(Nearly) all of Major League Soccer's (MLS) 14 clubs stand poised at interest-piquing junctures in their seasons - and most of this weekend's match-ups up the ante that little bit more. Questions abound: will [Team A] start to pull away at the top? Will [Team B] continue to make a disjointed spectacle of themselves?
Let's look a little more closely...in the order in which they interest me.
Toronto FC v. Columbus Crew* (MLSLIVE.tv; 1:00 p.m. PST)
Can the Crew take the Trillium Cup with less than 1/3 of the season gone? Would that be pathetic or who? Conversely, will Toronto drink from that bottomless well of belief on which they forever seem to float? For what it's worth, this one has "stumble" written all over it for the Crew - and in pink neon marker...which just clashes horribly with those yellow jerseys. I have only this to say: make me believe, Toronto.
Chicago Fire v. Houston Dynamo (MLSLIVE.tv; 5:30 p.m. PST)
Speaking of compelling...click here to read more...
Watched this through folding laundry, trying to figure out if my kid wanted to show me a somersault or some other gymnastic feat (and then we had to debate whether somersaults were, in fact, part of gymnastics or something totally separate...the little butthole is 4). So, yeah, I have watched games more closely and have taken notes, even if said notes later proved incoherent, illegible, or just plain dumb.
That said, here's what I thought of the Rapids' win over Real Salt Lake...acknowledging, of course, that my attention was hampered as outlined above...
The Thing About RSL...the most interesting thing, really...
This isn't a bad team. I've seen RSL two times now and, on two of those occasions, they looked perfectly competent (the game against LA was the outlier); hell, they looked the better team outright against FC Dallas. (AMENDMENT: To throttle my enthusiasm a little, I'll quote something John Harkes said last night: "[RSL] is lacking that little...click here to read more...
Stick around long enough and you'll figure out that I never completely kill any editorial concept; I just callously shove them aside until I use them all over again. No concept has suffered quite like the "Sweeper," which I revive whenever I have a bunch of little things I want to talk about. Naturally, I'll be bad-mouthing it ten minutes later with all the self-loathing vitriol that St. Anthony hurled at the phantasmagoric woman who he believed haunted his solitude.
As I see it, the poor SOB would have done much better to relieve his, um, mind and get on with things. That's what I intend to do here - well, partially.
To start with a digression, I've been meaning to plug this all week. If you like crazy visuals and highly-stylized movie-making, go see Speed Racer. Don't think of it as a movie and, for the love of god, don't take the dialogue literally. Listen to it - and, really, watch the entire movie - as part of a stunningly consistent artistic concept: in this case, a cartoon brought to life in the most thorough sense. OK, that's my plug...now back to the soccer odds and ends.
When a new king is crowned - and this week, the Chicago Fire finally, if only barely, usurped the top spot from the scrappy Columbus Crew - new princes and other favorites rise with them. OK, that doesn’t happen so much in soccer; I mean, it’s not like Chicago wants Red Bull New York to chase them up the table or that Columbus had locked them in the soccer equivalent of the Tower of London to slowly starve to death (while simultaneously sneaking off to kill all Juan Carlos Osorio’s heirs and so on), but some teams unmistakably rose and for clearer reasons than we’ve seen in past weeks.
The details on all this will come below. For now, however, let’s introduce the panel.
The Pundits
(NOTE: I lost Royal Review, but gained a site of untested quality called The Back of the Net...which has a lovely, if only potential, double entendre quality to it. The BigSoccer forums represented by replacing a couple dropouts with new blood.)
With a few early contenders staking claim to the top and teams floundering in their respective worlds of woe at the bottom, the focus this week belongs on what comes between - namely, the anonymous mob in the middle.
Whether you call them the intermittently able or the Every Other Saturday Sharpshooters, just don’t ask me to justify the order in which I have ranked. Also, perhaps I didn’t move teams around as much as results warranted, but with a little history with which to work, that’ll be the trend. It’ll take a shocker of a game or a combination of results and circumstances to prompt major moves. For this week: see the Houston Dynamo.
Same guidelines apply to Week 7’s Major League Soccer (MLS) rankings as apply to all others: last week’s ranking appears in parentheses behind this week’s and each entry will be closed with the next game on tap and a little guesswork about which way each team is trending.
"The three Western Conference playoff teams, for that is all they'll get, will be the Houston Dynamo, the Colorado Rapids, and the LA Galaxy. Discuss."
I posted that yesterday and, today, it just feels a little wrong. I watched (most of) Real Salt Lake's 2-1 win over the dazed visitors from Dallas and came away somewhat unimpressed with either team - and truth be told, FC Dallas made the lesser impression. The thing is, I saw enough from both teams to think they're competitive, especially in a conference where no one's showing a whole lot just now. I mean, look at the Western Conference standings: they're playing as if the goal is to get level on points as opposed to picking up the most.
So, I think it's a little foolhardy to start thinking playoffs...even though I know I'll be doing it again next weekend. And I still stand by those predictions about who will make...click here to read more...
Finally getting April's Best XI up and it was a tough month to process with so much action going within domestic leagues and continental competition. Check out the previous months' selections all the way at the bottom. What changes would you have made????
Fillippo Inzaghi - AC Milan (FW)
1st Selection
As Milan fights for their European competition lives, all Pippo can continue doing is scoring goals. He has 9 in the last 5 games and it has pushed Kaka - about 10 years his junior - to laud the 34-year old with praises. A year ago, many would have expected him to hang up his boots, but right now Inzaghi is the only reason AC Milan has a chance at European football next season. Sitting in fifth right now and with a tough Udinese squad to face, the task looks to be a trying one.
Goals (8): 2g vs. Cagliari (4/5), 2g vs. Juventus (4/12), 1g vs. Reggina (4/20), 3g vs. Livorno (4/27)
That image will make sense shortly. Yeah, I said I wouldn't be doing this feature any more (yeah, yeah, yeah), but I am - as you can see. The lesson: I'm neurotic at best, just bear with me if you care to.
I could also point to the conceptual twists and turns Week 7 carried in its wake for justification: this week prompted many thoughts and threw out potential plot-lines with every score line. And that's what comes below: basically, what did each game and/or score line make me think? Well, I'll tell you...complete with titles
DC 0-2 Chicago: Danger, Tom Soehn, Danger!
The "clinicians at work" element (whoops. That pertains to Chicago) didn't strike me nearly as hard as the harsh realm (yes! I used the phrase!) in which DC United finds themselves. To put it bluntly, DC is in trouble because, 1) the Columbus Crew will not be easy to catch; 2) Chicago will not be easy to catch; 3) Red Bull New York won't be easy to catch. And then there's TFC looking credible. You see where I'm going with this?
Houston 2-1 Colorado: Does It Really Count?
For the record, I had intended...click here to read more...
I think that sums up the evening nicely: the Columbus Crew controlled the game, but the San Jose Earthquakes always threatened - just not enough. Still, something deeper came together last night.
What is it about this win that makes me suddenly believe in the Columbus Crew? It came, after all, against 2008’s lone expansion side, the San Jose Earthquakes, a team that struggles on offense and yet was still able to slip (or, rather, pound) two past Will “William” Hesmer. There’s also the fact it took Columbus 73 minutes to score - and that was an equalizer, not the go-ahead. So, 3-2 to Columbus, which according to Friday’s framing post, should have rendered this game unmemorable. But there’s this weird feeling of - for lack of a better word - belief to sort out.
Here are some conjectural arguments in favor: the win came on the road, which seemed like waters the Crew tested rarely so far, and they generally carried the play and looked a slicker bunch out there. Somewhere in the wilds of the Web, I may or may not...click here to read more...
Heerenveen scored a crapload of goals this year in the Dutch Eredivisie, but when it came down to "complete" performances - they lacked that. Rogers - former Frisian product, where Michael Bradley is now - has not stopped pressing defenses on or off the ball every game this season. He even throws a non-chalant vibe on it from time to time. The former Maryland Terp has deceiving pace, is agile, has great vision when his head is in the game, and a clear knack for finishing. Even in limited time last year, it was pretty evident this kid was going to have a decent 07-08. Five goals should make Piotr Nowak re-think Rogers not being in contention for an Olympic team spot in August. Sigi Schmid and the rest of the Crew will probably be hoping otherwise.
2. Cuauhtemoc Blanco
He lulls you to sleep with his crybaby-ing, his failed backheels, his yapping and screaming, and then bam - you get a 30-yarder drilled to the top right corner that effectively clinches a 2-0 win. Dropping Chris Rolfe - who is on form - back into the midfield, could have been part of the reason for Blanco being in and out of the action. Either way, Chicago has now surpassed it's record...click here to read more...
That image has nothing do with what comes below, but, damn, do I like it.
My 50th post on BigSoccer...Jesus, I need help. What's the 12-step for this kind of mania?
So, we already know what happened in the first game of Week 7 in Major League Soccer (MLS) - pretty DC enjoyed that one like a proctological exam. And, by way of a collaboration with Nutmegged, we have more than enough framing for Houston v. Colorado. One thing not mentioned there that bears mentioning: parity is a bigger bitch in the West, which means Houston is one win away from breathing down Colorado's neck...go marinate on that for a minute.
But how 'bout the rest of this week's action? These will be ranked, as always, in the order in which they titillate...and, for the record, one of the top two already happened and the above-mentioned collaboration covered the other...an under-intense bunch, these games.
[url="http://web.mlsnet.com/news/mls_news.jsp?ymd=20080508&content_id=156271&vkey=news_mls&fext=.jsp"]LA...click here to read more...
Moving on to something I don't often do, I did a questions-and-answers thing with Martek from Nutmegged about this weekend's Western Conference match-up in which the Houston Dynamo will host the Colorado Rapids (FSC, 5:30 p.m. PST). Here's how this works: I write him some questions about the Dynamo, which he answers, while he asks me questions about the Rapids that I answer. The idea is this way we get a pretty good idea about each team's strengths and weaknesses heading into Saturday's game.
If you've ever been to Nutmegged - and if you haven't you should go, because it's a hell of a site run by some hella good guys - you'll know it bleeds Dynamo Orange. I mean, if half the squad lay dead on the turf and that after they had used all three substitutions, Martek would be the guy in the stands saying, "They'll turn this around...just watch." Let's just say the man has faith to spare.
Which turns the discussion to me: in the complimentary post to what comes below (e.g. the post containing my answers to his questions), Martek identifies me as a "long-time Rapids fan." This isn't quite...click here to read more...
That sub-title refers to Kicking and Screaming - no, not the Will Ferrell movie, but the older, good movie by Noah Baumbach. The specific context of the line isn't important here (Elliott Gould nails that line and the character, though) because the premise works for my purposes: things are going quite other from right for DC United right now. But another line from the same movie, edited just a little, gets at a more worrisome issue:
"What [DC] used to be able to pass off as just another bad [game] could now potentially turn into a bad [season]."
The line is better in its original form, but it still speaks to the question: how long does DC have before all the losses and draws pile too high to climb over? Excuse me? Oh, there are no draws? Uh oh.
To pile on a little more, it's conceivable things are still worse. Jeff Carlisle's preview of last night's game for ESPN.com contained this odd bit of framing:
"[DC Coach Tom Soehn's] exasperation stems in part from the team's poor road form, which is in sharp contrast to D.C.'s strong efforts at home."
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