I Know Them: GHG, and I should probably try to bone up on this team.
The Overall Impression: I have an actually incredible knack for catching Montreal at their worst. On the one hand, I don’t rate them highly as a result and here they sit in 10th place. On the other, they have yet to play a home game in 2024 – they play their first v Cincinnati on April 13 ( those tend to be fun(!), chaotic messes, btw) – and 10th doesn’t look so bad when you’re one win from as high as 6th place after all those road games. To be clear, this blurb's more about noting the potential than predicting the future.
11th - Nashville SC
Facts: 7 pts., 1-1-4, 7 gf, 11 ga (-4), Home 1-0-3, Away 0-1-1
How Well I Know Them: HHG
The Overall Impression: While’s there’s no question I saw Nashville at their worst (i.e., LAFC handing them their asses five times over) and that one bad loss muddled their numbers, their slow start folds into a history of trying to squeeze too much out of thin margins and a kind of insignificant consistency. A game or three without Walker Zimmerman will always hurt, but the issues start with a limited roster build.
12th - Chicago Fire FC
Facts: 5 pts., 1-3-2, 9 gf, 13 ga (-3), Home 1-1-0, Away 0-2-2
How Well I Know Them: HGHGG, i.e., inappropriately well.
The Overall Impression: I think I’m finally done obsessing over this team. Valiantly as they’ve played in every game I’ve watched, the way they keep ending up on the wrong end of results tells you what you need to know about the Fire.
13th - Orlando City SC
Facts: 5 pts., 1-3-2, 5 gf, 11 ga (-6), Home 1-1-2. Away 0-2-0
How Well I Know Them: GGHH, which, here, means, look, I've given them a shot.
The Overall Impression: Just when they seem poised for a strong season, Orlando does….this. It’s hard to miss the problem (scoring), and a blowout at Miami put a dent in their goal differential, but they seem to have returned to a bad habit of over-elaborating on the attacking end.
14th - New York City FC
Facts: 4 pts., 1-4-1, 4 gf, 8 ga (-4), Home 1-1-0, Away 0-3-1
How Well I Know Them: HGGHH
The Overall Impression: They finally took the good and wise step of relieving Nick Cushing of his duties, so maybe there’s a resurrection a-comin’. Going the other way, I don’t see many observers spying one on the horizon. It'd be one thing if they had some proven players and far, far fewer visibly better and more complete teams to play through up above, but NYCFC feels like a team in need of a fairly thorough rebuild. If a coach can fix it, hats off to him. Going back to the Chanot/Callens days would go a long way.
15th - New England Revolution
Facts: 1 pt., 0-4-1, 4gf, 11 ga (-7), Home 0-2-1, Away 0-2-0
How Well I Know Them: GHGHG, on the level of a penitent.
The Overall Impression: No matter how much the symptoms look the same, some distance separates the standard CONCACAF Champions’ Cup curse from...let's go with sucking. One point from three home games and a kind of devastated funk to them: as with every team in the dregs of the East, a failure to score feels like the common thread. They’ve looked good and competitive every time I've watched, which would matter, except…well, there Timmy sits, at the bottom of the well.
Till the next post...
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