An MLS History Project, 2014: Of DPs and an Indifferent, Yet Angry Universe

I have my limits....

Several times in prior posts in this series, I’ve talked about Major League Soccer becoming the league it is today (e.g., 2020, only without COVID-19), with established rules and practices that carry over from year to year (I devoted a messy paragraph to this argument in my 2013 post). As I keep discovering, oh, every time I look to the next season (or five), that doesn’t hold up. There will always be the next stupid idea, another cheapening of the competitive structure that will devalue the regular season until the ice caps melt and we all drown. The circle of life, etc. Happily, we get relief from the worst ideas here and there and, the league did make one little big tweak to the rules of competition for the 2014 season and that one caught all of my eye:

“The first tiebreaker remains total wins, but the second and third tiebreakers have been swapped—goal difference is now second and goals scored is third.”

The first time I considered goal differential as (perhaps) a key tell for future success specifically in the MLS playoffs showed up in my post on the 2010 season. And, yes, this change feels like validation…which is why I assume it won’t last. All the same, when I finally wrap up 2019 season, I will create an index/summary post that links to all of this “history project” shit and tie it all together with some details that stand out. The goal differential thing will get explored, along with a number of others. There was one other tweak to the rules in 2014 – MLS decided that away goals would count a little more in the playoffs. And they would.

While some big shifts await – mostly thinking TAM and GAM, but also how the league managed the playoffs –2014 was a curious mix of old and new. On the “old” side, the Los Angeles Galaxy (again) battled the new-model New England Revolution (again) in an MLS Cup at the Galaxy’s home ground (again; 6th fucking time at that venue, people). Because the Seattle Sounders had been reliably good since joining the league in…wow, forgot already…2010(? nope, 2009), seeing them lift the 2014 Supporters’ Shield twists the “new” side of the above into another step toward Seattle’s eternally bright future…yeah, yeah, you can hate it, Portland Timbers fans, you just have to swallow the reality of it.

When Seattle won the Supporters' Shield, they pulled off their…shit, fourth or fifth trophy as an MLS team (the U.S. Open Cup ends before the playoffs, right? So, their first Shield was their 5th trophy) by running up the score all season long. The forward tandem of Obafemi Martins (17g, 13a) and Clint Dempsey (15g, 10a) did the heavy rowing to get them to 65 goals over the regular season. A couple teams kept up nicely – the Timbers among them (just four goals behind at 61), but the Los Angeles Galaxy makes the greater point of interest. They topped Seattle by four goals (69), and pulled a highly-similar trick with Robbie Keane (19g, 14a) and Landon Donovan (10g, 19a) leading the way. The difference was, those two made more players better than Dempsey and Martins: it starts with Gyasi Zardes hitting higher numbers than Lamar Neagle (16g, 2a for Zardes, 9g, 9a for Neagle), but it carried all the way down to about the 8th spot on the statistical ladder for the Galaxy. Still, in both cases, your better DPs raise all boats.

An MLS History Project, 2007: A Grand Re-Re-Re-Opening

All was right in New England the next season...

“The 2007 season was often cited as the first season in the modern-era of Major League Soccer.”

This claim is currently under investigation…but the phrasing begs a question: did another season replace this one as the season “often cited as the first season of the modern-era of Major League Soccer”? Also, is that hyphen necessary?

Grammatical/verb tense cheap shots aside (to think, what someone else could do with any of my posts), Major League Soccer saw a handful of changes going into the 2007 season that stake the claim. For one, MLS allowed jersey sponsors for the first time that season (one of the sponsors hints at what might have nudged them over the line: “The international recognized brand, Red Bull became the shirt sponsor of New York Red Bulls, whom they owned.”). The long, uneven path toward standing up an international club competition in the CONCACAF region got a boost as well; while they wouldn’t switch to the CONCACAF Champions League until the 2008 season, MLS and Liga MX ran the Superliga up the flagpole – and, holy shit, the New England Revolution won the 2008 edition, beating the Houston Dynamo on penalty kicks. Turns out pigs can fly, man…

…but if I had to name the one thing that finally made these regional tilts worth playing, I’d go with the magnificent duels Houston played against La Liga’s Pachuca CF. They played the first during the 2007 season, back when it remained the CONCACAF Champions Cup. Houston, those beautiful bastards made it possible to believe a North American team might one day one it all.

Two new soccer-specific stadiums opened – one of them hosting a new expansion team (welcome aboard, Toronto FC!); the other was the Colorado Rapids’ Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, aka, The Dick (tell me they still call it that) – and MLS made some tweaks to the rules of competition (again; more below), but it was the arrival of the designated-player (DP) rule that really puts a spine into that “first season in the modern-era of MLS” claim. I think just about everyone likely to find this lonely post knows how the DP rule works (short version: “permitting one big-ticket foreign player to play for each team without going against the team's salary cap”), but it’s fun to look at who showed up in that inaugural class:

Lucas Melano, and Why He's Wrong for MLS and the Timbers

Yes, Number 175. No, just Number 175.

Thought I'd try something different today; I mean as opposed to retching out every last thought I have on some aspect of the Portland Timbers' strengths, weaknesses, limitations, or awful goddamn haircuts (hey, at least we're better than the New England Revolution – e.g. Major League Soccer's #1 coiffurial shit-show), until I'm on the floor dry-heaving, I thought I'd try a genuinely single-subject(-ish) observation. I have dreams of going brief and more frequent, but that requires listening to the little boy who lives in my mouth (Randall*) when he tells me that, yes, I really can leave out that sentence I just fell in love with, or that paragraph that, for whatever reason, I that I think is the skeleton key that unlocks the Rosetta Stone (NOTE: not how that happened at all).

(*There's Judy, too, obviously. I'm just not sure who she is yet, or where she lives.)

At any rate, exploring a single topic today – e.g., how signing a player Lucas Melano doesn't make sense under the MLS salary model.

While this has been kicking around my head for a week or so, I'd like to begin by giving credit to this week’s Portland Timbros' podcast for refining the argument. The relevant part came with the discussion of how the presence designated player shapes, or even outright warps, the game-day roster. That part of the argument only hits my point on Melano sideways, but, y'know, credit where it's due.

I'd also like to make clear that nothing predictive, condemnatory (well, I'll be, that is a word) on Melano as a player informs this position. One of the first unwritten rules of MLS is that All Players Will Require Time to Adjust to MLS, for one, but there's the fact that he's young to boot (and eager and fine, like a two-year-old thoroughbred rattling the gates at the Breeders' Cup). I never expected greatness from Melano from the first touch (though, to be clear, I do appreciate the eagerness).

To disclose my honest opinion, yeah, in my book, Melano has underwhelmed. Kid looks choked up out there, uptight; he plays the game like he's got to take a shit for the full 90. Even so, I think he'll come good fairly early in 2016. This assumes he comes good at all. He better come good, goddammit; in MLS terms, $5 million is pre-market-bust-level leverage. And, yet, it's not just the money. I'm thrilled to see the Timbers spend big (and let the record show that I just stifled a metaphor). If not that, then what?

MLS Week 26 Review/Week 27 Preview, Plus: Best & Worst DPs And...9 Quick, Hot Takes

Official Conifers & Citrus icon...in spite of what some memories I note below.

(Posting late again. I know, Judy. I know. Next week. Or maybe the week after. I know you can't stop it, Judy, but can you make it slow down?)

Time to slip out of the small, scenic pond where the Portland Timbers reside (Lake Oswego?) and into the big, rollicking ocean that is Major League Soccer as a whole. While I'm still refining the format – and believe that this feature will be more fluid than fixed until 2016 – I do feel like I'm getting closer. At any rate, lots to get to below, which include:

1) The Review/Preview, the lede that looks both backward and forward at trends in MLS;
2) This week's feature on the best and worst in designated players for 2015; and
3) Takes, Quick and Hot, e.g. quick, (ideally) worthwhile thoughts about MLS teams, players and...or just me sharing my pulling out my next wild hair.

OK, that's it. Time to dig in.

Week 26 Review/Week 27 Preview
MLS stuffed a heavy work-week into Week 26, featuring 12 intra-league games in all. The general schedule piled on a few more games for MLS clubs, courtesy of the Canadian Championship (which ended in a comfortingly sensible manner) and the CONCACAF Champions' League (CCL). The overall set up asked more of some clubs than others and, to be fair, some held up better than others. The trickier issue comes with figuring out why.

Fatigue, or some version of it, offers up an obvious villain in all this. For instance, DC United could argue that all those midweek airplane miles combined with the New York Red Bulls to kick their ass last Sunday night. Sporting Kansas City could finger the same guy in the police line-up (still talking about fatigue) as the reason for their now-100% apparent slump, and so could the Montreal Impact, who also played two games in Week 26 and lost both - and Laurent Ciman, for a bit (and, it bears noting, they will play catch up the rest of the season). It's not a perfect excuse, though, as demonstrated by several examples, including the Colorado Rapids (played two, won two), or, to compare apples to apples, why not ask why the Seattle Sounders, a club that logged more miles than DC, came out with results that ran the opposite direction.