MLS Offseason Thread

[harper983]

Sigh. A win would have been so nice. How the *** does Henry not get a second yellow for that dumbass kick on Hartman? Considering we were down a man, without our captain and starting GK for most the match, and still without our two starting center backs, I'm pleased with a draw. Sucks to go up though and then give up an own goal to tie it.

[mmbt0ne]

Side note, every time I seem to watch FC Dallas Heath Pearce is playing really well. I know he's been really streaky with the national team, following up great games with awful ones, but maybe with consistent playing time he can shore that up be a contributor again.

[Exitonly]

just finished catching up on dvr, dunno what Henry was thinking. even not making contact with the keeper, slamming the ball into the stands is kinda dick. i dont like hartman though so whatevs!

Balouchy looks good, Chani had a meh game, now i'm pretty indifferent as to who i see start.

[mmbt0ne]

College football this and that. Blah blah blah.

DE ROOOOOOOOO!!!!!

http://www.mlssoccer.com/videos?catid=114&id=8784

[Sti1gar]

went to the Husky game today, so I didn't get a chance to watch the Sounders game live, but I figured hey no problem since it was just a local tv game today it must be on my MLS package, but NOPE NOT THERE, and thanks to CFB (hey I still love ya CFB) the regional Fox Sports station is not showing a replay until tomorrow night.

So I said **** it and watched the highlights, and I am happy and may forgive my MLS package

Go Sounders

[mmbt0ne]

Blog post

Still The Best



I'll be honest. I've been as guilty as anyone else; promoting the MVP credentials of players like Fredy Montero (10 goals, 9 assists), Sebastien Le Toux (11 goals, 10 assists), and even guys like Javi Morales who don't stuff the stat sheet but make a HUGE difference for their team.

The fact of the matter though is that no player in MLS is better or more important to his team than Landon Donovan. If you have any real doubt as to why, just go watch the last 10 minutes of the most recent game against DC United. Down 1-nil in the 80th minute and facing an extremely embarrassing loss at home to the worst team in the league, Donovan refused to let his team lose. First, single-handedly taking the ball away from the DC defense, rounding the keeper and slotting one home for the tie. And then executing a beautiful header after making an unmarked run to give LA the 2-1 victory.

While he has always been a top goal scoring threat despite his midfield position, averaging nearly a goal every other game, this year he has taken it upon himself to also become the best distributor in Major League Soccer. Through only 19 games he has a career high 14 assists, and continues to terrorize MLS defenses with his deft passing.

The only thing that has seemed to slow Donovan down this year has been Bruce Arena moving him around the field. Yeah, he's the best player on the pitch any time he suits up in MLS and he can have an impact from any midfield position or as a withdrawn striker. But he's at his best on the right wing, as we saw early this year during his loan at Everton and again with the USMNT in South Africa.

If you go back and look at the start of the season, when LA was nearly unbeatable, you'll see Donovan spending most of his time on the right flank with rookie Michael Stephens lining up on the left. However, over the past couple months you started to see him drift around the field, lining up on the left side or as an attacking mid. Now in the past few games you've seen Landon moved back to the right side with Alex Cazumba taking over on the left and LA has started to look as dangerous as they did early in the year.

Playing Landon on the right wing allows him to pressure defenses with his speed, distribute the ball into the box with his great crosses, and hold back opposing teams' full backs from pressing forward on the attack for fear that Landon will get behind them. Also, his presence on the wing and status as one of the fittest players in the league allows the LA right backs to push forward into attack knowing that they have a player like Donovan to cover who is always ready, willing, and able to sprint back on defense and help stop the counter attack.

It's human nature to try and find something first. We all want to identify who will be the next dominant player in MLS or who is going to be the big star that moves abroad. But we need to be honest with ourselves. This is Landon's league, the rest of us are just along for the ride.

[ThaSaltCracka]

nice write up, definitely agree and it really makes sense why MLS didn't let him leave this summer.


Slight nittery, he played on the left during the WC. Dempsey was on the right.

[harper983]

Updated Playoff Race

After their lose tonight I removed CUSA from the race.

1st West: Los Angeles Galaxy (NY, @CUSA, @Union, Rapids, FCD).....50 pts

Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.4

2nd West: Real Salt Lake (Rapids, @Revs, @NY, FCD, @Rapids).........47 pts

Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.5

1st East: Columbus Crew (@Revs, SJ, @Fire, @TFC, Union)..............44 pts

Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.19

3rd West: FC Dallas (Revs, @KC, Fire, Rapids, @RSL, @LA)................42 pts

Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.49

2nd East: New York Red Bulls (@LAG, KCW, RSL, @Union, Revs)..........41 pts

Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.45

4th West: Colorado Rapids (@RSL, Union, DCU, @FCD, @LAG, RSL)......37 pts

Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.54

3rd East: SJ Quakes (@TFC, Fire, @Crew, @DCU, HOU, CUSA, @KCW)..36 pts

Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.17

4th East: Seattle Sounders (@Fire, TFC, @KCW, CUSA, @HOU)...........36 pts

Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.14

Playoff Cutoff

Toronto FC (SJ, @SEA, @CUSA, Crew, @DCU)..................................31 pts

Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.3

Kansas City Wizards (HOU, FCD, @NY, SEA, @Fire, @Revs, SJ)...........30 pts

Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.36

Chicago Fire (SEA, @SJ, @FCD, Crew, KC, DCU, @CUSA)....................26 pts

Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.37

[mmbt0ne]

The Seattle/KC game in a few weeks is going the be HUGE for any potential playoff changes. Sigi openly said that he's going to focus on "squad selection" (read: resting key players) for CCL games, but there will still be a chance for KC to sneak one out at home.

Also, I don't want to spoil an article I'm working on right now, but TFC is dead this year. Their win Saturday was an aberration due to a single great player making great individual plays. It didn't show any real change or improvement in the squad that would lead me to believe they're ready to close out these last 5 games strong enough to make the playoffs.

They could definitely play spoiler to San Jose or Seattle though.

[mmbt0ne]

Also, super pumped about the NY/LA game coming up this week.

It's the national ESPN2 game this Friday and features the 3 biggest names in MLS. I hope the network promotes it well, because it should be a great show of American soccer if both teams play to their abilities.

[mmbt0ne]

Another One Bites The Dust: Weekly Update

Sorry Chivas USA fans, but your season is officially over. I'm calling it. After a 2-0 loss at home to a suddenly quite dangerous Kansas City team you sit 11 points out of 8th place with 1 game in hand. Any long shot hopes you had of playoff glory are gone.

And on that cheery note, on to the games this weekend!

Game Reports

Let's start this off with the biggest shocker of the weekend; Seattle Sounders absolutely destroying Columbus Crew 4-0, in Columbus no less. Blaise Nkufo got the scoring started early, poaching a goal off a corner kick in the 4th minute. Arlo White was pretty spot on when he said, "that'll work wonders for his confidence." because Nkufo banged in two more during the game to earn himself a hat trick. Quite the way to open up your account in MLS, good sir. As usual, Seattle terrorized the wings with Nyassi and Zakuani just blowing past Columbus's defenders time and time again, including earning a penalty that Nathan Sturgis (really?! Nathan Sturgis?!) took care of. Don't look now, but Columbus has been absolutely dominated in their last two league matches.

Hey, guess what? Real Salt Lake still didn't lose at home. This time Chicago Fire was the victim as they went down 1-0 to a team that is undefeated in 23 straight league matches at home. Alvaro Saborio took care of the scoring on a penalty in the 45th minute after sending Ned Grabavoy through with a great ball to get in on goal before being wrestled down by Wilman Conde. RSL had plenty of other chances to increase their lead, but Sean Johnson continued to do what Sean Johnson does; block shots.

Toronto FC went on the road and got a 2-1 victory at Houston Dynamo. Don't go getting too excited though, TFC fans. This win came down to two moments of individual brilliance from Dwayne De Rosario, scoring on a pair of set pieces from almost identical locations. There wasn't much there to make anyone think that Toronto is suddenly playing better soccer after getting rid of Preki and Mo Johnston.

De Ro made an early case for clutch performer of the week, but Landon Donovan just wiped that off the map. Los Angeles Galaxy looked to be in trouble down 1-0 in the 80th minute to DC United, the worst team in MLS, thanks to an Andy Najar tally. Landon refused to let his team lose though, adding a pair of goals on great individual efforts to maintain LA's place atop the MLS standings.

Colorado Rapids got another 3-0 win, their third in four games, this time against New England Revolution. Each of their dynamic forward pair got a goal, with Rafa Marquez's least favorite player Wells Thompson adding the third, and new additions Brian Mullan and Mac Kandji seemed to slot in well with the rest of the group.

As mentioned in the intro to this post, Kansas City Wizards drove the nail into Chivas USA's coffin with a 2-0 win at the Home Depot Center. Kei Kamara and Teal Bunbury (the future maybe-Canadian, maybe-American international) provided the scoring.

Random Thoughts

This Friday should feature one of the most entertaining MLS games of the season as New York travels across the country to face LA Galaxy. It's very likely that 5 DP's, and the 3 biggest names in MLS, will feature in a game between the #1 team in the west and the #2 team in the east. The game will be nationally televised on ESPN2, so no excuses for not watching.

If the playoffs started right now Real Salt Lake and FC Dallas would be matched up against each other. Assuming that happens, every soccer fan in America needs to make a point to watch those games as they should be incredible.

Seattle coach Sigi Schmid was candid this week about focusing on "squad selection" for the remaining CCL games. That translates to, "we're going to rest our good players to make sure we do well in league play and the US Open Cup." Smart man, that Sigi.

CCL games this week
9/21 8pm: Columbus Crew vs. Santos Laguna
9/21 10pm: Toronto FC @ Cruz Azul
9/22 8pm: Real Salt Lake @ Arabe Unido
9/22 8pm: Seattle Sounders @ Monterrey

Rankings

MLS Elo Ratings
1,588.22 - Real Salt Lake
1,576.80 - Los Angeles Galaxy
1,562.59 - FC Dallas
1,532.02 - Columbus Crew
1,519.81 - Seattle Sounders
1,517.75 - Colorado Rapids
1,513.10 - New York Red Bulls
1,497.45 - San Jose Earthquakes
1,497.17 - Kansas City Wizards
1,488.98 - Chicago Fire
1,473.18 - Toronto FC
1,465.29 - Chivas USA
1,456.70 - Philadelphia Union
1,455.86 - Houston Dynamo
1,439.21 - New England Revolution
1,415.88 - DC United

MLS Single Table

Team	                GP	W-D-L	PTS	GD
Los Angeles Galaxy	25	15-5-5	 50	+19
Real Salt Lake 	        25	13-8-4	 47	+22
Columbus Crew	        25	13-5-7	 44	+6
FC Dallas 	        24 	10-12-2	 42	+12
New York Red Bulls      25 	12-5-8	 41	+5
Colorado Rapids 	24	10-7-7	 37	+8
San Jose Earthquakes 	23 	10-6-7	 36	+2
Seattle Sounders FC 	25	10-6-9	 36	+1
Toronto FC	        25 	8-7-10	 31	-4
Kansas City Wizards 	23	8-6-9	 30	+0
Chicago Fire 	        23	6-8-9	 26	-3
Chivas USA 	        24	7-4-13	 25	-6
Philadelphia Union 	24	6-6-12	 24 	-12
New England Revolution 	24	7-3-14	 24	-17
Houston Dynamo	        24	6-5-13	 23	-11
DC United 	        25	5-3-17	 18	-22

[harper983]

Here's my look at the playoff race.

Toronto

Like mmbt0ne says, they're done. They've got no games in hand on any of the current playoff teams, three out of their last five are away, and their next two games are against two of the hottest teams in the league, Seattle and San Jose. The good news is if they can win both of those they'll be right in the mix with two out of their last three against CUSA and D.C.. I don't see that happening though.

Kansas City

In my opinion they're the only team outside the top eight right now, that has a shot at the playoffs. With seven games left and 6 pts. back their best bet is to catch Seattle. They have 2 games in hand on them and are playing fairly well. The problem is Seattle is on a good run of form and has a fairly easy schedule the rest of the way. If the Wizards can get at least 6 points from their next three games it could set up a big home game versus the Sounders.

Chicago

I'm afraid they're in the same boat as Toronto. The two big reasons they won't make it are, they're playing like crap and they have a very tough schedule ahead of them. The only reason they still have any chance is that they have two games on Seattle and one on Colorado. Their next game at home against Seattle is a must win. If they lose it's over, maybe not mathematically, but realistically they'll be done.


As far as the three teams at the bottom of the playoff eight, I really can't see any of them slipping. Colorado overall has the toughest schedule, but with home game's against the Union and DC, winning those two should be enough to put them through. There's no way San Jose doesn't make it. They are 5-0-1(w-l-d) in their last six and they have seven games left. Seattle only has five games left. The next three are big ones as they play the Fire, TFC, and KCW. If they can stay unbeaten they're pretty much in. The only way I could see them falling out the playoffs is if they lose all three of those. With Montero leading the pack and N'kufo finally scoring, no way they lose their next three.

The most interesting race is going to end up being the Supporters Shield race. The playoffs are pretty much set imo.

[harper983]

Henry fined for Hartman incident.

http://www.soccerbyives.net/soccer_b...more.html#more

Henry was fined $2000 by MLS for the incident, but he was not suspended.

[Sti1gar]

Can't suspend him b4 the big national matchup of LAG v NYRB


As for Sturgis taking the penalty, apparently the penalty taker is decided in advance and regardless of the situation the person who was chosen will always take the PK, and quite frankly we are something like 0-4 or 0-5 on pk's coming into that game so it was time to give Sturgis a chance .

[mmbt0ne]

Originally Posted by Sti1gar

As for Sturgis taking the penalty, apparently the penalty taker is decided in advance and regardless of the situation the person who was chosen will always take the PK, and quite frankly we are something like 0-4 or 0-5 on pk's coming into that game so it was time to give Sturgis a chance .

Sigi talked about this last Thursday when he was on ExtraTime Radio, but was Sturgis really the next guy in line after Montero, Alonso, and Fernandez?

Ugh