MLS Post-Season Handicapping. And a Little Mockery

Forgot the watermelon, motherfucker...

"....every team in @MLS has at least 10 losses. Never happened before."
- The Armchair Analyst, tweet, 10/19/2015

I'm fairly certain that I've argued IRL that 2015 has been one of Major League Soccer's weirder, more mediocre seasons; for all I know, I said the same somewhere in this site's archive. Whatever, it points to a deeper reality about MLS – i.e. that this league only rarely produces great teams. With allowances for argument, here's the short list: DC United's original (and slow-starting) team, or the Chicago Fire's first, Eastern-European-kissed outfit; the Houston Dynamo put together a consistent team, if not a great one, for a couple years' domination in the mid-aughts; a couple New England Revolution teams graced the same era by playing "Beautiful Losers"; one could also throw in the Columbus Crew's "Touch o' Argentina" '08 outfit (bit of a stretch; good team, though), or the exquisitely-balanced Real Salt Lake team that roared straight outta Sandy, Utah to become one of the league's steadiest sides until, oh, this weird 2015. There's probably a great Los Angeles Galaxy team in there, but fuck those guys. (OK, yes, goddammit; they're the pace-setters for MLS till further notice.)

A closer look at each of those clubs, and what they accomplished in the relevant seasons, would probably wipe some kind of smudge over their shine, but let's enjoy their memories even if we have to embellish a little.

This season, though. 2015? It's worse than a crap-shoot. It's just plain crap, albeit with a good collection of highlights in person and game-form. Overall, the quality presents less a spectacle of sporting excellence than asking fans to watch 20 teams try to haul an oiled-up watermelon to the top of a mud-pile. And that mud-pile is pretty fucking oiled up, too. Matt Doyle's tweet, quoted above forwards the spirit of the argument: whichever club wins MLS Cup at the end of this hillbilly wrasslin' fest won't brag too long, nor answer too loudly when asked about the latest, or even new, star that hangs over his club's crest...then again, me being me, I'd cherish the Portland Timbers winning MLS Cup this weird year that little bit more. I love all my chilluns', and the challenging ones a little more...

Speaking of the Timbers, here's something worth pointing out: the fan-base is restless (or it could be that my personal, most direct sample is demanding and fidgety?). Even if they can't agree on what changes to make, it/they generally want changes made to a team that's widely viewed as a couple steps behind good enough. To be clear, I am not casting aspersions here; go back through the archives of this thing and you will know petulance (see the time I had "nothing but contempt" for the club; yep, hissy fit; and yet it came in the most parental thing I've ever posted about the Timbers). Besides, what's so wrong about wanting the club that you ask Jesus to look after when you're signing off at night to be all of what they can be?

Timbers Top RSL And Hope's Clever Disguise

We don't do silver linings here....

As I tweeted earlier today, there really isn't much left to say about the Portland Timbers in this 2015...and yet I found a way to say all kinds o' shit below. The central premise, though, is true: Portland will either make the Major League Soccer playoffs, or they will miss them. They took a big step toward tonight, with a 1-0 win over Real Salt Lake. The Timbers very probably put RSL's playoffs hopes to the sword...fuck it, they would have done the same to Portland given one single moment of brilliance...

That said, yes, I have to shit on the parade. Because rain isn't unpleasant enough, I have one big theme to address, one that puts no small amount of effort toward rubbing off the silver lining precisely to find the clouds. It grows from a mindset that I sensed around the people with whom I watched the game tonight. At game's end, the feeling expressed as a mixture of a lot of relief and a little shock: there was a sense of, holy shit, we won?

It's not so much shock, either: after all, the Timbers have picked 6 points out of the Rio Tinto safe this season. I'd also argue that Portland was the better team tonight – that's even before Jamison Olave got sent off fairly early in the second half. And yet, the...thing, whatever it is, hangs on a pair of thoughts, each of them containing a different impressions of Portland's offense. On the good nights, when Portland pounds the opposition goal with wave after wave of attacks (an endangered species in 2015), what pops into one's head is, "why won't the fucking ball go in?" Other nights, like tonight, when the attack is lean and opportunities few, the thoughts becomes a question: "can we steal it?" Those two diametrically opposed mindsets speak to vastly different impressions of one's team, and one of them shades toward the opposite of positive.

Tonight's win didn't require actual theft. Still, the game's lone goal resulted from the most basic, nakedly opportunistic approach in soccer – e.g. a ball over the top to a fast dude. Yep, Lucas Melano corralled a pass from Jorge Villafana (who should only get a secondary assist, with the first going to Melano's noggin) and out-ran two RSL defenders, until one of them (Olave) tripped his trailing leg on the edge of and/or just inside RSL's penalty area. Fanendo Adi took the ensuing, probably justified penalty kick (it wasn't a clear-cut call, but still a good one, for me), of which...

On Klinsmann: Feeling Cooler Heads With a Phrenologist’s Fine Hand

I sense...resistance to a certain line of thinking...

A couple good and wise posts went up earlier today. One sought to place Jurgen Klinsmann's tenure in a...let's go with a more grounded context, while the other clocked the tenor of broad, hysterically seething national outrage directed at Dear Jurgen and declared it...let's go with excessive.

For those new to this space, I have, in the past, joined the aforementioned chorus of "broad, hysterically seething national outrage"; it's possible that, in the past, I have blamed Klinsmann for everything from the most recent U.S. Men's National Team loss, through a minimum of two forms of cancer (yep, prostate; that's on him), and up to a general sense that, dang it, things just ain't what they used to be. Apple pie has tasted like straight-up shit for years, I tell you.

With that in mind, I just want to say: they're right. I tweeted both posts because both Will Parchman (first link above) and Wes Burdine (second link) offered strong arguments as to why we should all just calm the hell down. And, as both authors pointed out, that is not the same thing as not wanting Klinsmann gone. And I still want Klinsmann gone (and, frankly, I don't get the argument that Klinsmann swallowing a demotion to the role of technical director alone is a blow his ego couldn't sustain, because ego slightly bigger than Montana; pretty sure he can take it; yes, yes, but would he? Do you honestly think I care?).

Call those posts a welcome corrective, then, not unlike a friend calmly telling you to walk away from that dude who said something about your mom (really, dad? To mom? Jesus). With this post, I intend to walk through their points with two main thoughts in mind: 1) to attempt to explain just why Klinsmann pisses everyone off so very, very much (which is to Burdine's point); and 2) to take a stab at assessing where the U.S. Men are right now (which is, somewhat, to Parchman's) with the World Cup qualification cycle just about one month into the future.

A Brief, Polite Comment on Last Night's Game (and U.S. Soccer's Hostage Situation)

What I'm watching for when I watch U.S. Soccer these days.

OK, I just read a whole bunch o' crap on the United States' Men's National Team loss to Mexico last night. Had to, really, because I can’t claim to know the U.S. team like I used to: while I watch all the games that count, I haven't caught a friendly in a couple years (virtually always scheduled during, or immediately after, work; I'm not taking time off for a friendly, people), and, on top of that, I only read closely about the games I watch.

It also bears noting that I wasn't all that invested in whether or not the U.S. won – e.g. see the argument here that the Confederations Cup is more a silly cash-cow than a worthwhile tournament – and, yes, I am 100% a card-carrying member of the angry mob that hunts Jurgen Klinsmann on Twitter and in other outlets, and have leaned that way since before 2014 (when I called a truce in support of shared rooting interest – e.g. the World Cup).

So, there they are, caveats express (e.g. I see the USMNT play about half dozen times a year) and implied (I don't know much about the players coming up to press the old guys). I don't have much to say about tactics, line-up, or actual game-play because I'm not familiar enough with the team to really dig in there, or to talk in anything but a general way. That said, let's start by picking up that second parenthetical...

Portland's Drunk-Strewn Path to the After Party: On Faith and Its Opposites

Cherished. Pointless.

I posted a piece a couple nights ago about how Darlington Nagbe presents as the most likely savior for this manic-depressive (if medication-modulated) 2015 season (reference to meds acknowledges that the highs haven't been that high, nor the lows that low – more later). The argument for this is messy and, as it turns out, large. Real, real large. To put that another way, nothing that comes below will clear the tangles cited in the title.

Nagbe played a good game this past Saturday. The dead-end dribbles made their usual cameo, but Nagbe put a pair of thoroughly respectable shots on goal; that's on top of playing in Lucas Melano for the Portland Timbers' best attacking sequence on the night, a good shift for anyone. And yet, as all Timbers fans know, none of those three efforts, or any of the others, went in.  As noted in that same post, this is the sum of Portland's season. With Nagbe, specifically, impressive moments, even relevant statistics, don't matter against the broadly well-justified, oft-repeated knock on Nagbe: what good is all that game-changing talent if it fails to actually change the game?

I've carried image at right (and above) in my mind for about a month. I have a collector friend or two, the kind of guys who buy their favorite toys twice, one to play with and the other to save in pristine, packaged condition for a presumed later payoff. The investment piece pans out sometimes, but, other times, it ends with nothing but a grown man carting around kid's toys embarrassingly deep into adulthood. Even with his reputation taking hits (like this one!), Portland still possesses one of the most coveted toys in all Major League Soccer. Nagbe had one visibly great season (see 2013), one that had Timbers fans dreaming/drooling about future seasons. What we got instead were the past two seasons, which shifted the whole goddamn mess back to potential. It's as if some shady collector stuffed our Darlington back in the original packaging and shoved him back on the shelf for everyone to admire for...I dunno. By which I mean, I just don't know. What I do know is that I was always the kind of kid who ripped that toy straight out of the packaging because, honestly, the fuck's the point of a toy if you don’t play with it?

That same image was to top one of the most vicious hit-pieces to ever percolate up from the fetid sink of doubt and worry that bubbles in the depths of my body. The plan was to tick through each position on the Timbers line up and list the players from around the league – that is, just within MLS – that I rate higher than each player on Portland's roster. Look, I love these players and absolutely want them to succeed, but only two struck me as hard to shift in the end – Diego Chara and Nat Borchers. So, yeah, ugly post borne of ugly thoughts and, yep, Nagbe inspired it. And yet I can still call him Portland's likeliest savior. When it comes to questions of faith and certainty, Hamlet has nothing on me...

What Kansas City Has That Portland Needs

Once called "cads," now just douches.

"KC wasn't good tonight, really, but any team with enough talent, or even just a reliable trick up their sleeve, can steal any game against the Timbers on a night when they don't score...”

I dropped that into the post reviewing the Portland Timbers road draw against Sporting Kansas City about a month back. Terrible sentence, obviously, but who knew how well it would serve to explain what went wrong Saturday night against KC? And yet there's something, for lack of a better word, fitting about the goal that decided Saturday’s game.

A couple little known facts: first, I have a particular fascination with two vintage national teams, one of them being the Hungarian National Team of the 1950s, the so-called Magic Magyars (or maybe "Mighty Magyars") who welcomed the English National Team back to the international game with a massive slap upside their over-inflated heads. That team has conditioned me to expect...perhaps more than I should from Hungarians players. Second, Liverpool is "my English team," or they were before I officially tied the knot with Major League Soccer all those years ago. That brief connection to Liverpool affects me in much the same way as the thing with Hungary. Basically, and whether rationally or not, put the words "Hungary" and "Liverpool" in the same sentence as any given player’s name and you have my attention.

So, Krisztian Nemeth: I am on record as coveting him, and since preseason, where he put in some visibly next-level performances. He's no Sebastian Giovinco, but it doesn't surprise me in the least that Nemeth has posted solid numbers as an MLS "rookie." Though One-hundred percent capable of making his own shot – and he produced a noteworthy Exhibit A Saturday night - it's more significant, in the end, that Nemeth does just about everything he needs to well and consistently. I smiled in spite of myself on watching Nemeth spin three Portland defenders on his way to scoring the game's lone goal (four, if you count Diego Chara twice, as seems fitting), because, yes, I do rate him that highly, even as I'm forced to wonder why all that "Hungary" and "Liverpool" has done less for his career than a half dozen months in the American Midwest. Yes, yes, the past informs the present, etc. Moving on...

I lead with Nemeth (and, again, flirtatiously wink in his general direction; come to Portland, Krisztian, we have so much culture) to frame a key question: who is Portland's Nemeth? Who has Portland been able to look to this season with the ability and mindset to hoist the team onto his shoulders to lead, really lead, the charge on the opposition goal? There is no clear answer to that question. We have a couple candidates, true, but the way no answer leaps to mind is the sum of Portland's 2015 season.

MLS and How It's Made for Jurgen Klinsmann. And Experimentation.

Hold on...almost have it. Just another 15 minutes...

I have fallen down, considerably, when it comes to posting regular weekly reviews on Major League Soccer (MLS). I won't bore you with the details (WAIT, no! Listen! The format's SHIT! He doesn't know what he's doing! It's a three-ring circus of wounded elephants and drunken clowns, people! RUN!), but, bottom line, it's a problem with settling on a consistent, brief format that gives the average, or un-average, reader a reason to spend the time on this site. (HELP: this is 100% a hostage situation! Signed: Randall. Mom? Mom?! HELP!!)

That said, we are where we are in the MLS by now? An entire goddamn 30 (+ for some) weeks has yet to settle anything all that meaningful for all but, by my count, four MLS clubs (here, I'm going with the New York Red Bulls (who made the playoffs), the Colorado Rapids, the Chicago Fire, and the Philadelphia Union (all of whom will not (sorry, Philly, but you'll need all 9 remaining points just to catch Montreal). Every other team has some general sense of their fate, but each has to pass through a thicket of results and other details before they know how they're going into the playoffs – e.g. strutting or falling over the velvet rope. And there's seeding after that...

Given how little sorting gets accomplished in all this – think the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter spending half an hour on each student before declaiming - the question of why the MLS regular season drags on for so many months has dogged the league since its inception. The answers to such questions touch too closely on the big questions of life to come easily, but there are answers (see, when one investor loves another investor very, very much, they create beautiful little tax vehicles and build stadiums where they can compete in a way that protects their feelings while maximizing revenue. And, stork). I've pissed and moaned about this state of affairs as often as I could without turning into a boor, or a poor house-guest.

Today, though, I'd like to present the MLS regular season in what I hope will be a new light. Think of this post as a guest who arrived a little late to the party, and with a fresh bottle of bourbon. The good stuff, too, like I reached up to grab it instead of doing the ol' bear-crawl across the bottom shelves. OK, pouring you a drink? Do you take ice? Rocks or neat? Excellent. OK, ready?