MLS Weakly, 04 12 2022: Notes, Factoids and Projections, Now in a New, Improved Format(!)

And I go back to the old framing...

The good news, I’m getting closer on how I want these Weakly Reviews to look with each passing week. Related thereto, I figured out how to get my eyes on more teams/games every week, but, because it’s blindingly fucking obvious, I’m not going to say what it is. Instead, I’ll just slip it into the copy quietly, as if it was something I’ve been doing all along.

I will, however, tell you what it is not only not helping the mission, but that is openly mocking it: The Mothership finally churned out a deluge on MLS in 15 clips for the past weekend. Sadly, literally all of them are highlights from MLS NextPro games, a league that, as much as I’d love to follow it…just, when. Now, the review…

To take a step back and drink it in, a couple things stand out when you look at the standings after Major League Soccer’s Week 6. To give the short form, they’re upside down. For instance, you’ve got last year’s Supporters’ Shield winner (the New England Revolution) and last year’s MLS Cup winner (New York City FC) staggering back at 12th and 13th in the Eastern Conference and with only Inter Miami CF to save them from early ignominy. Meanwhile, over in the Western Conference, those standings are literally 100% inverted from the final standings in 2021, with the California and Texas teams holding five of the top six spots and the Cascadia teams (et. al.) holding them up from below.

Week 6 continued that trend, for the most part. Here’s a run-down of the results, starting with the results you can safely ignore (links to The Mothership’s game summaries are embedded in each final score):

Orlando City SC 1-0 Chicago Fire FC
Philadelphia Union 1-0 Columbus Crew SC
Houston Dynamo FC 4-3 San Jose Earthquakes
Sporting Kansas City 1-2 Nashville SC
Vancouver Whitecaps FC 2-3 Portland Timbers (I also have extended notes on this)

As you’ll see in the last section of this review, saying one can ignore a result isn’t the same as saying it doesn’t matter - e.g., that Philly’s rolling matters quite a bit, as does the reality that SKC can neither get their collective shoes on nor find the field. Also, Houston’s win over San Jose was wild and ugly, closer to drunken mud wrestling than soccer (I watched a fair chunk of that one, for the record and/or research).

Moving on, now, to the results that did matter, with quick notes on each.

MLS Weakly, Week 6: Introducing Results Rankings (TM!) & Games that Don't Count

If you can see where I'm going, I've got it.

You won’t believe this, but I've come up with a concept! It’s pretty damn hack, but it’s also completely consistent with what still strikes me as the best way to get the best possible pulse on trends in MLS. Ladies, gentlemen, boys and girls: I give you:

Results Rankings (yes, the rare, all-the font adjustment effects)

Imperfect as every other ranking system, but with one foot at least on something as final and intangible as a final score: how do you beat that...I mean, without watching...just so much fucking soccer? I drop in notes on…sigh, literally every game (plz. halp) below and organize them according to how significant or important they seem to me. Full disclosure, I only watch two games every week, but I sit through as many condensed games as I care about and look at stats and highlights on the rest; for branding purposes, I call the condensed game/stats review the “Silver Service Review.” Only three didn’t get a Silver Service Review this week - e.g., the ones at the very end (call it the copper review, and don’t capitalize that garbage) - and for the reason above: they don’t feel important, so why get too hung-up on what happened or why? At this point in the season, that making that call turns on two things:

1) was the result more or less entirely expected; and
2) it involved two more or less irrelevant teams.

There might be other kinds of nothing games out there - who knows? - but those are the only two that come to me right now. Also, I expect the Type 2 games (please excuse the phrasing) to make it easier to skip more games as the season goes on, but, when you’re compulsive, you’re compulsive. At any rate, here’s how I saw the results from Week 6 stack up in order of importance. Oh, and I'll link to the odd important video or detail, but, when I don't, I expect people who feel like they need more to click the link under each score and sort out what I missed on his/her own. Moving on:

New York City FC 1-2 Columbus Crew SC
On the one hand, don’t read too much into this result: by everything I saw and stared at, NYCFC should have gone up 2-0 in the first half. Valentin Castellanos looked active and stressful and did good things, including set up the first goal. Despite finding good openings, Les Pigeons looked a little hasty out there tonight (they forced shit too much). On the other hand, how well does a team need to play if Lucas Zelarayan can hit a free-kick so unstoppably sweetly? (Related/unrelated, the knuckling on his first goal must have been vicious.). I called this “a statement game” for NYCFC in my preview thread and, for as well as they played, they failed to finish the thought. Columbus isn’t out of the hole by any means, but three big points against the competition always rates.