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| So, you think you can suck as bad, Philadelphia? |
I'm going to start this week with a point of complaint against the MLSSoccer.com website – aka, The Mothership, as I'm fond of calling it.
For the past several seasons, Major League Soccer (MLS) really outdid themselves by providing highlight reels that generally ran seven or eight minutes. No, it's not remotely comparable to watching the full 90 of a game, but one really appreciates those extended clips after trying to make sense of a game with highlights that regularly clock in at under 4 minutes. Those half-clips have somewhat undermined the entire project of offering vague impressions of each MLS club. Goddammit.
That said, making mountains of vague impressions is 75% of my bag, at a minimum. For instance, I'm willing to state, and with some measure of confidence, that Orlando City FC, whatever they think of themselves, are a playing and acting like an expansion team. Meanwhile, some other clubs have gone some distance to building a body of defining work, both negative and positive – e.g. the Vancouver Whitecaps, for the better (and can I please, please stop misreading this club; per the voice in my head...no), the Philadelphia Union, for the morale-sapping worse. The remaining 18 clubs fall somewhere in between, but, for me, it's too early to dub one team playoff-bound and another semi-officially moribund...though I'm eagerly awaiting the day.
In terms of watching games, I did pretty well this weekend. The full slate of Week 5 games viewed:
For the past several seasons, Major League Soccer (MLS) really outdid themselves by providing highlight reels that generally ran seven or eight minutes. No, it's not remotely comparable to watching the full 90 of a game, but one really appreciates those extended clips after trying to make sense of a game with highlights that regularly clock in at under 4 minutes. Those half-clips have somewhat undermined the entire project of offering vague impressions of each MLS club. Goddammit.
That said, making mountains of vague impressions is 75% of my bag, at a minimum. For instance, I'm willing to state, and with some measure of confidence, that Orlando City FC, whatever they think of themselves, are a playing and acting like an expansion team. Meanwhile, some other clubs have gone some distance to building a body of defining work, both negative and positive – e.g. the Vancouver Whitecaps, for the better (and can I please, please stop misreading this club; per the voice in my head...no), the Philadelphia Union, for the morale-sapping worse. The remaining 18 clubs fall somewhere in between, but, for me, it's too early to dub one team playoff-bound and another semi-officially moribund...though I'm eagerly awaiting the day.
In terms of watching games, I did pretty well this weekend. The full slate of Week 5 games viewed:
Chicago Fire v. Toronto FC
Colorado Rapids v. New England Revolution
Portland Timbers v. FC Dallas (yessssss…..)
Vancouver Whitecaps v. Los Angeles Galaxy* (* only half-conscious, but validated)
On to the feature: who's sinking, who's swimming, and who's treading water? As always, the little number in parentheses after each club's name tells all y'all how often I've watched them in 2015. You'll know what I really know by knowing that.
