MLS Week 21: On DPs, Foreign Players, MLS's Backbone...and Jurgen Klinsmann

Speaking of fucking legends.

Thanks to the Gold Cup, the domestic soccer week – Week 21, for those keeping track – overflows with talking points. Add all the transfers (which, full disclosure, I am barely tracking) and the most polite thing you can call me is desperately, graspingly behind. Which argues for an image of a behind being grasped desperately.

There is, however, one addition of which I'm proud: e.g. the new sidebar that transfers this site's disclosure as to how many times I've watched each and every Major League Soccer (MLS) club in action over a full 90 during the 2015 season. I'll update that every week rather than embedding it in these weekly posts.

As for the contents of the post itself, it's what it was last week: a shot (one big idea) backed by a six pack - e.g. six talking points – that came to me while watching the following games over Week 21:

FC Dallas v. Portland Timbers (already written up; sorta)
Chicago Fire v. New England Revolution
New York City FC v. Orlando City SC

Oh yeah, went East Coast-heavy this weekend. Also, given how late this is going up (my never-met goal is always Monday night), here's to hoping that the thoughts that came to me are random enough to be novel against the larger soccer backdrop...because what's the same shit worth if it's just later?

The Shot: My Kingdom, My Kingdom for Fine-Ass American Forwards!
Somewhere in the middle of Simon Borg's vast, broad tantrum about the Gold Cup semifinals, he did what a healthy number of American pundits do – e.g. more or less absolve Jurgen Klinsmann for his complete, utter, and wage-defying adequacy. In Borg's defense, though, he smuggled a pretty sharp observation into the conversation - specifically, he argued that anyone coaching the Yanquis (aka, the U.S. Men's National Team) will struggle due to the thin collection of quality forwards at his (and maybe, some day, her) disposal. His argument rounds out decently enough when one considers how many goals the aging Clint Dempsey scored for the U.S. during the just-past, little-mourned Gold Cup tournament – and, no, we're not counting the Cuba game, which was a goddamn free-for-all in which it's possible that I could have scored. OK, no, not me.

A History of Portland Timbers' Forwards, MLS Era

Open minded. Just want goals....

I coveteth a forward from another Major League Soccer club: Sporting Kansas City's Krisztian Nemeth. It started innocently enough, back in the pre-season, when he lit up a club or two in one of the ever-proliferating preseason tournaments. (sorry, no links; KC runs one of MLS’s limited website templates.) Coveting ripened to lust (bosom now heaving) when he put his foot up Chris Hedges' ass in KC's recent rout over FC Dallas (just, FYI, I'm down with master/slave stuff) and so his reputation grew, at least in my eyes. I dream of him winning the Golden Boot, MLS MVP, and possibly MLS Defender of the Year the way a pre-teen girl imagines Zayn Malik strolling into her bedroom. I mean, look at that sick little spin against Hedges (start watching at about 1:30 here). Totes dreamy!

Let's pause there, because I looked up Nemeth's numbers yesterday. They're solid, certainly, and they don’t capture the full scope of Nemeth’s contribution (he passes well, combines a little better, and, to borrow an Armchair Analyst favorite, he's developing reasonable gravity). That said, his level, at least in terms of raw numbers, should translate pretty readily for Portland Timbers fans: Nemeth is exactly one assist better than the oft-slagged Fanendo Adi. Both players have 6 goals; Nemeth just has two assists to Adi's one.

I lead this post on the Portland Timbers'....troubled? Allegedly troubled? Imperfect? A couple steps on the wrong side of paradise? At any rate, I entered into this exploration of the Timbers' history of signing forwards on the premise that none of them really panned out for Portland. But I lead with that note on Nemeth to acknowledge that perception, greed (for goals), and envy play some role in all this. (Also, just real quick: I had hoped to include some data from the USL/A-League days, but those are buried deeper in the internet than I'm willing to dig, at least while I’m on a self-imposed deadline. The only forward from those days who I remember by name is Fadi Afash. He was impressive, too, scoring 27 goals in 53 games for the USL Timbers...he, uh, also embezzled $138,000 from an elderly couple, which puts him squarely in the Timbers All-Time XI for non-violent criminals; um, back to regularly scheduled programming).