This American Pitch

A Couple Big DP Rumors

2010-11-12T10:16:00.000-05:00

As we near the MLS off season, you start to hear about what different teams are looking to do to improve their squads for next season.

We already know that New England is looking at signing a Designated Player or two and that Juan Pablo Angel is going to be available. Now there are reports that both Houston Dynamo and Los Angeles Galaxy are looking at a couple potential acquisitions. And there are still questions about the futures of Guillermo Barros Schelotto (retirement?) and Omar Cummings (Europe?) among others.

The first rumor is one that we've seen many times before involving Ronaldinho going to LA, with NBC Sports being the latest outlet to touch on it. According to Gazzetta Dello Sport the Galaxy are ready to throw nearly $10m per year at the AC Milan player.

A player like Ronaldinho, who has a history of not taking training seriously, is a HUGE risk and to actually drop this kind of money on him would be a terrible decision for the team. However, it could be great for the league. He's super well known, but not because of personality over performance like Beckham or even Henry at this point. Instead, he's actually famous strictly for his skill on the ball and beautiful play. That's the kind of thing that will get people to tune in to a game or two just to check him out, and maybe grow the fan base a little more.

Rumor numero dos comes from the Houston Chronicle via MLS Insider. The Dynamo are probably a little gun shy to go signing another Designated Player after the disaster that was Luis Angel Landin, but if these reports are correct then they're trying for another young Mexican international; Giovani Dos Santos.

Giovani would bring a creative attacking force to a Dynamo squad. Now, you may wonder why a team that scored 40 goals last season, tied for fifth in the league, would look for more offense rather than shoring up a defense that allowed a league-worst 49 goals. I would wonder that too. On the bright side though, a player of Giovani's abilities (and heritage) would certainly help bring more fans to a stadium that already packed in 17,000 per game. Plus, it would give US national team fans a #1 team to hate.

US Roster for Nov. 17th Out

2010-11-11T16:37:00.000-05:00

That dude you see is Teal Bunbury. In that picture he's pissing off a bunch of Columbus Crew fans because he just dropped the first goal of his professional career. In this post, he's pissing off the entire country of Canada because he just bailed on them to come play for America.

According to a post on Soccer by Ives earlier today, Bunbury (20) is one of six players called to the match next week who are in line to earn their first ever senior cap for the United States. The rest of the youth invasion includes Dominic Cervi (24), Tim Ream (23), Gale Agbossoumonde (18), Mikkel Diskerud (20), and Juan Agudelo (17).

The full squad, as reported by Ives

Goalie
Brad Guzan (Aston Villa - 18 caps)
Dom Cervi (Celtic - 0 caps)

Defenders
Clarence Goodson (Brøndby IF - 16 caps - 2 goals)
Jonathan Spector (West Ham United - 27 caps)
Jonathan Bornstein (Tigres de la UANL - 35 caps - 2 goals)
Eric Lichaj (Aston Villa - 1 cap)
Nat Borchers (Real Salt Lake - 2 caps)
Tim Ream (New York Red Bulls - 0 caps)
Gale Agbossoumonde (Sporting Braga - 0 caps)

Midfielders
Alejandro Bedoya (Örebro - 5 caps)
Eddie Gaven (Columbus Crew - 7 caps)
Brian Carroll (Columbus Crew - 7 caps)
Logan Pause (Chicago Fire - 5 caps)
Robbie Rogers (Columbus Crew - 12 caps - 1 goal)
Mikkel Diskerud (Stabæk - 0 caps)

Forwards
Robbie Findley (Real Salt Lake - 10 caps)
Juan Agudelo (New York Red Bulls - 0 caps)
Teal Bunbury (Kansas City Wizards - 0 caps)

That's 145 caps and 5 goals spread across 18 players. 78 of those caps and 4 of those goals are from just 3 players too. For comparisons sake, Cobi Jones, the most capped player in USMNT history, has 164 caps. That's how you start a youth movement!

The two guys I'm most excited to see are Gale Agbossoumonde (who will henceforth be known simply as 'Boss') and Juan Agudelo. Boss is a 6'2" monster of muscle who played like a man among boys during the Milk Cup in July. He's played 16 games with the US U-20's and has probably made at least one opponent cry during each of those matches.

Agudelo looked like the best player on a Red Bulls team featuring million-dollar-men Juan Pablo Angel, Rafa Marquez and Thierry Henry during their first round playoff loss to San Jose. He has 23 caps with various US youth teams, during which time he tallied 15 goals. That's the kind of strike rate that gets a young kid called in, especially when all of the other forward options haven't been performing lately.

Elo Ratings Are A Pretty Good Predictor

2010-11-10T00:08:00.000-05:00

One of the blogs I love (and link to on the sidebar) is Climbing the Ladder because all he ever does is look at random statistics that 99% of soccer fans wouldn't care about.

His latest post was about trying to predict what lead to success in the home-and-home playoff series that have existed since 2003. Here were the results
Note: I adjusted percentages to not count ties

Fewer games (18-7-7 72.0%)
Goal difference (21-11-0 65.6%)
Less experienced coach (19-12-1 61.3%)
Top goalscorer (17-11-4 60.7%)
Momentum (19-13-0 59.4%)
Higher seed (19-13-0 59.4%)
Goals for (18-13-1 58.1%)
Home record (18-14-0 56.3%)
Older team (18-14-0 56.3%)
Goals against (16-13-3 55.2%)
Won season series (12-10-10 54.5%)
Away record (17-15-0 53.1%)
Younger coach (17-15-0 53.1%)
2 year record (16-16-0 50.0%)
3 year record (14-18-0 43.8%)
Coach w/ better all time record (13-19-0 40.6%)

This is obviously super interesting to me, so I ask him for the data because I'd like to look at how the Elo Ratings do. He's a badass so he replies and it turns out Elo prediction went 21-11, matching goal differential at 65.6% success.

Below are the results of each series with the Elo difference and games-played difference for the winner of each series (winner is on the left):

2007 HOU vs DAL (92.41) (+2)
2006 HOU vs CHV (56.99) (+2)
2008 CLB vs KC (56.84) (-1)
2006 DC vs NY (53.85) (+1)
2003 CHI vs DC (53.84) (0)
2005 NE vs NY (43.24) (0)
2009 CHI vs NE (42.04) (+1)
2007 NE vs NY (40.12) (+3)
2008 CHI vs NE (34.88) (-7)
2003 NE vs NY (34.07) (-1)
2010 LA vs SEA (27.33) (-8)
2006 NE vs CHI (23.31) (0)
2003 SJ vs LA (20.61) (-4)
2003 KC vs COL (16.81) (-1)
2004 LA vs COL (12.96) (0)
2005 COL vs DAL (12.82) (-4)
2009 LA vs CHV (12.48) (-3)
2004 DC vs NY (12.30) (0)
2010 COL vs CLB (8.94) (-10)
2009 HOU vs SEA (8.71) (+5)
2004 KC vs SJ (4.91) (-1)
2008 RSL vs CHV (-30.67) (-4)
2010 DAL vs RSL (-39.07) (-7)
2010 SJ vs NY (-41.22) (-3)
2006 COL vs DAL (-51.11) (0)
2004 NE vs CLB (-61.74) (-1)
2009 RSL vs CLB (-68.02) (-6)
2007 KC vs CHV (-70.75) (0)
2007 CHI vs DC (-77.37) (-10)
2005 CHI vs DC (-81.97) (-4)
2005 LA vs SJ (-99.84) (+2)
2008 NY vs HOU (-105.34) (-14)

The really cool thing to me is that only once in 11 series (2005 LA) did a team with more games played and a lower Elo rating win the series.

So does this mean anything? Well, it's not quite statistically significant (although the fewer games one is pretty damn close to 95% confidence and is over 90% confidence) but I think that some of the results would be trends worth paying attention to next season if you happen to find yourself in a position to wager a little money.

LA 2 - 1 Seattle: Where Did This Galaxy Team Go?

2010-11-09T23:19:00.000-05:00

After the first game of this series I gave the credit to Bruce Arena for his great coaching. That may have been selling the players short, because the whole Galaxy team has played beautiful soccer these past two games.

I wondered if Sigi Schmid would be able to draw up a new plan for his Sounders team to give them a chance at this series, but it just wasn't meant to be. The Galaxy dominated the run of play again, stifling Seattle's attack and scoring two goals off of great set piece deliveries by David Beckham (who seems to be happier than he has been at any other time in his MLS career).

Dare I say that this team looks very similar to the one that began the 2010 MLS season. In the beginning of the year, LA Galaxy appeared to be positioning themselves as a Real Madrid/ManU style team that clearly outclassed their league competition. They put up 32 points in the first 12 games with 22 goals for and 3 goals against.

That run slowed though. In their next 11 games LA only managed 12 points (11 GF, 14 GA) and you could see problems in their play. Landon Donovan was being moved all over the pitch, injuries were hurting them, and Buddle and Donovan each missed games with the USMNT at the World Cup.

Things did appear to turn around at the end of the season, with Galaxy earning 15 points in 7 games (11 GF, 9 GA), but it was still not what we saw from them to start the year. The team was struggling with how to integrate David Beckham to the team and figuring out exactly who to play in the midfield and where.

Like I said last week, Arena figured it out. This team is playing out of their minds right now and looks poised to make a deep run towards their third MLS Cup.

Yes, Colorado Can Hold On (Barely)

2010-11-07T01:01:00.000-04:00

After the first game I openly wondered if Colorado Rapids could hold on to defeat Columbus Crew. Colorado left a lot of great chances on the table and squeaked out a 1-0 win at home. Well it was enough alright, although just barely.

Columbus came out with their hair on fire, playing with the kind of resolve that almost saw them tie up the first meeting in Colorado. Eddie Gaven rattled the post early, and Andres Mendoza skimmed one just past the post not too long after. Colorado was on their heels and finally gave up an opening goal to Eddie Gaven that came from a ball bouncing around in the box.

I don't know if Columbus purposely slowed up after that or if Colorado settled in and started to play better, but the Crew attack wasn't nearly as dangerous once they leveled the series. If it was Columbus pulling up, possibly fearing getting caught on the counter, it was a huge mistake. In the 35 minutes of the series up to that point where Columbus pushed the game, they absolutely dominated. When they sat back and tried to defend, it didn't go nearly as well.

However, Columbus looked poised to take the series anyway after Robbie Rogers survived a bump from Anthony Wallace and slid a goal past Matt Pickens in the 70th minute. Maybe sitting back and counter-attack can work, right Columbus?!

Wrong.

Colorado's attack is too good to give them repeated chances to attack. You have to make them defend if you want to slow them down. Conor Casey demonstrated why in the 84th minute when he slid on to a low cross from Omar Cummings (those two guys always seem to show up, huh?) and put an unstoppable ball by Andy Gruenebaum.

The game went to extra time and then to penalties, which I've embedded below in their entirety. You can watch them if you want, or read the commentary I wrote out as it was happening. BL = bottom left, TR = top right, etc.

COL: Conor Casey - BL, guess BL, goal
CLB: Guillermo Barros Schelotto - BL, guess BR, goal
COL: Mac Kandji - BR, guess BR, goal off a terrible save blunder
CLB: Jason Garey - TR, guess BL, goal
COL: Jeff Larentowicz - BL, guess BL, goal
CLB: Eddie Gaven - BR, gues BL, goal
COL: Claudio Lopez - TL, guess BR, goal Christ, unsavable
CLB: Eric Brunner - TR, guess BL, goal
COL: Julien Baudet - TL, guess BR, goal
CLB: Brian Carroll - BAGGIO'D!!!!!!!!

Colorado gets another home game now, hosting San Jose Earthquakes in the Eastern Conference finals (yeah, I know) next Saturday. Hopefully their fans do better than the pitiful 11,872 that showed up last time, because this team is good and they deserve better.

Bobby Convey Parties Like It's 2006

2010-11-05T12:50:00.000-04:00

This post was supposed to be about the NY/SJ series, but one player took the last game over to the point that I have to concentrate on him and him alone.

Remember when Bobby Convey was a young phenom? He came up with DC United after being the second youngest player ever drafted. He impressed so much that Tottenham tried to by him for $3m, but his work permit was denied because of too few appearances with the national team. Instead he went to Reading for the highest transfer fee they've ever paid.

It wasn't all fun and games though. He slowly fell out of favor with the national team (rumors are because of a poor attitude) and reached a mutual agreement with Reading to leave the club in 2009. Even his first season back in MLS wasn't too great.

However, he has completely turned it around this year. He's been huge for San Jose, playing great in the midfield and sliding back to play left back when their defense was ravaged by injuries. He's set up goals all over the place, delivered beautiful set pieces, and been a huge reason for the Earthquakes improvement this season.

All of this was on display last night as San Jose went into Harrison and beat New York Red Bulls 3-1 to come back and win the first-round playoff series.

First, he scored on a brilliant shot to the upper left corner off a cross that sat in the box.

Then he turned rookie of the year candidate Tim Ream like a Lazy Susan and netted another with a blast over Bouna Coundoul.

After New York scored to get level on aggregate Convey took over again, playing an inch-perfect ball from 40 yards out over the defense to Golden Boot winner Chris Wondolowski whose header to the upper right corner was absolutely unstoppable.

If Convey's resurgence this season isn't enough to get him called back in to the national team, I don't know what Bradley can be looking for. I know that left back isn't his preferred position, but we're super weak there and he would bring an attacking quality from the back line that we're seriously missing right now.

It's been great to see him turn his career around at 27, and there's still plenty of time left for him to continue to dazzle.

Whoa There, CCL

2010-11-01T20:11:00.000-04:00

CONCACAF held the draw for the knockout stages of the 2010-11 CONCACAF Champions League today, and that picture you see above is the result.

The two MLS teams will be facing off against each other, with the winner going against whichever Central American power survives the Olimpia/Saprissa matchup. Meanwhile, on the other side of the bracket, all four Mexican teams will have to fight it out for a shot at the title.

There are a couple good things going on here.

The first knockout leg is the worst one for MLS teams. It takes place about 1 month before the season starts again, so teams haven't really even had time to train together yet. By putting two MLS teams together, yes it guarantees one will get knocked out, but it also guarantees that one will be able to get in better form and hopefully compete in the next stage.
No Mexican teams until the final. MLS teams have performed much better against the Mexican competition this year, but it's still abundantly clear which is the superior league. I'm not saying an MLS team couldn't beat a Mexican team in a home-and-away series, but now they don't even have to worry about that until the finals

The schedule for the knockout stages is below.

First Leg (February 22-24)
Toluca (MEX) vs. Monterrey (MEX)
Cruz Azul (MEX) vs. Santos Laguna (MEX)
Columbus Crew (USA) vs. Real Salt Lake (USA)
Saprissa (CRC) vs. Olimpia (HON)

Second Leg (March 1-3)
Monterrey (MEX) vs. Toluca (MEX)
Santos Laguna (MEX) vs. Cruz Azul (MEX)
Real Salt Lake (USA) vs. Columbus Crew (USA)
Olimpia (HON) vs. Saprissa (CRC)

And yes, I am writing up my thoughts on the other two games this weekend (for all 4 of you out there who care) but suffice to say they can be summarized by "OMGWTFNYRB" and "Let's not start sucking each other's *popsicles* quite yet FC Dallas."

Seattle 0 - 1 LA: I Guess Coaching Does Matter

2010-10-31T22:47:00.000-04:00

Despite all my proclamations to the contrary, LA Galaxy came out in the first leg of their series against Seattle Sounders and took control of the proceedings. Edson Buddle dropped in a beautiful goal from maybe 30 yards out that provided all the scoring Galaxy needed as the beat Sounders 1-nil in Seattle.

The biggest thing I took away from this meeting was that LA's midfield really seems to be coming together. In the middle of the season Donovan was getting moved around too much, too many people were getting playing time, and it was hard for the midfield to develop a character. Then Beckham came back after missing the first 23 games with injury and added a new wrinkle everyone needed to get used to.

Now, after some more experimentation with Landon up top or Becks in the middle, LA seems to have found a formula that works. Buddle up top with Mike Magee (or occasionally Tristan Bowen if you want speed), Juninho as the attacking mid, Landon on the left, Beckham on the right, and then either Dema Kovalenko or Chris Birchall in the back depending on whether it's more important to disrupt the opponent's attack or provide service forward. It worked extremely well tonight.

Juninho disappeared from time to time in the first half, but is clearly the answer in that slot. Check out this combination play between Landon, Magee and Juninho that really should have doubled LA's lead in the 85th minute.

But that wasn't the only reason LA got the win; they had a great plan for shutting down Seattle's dangerous wing play and played it tremendously. I was worried with Eddie Lewis starting on the left that Zakuani and Nyassi would have a field day using their speed to get past him. But Arena had Donovan tracking back to provide cover against the speed and then Lewis was able to use his experience to close the young guys down once they had to attack him from a stop.

It was amazingly well executed, and only made possible by LA having a player of Landon's caliber. Other teams clearly haven't been able to play the same strategy but Galaxy gave Seattle fits this year, beating them by a combined 7-1 in the regular season.

Maybe I didn't give the past enough credit and chose to ride Seattle's greatly improved play in the second half to make my decision. I'm still not ready to completely write off Seattle's chances, mind you. Sigi Schmid is a great coach and I'm sure he'll have something new ready for the return leg in Los Angeles. Whether or not it's enough to overcome a goal deficit, we'll have to wait and see.

Can Colorado Hold On?

2010-10-29T17:15:00.000-04:00

Colorado Rapids beat the visiting Columbus Crew 1-0 last night on a goal from Pablo Mastroeni to open up the MLS Cup Playoffs. But Colorado had numerous chances to put the game, and the series, away and failed to do so. Will that come back to haunt them next week when they play the leg in Columbus?

The match was very entertaining with lots of attacking and chances (although most of them were for Rapids). If you didn't manage to catch the match, the highlights are right below this paragraph and you can read match reports from the Denver Post or Columbus Dispatch to get a little hometown flavor.

So now the obvious question is can Colorado hold on and win? After Columbus came out strong to open the game, Colorado dominated play for 75 minutes. No one on the backline seemed to be able to mark Cummings or Casey, Anthony Wallace was flying down the left wing with basically nothing stopping him, and Larentowicz and Mastroeni were stopping every Columbus attack before it even crossed midfield. It was a clinic in how to play the game.

Except that Colorado only got one goal. And then Columbus started to turn things around in the last 10 minutes. Suddenly they were the team attacking on all cylinders, finding guys unmarked in the box, and keeping possession of the ball. If Columbus comes out next week and plays like this at home, it could be a long game for the Rapids.

Not to mention, we saw Colorado blow a 2-0 lead at home the week before against Real Salt Lake. Is it possible that this team is just a little mentally weak, especially with them not having the post-season experience of a squad like Columbus?

I picked Colorado to win this series, and I still think they can, but it's going to be a lot more exciting than I thought it would be at halftime.

Toronto FC: Season Retrospective

2010-10-27T18:51:00.000-04:00

Overall: 14-8-8 (33 GF, 41 GA)
Home: 6-6-3 (24 points, +4 GD)
Away: 3-2-10 (11 points, -12 GD)

Finish: 11th overall, 5th in the East

Scoring Leader: Dwayne De Rosario (15)
Assists Leader: Nick LaBrocca (6)

Year in review

Seattle Sounders: Season Retrospective

2010-10-27T18:48:00.000-04:00

Overall: 14-6-10 (39 GF, 35 GA)
Home: 8-3-4 (27 points, +5 GD)
Away: 6-3-6 (21 points, -1 GD)

Finish: 6th overall, 4th in the West

Scoring Leader: Fredy Montero (10), Steve Zakuani (10)
Assists Leader: Fredy Montero (10)

Year in review

San Jose Earthquakes: Season Retrospective

2010-10-27T18:45:00.000-04:00

Overall: 13-7-10 (34 GF, 33 GA)
Home: 7-3-5 (24 points, +3 GD)
Away: 6-4-5 (22 points, -2 GD)

Finish: 8th overall, 6th in the East

Scoring Leader: Chris Wondolowski (18)
Assists Leader: Bobby Convey (10)

Year in review

Real Salt Lake: Season Retrospective

2010-10-27T18:42:00.000-04:00

Overall: 15-11-4 (45 GF, 20 GA)
Home: 11-4-0 (37 points, +24 GD)
Away: 4-7-4 (19 points, +1 GD)

Finish: 2nd overall, 2nd in the West

Scoring Leader: Alvaro Saborio (12)
Assists Leader: Javier Morales (9)

Year in review

Philadelphia Union: Season Retrospective

2010-10-27T18:08:00.000-04:00

Overall: 8-7-15 (35 GF, 49 GA)
Home: 6-6-3 (24 points, +6 GD)
Away: 2-1-12 (7 points, -20 GD)

Finish: 14th overall, 7th in the East

Scoring Leader: Sebastien Le Toux (14)
Assists Leader: Sebastien Le Toux (11)

Year in review

New York Red Bulls: Season Retrospective

2010-10-27T18:05:00.000-04:00

Overall: 15-6-9 (38 GF, 29 GA)
Home: 10-2-3 (32 points, +9 GD)
Away: 5-4-6 (19 points, +0 GD)

Finish: 3rd overall, 1st in the East

Scoring Leader: Juan Pablo Angel (13)
Assists Leader: Joel Lindpere (6)

Year in review

New England Revolution: Season Retrospective

2010-10-27T18:02:00.000-04:00

Overall: 9-5-16 (32 GF, 50 GA)
Home: 7-3-5 (24 points, +3 GD)
Away: 2-2-11 (8 points, -21 GD)

Finish: 13th overall, 6th in the East

Scoring Leader: Marko Perovic (6)
Assists Leader: Shalrie Joseph (5), Kheli Dube (5)

Year in review

Los Angeles Galaxy: Season Retrospective

2010-10-27T17:59:00.000-04:00

Overall: 18-5-7 (44 GF, 26 GA)
Home: 9-2-4 (29 points, +8 GD)
Away: 9-3-3 (30 points, +10 GD)

Finish: 1st overall, 1st in the West

Scoring Leader: Edson Buddle (17)
Assists Leader: Landon Donovan (16)

Year in review

Kansas City Wizards: Season Retrospective

2010-10-27T15:25:00.000-04:00

Overall: 11-6-13 (36 GF, 35 GA)
Home: 7-3-5 (24 points, +6 GD)
Away: 4-3-8 (15 points, -5 GD)

Finish: 9th overall, 3rd in the East

Scoring Leader: Kei Kamara (10)
Assists Leader: Ryan Smith (7)

Year in review

Houston Dynamo: Season Retrospective

2010-10-27T15:22:00.000-04:00

Overall: 9-6-15 (40 GF, 49 GA)
Home: 6-3-6 (21 points, +4 GD)
Away: 3-3-9 (12 points, -13 GD)

Finish: 12th overall, 7th in the West

Scoring Leader: Brian Ching (7)
Assists Leader: Brad Davis (12)

Year in review

FC Dallas: Season Retrospective

2010-10-27T15:19:00.000-04:00

Overall: 14-14-4 (42 GF, 28 GA)
Home: 8-6-1 (30 points, +12 GD)
Away: 4-8-3 (20 points, +2 GD)

Finish: 4th overall, 3rd in the West

Scoring Leader: Jeff Cunningham (11)
Assists Leader: David Ferreira (13)

Year in review

DC United: Season Retrospective

2010-10-27T15:15:00.000-04:00

Overall: 6-4-20 (21 GF, 47 GA)
Home: 3-1-11 (10 points, -13 GD)
Away: 3-3-9 (12 points, -13 GD)

Finish: 16th overall, 8th in the East

Scoring Leader: Danny Allsopp (5), Andy Najar (5)
Assists Leader: Santino Quaranta (2), Rodney Wallace (2)

Year in review

Columbus Crew: Season Retrospective

2010-10-26T17:29:00.001-04:00

Overall: 14-8-8 (40 GF, 34 GA)
Home: 10-2-3 (32 points, +10 GD)
Away: 4-6-5 (18 points, -4 GD)

Finish: 5th overall, 2nd in the East

Scoring Leader: Guillermo Barros Schelotto (9)
Assists Leader: Guillermo Barros Schelotto (9)

Year in review

Colorado Rapids: Season Retrospective

2010-10-26T17:24:00.000-04:00

Overall: 12-10-8 (44 GF, 32 GA)
Home: 8-5-2 (29 points, +15 GD)
Away: 4-5-6 (17 points, -3 GD)

Finish: 7th overall, 5th in the West

Scoring Leader: Omar Cummings (14)
Assists Leader: Jaime Smith (8)

Year in review

Chivas USA: Season Retrospective

2010-10-26T17:19:00.000-04:00

Overall: 8-4-18 (31 GF, 45 GA)
Home: 6-2-7 (20 points, +0 GD)
Away: 2-2-11 (8 points, -14 GD)

Finish: 15th overall, 8th in the West

Scoring Leader: Justin Braun (9)
Assists Leader: Justin Braun (3), Alan Gordon (3), Rodolfo Espinoza (3), Michael Lahoud (3)

Year in review

Chicago Fire: Season Retrospective

2010-10-26T17:14:00.000-04:00

Overall: 9-9-12 (37 GF, 38 GA)
Home: 4-7-4 (19 points, +1 GD)
Away: 5-2-8 (17 points, -2 GD)

Finish: 10th overall, 4th in the East

Scoring Leader: Marco Pappa (7)
Assists Leader: Patrick Nyarko (10)

Year in review

The 2010 Season is Over: Weekly Wrapup

2010-10-25T17:26:00.000-04:00

6 months, 240 games, 591 goals, and now we're here. Half of the teams are preparing to continue on into the MLS Cup playoffs while the rest start next season today. There were some things we expected (LA Galaxy, Real Salt Lake, Landon Donovan) and a few surprises (DC United, Le Toux, Wondolowski) but mostly there was soccer.

As we get ready for the playoffs to start this Thursday, let's look back at the last week of the 2010 MLS season.

Game Reports

First, the two midweek clashes

San Jose Earthquakes 3 - 0 Chivas USA
Chris Wondolowski provided all of the scoring in this affair against a Chivas USA team that will be happy to start the offseason. There's a lot of youth on this Chivas team, but it seems like there's not a ton of talent especially after losing Kljestan and Bornstein. San Jose, on the other hand, is going to the playoffs for the first time since coming back to the league in 2008.

New York Red Bulls 2 - 0 New England Revolution
A home win clinched the Eastern Conference title for New York. New England has a lot of work to do in the offseason, but ownership seem committed to improvement and are willing to pay for it.

And now, this weekend's action

Houston Dynamo 2 - 1 Seattle Sounders
Seattle's been the hottest team in the league lately, but they suffered their first loss since adding Blaise Nkufo to the team, falling 2-1 at Houston. Sounders scored first thanks to a great shot from James Riley, but lost after goals by Geoff Cameron and Cam Weaver. I wouldn't worry if I was a Sounders fan though, their form has been excellent and they should be a real test for LA in the first round of the playoffs.

DC United 2 - 3 Toronto FC
Dwayne De Rosario did what he does and carried TFC to a victory against the league's worst offense in history. Neither of these teams had anything left to play for, which made for some interesting lineups, but the 18,071 fans who showed up to see off Jaime Moreno were treated to an exciting contest. They also got to see Moreno regain sole possession of the MLS leading scorer title when he slotted home a penalty in the 39th minute.

Kansas City Wizards 4 - 1 San Jose Earthquakes
Maybe it was the fact they were playing on short rest against a team that wanted to prove they deserved better than they ended with. Whatever it was, San Jose ended their regular season on an embarrassing note. Birahim Diop pounded home a hat-trick for the Wizards including this wonder-strike from deep and Chris Wondolowski secured the Golden Boot for 2010, notching his 18th goal of the season.

Colorado Rapids 2 - 2 Real Salt Lake
In what has to be one of the most gut-wrenching endings to a Rocky Mountain Cup game, Alvaro Saborio scored two goal in second half stoppage time to bring RSL back and earn a point against Colorado. The Rapids' dynamic striker pair of Omar Cummings and Conor Casey each scored a goal as their team went up 2-0, but it wasn't meant to be.

Chivas USA 1 - 4 Chicago Fire
Brian McBride's final professional game saw him give his captain's armband to fellow retiree CJ Brown, score a goal on a heel flick, and win 4-1 at the Home Depot Center. Chicago dominated this game from start to finish and will hope to build on that performance as they look to next season.

Columbus Crew 3 - 1 Philadelphia Union
The biggest result from this game is the injury to Will Hesmer, which will force the Crew's starting goalie to miss the entire playoffs. Andy Gruenebaum has looked good in limited minutes during the US Open Cup and CONCACAF Champions League, but it's asking a lot for a reserve goalie to get his first MLS minutes of the season in a playoff start.

Los Angeles Galaxy 2 - 1 FC Dallas
LA finally came out with Landon in the midfield again and it helped spark them to a 2-1 win at home over FC Dallas. LA didn't dominate the game by any means though, and there are clearly still issues that need to be solved quick if this team is going to make a run in the playoffs. For FC Dallas, Brek Shea didn't start for the second straight game. I hope Schellas Hyndman just wants to give his young attacker a short rest before the playoffs, because I really think they're going to need Brek if they want to challenge RSL in the playoffs.

Random Thoughts

Nothing this week. You've already seen my predictions, and I want to save all my good stuff for the season retrospectives I'll be doing for every team over the next couple days.

Rankings

MLS Elo Ratings
1,600.45 - Real Salt Lake
1,565.31 - Los Angeles Galaxy
1,561.38 - FC Dallas
1,537.98 - Seattle Sounders
1,535.53 - Colorado Rapids
1,532.26 - New York Red Bulls
1,526.59 - Columbus Crew
1,496.72 - Chicago Fire
1,495.26 - Kansas City Wizards
1,491.03 - San Jose Earthquakes
1,473.27 - Houston Dynamo
1,457.60 - Toronto FC
1,450.91 - Philadelphia Union
1,447.05 - New England Revolution
1,430.63 - Chivas USA
1,398.03 - DC United

Playoff Field Set

2010-10-25T10:19:00.000-04:00

I'm still working on the weekly wrapup, but in the meantime the MLS Cup Playoff field is set. We've known the teams for a while, but not necessarily how it would all shake out.

In the East, conference champion New York Red Bulls will be matched up against San Jose Earthquakes and Columbus Crew will face off with Colorado Rapids.

It the West, Supporters' Shield champions Los Angeles Galaxy will play Seattle Sounders, the hottest team in the league, while Real Salt Lake will match up with FC Dallas in what will probably be the most entertaining first round series.

Prediction: Real Salt Lake repeats as champion, beating Seattle Sounders in the semi-finals and New York Red Bulls in the finals after New York holds off Colorado Rapids.

For those interested in watching the games, every single one will be on national television, starting this coming Thursday with Columbus visiting Colorado on ESPN 2.

The full schedule (in EST). See if you can pick out which matchup ESPN really likes:

Week 1
Thursday
9pm - Columbus Crew at Colorado Rapids (ESPN 2)

Saturday
5pm - Real Salt Lake at FC Dallas (FSC)
10pm - New York Red Bulls at San Jose Earthquakes (Telefutura)

Sunday
8pm - Los Angeles Galaxy at Seattle Sounders (ESPN 2)

Week 2
Thursday
8pm - San Jose Earthquakes at New York Red Bulls (ESPN 2)

Saturday
4pm - Colorado Rapids at Columbus Crew (Telefutura)
10pm - FC Dallas at Real Salt Lake (FSC)

Sunday
9pm - Seattle Sounders at Los Angeles Galaxy (ESPN 2)

More Information on the Expansion Draft

2010-10-22T16:16:00.002-04:00

MLS has released a little more news about how the expansion draft is going to work late next month.

We already knew the basics, that MLS teams would be able to protect only 11 players, that Generation Adidas and homegrown players will be exempt from selection and therefore don't need to be protected. Here are a couple more rules that will be important for how clubs select their 11 protected players.

-If club has a player selected, it can move one more player to the protected list.

-DPs can be left unprotected in the expansion draft, unless he has a no-trade clause in his contract. In that case, he must be protected.

-If a player has a contract option, the team can protect him without exercising the option.

-If Portland or Vancouver selects a developmental player, they must offer him a senior roster slot.

So there we go, a little more information about the process we'll be very familiar with in four weeks time.

Last Days of CCL Group Stages

2010-10-20T18:05:00.000-04:00

There are 4 more matches to be played today and tomorrow, but all of the MLS teams in CONCACAF Champions League now know their respective fates.

In Group A action, a very, VERY reserve-heavy Real Salt Lake squad held court (again) at home beating Cruz Azul 3-1 behind a brace from Paulo and a third from Collen Warner, just for good measure. Cruz Azul notched one late from Cesar Villaluz, but it was nowhere near enough.

Now look, I'm admittedly not very good with Mexican league teams. I'm sure the Cruz Azul was rolling out a b-team as well given they had clinched passage through. What I do know though, is that Real Salt Lake only had two starters (defenders Nat Borchers and Tony Beltran) in this CCL game who also started in their last league game against FC Dallas. In a welcome surprise, 16 year old Arsenal target Luis Gil got the start and 45 minutes of action for RSL.

Toronto FC ended their tournament on a high note, beating poor, defenseless Arabe Unido 1-0. I hesitate to go too far in giving them credit against an over-matched opponent, but TFC played a good game. Hopefully that's high praise coming from me because I have been pretty hard on them lately even when they do manage to get a result. Maybe this and their final game this weekend at DC United can be building blocks for next season.

Finishing only 2 points out of 2nd place though, you know Toronto is kicking itself for a poor showing down in Panama and a draw at home against RSL.

A quick jump to Group C and sees Seattle Sounders lose at home to Saprissa in the team's final CCL game. Seattle had been eliminated a while ago, but continued to fight hard with reserve lineups and almost pulled off a result except for a goal by Josue Martinez in the 89th minute. Seattle does get the pleasure of knowing they will be back next year though, thanks to their second straight US Open Cup championship.

Finally we move to Group B where, even though they didn't play, Columbus Crew are now guaranteed a spot in the knockout stages thanks to Santos Laguna pounding out Municipal 6-1. Columbus will finish their group stage tomorrow against Joe Public in Trinidad, but will probably put out the most reserve-laden squad they can manage. It is impossible for them to improve their position in the group and they are just 1 point back of New York for first place in the East.

Like Toronto, Columbus may end up kicking themselves, however. Had they sent out a real lineup last game against Municipal and won, they would be in position to win their group rather than finish second.

As it stands, two MLS squads, RSL and Crew, will face off in the knockout stages in late February/early March.

Timbers Add Four Players

2010-10-19T17:47:00.000-04:00

Today, Portland Timbers announced the first four players set to join their MLS club next season. Three of them are current Timbers, two have prior MLS experience, and one was in Manchester United's youth system.

Steve Cronin (GK)
-27 years old
-Part of the U-17 academy in Bradenton
-2009 first team USL performer
-55 goals allowed in 2655 MLS minutes isn't the best stat ever (about 1.86 goals per game) but you have to remember that he was the unfortunate soul stuck with LA's 2008 defense in front of him.
-Would be a servicable starter or a great backup.

Ryan Pore (M/F)
-27 years old
-16th pick in the 2005 MLS SuperDraft
-61 appearance with Kansas City Wizards, 17 starts, 1842 minutes, 3 goals, 2 assists
-2009 first team USL performer
-2010 USL golden boot winner (15 goals in 29 starts)
-Plays more of an attacking mid role, but could be a poor man's Le Toux (aka a little better than the Seattle version of Le Toux)

Bright Dike (F)
-23 years old
-12th pick in 2010 MLS SuperDraft, but not signed after camp with Columbus Crew
-10 goals in 23 games this year as a rookie out of Notre Dame
-You don't get drafted 12th without talent. He may not have shown it immediately for the Crew (or they may have just missed on him) but he seems to have found a scoring touch in his first professional season.

Eddie Johnson (F) - no, not that one
-26 years old
-Born in Chester, England and spent ages 15-18 in Man U's youth system
-Came to USL to join former coach at Coventry City after his club Chester City fell into financial trouble.
-14 goals in 26 games this season for Austin Aztex
-This would be an exciting signing to me if I was a Timbers fan. Sure, he couldn't hack it in Europe, but a lot of guys like him have come to MLS and contributed mightily. He's still young and clearly has talent.

RSL Rolls and Goalie Goals: Weekly Wrapup

2010-10-18T12:58:00.002-04:00

This is definitely the hardest time of year to be an MLS fan. BCS standings are just starting to come out, NFL teams are really rounding in to form, MLB playoffs are going strong, the NHL season is starting, and MLS is in its final weeks of the regular season with legitimately nothing to play for. We've only got one more week though, and then the playoffs start, which hopefully picks up the interest a bit.

Game Reports

Seattle Sounders 2 - 1 Chivas USA
Seattle actually beat TWO Chivas teams this week. First they dispatched the Mexican club on Tuesday with a roster of reserves, and then defeated their American counterpart on Saturday with the starters. Not a bad week for Sounders fans who are lucky enough to watch one of the hottest teams in MLS right now.

Chicago Fire 0 - 0 DC United
This game was kinda boring, so instead let's use this space to honor Brian McBride who just played his last home game. McBride was honored pre-game, at half, and post-game, which was well deserved.

McBride has performed everywhere he's played. He was so beloved by Fulham fans that they renamed the pub at Craven Cottage to McBride's after he left and put out this tribute video. It's rare that you'll find a more professional player, who someone who deserves the respect that McBride does.

62 goals in 161 games with Columbus Crew
40 goals in 153 appearances with Fulham
17 goals in 57 games with Chicago Fire
96 caps and 30 goals as an American International

Here's McBride's final farewell to the Chicago faithful.

Toronto FC 2 - 2 Columbus Crew
Columbus still failed to impress, much as they've done the entire second half of the season, but they managed to pull out a point in Toronto thanks to a goal by goalie Will Hesmer off a last second set piece. It was terrible defense by TFC failing to close out a guy who is clearly not comfortable with the ball at his feet, but that kinda typifies their season. Maicon Santos looked VERY good in attack though (including this blast for a goal and this one that was barely saved) and hopefully plays in to TFC plans for the future.

Philadelphia Union 2 - 1 New York Red Bulls
In a game that could have clinched the Eastern Conference championship for them, New York Red Bulls could not get past local rival Philadelphia Union. For the first half New York looked like they may as well have not even shown up. Their attack was poor, their defense was poor, it was just not the performance you'd expect from a team this talented. They went into half time down 2-0 and deserved every bit of that scoreline.

New York tried to play a 4-4-1-1 with Ballouchy behind Angel (Henry was out injured) and it was a disaster. JPA needs another forward to play off and the flow just wasn't there with him alone up top. For a guy about to leave the team though, he showed that he's not dogging his final days in New York, calling the team together before half time and giving a rousing speech to try and spark the under-performing team. It seemed to work temporarily as NY pulled one back 3 minutes in to the second half, but they couldn't find an equalizer the rest of the game. US U-20 forward Juan Agudelo almost tied it in the 94th minute with a great header off a corner kick, but Fred was manning the near post to clear the shot off the line.

New England Revolution 1 - 0 Kansas City Wizards
This result knocked Kansas City out of the playoff race. It wasn't for a lack of trying, as the Wizards took 22 shots, but only 4 of those were on frame. Not much else to say here honestly, better luck to both these teams next season.

Real Salt Lake 2 - 0 FC Dallas
One streak is over; Dallas finally lost a game. Another still lives, as RSL is unbeaten in their last 25 home games. In what looks more and more like a preview of the first round of the playoffs, RSL outplayed FC Dallas all over the field. It wasn't a dominating performance by any means, but for this day at least RSL was clearly a better team.

I was a little surprised that Brek Shea didn't see any time in this game. Despite well Marvin Chavez has played recently, Shea is a better player and will need to contribute for FCD to make a run in the playoffs.

San Jose Earthquakes 0 - 1 Houston Dynamo
The Dynamo used to be the Earthquakes, and they also used to be an MLS powerhouse. That didn't matter a whole bunch here though, as the Dynamo rode a shutout from Tyler Deric in his debut. A classy squad came to play despite their disappointing season and managed a win. Andrew Hainault's diving header was the only goal of the game, but it's worth watching.

Los Angeles Galaxy 1 - 3 Colorado Rapids
In the final game of the week LA got off to a quick start with a goal by Edson Buddle in the opening minutes of the game. That was as good as it got though, as Buddle gave back an own goal less than 10 minutes later (although it was really Sean Franklin's fault as he kicked it off the forward's chest into the net) and Colorado's prolific striker pair of Conor Casey and Omar Cummings assisted on goals to each other.

I'm still not convinced that LA has their offense figured out with all their players healthy. Bruce needs to stop trying to just play his best 6 front players and actually put a team out there that can play together and work as a unit. It's not like there's a huge dropoff between the guys he starts and the first choice bench players. Also, not the best game from Omar Gonzalez this week. He's gonna need to step it up again for LA to succeed in the playoffs.

Random Thoughts

The final round of CCL group stage is this week. RSL is guaranteed to go through, but will be facing off with Cruz Azul to see who wins the group. Columbus is in great position to go through, but will need a result at Joe Public or a loss by Marathon. Seattle and TFC are already out of it, but will attempt to end on their respective high notes at home.

10/19 8pm: Toronto FC v. Arabe Unido
10/19 10pm: Real Salt Lake v. Cruz Azul
10/19 10pm: Seattle Sounders v. Saprissa
10/21 8pm: Columbus Crew @ Joe Public

On a side note, how does CCL not start the final round of group games at the same time? You don't think teams will alter their lineups and strategies now based on what happens? You don't think that this makes it way too possible for teams to collude? Really CONCACAF, sometimes you baffle me.

Rankings

MLS Elo Ratings
1,600.00 - Real Salt Lake
1,567.24 - FC Dallas
1,559.45 - Los Angeles Galaxy
1,545.36 - Seattle Sounders
1,535.98 - Colorado Rapids
1,525.78 - New York Red Bulls
1,519.84 - Columbus Crew
1,492.98 - San Jose Earthquakes
1,484.67 - Kansas City Wizards
1,481.76 - Chicago Fire
1,465.88 - Houston Dynamo
1,457.66 - Philadelphia Union
1,454.23 - Chivas USA
1,453.53 - New England Revolution
1,449.19 - Toronto FC
1,406.44 - DC United

More on Juan Pablo

2010-10-14T18:26:00.000-04:00

Allen Hopkins has been spitting hot fire all day today about the backstory on Juan Pablo Angel leaving New York Red Bulls after this year.

Just after noon today he put up on his twitter feed:

Classy JPA has known since MLS ASG in July he would not return to @RBNY. 4 MLS clubs tried & failed to trade for JPA. NOT a big revelation.

Uh, speak for yourself Allen. This is kind've a big revelation to everyone else (unless you're talking about JPA being classy, in which case yeah we got that).

During his appearance on ExtraTime Radio later in the day, Hopkins mentioned that NY basically told Angel "you're welcome to leave now if you can find a team" after the game in Houston. Juan Pablo moving midseason would've been one of the biggest trades in MLS history.

The four teams Hopkins ended up mentioning:

DC United: Not surprising at all. Their attack is anemic and Angel would've been a huge boost. They really don't have any talent to offer back in a trade though.

Colorado Rapids: The shocker of the bunch. NYRB and Colorado did end up doing a trade later in the year, but that was for Ballouchy and Kandji. Not sure what they would've had to give up for Angel, but clearly they weren't interested in dumping Cummings.

Seattle Sounders: This was before they had traded away Ljungberg and brought in Nkufo. This is somewhat surprising to me (not so much to the ETR hosts) but I'm sure they're happy they ended up with Nkufo at 1/4 the cost and nobody lost.

Los Angeles Galaxy: Daaaaaamn. Buddle, Angel, Donovan, Beckham? That's an eff you attack right there. Apparently a potential deal for Angel was a big reason they got rid of Alan Gordon to Chivas USA, to open up a striker spot in case they were able to pull it off.

So we're still not much closer to figuring out where he ends up (although it sounds like he and his family love the NYC area so Philly, New England and DC seem like front-runners) but it will definitely be THE story to watch during the offseason.

JPA 2 NYRB: ttyl

2010-10-13T16:33:00.000-04:00

Caught up in the boringness of last nights US/Colombia match was Juan Pablo Angel's announcement at half time that he "probably won't" return to the New York Red Bulls next season.

This isn't entirely surprising. He and Thierry Henry play very similarly as strikers and with nearly $11m tied up in Designated Player salaries already with Rafa Marquez and Henry New York isn't likely to put $500k+ into another striker. So that leaves us with the question: where does Angel go?

He's said his family feels at home in America, so he may stay around with another MLS team. Also, he obviously still has the skill to contribute a lot to any MLS team, and will deserve DP money for at least a couple more seasons.

Some possible targets:
New England Revolution: There have been a couple articles lately that New England is finally ready to open up and pay for a DP who can help them win. Does that mean that they'll go outside the organization to get one or just that they'll give Shalrie Joseph the money he's deserved for years? Or, is this all just a big gimmick to get season ticket holders to stick around?
Houston Dynamo: Assuming, of course, they aren't still bitter from signing Luis Angel Landin for way too much money last time they tried a DP experiment. Sure they could use more help on defense than offense, but they still have the 3rd lowest number of shots on goal in the league.
DC United: Yeah, there's not much good going on in attack here outside of Najar and they've put the money up for DPs before.
Expansion clubs: This idea is a little more out there, but signing JPA would give instant credibility to either Vancouver or Portland's attack.

Also happening last night:

Chicago Fire 0 - 2 Kansas City Wizards
Kansas City had to win in Chicago to have any hope of making the playoffs and they did. Teal Bunbury scored another goal, got an assist, and had a couple other good shots. He's already turned down a callup from Canada (who he also has the option of playing for) holding out hope that he could play for the US one day. Given the terrible play of our forwards recently I say make it happen; let's call him up.

US 0 - 0 Colombia: This is why people hate soccer

2010-10-13T10:24:00.000-04:00

The US tied Colombia 0-0 last night. If there was any action worth talking about from the game I'd tell you, but there really wasn't. The match was pretty terrible to watch, even from a soccer fan's perspective. Anyone who was tuning in for the first time probably won't be doing so for a second any time soon. The only things worth mentioning are that Brek Shea and Eric Lichaj both got their first cap with the national team.

So what have we learned from these past two friendlies?

1. We play the 4-4-2 for a reason
Saturday it was the 4-2-3-1, Tuesday is was the "4-3-3" that looked like a 4-1-4-1. Both games saw the offense look stagnant at best. Maybe that's more a result of playing guys with less experience and not having Landon, but it wasn't fun to watch.

2. Our players need to play
Gooch looked a little better against Colombia than against Poland, but there's still a ton of rust there. Jozy keep squandering chances and it looks like the ball plays him instead of vice-versa. These guys are very good and need to be cornerstones of our team, but they won't be if they sit on the bench at their clubs.

3. Jobs are up for grabs
With all the new players coming up, and few performing extremely well, there could some serious turnover in the next 18 months. Landon, Deuce, Timmy, Boca and Dolo are safe. The rest will have to fight. I'm especially excited for the Edu/Bradley/Jones battle since they all look like actual soccer players.

Rating the Players
This is my attempt to rank who did well and who didn't over these past few games. Players are measured against the standards I held for them before the friendlies, and more time on the field will mean higher placement, just because I got to see you more.

Jermaine Jones (great introduction to the team)
Steve Cherundolo (old man's still got it)
Stuart Holden (will start and probably let Deuce play forward)
Clint Dempsey (looks like a meth head, but balls outta control)
Eric Lichaj (looks like the new Dolo in a few years)
Clarence Goodson (should be moving on from Norway to a better league)
Tim Howard (not gonna fault him for 2 awful clearances)
Michael Bradley (all over the place, but not his usual self)
Carlos Bocanegra (still our best option a LB)
Heath Pearce (did better than haters want to give him credit for)
Maurice Edu (not his fault he had to play a new position)
Michael Parkhurst (solid in the middle, not really tested)
Brad Guzan (didn't do much, didn't have to)
Eddie Johnson (played better than Jozy in his few minutes)
Jozy Altidore (at least he scored once)
Brek Shea (a disappointing debut for the young player)
Benny Feilhaber (I gave him too much credit after Poland)
Jonathan Spector (invisible)
Alejandro Bedoya (still not an international)
Oguchi Onyewu (way too rusty)

All Set But the Positioning: Weekly Wrapup

2010-10-11T13:54:00.002-04:00

All of the results pretty much fell in line with how you'd expect this weekend. This is great news if you're a bettor since you probably did really well unless you over-thought yourself. If your a Wizards fan, then it went much worse since your loss to Seattle coupled with San Jose thrashing DC United and Colorado grabbing a point from FC Dallas pretty much assures that you'll be watching the playoffs.

Game Reports

New York Red Bulls 0 - 0 Real Salt Lake
This game was much more exciting than the nil-nil score line. It featured great scoring chances from , but none found their way into the back of the net. One reasonable question I think needs to be asked is "Will Thierry Henry get his legs in time to have a real impact in the playoffs?" I know he's going to be a good MLS player, he has too much talent not to be, but the end result for this season could be very disappointing for NYRB if he doesn't turn it on soon.

On a side note, this results, coupled with LA's win, basically snuffs out RSL's chances at the Supporters' Shield.

FC Dallas 2 - 2 Colorado Rapids
Colorado rolled out what will become their new and improved sick-nasty attack (Cummings-Casey-Kandji in a 4-3-3) and became only the third team to score two goals against FC Dallas since April. Granted, both of their goals were scored by Jeff Larentowicz, but still. It wasn't enough though, as Dallas stretched their unbeaten streak to a new MLS single-season record 19 games.

DC United 0 - 2 San Jose Earthquakes
The Chris Wondolowski show is in full effect. San Jose's suddenly dominant forward added two more goals (his 13th and 14th of the season) against a DC United team just waiting for the season to end. His first goal was a goal of the week candidate volley which he followed that up with a nice left-footed finish off a rebound. Just a reminder, San Jose got Wondo for Cam Weaver and a conditional draft pick. For a team that is usually so good at player evaluation, the Dynamo really blew that one.

Also, this game featured the rare double red card situation in the 8th minute although I have no idea how to describe what happened (or didn't to be more precise). Moreno hit the ground like he'd been shot before a free kick and, next thing I know, two guys have red cards shown to them.

Kansas City Wizards 1 - 2 Seattle Sounders
Sanna Nyassi continued to build upon his great form scoring the first goal, his 4th in his last 3 games, and Alvaro Fernandez wants people to remember that while he may not be a starter, this DP's got some game as well. The two wingers provided all the scoring Seattle would need. Davy Arnaud pulled a goal back on a penalty in the 84th minute off a foul drawn from Teal Bunbury, but it was too late by then. The game all but eliminates KC from playoff contention.

Chivas USA 3 - 0 Toronto FC
TFC put out a good lineup again (starting Maicon, Mista nowhere to be found) but that alone isn't enough to make them a good team right now. Yeah, Maicon blew some chances, but he's still, unfortunately, the best option for Toronto. Chivas USA would ride goals from Jorge Flores, Jesus Padilla and Rodolfo Espinoza (hey, can you guess which MLS team has a Hispanic owner?) to a not-quite-as-dominant-as-it-sounds 3-0 victory.

Houston Dynamo 1 - 2 New England Revolution
Geoff Cameron got pushed up to the midfield for this game (which I am all in favor of) but it wasn't enough as New England downed the Dynamo in Houston. Shalrie Joseph and Kheli Dube provided the scoring for Revolution while Dominic Oduro tallied for the Dynamo in a game that saw two teams experimenting at the end of disappointing season.

Random Thoughts

The Elo Ratings do a great job of showing which team has had a more impressive overall season. However, it does not do a good job telling you which team is playing the best at the moment.

Take Seattle, for example. They've been rocketing up the Elo Ratings, currently finding themselves in 4th place. Does this really rate them fairly though? They've just finished winning the US Open Cup for the second straight year and have 29 points in their last 12 league games. They are maybe the most dangerous team heading in to the playoffs.

I'm working on a couple different ways to maybe address this, but they probably won't be ready for prime time until next season. They will produce some pretty cool graphs for the end of this year though!

Also, a big FU to whoever working over at MLSsoccer.com decided to put a 38 second pre-roll ad before every video highlight, even a 45 second goal highlight. You didn't think some kind of "This highlight brought to you by FIFA 2011" screen was enough or something? Just to name a few other problems, there's the way-too-script-heavy site that is makes browsing painfully slow, the fact that your player links don't always go to the right person, your video player is now wider than its html div in Firefox/Chrome. It's unbelievable how much you guys can screw up a website.

Rankings

MLS Elo Ratings
1,591.95 - Real Salt Lake
1,575.29 - FC Dallas
1,574.99 - Los Angeles Galaxy
1,541.23 - Seattle Sounders
1,533.23 - New York Red Bulls
1,520.44 - Colorado Rapids
1,519.52 - Columbus Crew
1,503.21 - San Jose Earthquakes
1,499.75 - Chicago Fire
1,476.66 - Kansas City Wizards
1,458.36 - Chivas USA
1,455.65 - Houston Dynamo
1,450.21 - Philadelphia Union
1,449.52 - Toronto FC
1,446.90 - New England Revolution
1,403.09 - DC United

US 2 - 2 Poland: A few surprises, not much learned

2010-10-10T11:25:00.000-04:00

The US Mens National Team hosted Poland (if you can call it hosting when probably 65% of the crowd was Polish) and played to a 2-2 draw in a game that featured some lineup and formation experimentation.

You can find great write-ups of the action here and here, so I won't focus on that. Suffice to say that I was happy with how the US attacked, we need to finish chances better, and the two goals we allowed were both the fault of awful clearances due to our roster changes, and I'm not at all worried about that becoming an issue for the first-team USMNT in the future. You can watch the goals below to get a little better idea of how it went.

Instead, here's a list of good and bad things I got from this game:

The Good
-A new formation! It didn't go great, which you'd expect with a first time change, but I'm glad to see Bob experimenting.
-Stuart Holden built on his recent club form and went the full 90, putting in dangerous balls, and continuing to look like a big piece for the team's future. He's going to force his way onto the field soon.
-Benny Feilhaber looking good when he had the ball, but it would've been nice to see him with it a little more.
-Jermaine Jones is fitting in well out there. His ball to Altidore for the first goal was first class.
-Steve Cherundolo...UNBELIEVABLE. Can we freeze Dolo in time for 4 years?

The Bad
-The center backs were not what we would've hoped for. Edu rightfully looked like a guy playing out of position (not that he doesn't have great potential as a CB, but he's not there now) and Gooch still looks bad. That missed clearance for the first goal was TERRIBLE.
-For a game that allows 6 substitutes, there were way too few subs and the single was was pretty bad. If the last two games have shown anything, Alejandro Bedoya is not an international right now. Also, Eric Lichaj deserved a cap.
-I'm still not 100% sold with Jozy's lone-striker abilities. His one goal was great as was his rocket off the cross bar, but there is still a lot of his game going towards the net that needs improving.

So what do I expect for the game Tuesday against Colombia? Well, given the single sub and Bocanegra going back to France, I think it'll be a very different lineup.

I expect the backline to be
-Pearce--Goodson--Gooch--Spector-
with Parkhurst and Lichaj getting minutes. If Gooch was getting time with Milan I think he sits, but he really needs all the minutes he can get right now.

Similar to Gooch I think Jozy gets the start again due to needing minutes, but GAM (that's Grown Ass Man for you non-hip cats) Eddie Johnson comes in for action as well.

The midfield should be fairly similar to start with, but change a lot at half. Brek will get minutes but I don't think he starts. It's hard to see Bradley not playing, but I think we'll get to see some Edu/Jones D-mid pairing as well. I also wouldn't be surprised to see Holden slide back there for a bit if 2 of Jones, Edu and Bradley are off, opening up another chance for Bedoya to try and look good on the wing.

Charlie Davies Update

2010-10-08T10:54:00.000-04:00

As we near a pair of US friendlies, ESPN just put out an article by Charlie Davies that talks about the accident last year and his rehab since that night. It's a truly inspirational piece that I recommend any USMNT fan read.

His story flows from the tragic

It's tough to describe how hard it was to walk again. Putting pressure on my right leg and believing it would hold me up felt like trusting somebody with your life on a 300-foot cliff. In the fourth week, I moved across the road to the national rehab hospital. With a lot of help, I took my first steps on crutches -- and I broke down and cried. It was the first time I ever saw my dad shed tears.

to the disappointment of a comeback that just wasn't enough

So when I got that call from Bob, telling me he was proud of my progress but that I wasn't ready for training camp, my world crumbled. But, looking back, in my heart I know I couldn't have competed then at the international level. I have no bitterness and now no deadlines: I'll be ready when I'm ready.

to the continued progress and resurgence we all hope for.

But I'm seeing the old me more often. A few weeks ago, after finally returning to play in reserve matches, I had a guy one-on-one and figured it was time to pull out my go-to move. I did my stepover to the right, then blew past my man on the left, took a shot and forced the keeper to make a good save. When I looked back, my bench was standing up, and the crowd was clapping. It hit them before it hit me: I'm almost there.

Get well Chuck D. We'll see you at the Gold Cup.

Seattle Sounders: 2 Seasons, 2 Trophies

2010-10-07T11:56:00.000-04:00

So, no disrespect to DC United, but WeWinTrophies.com may need to be handed over at some point if this keeps up. Seattle Sounders beat Columbus Crew 2-1 in front of over 30,000 fans to repeat as US Open Cup champions. They are the first repeat champion since New York PancyprianFreedoms (yeah, that's a team) in 1982 and 83.

I will never be able to do justice to a US Open Cup match report like TheCup.us does, so go check out their coverage of the final or check out the highlight video below.

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&brand=foxsports&from=foxsports_en-us_videocentral&vid=d701c520-2f3b-42e0-9c98-c8b89eb3db3c" target="_new" title="Open Cup Highlights: Seattle/Columbus">Video: Open Cup Highlights: Seattle/Columbus</a>

Some fun facts about the game from the @usopencup twitter account:

http://twitter.com/usopencup/status/26527652329
With 5 goals, Nate Jaqua of @SoundersFC & Paulo Araujo Jr of @MiamiFC finish as the top scorers for the 2010 @USOpenCup http://bit.ly/cyzwmd

http://twitter.com/usopencup/status/26519276664
Not only is Nyassi 1st to score 2 in a @USOpenCup Final in the Pro Era - he's 1st to score twice in a Final over a CAREER @SoundersFC @MLS

http://twitter.com/usopencup/status/26519064886
2010 @USOpenCup Final: @ColumbusCrew 1-2 @SoundersFC - 66th min. - Sanna Nyassi scores - 1st in Pro Era to score multiple goals in the Final

http://twitter.com/usopencup/status/26519610681
2010 @USOpenCup Final Official Attendance: 31,311 BREAKING NEWS! That's a new Open Cup attend. record ... nevermind, we knew that was coming

Colombia says "No thanks, MLS"

2010-10-05T11:21:00.000-04:00

Colombia released their roster for the two US-based friendlies they'll play in the coming weeks. Despite strong showing from all 3 this year, Juan Pablo Angel, David Ferreira and Fredy Montero all missed out on the callup.

Colombia's roster:

GOALKEEPER
Breiner Castillo (Independiente Medellin)
Farid Mondragon (Cologne)
David Ospina (Nice)

DEFENDER
Pablo Armero (Udinese)
Ivan Cordoba (Inter Milan)
Aquivaldo Mosquera (America)
Luis Amaranto Perea (Atletico Madrid)
Juan David Valencia (Independiente Medellin)
Mario Yepes (AC Milan)
Camilo Zuniga (Napoli)

MIDFIELDER
Juan Cuadrado (Udinese)
Victor Ibarbo (Atletico Nacional)
John Javier Restrepo (Independiente Medellin)
John Valencia (Once Caldas)
John Viafara (La Equidad)

FORWARD
Falcao Garcia (Porto)
Teofilo Gutierrez (Trabzonspor)
Giovani Moreno (Racing Club)
Adrian Ramos (Hertha Berlin)
Darwin Quintero (Santos Laguna)

Now, Ferreira and JPA are not young. I get that. They've had their time with the Colombian national team and don't project to have any real impact in the future. However, they're both playing great right now, are based in the country where these friendlies are taking place, and, in JPA's case, live maybe 45 minutes away from the location of the game October 12th against the USA. I know that MLS isn't looked at as a top tier league, but shouldn't 58 goals in 98 appearances and living just down the road be worthy of a look?

The more interesting case is Fredy Montero. They 23 year old forward for Seattle Sounders has been playing out of his mind in his second season here, and will be a contender for the league MVP award. He's had 4 caps with the national team since 2007, most recently in August of 2009. However, if he's not getting noticed now, you have to wonder when he will be called in.

Look at the forwards Colombia chose instead:
Falcao Garcia - This 24 year old is a monster. 27 goals in 34 for games for Porto, he should be a fixture for some time to come.
Teofilo Gutierrez - 25 years old, recently moved from the Colombian league (where he was one of the leading scorers) to Turkey.
Giovani Moreno - 24 year old now playing for Racing in Argentina after 5 solid seasons in Colombia.
Adrian Ramos - 24 year old who has established himself as a regular with Hertha Berlin in the Bundesliga.
Darwin Quintero - 23 year old with Santos Laguna who plays often, but doesn't have the best goal scoring record

That's 5 forwards, all under the age of 25, and all playing outside Colombia. It's going to be tough sledding for Montero to crack that group considering MLS's (undeservedly poor, in my opinion) reputation abroad.

Of course, it is always possible that the Colombian team didn't want to interupt MLS players at the end of their season when all of them are in the playoff race. It could have been a benevolent decision intended to curry favor with MLS coaches.

Somehow I don't think that's the case though.

October International Friendlies

2010-10-05T10:48:00.000-04:00

The US has two friendlies coming up this month, facing Poland in Chicago this Saturday and Colombia in Philadelphia next Tuesday. The roster Bob Bradley called in is heavily European-based, with Heath Pearce and poster boy Brek Shea being the only two MLS players called in. They won't be with the team on against Poland, but will be available for the Colombia game next week.

The full roster is:

GOALKEEPER
Brad Guzan (Aston Villa, 16 caps)
Tim Howard (Everton, 55 caps)

DEFENDERS
Carlos Bocanegra (Saint-Étienne, 83 caps/12 goals)
Steve Cherundolo (Hannover 96, 64 caps/2 goals)
Clarence Goodson (IK Start, 14 caps/2 goals)
Eric Lichaj (Aston Villa, 0 caps/0 goals)
Oguchi Onyewu (AC Milan, 56 caps/5 goals)
Michael Parkhurst (FC Nordsjaelland, 8 caps/0 goals)
Heath Pearce (FC Dallas, 32 caps/0 goals)
Jonathan Spector (West Ham United, 25 caps/0 goals)

MIDFIELDERS
Alejandro Bedoya (Örebro, 3 caps/0 goals)
Michael Bradley (Borussia Mönchengladbach, 47 caps/8 goals)
Maurice Edu (Rangers, 16 caps/1 goal)
Benny Feilhaber (Aarhus, 35 caps/2 goals)
Stuart Holden (Bolton Wanderers, 15 caps/2 goals)
Jermaine Jones (Schalke 04, 0 caps/0 goals)
Brek Shea (FC Dallas, 0 caps/0 goals)

FORWARDS
Jozy Altidore (Villareal, 29 caps/9 goals)
Clint Dempsey (Fulham FC, 66 caps/19 goals)
Eddie Johnson (Fulham FC, 41 caps/12 goals)

The biggest news here is newcomers Eric Lichaj (LEE-high) and Jermaine Jones. Jones has been the object of many US fans obsessions since saying he was interested in switching from Germany and Lichaj is a young defender in England who just may grow in to an answer to the USA's lack of full back.

I do think it's kinda odd that no players based in Mexico got called up, it would've been nice to see Torres again. Unfortunately, I can understand not calling in Herculez Gomez. He's 28 and has no real future with the USMNT. He'll be too old for the next World Cup and isn't so good right now to warrant a spot on the 2011 Gold Cup roster regardless of age.

Some other folks I'd like to see at some point:

Hunter Freeman - Defender who MLS fans may remember. Plays with Clarence Goodson at IK Start now and is a pretty consistent starter. Only 25, may be a good piece for us with such an aging defense.

Justin Braun - The Chivas USA forward has a big body, but also brings more on the ball skill than you'd expect from a 6'3" white kid.

And then, as for (non-obvious) people in playoff races
Omar Gonzalez
Kyle Beckerman (I know we have about 800 CMs, but dude's been awesome this year)
Robbie Rogers

Tim Ream needs more than 25 games of good showing to get a callup, in my opinion. He's no better than Gonzalez was as a rookie, and he had to put up a season and a half of solid play to get capped.

The Home Stretch: Weekly Wrapup

2010-10-04T14:23:00.002-04:00

Please forgive the lack of substance in this update. I was at a wedding this Saturday (who schedules a wedding during a fall Saturday in the South?) so I only have highlights to go off of for all of the games except the Super Clasico. Because of this I'm going to try to focus more on the impact of the results rather than the play that got them there.

Game Reports

Chivas USA 1 - 2 Los Angeles Galaxy
Let's go ahead and start with the game I can comment the most on. LA Galaxy maintained their dominance of the Super Clasico, downing Chivas USA 2-1. LA scored on a volley by Edson Buddle off a beautiful ball by Michael Stephens and a David Beckham free kick that reminded us why he's the master. Chivas pulled one goal back on an (offside) Alan Gordon header, but that was all the could manage dispite playing the last 20 minutes a man up.

LA changed up their lineup (AGAIN) and saw much better play on the pitch. Landon was moved up top with Buddle, and then the midfield played in a diamond with Juninho in the back, Beckham in the front, Chris Birchall on the right, and rookie Michael Stephens (who I really like and played well early in the season) on the left. If you're going to let Becks roam around the field, putting him in the middle makes a lot of sense. It meant that one side didn't get overcrowded or too empty to keep the defense honest.

I wasn't a huge fan of Donovan's role up top though, and here's why. If Bruce is going to play him and Buddle as a flat pair up top, Donovan is going to be receiving the ball with his back to the goal way too often. That neutralizes his best asset, his speed and ability to run at defenders. It would be like constantly giving the ball to Dwight Howard 18 feet from the basket. If you're going to play his as a forward, he needs to be behind a guy like Buddle who can receive the ball, hold up play, and then pass off to Donovan making a run.

Seattle Sounders 3 - 2 Toronto FC
Another big crowd and another home win for a Seattle Sounders team that has suddenly moved up to 6th in the table. Blaise Nkufo added another goal as did the two speedy wingers Zakuani and Nyassi. I was somewhat surprised to see Seattle put out the entire first team lineup tonight considering the US Open Cup final is tomorrow, but good for them getting 3 points. As for Toronto FC, they finally put what I would think is their best 11 out there together to start. Even better, Mista wasn't even in the 18.

Colorado Rapids 0 - 1 DC United
After 4 straight 3 goal victories at home, Colorado Rapids got caught by visiting DC United and lost 1-0. I have to wonder if they were looking ahead to their last 3 games of the season (@FC Dallas, @LA Galaxy, vs. RSL) and thought they could take a terrible DC team lightly. Colorado tried to rest Marvell Wynne, Anthony Wallace and Omar Cummings and it came back to bite them. DC players get paid too, you know, and no professional wants to lose.

FC Dallas 3 - 0 Chicago Fire
The big story here was Jeff Cunningham tying Jaime Moreno's record of 132 goals in an MLS career on a penalty in the 67th minute. He has one more home game this season (against Colorado this coming Saturday) to take over the lead in front of his home fans. Hopefully he can do it in the run of play and not from the spot.

New York Red Bulls 1 - 0 Kansas City Wizards
Dane Richards continues to impress, scoring the game's lone goal as New York Red Bulls downed Kansas City Wizards 1-0 at home. Granted, the goal was kinda gifted to him by a horrible play from KC center back Jimmy Conrad, but his finish deserves some praise. Backe went back to a 4-4-2 this game with Juan Pablo and Henry up top and Ballouchy in the midfield, but Marquez was out injured so we're still not 100% sure how they're going to line up when everyone's available.

New England Revolution 1 - 2 Real Salt Lake
When you really break the game down it doesn't appear that Real Salt Lake played very well at all, but they still managed to earn 3 points on the road against a bad New England Revolution side. There isn't much to say here other than "they are who we thought they were."

Columbus Crew 0 - 0 San Jose Earthquakes
Oh goodness Columbus Crew, what's going on with you? New York is now atop the Eastern Conference table after Columbus manages just a point at home against San Jose Earthquakes. The Crew are have earned just 6 points in their last 6 league games, going 1-3-2 with just 4 goals scored.

Philadelphia Union 1 - 1 Houston Dynamo
Yeah, these two teams tied. Nothing changed because of it.

Random Thoughts

No good thoughts this week since I didn't watch enough to make any huge conclusions. All I'll say is please watch the US Open Cup final tomorrow night on FSC. It's a great tournament and I really want to see more Americans embrace it so that there is better coverage of the earlier stages.

Both Columbus and Seattle take silverware seriously and should come out strong in a chance to win something for their fans and qualify for the 2011-12 CONCACAF Champions League.

Rankings

MLS Elo Ratings
1,591.35 - Real Salt Lake
1,578.26 - FC Dallas
1,568.05 - Los Angeles Galaxy
1,533.83 - New York Red Bulls
1,532.93 - Seattle Sounders
1,529.30 - Columbus Crew
1,517.47 - Colorado Rapids
1,491.71 - San Jose Earthquakes
1,489.97 - Chicago Fire
1,484.95 - Kansas City Wizards
1,465.52 - Houston Dynamo
1,459.92 - Toronto FC
1,457.15 - Philadelphia Union
1,447.96 - Chivas USA
1,437.04 - New England Revolution
1,414.60 - DC United

24 Under 24: The Other Guys

2010-10-01T21:56:00.002-04:00

MLSsoccer.com is doing a really cool series called 24 under 24 right now, highlighting the 24 best players in MLS who are under 24 years old. The rankings are based on a combination of (1) Skill; (2) Upside; (3) Q-Rating or Marketability; (4) Future Value; and (5) Intangibles.

To this point they have released spots 24 through 6:

24. Dax McCarty (FC Dallas - M)
23. Roger Torres (Philadelphia Union - M)
22. Jack MacInerney (Philadelphia Union - F)
21. Kevin Alston (New England Revolution - D)
20. Will Johnson (Real Salt Lake - M)
19. Juninho (Los Angeles Galaxy - M)
18. Chris Pontius (DC United - F)
17. Teal Bunbury (Kansas City Wizards - F)
16. Tony Tchani (New York Red Bulls - M)
15. Robbie Rogers (Columbus Crew - M)
14. Bill Hamid (DC United - G)
13. Tristan Bowen (Los Angeles Galaxy - F)
12. Ryan Smith (Kansas City Wizards - M)
11. Ike Opara (San Jose Earthquakes - D)
10. Justin Braun (Chivas USA - F)
9. Tim Ream (New York Red Bulls - D)
8. Sean Johnson (Chicago Fire - G)
7. Brek Shea (FC Dallas - M)
6. Marco Pappa (Chicago Fire - M)

Unless there's something really amiss, the top 5 pretty much has to be: Andy Najar, Steve Zakuani, Omar Gonzalez, Fredy Montero, and Danny Mwanga. In my mind they would be ranked:

5. Steve Zakuani (Seattle Sounders - M)
4. Danny Mwanga (Philadelphia Union - F)
3. Andy Najar (DC United - M)
2. Omar Gonzalez (Los Angeles Galaxy - D)
1. Fredy Montero (Seattle Sounders - F)

But this post isn't about these guys, it's about a handful of young guys who just missed out on the top 24. Here are some more guys who deserved some thought:

George John (FC Dallas - D):A big reason why FC Dallas has one of the best defenses in MLS this year.
Sam Cronin (San Jose Earthquakes - M): I will argue to the death that Cronin going from Toronto FC to San Jose changed the future for both of these clubs.
Sanna Nyassi (Seattle Sounders - M) & Sainey Nyassi (New England Revolution - M): These twins give defenders fits with their speed and ability on the wings.
Tony Beltran (Real Salt Lake - D): He's worked his way into being a starter for the best defense in MLS.
Nana Attakora (Toronto FC - D): This was the worst omission if you ask me. He's been THE rock in the TFC defense. He and De Ro are pretty much the only two reasons that Toronto stayed as competitive as they did for so long. Just singling out defenders, I really can't understand how you put in Kevin Alston and not Attakora.

CCL Matchday 5

2010-09-30T15:09:00.002-04:00

There's one more match left for the CONCACAF Champions League competitors, but it's pretty clear what's going to happen. Real Salt Lake is guaranteed to go through and will be playing Cruz Azul at home for the right to see who finishes first in Group A. Columbus Crew would need a TON of bad luck in order to not get through Group B, but will likely finish second. Toronto FC and Seattle Sounders will be playing their last CCL games October 19th as both sides have been eliminated.

Toronto FC 1 - 1 Real Salt Lake

Toronto FC and Real Salt Lake started the week with a contest at BMO Field. Both teams rolled out strong lineups as RSL was fighting to clinch a spot in the knockout stages and TFC was just trying to stay alive. There were a few first teamers missing (Chad Barrett, Javi Morales, Stefan Frei) but you could tell each team was going for it.

TFC actually looked good this game, a big improvement from their first few games under Nick Dasovic, almost (dare I say) dominating the first half. Jacob Peterson scored a goal off a Howard-to-Landon type distribution from Toronto keeper Jon Conway to give the Reds a 1-0 lead at the break.

Javi Morales, who was subbed in at halftime, would get that goal back though with a beautiful free kick. The rest of the game was mostly RSL attacking and TFC defending, but Jon Conway almost gave Salt Lake the win in the 94th minute with what would have been one of the most embarrassing own goals of all time

Municipal 2 - 1 Columbus Crew

I'm not sure I understand Robert Warzycha's strategy here. He had a chance to clinch a spot in the knockout stages with a tie, but left starters William Hesmer, Chad Marshall, Brian Carroll, Guillermo Barros Schelotto, Emmanuel Ekpo, Danny O'Rourke, Frankie Hejduk and Emilio Renteria at home. Municipal took advantage and won the game, moving only 1 point back of Columbus in the standings.

Now yes, Municipal does have to travel to Santos Laguna (the group leader) next while Columbus goes to Joe Public (the bottom of the group), but why even put yourself in that position? Why risk not going through by keeping 8 of your best players out of the lineup? Resting them for a match against a San Jose Earthquakes that also played a midweek game seems like an iffy excuse at best.

Seattle Sounders 2 - 0 Marathon

The Sounders, on the other hand, had all the reason in the world to send out a young lineup and they did. And, for the second straight game, the kids played really well when given the chance.

Seattle started
G: Kevin Boss
D: Taylor Graham, Tyrone Marshall, Tyson Wahl, Zach Scott
M: David Estrada, Alvaro Fernandez, Miguel Montano, Michael Seamon
F: Roger Levesque (ugh), Mike Fucito

and looked like they had always played with them. Fucito scored both goals, giving him 3 in 178 minutes of CCL play. Good work by the Harvard man who was injured all of last season. Seattle can't go through, but they played with pride and may have knocked Marathon out of the quarterfinals.

The only weird part was seeing Qwest Field with only 12,000 fans in it. Hopefully that doesn't become a regular occurrence.

Contenders' Schedules: 9/28

2010-09-28T11:10:00.000-04:00

A little change to the Contenders' Schedules post this time, given that the 8 playoff teams are all but locked up now. Instead, this post will focus on the race for the Supporters' Shield, and one of MLS's automatic births into the CONCACAF Champions League.

As always, huge thanks go out to harper983 at the twoplustwo forums for putting this information together.

1st: Los Angeles Galaxy (50 pts): @CHV, @PHI, COL, FCD
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.35
Max Points: 62

2nd: Real Salt Lake (48 pts): @NE, @NY, FCD, @COL
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.5
Max Points: 60

3rd: FC Dallas (46 pts): CHI, COL, @RSL, @LA
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.6
Max Points: 58

4th: Columbus Crew (45 pts): SJ, @CHI, @TFC, PHI
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.24
Max Points: 57

5th: New York Red Bulls (44 pts): KCW, RSL, @PHI, NE
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.31
Max Points: 56

6th: San Jose Earthquakes (39 pts): CHI, @CLB, @DCU, HOU, CHV, @KCW
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.14
Max Points: 57

And Then There Were 8: Weekly Update

2010-09-27T00:47:00.000-04:00

Well damn. I was kinda hoping for at least one bit of an interesting playoff race down the stretch. However, with 4 games to go for most teams that's pretty much out the window since San Jose and Seattle handled their business while TFC, Kansas City, and Chicago Fire all choked.

Now it looks like our only fireworks will be who wins the individual titles. Scoring champ looked locked up when Buddle was on fire early in the year, but not much has happened for him since then and Juan Pablo Angel, Chris Wondolowski, Dwayne De Rosario and Sebastien Le Toux are all within 2 goals of him. Landon's still the clear MVP favorite, but Le Toux, Montero, and Ferreira are going to get votes. Andy Najar is making a late charge for Rookie of the Year but Danny Mwanga and Tim Ream are also playing well.

That's what we have to look forward to now.

Game Reports

The national FSC game this week saw Real Salt Lake tie Colorado Rapids 1-1 at home. Colorado was without Omar Cummings, their best attacking option, and RSL started with a couple of their big name players (Kyle Beckerman, Andy Williams, Will Johnson) on the bench after a big midweek game in Panama. However, RSL dominated this game; not that you could tell from the scoreline. They peppered the Colorado goal for the last 30 minutes, including have a penalty call reversed for reasons I haven't seen explained anywhere. RSL got the goal they deserved to earn a result in the 92nd minute, but I still think they came away shortchanged.

Now for the three games that pretty much locked up the playoff picture:

Oh Toronto, you're such a disaster right now. A Chris Wondolowski hat trick (goal 1, goal 2, goal 3) led San Jose Earthquakes to a 3-2 victory over Toronto FC at BMO Field. The only fun things worth pointing out here were Mista once again proving his worthlessness (word?) by missing an unmarked header and DeRo's check writing celebration that apparently came about because he feels underpaid. I'm not going to disagree with him, not when he's the best player on a team with Mista and de Guzman making $1 million and $1.7 million respectively. But this wasn't the right time to make a statement man, you're better than that.

Seattle Sounders at Chicago Fire may have seemed like a boring game, with Nkufo's deflected goal in the 88th minute being the only scoring as Seattle won 1-0. But there was actually great action and it took some acrobatic saves by Keller and Johnson to keep the score down. For anyone who wasn't quite sure how seriously Seattle was taking CCL, they changed all 11 starters between the midweek game in Monterrey and this MLS league match against a team making a run for the playoffs. Sean Johnson did have his first "OMG!!" mistake I can remember this game when he came out too far and almost gave up a goal to Steve Zakuani who pulled it just past a wide open goal.

FC Dallas looked like FC Dallas again, beating down a hot Kansas City Wizards team 3-1 in KC. They even pulled this off without king of the wing Brek Shea, who was serving the second game of his suspension after a terrible foul against New York. Jeff Cunningham tacked on the last goal in the 82nd minute, giving him 10 for the season and 131 for his career, just one shy of tying Jaime Moreno for the most all time. Dallas's next two games are at home, so hopefully he can meet and surpass that mark in front of friendly fans.

Other games:

In a match that used to be a lot more interesting the past few years, Houston Dynamo went on the road to DC United and came away 3-1 winners. The thing really worth talking about here in Andy Najar, who may have just played his best game as a professional. Najar was all over the place, making dangerous runs, taking on defenders, and basically supplying all of DC's offense. His goal was a thing of beauty from a 17 year old (minus the first touch). Alas, it never seems to be enough for a DC team that just leaks goals.

Ale Moreno, Fred, and Le Toux did the scoring as Philadelphia Union played host to Chivas USA and won 3-0. This team is closing out the season very strong (3-1-1 in their last 5) and looks ready to put together a very competitive 2011 campaign. And Brad Knighton. Damn, son. That slamming sound you heard is the door closing on Chris Seitz's hopes to regain his starter's spot. Chivas, on the other hand, has some serious issues that need fixing. Like figuring out what kind of team they are and how they're going to play.

Columbus Crew scored a pair on goals in the second half to come back and tie New England Revolution 2-2 in Foxborough. Even with the point, this Crew team still hasn't looked good lately, except in CCL games strangely enough. New York is only 1 point back for first place in the East right now, and I'd lean towards them taking over that spot before it's all said and done.

Random Thoughts

CCL games this week
9/28 8pm - Real Salt Lake @ Toronto FC
9/29 10pm - Columbus @ Municipal
9/29 10pm - Marathon @ Seattle

A big part of me wants to see TFC win at home so that RSL can then beat Cruz Azul at home next and two MLS teams can move on from Group A. I don't think it happens though. Toronto's a mess right now and RSL is playing as well as any team in MLS at the moment.

Columbus sits in first place right now with two road games left against Municipal and Joe Public. Winning this week puts them in great position to go through in 1st place from group B.

All Seattle can do at this point is play spoiler. Marathon and Saprissa tied at 6 points with games at Seattle and home vs Monterrey left. Let's see what happens.

Rankings

MLS Elo Ratings
1,585.07 - Real Salt Lake
1,570.73 - FC Dallas
1,561.00 - Los Angeles Galaxy
1,531.94 - Columbus Crew
1,528.90 - New York Red Bulls
1,528.47 - Seattle Sounders
1,520.90 - Colorado Rapids
1,506.24 - San Jose Earthquakes
1,489.88 - Kansas City Wizards
1,480.32 - Chicago Fire
1,466.98 - Philadelphia Union
1,464.39 - Toronto FC
1,463.82 - Houston Dynamo
1,455.01 - Chivas USA
1,443.32 - New England Revolution
1,403.03 - DC United

NY/LA: What We Learned

2010-09-25T18:19:00.000-04:00

New York Red Bulls looked great in a 2-0 victory at Los Angeles Galaxy. Not necessarily "great" as in passing the ball around, holding possession, and playing beautiful soccer. More "great" as in they created a bunch of chances and really didn't let LA get anything. There's been a ton written about the action in this game on every blog out there, so I'm going to focus on what we learned.

DEFENSE

Los Angeles: LA does not have a lot of depth in their central defense. They were missing both Omar Gonzalez and Gregg Berhalter, and had to start two players (Yohance Marshall and Leonardo) with 10 games of MLS experience combined. That killed them. I'm not saying Omar or Berhalter would've prevented the two goals, although Marshall has some responsibility for both, but it changed the way LA had to play.

New York: Holy crap, Red Bulls looked great. There plan was a simple one: clog the middle, let the Galaxy work (very) wide on the flanks, and blanket anyone who tries to get on the end of a cross. It worked brilliantly, mostly thanks to Tim Ream being a giant in the middle.

OFFENSE

Los Angeles: Even without NY's great defense in the middle of the field, LA looked lost on offense. David Beckham seems to roam the field too much, Landon had to come get the ball way too often with his back to the goal (not his forte by any means) and there was just generally a lot of trouble linking up between players. I know that Beckham is a great MLS player and you have to have him out there, but I don't think he helped his team at all this game.

New York: I'm hesitant to say we learned much about the New York attack because of the defender situation for LA. However, I will say that Dane Richards is still playing extremely well and Ballouchy has integrated himself into the team very quickly. I'm still not sure how NY is going to line up when everyone's healthy, but it's nice that they have a couple very good options.

Fall 2010 U-17 Residency Program

2010-09-24T00:44:00.000-04:00

US Soccer released the latest class of U-17's who will be headed to the residency program in Bradenton, FL.

Here's the list of young guns whose names you should file away for 2018.

GOALKEEPERS (4)
Wade Hamilton (Arsenal FC; Murietta, Calif.)
Jake McGuire (Chivas USA; Chino, Calif.)
Kendall McIntosh (Mustang Academy; Santa Rosa, Calif.)
Fernando Pina (Houston Dynamo; Houston, Texas)

DEFENDERS (12)
Kellyn Acosta (FC Dallas; Plano, Texas)
Russell Canouse (NY Red Bulls; Lancaster, Pa.)
Mobi Fehr (Tokyo Verdy 1969; Tokyo, Japan)
Trevor Haberkorn (Solar Chelsea Academy; Roanoke, Texas)
Luis Martir (Chivas de Guadalajara; Los Angeles, Calif.)
Alessandro Mion (Kendall SC; Miami, Fla.)
Cole Nagy (Real Salt Lake-AZ; Scottsdale, Ariz.)
Miguel Polley (Derby County Wolves; West Bloomfield, Mich.)
Tarik Salkicic (Strictly Soccer; Pinellas Park, Fla.)
Nathan Smith (Cal Odyssey; Clovis, Calif.)
Andrew Souders (Crew Soccer Academy; Amherst, Ohio)
Danny Zaid (Camp Elite Guatemala; Guatemala City)

MIDFIELDERS (15)
Ricardo Aldape (Lemont Raiders; Chicago Heights, Ill.)
Joe Amon (South Carolina United FC; Summerville, S.C.)
Marco Delgado (Cosmo Academy West; Glendora, Calif.)
Ruben Duran (Las Vegas Premier; Las Vegas, Nev.)
Patrick Foss (D.C. United; South Riding, Va.)
Alejandro Guido (Aztecs Premier; Chula Vista, Calif.)
Jared Hegardt (Notts Forest FC; San Diego, Calif.)
Ryan Masch (De Anza Force; San Jose, Calif.)
Nico Melo (Florida Rush; Kissimmee, Fla.)
Antonio Murillo (Neusport; Las Vegas, Nev.)
Adam Najem (NY Red Bulls; Clifton, N.J.)
Marc Pelosi (De Anza Force; Sunnyvale, Calif.)
Esteban Rodriguez (Cosmos Academy West; Palmdale, Calif.)
Dillon Serna (Colorado Rapids; Brighton, Colo.)
Colton Storm (HMMS Eagle FC; Mechanicsburg, Pa.)

FORWARDS (9)
Paul Arriola (Arsenal FC; Chula Vista, Calif.)
Kevin De La Torre (Chivas USA; Winchester, Calif.)
Daniel Flores (Cal Odyssey; Fresno, Calif.)
Kellen Gulley (MS Chicago Fire Juniors; Clinton, Miss.)
Edwin Luna (P.A.C. Tigres; San Jose, Calif.)
Alex Muyl (Cosmos Academy East; New York, N.Y.)
Andrew Oliver (Westside United; Indianapolis, Ind.)
Mario Rodriguez (Central Aztecs; North Hollywood, Calif.)
Cole Seiler (Anderson, S.C.; CESA)

11 of the 40 players are coming from MLS youth programs. I'm not sure if that's a good thing because it shows that the academies are finding and growing good players or a bad thing because they think they'll do better going to the residency program than staying at home. Either way, it's nice to see so many young kids with experience in the programs of professional teams.

Also here is a Google Map I put together showing where they're all from.
http://bit.ly/2010USMNTResidency

Blue: Goalies
Green: Defenders
Yellow: Midfielders
Red: Forwards

Those Other Games Last Night

2010-09-23T17:12:00.000-04:00

As promised, let's talk about about those MLS games last night. I'm sure that the audiences watching were pretty small considering that both games were going on at the exact same time as the two CCL games involving MLS teams (really great scheduling there) but there was still plenty of drama with both games changing results on goals in extra time.

New England Revolution nearly ended FC Dallas's undefeated streak until Jeff Cunningham scored with 10 seconds of extra time left. The only problem is that Cunningham was pretty clearly offside and the official missed it. They say it's better to be lucky than good sometimes, right?

David Ferreira put in a great effort for FC Dallas, even if he did miss his first penalty of the game, and should be given most of the praise for them coming back from 0-2 down to tie. He earned two penalties, made one of them, and set up Cunningham (who was offside) for the final goal. FC Dallas as a whole didn't play well, and can't afford a performance like this in the playoffs, but their star wasn't going to let them lose this game.

In the second game Kansas City Wizards rallied twice from two goals down to beat the Houston Dynamo 4-3. For a while it looked liked Kansas City, who has been the hottest team in the league lately, would blow their playoff chances with a loss to the not-what-they-used-to-be Houston Dynamo. Luckily Kei Kamara kept up his great season with his 10th goal of the year, Pat Onstad executed one of the worst goal kicks of all time to give Teal Bunbury a goal, and then Good Old Josh Wolff followed up and Adrian Serioux own goal with a diving header in the 96th minute for the win.

This was a huge win for Kansas City who remains right in the thick of the playoff race now. Also, Michael Harrington played really well for them at the right back position. This young kid had a great rookie season in 2007 but struggled with injuries last year. He's rebounded well this year, however, and with no great options at the right back position for the national team going forward may be a player to keep an eye on if he keeps improving.

2 More CCL Road Games

2010-09-23T00:48:00.000-04:00

Another pair of CONCACAF Champion League games for MLS teams tonight (and a pair of league games, but we'll get to those in a later post). This time both were on the road as Seattle Sounders went down to play at Monterrey and Real Salt Lake looked to move to the top of group A on their trip down to Arabe Unido.

Seattle showed up to their game as most of us expected; starting players like Miguel Montano, Michael Fucito, Terry Boss, etc. They are focused on their MLS and US Open Cup campaigns, as they should be. The only issue: no one told these subs they weren't supposed to be good enough.

Seattle came out strong, scoring 2 goals in the first half including one by Michael Fucito in the 44th that seemed to really take the spirit out of Monterrey heading in to halftime. However, if we've learned anything about MLS teams in Mexico it's that no 2-0 lead is safe.

The Sounders did well through the first 30 minutes of the second half, playing strong defense and attacking when they got the chance. It was a 4 minute spell of awful that doomed them. When I say awful, I mean AWFUL. Like, Awful Plastic Surgery awful.

If you were flipping back and forth between the game and some other channel it wouldn't have taken more than a commercial break. Seriously, you could've left Modern Family, watched Seattle squander their lead and fall behind, and then get back without missing a second of Sofia Vergara.

The collapse was highlighted by a trio of awful plays. First Zach Scott was about as lazy as possible, standing on the endline 20 yards from the action and allowing Aldo De Nigris to stay onside and tap in a rebound off of Terry Boss for the first goal. Chilean striker Humberto Suazo scored the second goal in what can only be described as "a total defensive breakdown."

Then came the real coup-de-grace. It started with an unbelievably poor decision by a midfielder (David Estrada, I believe) to head the ball 25 yards backwards under no pressure. That godawful "pass" allowed Suazo to run on and take the ball with Tyrone Marshall a step behind. Marshall actually managed to close him down and start pushing him out wide, but then Terry Boss came sliding in out of nowhere and took out Suazo with a stupid and reckless challenge that earned the hosts a penalty.

And that was that. 4 minutes, 3 goals, and 0 points for the Sounders.

Real Salt Lake did better, taking advantage of a weaker opponent and coming out 3-2 victors. With this win they move to first place in Group A and I would consider them the odds-on favorite to win the group. Well done, RSL. Thank you for playing 90 minutes of soccer to win a game.

4 Outta 6 Ain't Bad; It's Actually Really Damn Good

2010-09-22T00:32:00.001-04:00

Two very strong results for MLS teams tonight in CONCACAF Champions League play tonight. It's always nice to play against the top 2 teams in the current Mexican Apertura and come away with a win and a tie.

The early game saw Columbus Crew beat Santos Laguna 1-0 at home to move to the top of Group B with 9 points. A goal by Andres Mendoza in the 87th minute was exactly what the Crew needed. Four games in and Columbus has done what they needed to do at home, hold serve and earn 9 points. They still have games @ Municipal and @ Joe Public to go, but they control their destiny to get through this competition in first.

The Crew didn't put out their best lineup possible, resting Hesmer, Duka, Lenhart, Garey, and Schelotto, but still managed to create a lot of dangerous chances and really take the game to a Santos team currently sitting second in the Mexican Apertura. It was a far cry from their last two league matches which saw them beaten by a combined score of 7-1.

In the late game Toronto FC traveled down to Mexico City and tied Cruz Azul 0-0. Like I said in the weekend wrap-up though, don't get too excited TFC fans. Cruz Azul controlled most of the match but Toronto defended well enough to not allow a goal even though they didn't create a whole lot on the attack themselves.

Truthfully, this result is probably better for Real Salt Lake than for Toronto FC though. Unfortunately I think their 2-0 loss in Panama is going to doom TFC to missing out on the knock-out stage, even if they win out and get to 10 points. They're 9 goals behind Cruz Azul on goal differential right now, and I just don't see how they can make that up. This result does appear to make RSL the favorite to win the group, assuming they take care of business against Arabe Unido tomorrow night.

On a separate note, Cruz Azul hasn't looked that good in either home match against MLS teams. They did beat RSL 5-4 in an incredibly fun game to watch, but I think 3 (maybe 4) of their 5 goals took deflections off of RSL defenders to beat Nick Rimando. That's a lot of luck to eke out 3 points. This time around they outplayed Toronto, but couldn't find the back of the net, or really get great chances despite the possession advantage.

It would be pretty awesome if they lost to Arabe Unido at home since that would open the door for 2 MLS teams getting out of the group, but even with their so-so play I don't think that happens.

EDIT: Not shockingly, I'm an idiot. So it turns out first tie-breaker is head-to-head so Toronto actually has a decent chance of getting through if they can get to 10 points. They'll still need to beat RSL at BMO Field and have RSL to win at home (something their very good at lately) against Cruz Azul. But if Toronto and Cruz Azul both end on 10 points, Toronto gets the nod.

Contenders Schedules: 9/20

2010-09-20T20:32:00.001-04:00

The latest update from the always awesome harper983 on the twoplustwo forums.

Chivas USA has been not so ceremoniously dropped from his list of contenders after their loss at home to Kansas City.

Kansas City, Chicago Fire, and Toronto FC all have their shots about both San Jose Earthquakes and Seattle Sounders in the next few weeks. If there is going to be any change in the standings, at least the teams fighting to get in know they'll be able to affect both themselves and the teams ahead of them.

1. Los Angeles Galaxy (50 points, W-1): NYRB, @CHV, @PHI, COL, FCD
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.4

2. Real Salt Lake (47 points, W-2): COL, @NE, @NYRB, FCD, @COL
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.5

3. Columbus Crew (44 points, E-1): @NE, SJ, @CHI, @TFC, PHI
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.19

4. FC Dallas (42 points, W-3): NE, @KC, CHI, COL, @RSL, @LAG
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.49

5. New York Red Bulls (41 points, E-2): @LAG, KC, RSL, @PHI, NE
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.45

6. Colorado Rapids (37 points, W-4): @RSL, PHI, DCU, @FCD, @LAG, RSL
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.54

7. San Jose Earthquakes (36 points, E-3): @TFC, CHI, @CLB, @DCU, HOU, CHV, @KC
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.17

8. Seattle Sounders (36 points, E-4): @CHI, TFC, @KC, CHV, @HOU
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.14

----Playoff Cutoff----

9. Toronto FC (31 points): SJ, @SEA, @CHV, CLB, @DCU
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.3

10. Kansas City Wizards (30 points): HOU, FCD, @NYRB, SEA, @CHI, @NE, SJ
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.36

11. Chicago Fire (26 points): SEA, @SJ, @FCD, CLB, KC, DCU, @CHV
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.37

Another One Bites The Dust: Weekly Update

2010-09-20T11:40:00.000-04:00

You can almost see the goat frowning in this Chivas USA logo. Sorry Chivas 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

Still The Best

2010-09-19T21:06:00.000-04:00

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.

Spend Less, Win More

2010-09-16T17:15:00.000-04:00

MLSsoccer.com has an article up where Garth Lagerwey, Real Salt Lake's vice president and general manager, talks about how teams with designated players are not designed for success in the CONCACAF Champions League.

The arguments are twofold. First is the obvious point that spending so much of your salary cap on a small number of players damages a team's depth, which is critical when MLS does not seem to think it necessary to schedule around these games. A team like New York with 3 DPs is locking up 40% of their salary cap on 12% of their roster. RSL's top three paid players account for 27% of the salary cap, giving the team about $400,000 more to spend on filling out the roster.

The second point is a little less obvious, but makes a lot of sense after you hear it. Designated players are much more likely to be older guys; the average ages of the 8 new DPs brought in this season is 30 years old. It's a lot tougher on older players to play 3 games in 8 days with a few thousand miles of travel between games like you'll get traveling to Central America to play.

When you look at the two most successful MLS teams in CCL play so far this year, the Columbus Crew and Real Salt Lake, it sure seems possible that while DPs can get your team deep in the MLS Cup Playoffs, they may not be the way to go for CCL glory.

Two Tales of Squad Selection

2010-09-15T16:42:00.000-04:00

First, it takes a special kind of person to work dual alliteration into a 5 word title. That's just the kind of quality (read: kitsch) you get out of me.

Columbus Crew and Seattle Sounders each played their third CCL game last night to very different results. Columbus hosted Joe Public and rolled to a 3-0 win, while Seattle went down to the monster's lair to play at Saprissa and came away 2-0 losers. There was one similarlity between these sides though: they both played a lot of reserves.

I've been very critical of MLS teams rolling out poor lineups for CCL games and US Open Cup games in the past but I am 100% behind both of these clubs.

Columbus was coming off a huge game against LA Galaxy last weekend with another tough contest against Seattle this Saturday looming ahead of them. Also, being at home against Joe Public was the easiest chance for Columbus to get 3 points they will see all tournament. If their reserves couldn't earn a win at home against a club that is already 11 points behind TT Pro League leaders Defense Force after only 10 games then they don't deserve to move forward in this competition.

Even as they played stifling defense on the Trinidadian team, the game was a little tense after the first half as Columbus failed to put away any of the chances they had created. You began to wonder how long Robert Warzycha would wait to bring in his offensive stars like Schelotto, Gaven, and Lenhart. Leandre Griffit took care of those worries two minutes into the second half though, and Columbus was able to give their stars a rest and still enjoy a comfortable victory.

Seattle didn't go quite as deep into their bench, mostly because there was still a very small outside chance they could make it through the group. But it was clearly not a first team squad, as you can see by that bum Roger Levesque making an appearance.

My reasoning for liking Seattle's lineup is a bit different than Columbus. Seattle is sitting in the 8th and final playoff spot for MLS Cup with one of the easiest remaining schedules. Given that they had earned 0 points through two CCL games, it would be short-sighted to try and maximize points in a competition you have little-to-no chance of progressing in at the expense of potentially making a deep run in the MLS Cup Playoffs.

The News of the Day

2010-09-14T19:52:00.000-04:00

Three big news stories in the past 24 hours or so as we ready for a couple CONCACAF Champions League games tonight.

1. Red Bulls trade Mac Kandji for Mehdi Ballouchy

NYRB seems like HUGE winners here given that Kandji was clearly not in the good graces of management. Ballouchy gives them the playmaker in the middle of the field that they had been lacking all year, and really fills in the one tiny hole they may have had in their attack.

A fun game to play now is "how will NYRB line up?" Their biggest weakness is at center back, so do they move Rafa Marquez back there in place of Carlos Mendez and let Ballouchy line up in front of Tony Tchani? Do they keep their backline the same and bring Ballouchy in for Tchani, even though he's been playing great lately?

Or what if something crazy happens? What if NY moves to a 3-5-2 that looks something like:

----Henry----------Angel----
---------Ballouchy----------
-Lindpere--Tchani--Richards-
----------Marquez-----------
--Miller---Ream---Albright--

Rafa can provide cover to a 3 man back line and still help distribute the ball up into the midfield.

Now this is not to say that Colorado lost, necessarily. If Kandji plays like he can then adding him on the wing to an already potent Casey and Cummings pairing makes for one nasty attack.

2. Preki and Mo Johnston fired by Toronto FC

In a move that most TFC fans seem somewhere between giddy and euphoric over, Preki and Mo Johnston will no longer be on the Toronto FC payroll. I think most people are more surprised that Mo managed to cash a paycheck for this long given how little progress they seem to have made in 5 years.

As for Preki, even after his great season at Chivas last year I wasn't too thrilled with him from after one of his early moves was to get rid of Sam Cronin. I understand that he and de Guzman play pretty much the same position, but you think you could find a way to put two of you best midfielders on the pitch. No, nevermind, we'll just stick with guys like Nick LaBrocca, Martin Saric, and Amadou Sanyang. That's working well.

3. MLS to move to 34 game schedule next year

This is the least surprising story, but a welcome one to see. With two more teams coming into the league MLS maintains an even number of team and can still operate under a full home-and-away season.

Remaining Schedule for the Contenders

2010-09-14T16:12:00.000-04:00

First, a huge thanks to harper983 on the twoplustwo forums for putting this together.

Below are the all the MLS teams with any kind of realistic shot at the MLS Cup Playoffs this year including how many points they currently have, what their playoff position is, and who they play the rest of the season.

As you can see, the teams on the outside looking in have an especially tall order considering San Jose and Seattle, the 7th and 8th place teams, have 2 of the 3 easiest remaining schedules. Meanwhile, FC Dallas, New York and Colorado, 4th through 6th place respectively, have the three toughest remaining schedules so there could be some significant changes in the final playoff picture as far as who plays where, but probably not dealing with who gets in.

1. Los Angeles Galaxy (47 points, W-1): DCU, NY, @CHV, @PHI, COL, DAL
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.30

2. Columbus Crew (44 points, E-1): SEA, @NE, SJ, @CHI, @TFC, PHI
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.22

3. Real Salt Lake (44 points, W-2): CHI, COL, @NE, @NY, DAL, @COL
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.44

4. FC Dallas (41 points, W-3): NY, NE, @KC, CHI, COL, @RSL, @LAG
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.49

5. New York Red Bulls (40 points, E-2): @DAL, @LAG, KC, RSL, @PHI, NE
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.49

6. Colorado Rapids (34 points, W-4): NE, @RSL, PHI, DCU, @DAL, @LAG, RSL
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.47

7. San Jose Earthquakes (33 points, E-3): PHI, @TFC, CHI, @CLB, @DCU, HOU, CHV, @KC
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.16

8. Seattle Sounders (33 points, E-4): @CLB, @CHI, TFC, @KC, CHV, @HOU
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.25

----Playoff Cutoff----

9. Toronto FC (28 points): @HOU, SJ, @SEA, @CHV, CLB, @DCU
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.26

10. Kansas City Wizards (27 points): @CHV, HOU, DAL, @NY, SEA, @CHI, @NE, SJ
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.33

11. Chicago Fire (26 points): @RSL, SEA, @SJ, @DAL, CLB, KC, DCU, @CHV
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.43

12. Chivas USA (25 points): KC, @PHI, LAG, TFC, @SEA, @SJ, CHI
Upcoming Teams Avg. PPG: 1.35

Soccer is Poetry: Weekly Roundup

2010-09-13T13:31:00.000-04:00

Given the past week, I'm shortening the weekly update this week. Enjoy a haiku for each game.

I'm out of the hospital now though, so I'll be back to getting about a post a day out. I should be back in full force for this weekend though, so expect something better next week.

Game Reports

Chicago Fire 0 - 0 Toronto FC
Three stars return, not
enough to win. Two handballs
in the box not called.

Seattle Sounders 0 - 0 Real Salt Lake
Ends a draw because
Findley blows a penalty.
I know, how shocking.

Chivas USA 2 - 0 New England
That other LA
team has some life from a man
named Braunaldinho.

Toronto FC 0 - 1 DC United
DeRo posts it six
minutes in. But James does not
in the 81st.

New York Red Bulls 3 - 1 Colorado Rapids
Red Bulls keep winning,
even with Cummings' great goal.
Best team in the east?

Philadelphia Union 1 - 0 Chicago Fire
Knighton starts, no goals.
Except for le Toux, of course.
Is MORE MWANGA hurt?!?!

San Jose Earthquakes 0 - 0 FC Dallas
Two teams playing quite
well right now. Neither should be
upset with one point.

Los Angeles Galaxy 3 - 1 Columbus Crew
Beckham's back, and so
are the Galaxy. All is
right with the world now.

Random Thoughts

Just one possible reason why LA looked so good: Landon was playing on the right again finally. Having Juninho back probably helped a ton, but still, keep Landon on the right flank.

Toronto is out of the playoff race now. Hopefully they put all their effort into getting through CCL group stage.

Chicago, Kansas City, and MAYBE Chivas USA (given their run of form lately) are they only 3 teams that still have a shot at making the playoffs right now. I think the top 8 are pretty much set though.

CCL matches this week:
9/14 8pm - Columbus Crew v. Joe Public
9/14 10pm - Seattle Sounders @ Saprissa
9/15 10pm - Real Salt Lake v. Toronto FC

Rankings

MLS Elo Ratings
1,584.23 - Real Salt Lake
1,573.78 - Los Angeles Galaxy
1,565.46 - FC Dallas
1,551.32 - Columbus Crew
1,510.23 - New York Red Bulls
1,509.89 - Colorado Rapids
1,500.51 - Seattle Sounders
1,492.97 - Chicago Fire
1,492.35 - San Jose Earthquakes
1,483.35 - Kansas City Wizards
1,479.11 - Chivas USA
1,465.18 - Houston Dynamo
1,463.86 - Toronto FC
1,461.79 - Philadelphia Union
1,447.07 - New England Revolution
1,418.90 - DC United

Where Have You Been?!

2010-09-09T22:17:00.000-04:00

Sorry guys, I know I've been MIA the past few days. I do have a great excuse though: I am in the hospital with a ruptured appendix.

I have a pretty sweet room setup and my laptop got dropped off today so I may try to write something up about tonight's Seattle/RSL game. No promises though, I'm still in a bit of pain since they won't remove the appendix until they drain the infection.

Just wanted to let you guys know I wasn't giving up on the site or anything. I will be back as soon as health allows.

The Jamaican Terror and Goalie Gaffes: Weekly Update

2010-09-06T00:45:00.001-04:00

Let's be honest, it's a little hard to pay as much attention to MLS at this point in the season since it's that weird stretch where you kinda know who playoff teams will be but it's not an all out push quite yet and college and NFL football are starting up. That's what I'm here for though, quick hitting updates of what you may have missed while watching your team beat down some I-AA opponent (note: does not apply to Ole Miss fans).

Game Reports

As hot as the New York Red Bulls seemed to be these past few weeks, Real Salt Lake are still the champions and showed why with a 1-0 victory at home. Unfortunately, a game that could have been a spectacle of what MLS can offer was also the most affected by international matches as there were a combined 7 players (6 starters) missing from the two sides. Fabian Espindola's header in the 4th minute was the only shot that went in but both Greg Sutton and Nick Rimando made some great saves (mostly on headers, oddly enough) to keep their teams close. That shouldn't be taken to mean it was a close game though. RSL pretty clearly outplayed New York in this game, their defense basically made Henry disappear and he only got one shot, and they deserved all three points.

The other game that was significantly affected by the international date was Toronto FC visiting FC Dallas. Dallas took advantage of Toronto missing their best 3 players (de Rosario, de Guzman, Attakora) and won 1-0 behind Jeff Cunningham's 129th career goal. The game also featured a lot of young players for FC Dallas who probably have the most youth of any MLS team. They are going to have 7 players protected from the expansion draft for age/homegrown reasons (the most anyone else has is 3), including 3 who played last night (Guarda, Avila, Luna). Dallas was probably unlucky not to score another goal given all the breakouts they had in the last 10 minutes of the game too, nearly all of them involving my boy Brek whose motor just doesn't stop. One semi-positive for TFC: O'Brian White showed a little bit of the form that made me think he could score 7-10 goals this year. Oh well.

The most exciting game of the day was Chicago Fire hosting Los Angeles Galaxy and playing them to a 1-1 draw that needed all 90 minutes to get the scoring in. After Segares was rightly shown a red card in the 22nd minute Chicago seemed in pretty bad shape. Sean-Johnson-man-child continued to impress, however, stopping Landon's penalty. Granted it wasn't the best-taken penalty ever Landon goes right something like 80% of the time, but penalty stops down a man are always worth some praise. So do his other 7 saves, including one in extra time off a Sean Franklin volley that saved a point for Chicago. Both goals here came after the 88th minute. First, Collins John put home a free kick from just outside the corner of the box after Donovan Ricketts left the back post waaaay too open. Chicago probably thought they were set at that point, but a great header from Omar Gonzalez off a Landon corner tied the game in the 91st minute and left the game at 1-1.

Colorado Rapids continued to be a rude host with their second straight 3-0 victory at home, this time over Chivas USA. Omar Cummings always kinda flies under the radar (unless you're a Wire fan who recognizes how awesome his name is), but he's been a legit striker these past two seasons. He had the lead part in all three goals for Colorado, blasting a shot off Zach Thornton that Conor Casey knocked home on the rebound, making Ante Jazic look like an And-1 victim turning him twice before rifling a low shot far post, and then beating the entire Chivas backline to a ball and slotting it home below Thornton. The cheese stands alone. Oh, indeed.

The New England Revolution rode a great 11 minute stretch to beat Seattle Sounders 3-1. Steve Zakuani did his part, maintaining his great form from the US Open Cup game and scoring his 8th goal of the season in the 59th minute. Seattle's defense disappeared after that though, allowing goals in the 70th (Chris Tierney), 73rd (Marko Perovic) and 81st (Kheli Dube) minutes to a New England team that hasn't scored that many goals since May. Dube earned his goal though, with a great strike off the outside of his foot

Geovanni got his first start for San Jose Earthquakes and showed why he's getting DP money, leading the team to a 2-1 victory at Houston Dynamo. Geovanni set up the first goal with a wonderful cross to Khari Stephenson that he easy put past Pat Onstad, and then added his own for his first MLS tally after running on to a loose ball in the box in the 64th minute. The Dynamo had a little bit of hope after a great individual effort by Brian Mullan down the right flank led to a goal headed in by Brad Davis in first half stoppage time. Unfortunately for the Dynamo they couldn't finish any of their other chances, and there were many that former Earthquake Cam Weaver has sole blame for. The worst part about this game: I believe it was the first on a lined football field this season. Ugh.

Columbus Crew ended their week how they started it, with a victory at DC United. This time it was just a 1-0 win, and that goal was due to a terrible whiff on an attempted clearance by 19 year old keeper Bill Hamid. I still have faith in him being a great goalie though, and here's why: that's not a mistake that comes from goal keeping skill. Yeah, he took a terrible touch and then couldn't volley the ball out with Schelotto bearing down on him. It was an amateur mistake to try the touch and then an embarrassment to miss the clearance. But he still has all the physical skills to succeed and, I think, better fundamentals than fellow young phenom Sean Johnson. Meanwhile, DC's attack kept to it's unimpressive ways, not forcing a single save out of Will Hesmer.

Finally, Philadelphia Union tied Kansas City Wizards 1-1. Yeah, Le Toux got his 10th goal of the season and Seitz was way out of position (shocking, right?) on Kansas City's goal, but that's not why you're really here. It's time for another MORE MWANGA update. Here are 3 highlights from the game:

SIGN THIS MAN UP!!! Seriously, what needs to happen to fast-track some US citizenship?

Random Thoughts

The Supporters' Shield race is wide open, with 3 teams within 1 point of each other and FC Dallas 4 points back with a game in hand on the other 3. It will be a super exciting race to the finish as each of these teams attempts to lock up home field advantage.

Mista may end up being one of the worst DP's in league history, like Denilson-and-Landin bad. Giving him a contract worth nearly a million dollars is mind boggling to me.

What's the record for fewest professional starts for a keeper before being called up to the USMNT since MLS started? Sean Johnson may break it. This kid is special.

I dare any Seattle fan to try to justify to me why Roger Levesque deserves MLS minutes. Just send this guy back to USL for Christ's sake.

Records and streaks for you to keep an eye on:
RSL hasn't lost at home in 22 matches.
Jeff Cunningham's 129 career goals leave him just 3 behind all-time leader Jaime Moreno.
FC Dallas hasn't allowed more than 1 goal in league play since April 22nd.

Rankings

MLS Elo Ratings
1,584.20 - Real Salt Lake
1,565.40 - Los Angeles Galaxy
1,565.20 - FC Dallas
1,559.70 - Columbus Crew
1,519.00 - Colorado Rapids
1,502.00 - Chicago Fire
1,501.13 - New York Red Bulls
1,500.54 - Seattle Sounders
1,492.62 - San Jose Earthquakes
1,483.35 - Kansas City Wizards
1,472.03 - Toronto FC
1,471.04 - Chivas USA
1,465.18 - Houston Dynamo
1,455.17 - Philadelphia Union
1,455.14 - New England Revolution
1,408.33 - DC United

MLS Internationals Today

2010-09-04T10:11:00.000-04:00

Here is the full list of MLS players away with their national teams today, courtesy of the always awesome Climbing the Ladder.

First by country

5 - Canada
4 - USA U-20
3 - Jamaica
3 - The Gambia
2 - Costa Rica
2 - El Salvador
1 - Guatemala
1 - Mexico
1 - Montenegro
1 - Senegal
1 - Sierra Leone
1 - Venezuela

And then by team

Chicago Fire
Marco Pappa - Guatemala
Deris Umanzor - El Salvador

Chivas USA
Bryan de la Fuente - USA U-20
Osael Romero - El Salvador
Cesar Zamora - USA U-20

Columbus Crew
Emilio Renteria - Venezuela

DC United
Branko Boskovic - Montenegro
Dejan Jakovic - Canada

Houston Dynamo
Francisco Navas Cobo - USA U-20
Lovel Palmer - Jamaica

Kansas City Wizards
Kei Kamara - Sierra Leone

New England Revolution
Kenny Mansally - The Gambia
Sainey Nyassi - The Gambia

New York Red Bulls
Juan Agudelo - USA U-20
Bouna Coundoul - Senegal
Rafa Marquez - Mexico
Roy Miller - Costa Rica
Dane Richards - Jamaica

Real Salt Lake
Will Johnson - Canada
Alvaro Saborio - Costa Rica

San Jose Earthquakes
Ryan Johnson - Jamaica

Seattle Sounders
Sanna Nyassi - The Gambia

Toronto FC
Nana Attakora - Canada
Julian de Guzman - Canada
Dwayne De Rosario - Canada

Canada is Part of America, Right?

2010-09-03T13:13:00.000-04:00

Along with all of the MLS fixtures, this weekend will feature a number of international friendlies. Now, we can argue the logic of having league games on the same day as a FIFA international date (you will notice that none of the big European leagues are playing this weekend) but instead let's focus on the good: there are a lot of MLS players getting called up to play with their national teams.

The usual countries will all be accounted for: a few players for Costa Rica, Rafa Marquez to Mexico, Dane Richards to Jamaica, etc. But the big issue is what's going on with Canada's national team. Now, I realize this is stretching the bounds of "This American Pitch" a little bit, but just go with me here, I am an eighth Canadian, after all.

Teal Bunbury, the 20 year old forward with Kansas City, grew up playing on Canadian youth teams. However, he is also eligible to play for the United States as his mother is American and he's apparently not ready to commit to a senior side. So far he's been very diplomatic about the refusal, insisting that it's due to maintaining playing time with his club side as a rookie during his interview with MLSsoccer.com

MLSsoccer.com: You aren’t going, but you have to be flattered that Canada are calling and indicating you are someone who could be in their plans.

Bunbury: It feels really good. As a 20-year-old, playing internationally is a great thing. I feel blessed and honored to be able to represent my family and represent my country.

MLSsoccer.com: Some of the rumors out there are that you said no to Canada because you are thinking about the United States.

Bunbury: I would say right now that stuff really isn’t my mind.

MLSsoccer.com: We have to ask: If it were between the two and both called you up, where would that leave you?

Bunbury: Honestly, right now it’s just time to focus on the Wizards.

There's a lot more in the link, so give it a look. It's worth pointing out, though, that at this point there is no reason to believe that he couldn't earn a spot on the USMNT. The only forward who has to be penciled in for every game right now is Jozy Altidore, at least until Charlie Davies gets healthy. If Bunbury can continue to grow as a player it's easy to see him making an impact with the Yanks.

That's not the only issue for Canada though. You see, Canada has two games in the next week, facing Peru on September 4th and Honduras September 7th. Three of the most important players for Canada's national team are Dwayne De Rosario, Julian De Guzman and Nana Attakora, who also happen to make up the backbone of Canada's lone top division squad, Toronto FC.

At the moment Toronto is in 9th place in MLS, 2 points out of their first playoff spot in club history, and with games on 9/4 at FC Dallas and 9/8 at Chicago. It appears that, while the three will play tomorrow against Peru, Canadian head coach Stephen Hart will release the trio for their game next Wednesday. Personally, I think that's a great decision.

There is always a contentious relationship between national teams and club teams when it comes to friendly dates. That relationship is even more strained when the club team is the most important club team in the country the players represent. If you want to stay in the good graces of everyone, I think you have to let the players return to their club and try to fight their way into a playoff spot.

Exciting Night, All Around

2010-09-02T01:14:00.000-04:00

4 wrap-ups for you tonight. Whew.

First, SuperLiga:

New England was outclassed by Morelia and lost 2-1 in the SuperLiga finals. Revolution needed a couple great saves from Matt Reis (and a few from the post) to keep the game that close. Towards the last 25 minutes or so New England looked much better, but it was too little too late as they couldn't find a second goal to match Kevin Alston's in the 79th. I encourage you to check out the highlights though, if only to see Miguel Sabah's wonderstrike on the second goal.

Second, a friendly:

Philadelphia closed out their friendly schedule with a match against Chivas de Guadalajara. The Goats' attack was potent but backup goalie Brad Knighton was up to the task stopping all of Chivas's 8 shots on goal. Meanwhile, all it took was one deft touch from my boy Jack Mack to send the Illadelph to a 1-nil win at home over the Mexican giants. Enjoy these highlights, as they are much easier to watch than the last set.

Finally, 2 US Open Cup games:

First let me congratulate all four teams for rolling out first-team talent for these games. MLS Commission Don Garber stated at the SuperLiga match that he wanted MLS to take the Open Cup more seriously and hopefully this is a sign that other teams are thinking that as well. A chance to qualify for the CONCACAF Champions League and bring home a trophy to your fans should be something worth fighting for.

The Columbus Crew prevailed in the first game with a 2-1 win at DC United, a matchup that will be revisited in 3 days in MLS league play. United looked poised to make another Open Cup final, despite being a down a man after the 59th minute and restore some shine to an extremely disappointing season. However, an own goal off Marc Burch in the 89th minute tied the game at 1. The Crew would hold off a number of spirited counter-attacks by DC United and Guillermo Barros Schelotto's goal from the penalty spot in the 98th minute would be enough to earn them their first trip to the finals since 2002.

Seattle Sounders hosted Chivas USA in the second game, and summarily dispatched the visitors 3-1 off a pair of goals by Nate Jaqua and another by Fredy Montero. Jaqua is now tied for the golden boot of the 2010 US Open Cup with 5 goals scored.

I'm honestly not sure who to make MOTM for Seattle. Steve Zakuani was a monster on the left side, tracking the game endline to endline, wreaking havoc on the defense, and earning a number of the dozen or so corners Seattle enjoyed. But this game was also the prototypical example of "as Alonso goes, so goes Seattle."

I mean this as much more of a compliment than it will sound, but Osvaldo Alonso is a poor man's (ok, maybe a lower-middle-class man's) Rafa Marquez. He offers a ton of support to the defensive line tracking back and they all know they can trust him to distribute the ball and get the attack started after making a stop. It seemed like he was in on every challenge in the midfield tonight, with the best example came late in the game with him tracking down Justin Braun in the center circle and just taking the ball away from out of nowhere.

Things are all set for the final now on October 5th at Qwest Field. Complicating matters a little bit, both teams will have CCL games on September 29th and league games on October 2nd, but I think we can expect to see them roll out the big guns for a chance at some silverware.

CONCACAF Blows It Again

2010-09-01T16:50:00.001-04:00

I'm shocked (SHOCKED) to find that CONCACAF has made a terrible decision for changing their qualification process for the World Cup.

For those who don't know, previously there were two knockout stages to determine the 12 countries that would make it to group stage. Every country played at least one knockout stage game, with the top 13 getting byes to the second round. For the group stage, the top two teams from each of the three groups would progress on to the final group of 6, lovingly called The Hex. The Hex was a full home-and-away tournament with the top 3 teams qualifying for the World Cup.

Now, they will expand the group stage to 32 teams. There will initially be 8 groups of 4. The top two from each group will move on to 4 groups of 4. Again the top two from each group move on to 2 groups of 4. The winner of each group automatically qualifies for the World Cup and the two second place teams have a playoff for the third automatic qualifying spot.

So what sucks about this? It's not that there are more teams in it now. That's actually a good thing because it will give teams like the US more easy games, which means more opportunity to try out youngsters.

It's that, under this new format, it's highly likely that the US will never play Mexico in a meaningful WCQ match. Unless something drastic happens the two of us will remain as the best two CONCACAF squads meaning we will never be put in the same group.

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty disappointed to know that I will never be able to travel down to the Azteca and watch the USMNT play a game like the fans in the video below.

A Busy Day of Tournament Soccer Tomorrow

2010-08-31T18:03:00.000-04:00

There are three tournament games tomorrow for MLS teams.

First, at 7pm, is New England hosting Morelia in the finals of Superliga. The game will be broadcast on Telefutura and also streamed for free on the official SuperLiga site and MLSsoccer.com.

The first of the US Open Cup semifinal games kicks off at 730pm as DC United hosts Columbus. There is no national broadcast for the game, however there will be a free live stream available at dcunited.com. I've used this site before and I can tell you that DC puts out a great free product that a bunch of other teams out there should look in to.

Thankfully, one of those teams that also streams their US Open Cup games is the Seattle Sounders. Seattle will be facing off against Chivas USA at 10pm and you can tune in for free to watch the game by visiting the Sounders FC webpage.

For a great preview of these two games go check out TheCup.us. These guys do a great job covering every part of the tournament from all of the USASA squads you've never heard of all the way through to the MLS clubs.

The Devil You Know

2010-08-31T14:14:00.000-04:00

The breaking news last night was the decision by the US Soccer Federation to keep Bob Bradley on as coach for another 4 years. Feelings are mixed among a lot of people, but no one seems too emotional either way. Is it a good thing or a bad thing that people seem to accept Bradley but not be enthralled by him? Let's try to break this down.

The Good

1. Bradley has been successful
In the past 4 year, the USMNT has reached both Gold Cup finals, winning one, made it to the finals of a FIFA tournament, won the CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying group, won it's World Cup Group, and beaten home team on 3 different continents (North America, Europe, and Africa). Not many coaches in US history can claim these kinds of credentials on their resume. He is clearly a very good coach who has done great things with the US team.

2. The players like Bradley
If there is one thing that BB has done incredibly well it's protect his players. They know that what happens inside the locker room will stay there and they respect that. Bradley does not air out dirty laundry in the press, does not put himself above the team, but will tell players how it is even when they don't like it.

3. Bradley is good at bringing in new talent
Some have been hard on Bradley for not bringing in new faces fast enough, but I think that's off. Charlie Davies got called in when he deserved to get called in. Same with other young players like Bedoya. You can't be turning over the lineup every friendly to give each fringe player a shot. Besides, after watching him get eaten alive against Brazil, does anyone here really want to argue that Bedoya should have been on the team over another midfielder?

The Bad

1. Bradley is not a good tactician
That ugly 4-4-2 empty bucket reared its head for too long. I understand that the US gets by more on physicality, fitness and heart than having skilled players, but there need to be better game plans against the top squads. We've seen it too many times where one player is clearly out-classed by his assignment and there is no tactical change to provide him some sort of cover. We saw it with Neymar on the wings in the Brazil friendly, and we saw it with Ghana's midfield having way too much time on the ball in the World Cup. Very rarely will a plan make up for a significant gulf in talent, but the right tactics can make the US a better team than they are right now.

2. Bradley relies on his guys too much
This relates back to tactics. How long did it take for Beasley to finally fall out of favor? What about Mastroeni? Rico Clark and Oguchi Onyewu in the World Cup are two more examples of Bradley's difficulty with letting go. Sure his loyalty works as well. The calls for him to bench his son have disappeared as Michael Bradley has become maybe the most important player on the US squad at the moment. However, it's a dangerous game he plays and I think there have been more bad results from it than good ones.

I can understand if you think this is at odds with #3 of the Good list, but hear me out. Bradley picked the right 23 to go to South Africa. Where he had problems was putting the right people on the field without seeing someone fail first. Once Gooch looked slow and hurt, he was off. Once Bradley realized Rico didn't belong on the pitch he subbed him out in the 31st minute against Ghana. They shouldn't have been left off the team, but they should not have been starting. The problem is, he should have been willing to make these moves before poor play forced his hand.

3. 2-term coaches don't have good track records
Bruce Arena in 2006. Marcello Lippi with Italy. Raymond Domenech with France. Can Bradley buck the trend and provide 4 more good years? If Landon and/or Clint start to slip in their early 30's is a coach who has been relying on them for 7 years going to be able to say "Sorry guys, it's time for a young guy like Brek Shea or Mix Diskerud to take your place" or will he stay loyal?

Overall I would say I'm not disappointed that Bradley is sticking around. I think he has done an admirable job and I think we are in good not great hands going forward. I would have liked to see him take a job in Europe for a couple reasons (to open up the door for US coaches to move there and to bring in a new coach to lead the US team) but I'm not going to be upset that he is still in charge of the team.

Red Bulls Dominate, Galaxy Tumble: Weekly Roundup

2010-08-30T12:27:00.000-04:00

I'm so blown away by how much LA has collapsed over the past 8 weeks that I may devote a separate post to really examining what's going on there. It's shocking that a team with that much more talent on the pitch and at coach is suddenly struggling for points.

Also, happy birthday to me today! To celebrate my 26th successful year of not dying, forward this link to someone who likes soccer.

Game Reports

Let's go ahead and get this out of the way. LA lost at home to Kansas City 2-nil. An anemic Wizards attack put two goals past Donovan Ricketts and forced a couple more good saves. LA had some chances to score, they always will with the talent they can field, but again they couldn't find a way to get a goal. I'm not saying they're in freefall mode yet, but I certainly don't think they're the favorite for Supporter's Shield or MLS Cup anymore.

On the other side of the spectrum are the New York Red Bulls. Coming off a 4-1 thrashing of Toronto FC at BMO Field you had to wonder if there would be a let down game against a pretty damn good SJ squad. Well, no need to worry about that any more. Red Bulls dominated the game for 90 minutes, winning 2-0 and probably deserving more. Henry and Rafa have integrated with the team and Dane Richards is no longer just the really fast guy who can't play soccer that well (Marvell Wynne has a lock on that title now). Whatever they are doing to inspire his performance, keep doing that. Also Geovanni got in 35 more minutes for San Jose in this game. With the playoffs about 8 weeks away he should be in top form with plenty of time to help SJ in their push.

Philadelphia used a pair of late goals to grab a 2-1 win at New England. No goals for my man-crush Mwanga, but he played well and had an integral part on the second tally. On a selfish note, it's awesome to see Atlanta kid Jack McInerny get his second goal on a very nice one-touch effort. Don't look now, but you could put out a surprisingly good squad of Atlanta-bred players. Sean Johnson, Sam Cronin, Jack Mack, Rico Clark, Josh Wolff, get Clint Mathis to coach. It's no Southern California, but they can play.

Colorado used an early, and deserved, red card against Lovel Palmer to score 3 goals in the first 23 minutes and then coast to victory against Houston Dynamo. I'm pretty comfortable saying that ends Houston's playoff chances, so the only other thing worth noting here is Mehdi Ballouchy's cut that belongs in a video game to free himself for a shot that turned into Conor Casey's goal. Damn.

DC and Chivas showed why they are two of the bottom teams in MLS as Chivas got the 1-0 victory at home. It's never good for the league when the nationally televised match features two teams that can't hold possession, build up an attack, or feature much in the way of attractive play. At least two young guys showed up with Najar flashing his skill on the ball after being subbed in and Justin Braun notching his 8th goal of the season.

Freddy Montero beast mode is back in full effect. The Colombian scored twice, including one in stoppage time, to give Seattle the 2-1 win at home over Chicago. No blame for Sean Johnson though, the young keeper did what he could but there was no stopping Montero's two shots. It will be interesting to see what Seattle does with him after this season. Do they re-write his contract and pay him the DP money he's going to deserve or do they look to sell him abroad and invest that money elsewhere in the team? Selfishly I hope the former, but would 100% understand the latter.

Remember how I pointed out that Toronto, Columbus and RSL were all resting players for big league matches this weekend? Well I don't think any of those teams are going to be disappointed about earning 1 point a piece, but the total of 0 goals scored in 2 games did not make for the greatest viewing.

Toronto managed a nil-nil draw against Real Salt Lake at home that featured some serious chances by RSL late in the game. Stefan Frei should be pretty happy with his goalposts right now.

Meanwhile, Columbus held off a surging FC Dallas squad to also earn a point from the 0-0 result at home.

Random Thoughts

RSL has officially overtaken LA as the top team in the Elo Ratings, and they did it after LA had what may be the worst result of the year. It's the second biggest drop numbers-wise, but the other one came earlier in the year when New England lost 4-0 at home to Chivas. The ratings hadn't calibrated to just how bad NE was this year at that point so I think LA going down 2-0 at home wins.

Not really sure what's going on over there in LA-LA-land, but they can't find the net all of a sudden, scoring 10 goals in their last 10 games. Not to harp on this or anything but PUT LANDON BACK ON THE RIGHT SIDE!!!

Superliga finishes up this Wednesday as New England hosts Morelia in the finals. Given the state of the two clubs I would expect NE to go all out for a win (and the straight-cash-homey) and Morelia to put out a reserve squad and stay rested for league play. Hopefully New England can pull off the win.

Also on Wednesday are the semifinals for the US Open Cup. DC will host the Columbus Crew and Seattle will host Chivas USA. Not to step on teams already having bad seasons, but I hope for the sake of the Open Cup, which I love by the way, that a strong squad wins it. I just don't think it looks good when one of the 3 or 4 worst teams in MLS wins a national tournament.

Rankings

MLS Elo Ratings
1,579.92 - Real Salt Lake
1,564.92 - Los Angeles Galaxy
1,561.10 - FC Dallas
1,553.34 - Columbus Crew
1,511.20 - Seattle Sounders
1,510.07 - Colorado Rapids
1,505.41 - New York Red Bulls
1,502.48 - Chicago Fire
1,483.51 - San Jose Earthquakes
1,482.08 - Kansas City Wizards
1,479.97 - Chivas USA
1,476.13 - Toronto FC
1,474.29 - Houston Dynamo
1,456.43 - Philadelphia Union
1,444.48 - New England Revolution
1,414.68 - DC United

Thierry Henry. Best DP in MLS History?

2010-08-29T16:10:00.000-04:00

Major League Soccer Talk can be pretty hit or miss. Some of the writers there are very good, some are not, and some serve only to up the pageviews by taking creating controversy where there need not be any.

Their latest article by Eric Altshule is a look at the effect Thierry Henry has had on the Red Bulls and if, given his stellar playing record and rather young age, he can become the best Designated Player in league history. I especially liked the following passage and think it's a good look at why he may be right:

And yet, since coming to the Red Bulls, Henry looks like a man reborn. Henry seems intent on integrating into this Red Bull team and not dominating it, and his link-up play has been terrific. As Henry has gotten his fitness back, his football has become more dazzling. He is looking to form a striking partnership with Juan Pablo Angel, and yet there is nothing exclusive about his play. He is feeding every Red Bull that can get in position, and looking to be an outlet for every Red Bull who possesses the ball.

Most importantly, Henry looks like he is playing with joy for the first time in a long time. He was simply dazzling tonight against San Jose, and had his backwards lob evaded the tips of keeper John Busch’s extended fingers, Henry would have added a top 10 goal to his personal highlight reel. Finally, when his first Red Bull goal came, Henry proved him self to be a true teammate. The goal came after an outstanding cross by Dane Richards, and landed at Henry’s feet in a position where it was harder to miss than to score. Henry did score, and though it was the moment that many Red Bull fans were waiting for, Henry immediately pointed at Richards to tell the crowd who really created that goal, and went over to lift the diminutive winger into the air.

Check out the whole article here.

Young Guns Get Ready for Peru

2010-08-28T11:44:00.000-04:00

The US Soccer Federation recently released the list of players who will be playing in a four-team U-20 tournament in Peru. The US will play Paraguay September 6th, Colombua September 8th, and Peru September 10th.

GOALKEEPERS (2): Samir Badr (F.C. Porto; Fairfax, Va.), Cody Cropper (Ipswich Town; Athens, Ga.)

DEFENDERS (7): Gale Agbossoumonde (S.C. Braga; Syracuse, N.Y.), Anthony Brooks (Hertha BSC; Berlin, Germany), Bryan De La Fuente (Chivas USA; Bell, Calif.), Christian Flores (Club Tijuana; El Cajon, Calif.), Greg Garza (G.D. Estoril Praia; Grapevine, Texas), Emilio Orozco (Tigres; Oxnard, Calif.), Korey Veeder (Crystal Palace Baltimore; St. Petersburg, Fla.)

MIDFIELDERS (7): Victor Garza (Tigres; Edinburg, Texas), Kevin Huezo (C.F. Pachuca; Santa Ana, Calif.), Francisco Navas Cobo (Houston Dynamo; Richmond, Texas), Ernest Nungaray (Monarcas Morelia; National City, Calif.), Moises Orozco (Tigres; Oxnard, Calif.), Conor Shanosky (D.C. United; Sterling, Va.), Cesar Zamora (Chivas USA; Sylmar, Calif.)

FORWARDS (4): Juan Agudelo (New York Red Bulls; Barnegat, N.Y.), Jerome Kiesewetter (Hertha BSC; Berlin, Germany), Adrian Ruelas (Santos Laguna; Fontana, Calif.), Omar Salgado (Portland Timbers; El Paso, Texas)

Notice anything special about that roster?

Nope, it's not that only 8 of the 20 players are holdovers from the Milk Cup that the US won last month.

Nope, it's not that there are more players from Tigres (3) than any other team and as many from Mexico's Primera Division as MLS (5).

Nope, it's not that there are 6 players plying their trade in Europe (3 from Portugal, 2 Germany, 1 from England).

But those are all very close!

This is the first time in history that a United States youth team has been made up entirely of professional players. With no disrespect meant to the college programs out there, this is a big step for the US development program. Young players now have the respect and ability to earn roster spots on teams competing in professional leagues and aren't forced to try to improve in a system where they are already better than 99% of the players they match up against. That's a huge advantage for the future of American soccer teams.

Good luck kids.

More Americans in Europe

2010-08-27T16:24:00.000-04:00

Following up on the previous post about Americans in the UK, here are the Americans plying their trade in the rest of continental Europe. The criteria for being American are pretty weak, but basically if wikipedia has an American flag next to your name, you count to me. If I've missed some people (very possible for lower-level leagues or Eastern European countries) please let me know and I'll add them to the list.

And now, our boys abroad

Spain

La Liga

Villareal
Jozy Altidore (20) - FW - 30 caps

Portugal

Liga De Honra

G.D. Estoril Praia
Bryan Arguez (21) - MF - 0 caps
Tony Taylor (21) - FW - 0 caps

France

Ligue 1

AS Saint-Etienne
Carlos Bocanegra (31) - DF - 84 caps

FC Sochaux
Charlie Davies (24) - FW - 17 caps

Germany

Bundesliga

Borussia Mönchengladbach
Michael Bradley (23) - MF - 48 caps

Eintracht Frankfurt
Ricardo Clark (27) - MF - 31 caps

Hannover 96
Steve Cherundolo (31) - DF - 64 caps

Schalke 04
Jermaine Jones (28) - MF - 0 caps

2. Bundesliga

1860 Munich
Kenny Cooper (25) - FW - 10 caps

FSV Frankfurt
Matt Taylor (28) - FW - 0 caps

Ingolstadt 04
Amaechi Igwe (22) - DF - 0 caps

Karlsruher
Luis Robles (26) - GK - 1 cap

NOTE: Daniel Williams (21 - DF) of SC Freiburg and David Yelldell (28 - GK) and MSV Duisburg both have duel nationality between Germany and the United States.

Belgium

Belgian Pro League

RSC Anderlecht
Sacha Kljestan (24) - MF - 25 caps

The Netherlands

Eerste Divisie

Helmond Sport
Charles Kazlauskas (27) - DF - 0 caps

Denmark

Danish Superliga

AaB Football
Chris Rolfe (27) - FW - 10 caps
Marcus Tracy (23) - FW - 0 caps

FC Nordsjælland
Michael Parkhurst (26) - DF - 8 caps

Danish First Division

AGF Aarhus
Benny Feilhaber (25) - MF - 36 caps

Viborg FF
Babajide Ogunbiyi (23) - DF - 0 caps

Italy

Serie A

Bologna
Giuseppe Nazzani (20) - DF - 0 caps

AC Milan
Oguchi Onyewu (28) - DF - 56 caps

Greece

Superleague

Aris Salonika
Freddy Adu (21) - MF - 15 caps

Russia

Premier-League

FC Tom Tomsk
Yevgeni Starikov (21) - FW - 0 caps

Finland

Veikkausliiga

FC Inter Turku
Daniel Antunez (24) - MF - 0 caps

Vaasan Palloseura
Greg Eckhardt (21) - DF - 0 caps

Sweden

Allsvenskan

Halmstads BK
Ryan Miller (25) - DF - 0 caps

Örebro SK
Alejandro Bedoya (23) - MF - 4 caps

Norway

Tippeligean

Hønefoss BK
Steve Clark (24) - GK - 0 caps

Stabæk Fotball
Mikkel Diskerud (19) - MF - 0 caps

IK Start
Hunter Freeman (25) - DF - 0 caps
Clarence Goodson (28) - DF - 15 caps

Not The Strongest Follow Up

2010-08-26T13:01:00.000-04:00

First happy birthday to my sister Katie who turned 24 yesterday. You can blame her for the lack of updates. And now, on to the pain.

Week 2 of the CONCACAF Champions League was not nearly as good for the MLS participants. Overall the teams went 0-4, including 2 stoppage time defeats in Mexico. Yikes.

Arabe Unido 1 - 0 Toronto FC

The refs did Toronto no favors in this game. Granted, the goal Arabe Unido scored was very well taken and deserved and Toronto didn't have any valid goals taken away (don't worry, we'll get to some of those later) but Salvadoran referee Marlon Mejia was still terrible. He handed out two awful red cards to Toronto players Nick LaBrocca and Faud Ibrahim that greatly influenced the game.

This is not to absolve Toronto of any blame for this loss. I'm pretty disappointed with the lineup that TFC rolled out down there. I was really hoping that they would take their best chance at road points seriously, but they were obviously playing to win this weekend and get in to the MLS Cup Playoffs. Oh well, to each their own. I can't find reliable number for how much advancing in CCL play is worth to teams, but I'm going to have to assume it's not enough to make Toronto focus on CCL instead of MLS playoffs.

Highlights:

Santos Laguna 1 - 0 Columbus Crew

Columbus Crew left 3 of their best players at home to prepare for a match this weekend against FC Dallas. Santos Laguna rolled out a mostly reserve squad. Really nice to see squads taking it seriously.

Still though, Columbus went ahead in the 22nd minute off a goal by Andy Iro. Or so it seemed. The referee waved off the goal because Edgar Renteria, who delivered the cross in, was wearing a shirt with no number.

Let's go over the series of events leading up to this:
1) Juan Pablo Santiago elbows Renteria in the head, drawing blood
2) Renteria goes over to the sideline, gets stitched and bandaged, changes shirts
3) Renteria is allowed back into the game
4) Renteria points out to the 4th official that he has no number
5) The 4th official tells Renteria it is okay and to go back to playing.
6) Renteria's assist is disallowed and he received a yellow card.

A-plus work CONCACAF referees.

Columbus was trying desperately to hold on in the last 15 minutes of the game but Santos eventually broke through. Watching the game you could see it was only a matter of "when" not "if" given the pressure Santos was able to provide and the trouble Columbus was having marking men in the box.

Highlights:

Cruz Azul 5 - 4 Real Salt Lake

Un. Buh. Leave. Able. As much as it hurts to lose, this was one of the most entertaining games you could ever see. RSL went us 3-1 in the 64th minute on a goal by Fabian Espindola. However, in the 67th minute Espindola was subbed out for Robbie Findley and then in the 74th minute Javi Morales was subbed out for Andy Williams. At that point, the floodgates opened.

RSL gave up 4 goals in the final 15 minutes of the game to give away the best chance any MLS team has had to win in Mexico. Jason Kreis needs to do some serious re-evaluation of which players are capable of contributing in continental play as clearly losing the Latin influence in attack devestated Real. Still though, it took a goal in the final minute of stoppage time to guarantee Cruz Azul 3 points.

Again in this game, there was a legitimate goal for the MLS team pulled back by the referee. Will Johnson clearly ran from an onside position to tap home a rebound in the 1st minute that was disallowed. To worsen matters, the goal Cruz Azul scored in the 5th minute should've been stopped because Cruz Azul never brought the ball to a stop after a foul was called to restart play.

You can see both of these in the first 30 seconds of the highlights below, but remember that RSL has only themselves to blame for what happened last night.

Highlights:

Seattle Sounders 0 - 2 Monterrey

Well, I guess we can go ahead and expect Seattle to pack it in for the rest of CCL. I hope they show up well for the home fans, because those guys are so loyal they don't deserve to be spited for the team's struggles, but they should be focusing on securing a spot in the MLS Cup Playoffs now.

Highlights:

Who Won The Vancouver/Portland Draft of Drafts?

2010-08-24T10:53:00.002-04:00

Future MLS clubs Vancouver Whitecaps and Portland Timbers held a draft yesterday where they selected which priorities each club would have. Vancouver won the initial coin toss and here are the results:

1. Vancouver - MLS SuperDraft (#1 Selection)
2. Portland - Expansion Draft (#1 Selection)
3. Vancouver - Allocation Ranking (#1 Ranking)
4. Portland - Designated Player Ranking (#1 Ranking)
5. Vancouver - USL Player Priority (#1 Priority)
6. Portland - Discovery Ranking (#17 Ranking)
7. Vancouver - Waiver/Re-Entry Draft (#17 Selection)
8. Portland - Lottery Ranking (#17 Ranking)

On the whole I think Vancouver misused their first-pick advantage and did worse than Portland in this draft.

Being first in the expansion draft is MUCH better than being first in the SuperDraft. By being first in the SuperDraft, Vancouver picks 1, 19, 37, 55 and Portland gets 2, 20, 38, 56. That's only 2 picks of any real advantage, and the difference between first overall picks and second overall picks in SuperDraft history is negligible. In fact, you could make a case that the #2 pick has performed better over the 11 drafts they've had.

2000: Steve Shak, Nick Garcia
2001: Chris Carrieri, Ali Curtis
2002: Chris Gbandi, Taylor Twellman
2003: Alecko Eskandarian, Ricardo Clark
2004: Freddy Adu, Chad Marshall
2005: Nikolas Besagno, Brad Guzan
2006: Marvell Wynne, Mehdi Ballouchy
2007: Maurice Edu, Bakary Soumare
2008: Chance Myers, Brek Shea
2009: Steve Zakuani, Sam Cronin
2010: Danny Mwanga, Tony Tchani

To complicate matters, if Vancouver thinks that Omar Salgado is the best player available, they shouldn't want the number 1 pick since he can't play for a Canadian team for 2 more years. Let Portland take him #1 and then get whoever was at the top of your draft board next.

Meanwhile, in the expansion draft, Portland is going to get to select before Vancouver 10 times. Plus, Portland gets to set the tone of the draft early. Every expansion draft has a rule about how many players an existing team can lose. In this draft, since there are two expansion teams, it's almost guaranteed that no MLS team will be able to lose more than 2 players. Now Portland gets to hold Vancouver's feet to the fire after each pick. Vancouver knows that if they don't pick from the same team as Portland, then Portland can make all of those players unavailable by selecting another player from that team. That's a confusing couple sentences but hopefully you get it.

Here are the last 4 expansion drafts (Toronto, San Jose, Seattle, Philly)

2006 - Toronto FC
Paulo Nagamura
Danny O'Rourke
Jose Cancela
Adrian Serioux
Nate Jaqua
Rod Dyachenko
Jason Kreis
Tim Regan
Ritchie Kotschau
Will Hesmer

Note: Toronto basically gutted this roster by trading these players to other teams for other players, allocation money and draft picks. They got $125,000 for Kreis (although he would've been nice as a coach), Edson Buddle for Tim Regan, and 2 2008 first round picks for Nagamura and Dyachenko. Smart stuff.

2007 - San Jose Earthquakes
Ryan Cochrane
Clarence Goodson
Ned Grabavoy
James Riley
Joe Vide
Ivan Guerrero
Brian Carroll
Jason Hernandez
Gavin Glinton
Chris Pozniak

2008 - Seattle Sounders
Nate Jaqua
Nathan Sturgis
Jeff Parke
Jarrod Smith
Khano Smith
Peter Vagenas
Tyson Wahl
James Riley
Stephen King
Brad Evans

2009 - Philadelphia Union
Jordan Harvey
Andrew Jacobson
Brad Knighton
Sebastien Le Toux
Stefani Miglioranzi
Alejandro Moreno
David Myrie
Shea Salinas
Shavar Thomas
Nick Zimmerman

There aren't many world beaters here (although Clarence Goodson and Brad Evans are US Internationals) but TFC, Seattle and Philly should be very happy with their takes.

The rest of the selections are single use priorities, most of them involving the rare occurrence where two teams file paperwork for a given player on the same day. Allocation Ranking is obviously the most important and most likely to be used, so good for Vancouver not messing that up. Again though, they were either going to be #1 or #2, so unless they are fighting with Portland for a player it won't make a big difference.

Random note: if the Discovery Ranking had been #1 and #2 instead of #17 and #18 it may have been worth the third overall selection.

No huge advantage is gained on the rest of the selections by either squad, at least not enough to make up for Vancouver's mistake of selecting SuperDraft over Expansion Draft.

Another Week in the Bag

2010-08-23T00:34:00.000-04:00

Before I get in to the MLS action, indulge me for a second. What the eff is going on in True Blood?! My head is going to explode. Eric vs. Russell!! Bill vs. Eric!! Jason vs. Tara!! Sam vs. his whisky-fueled memories!! Hoyt vs. Tommy!! Only two more episodes this season makes me :(

Also, how should I take the fact that SBI is jacking my style now?

Game Reports

Oh. My. Goodness. 4 to 1? On the road!?! In Toronto!?!?! Don't look now, but New York may be putting it all together. After all, if you're going to be the only away team to get a result this week, you may as well do it in a convincing way. Of course, it may have just been a case of a tired team who played out of their minds to earn 3 points against Cruz Azul a few days earlier, but New York basically told TFC, "You eat like that." The scariest part for other teams is that Henry still doesn't look settled yet. Marquez is only starting to connect, Tchani is a revelation in central mid, Lindpere is much more comfortable out wide left. When Henry gets clicking, this is going to be a VERY dangerous team.

Geovanni's debut was a good one as the Earthquakes beat LA Galaxy 1-0 in San Jose. MLS's newest DP only got 18 minutes and a huge round of applause, but his team got the win thanks to some great goal keeping by Jon Busch. On another day LA probably puts home 2 or 3 goals given the chances Donovan and Buddle missed (and oh was Buddle's miss terribad). Still, I'm not going to go agreeing with Landon and say that LA deserved the victory. They were just as lucky that Cornell Glen hit the post after sneaking one past Donovan Ricketts. And don't look now, but RSL is closing in on the best team in the league.

Brek gonna Brek, and FC Dallas is gonna keep winning. A single tally by Brek Shea was enough to give Dallas the 1-nil win at home over Chivas USA. I think they would've hoped for a more convincing win over a lesser team, but they earned 3 points and got over 10k people to attend so that's wins all around for them.

Someone forgot to tell the goalies there was a game going on in Houston, where the Dynamo put away the Fire 4-3. All of Houston's 4 goals came on set pieces, which has to be worrying for the Fire defense. They've got to find those tall guys and put a body on them. In a nice display by someone left of the plane to South Africa, 3 of those goals contributed to a Brian Ching hat trick including a bicycle that I didn't know the 32 year old had in him. Also, can Houston please stop wasting Geoff Cameron as a defender?

Kansas City pounded New England 4-1, behind 2 goals from a guy who hadn't started an MLS game in 8 seasons. Well done, Birahim Diop. I can't find anything that tells me he's related to fellow Senegalese athlete DeSagana Diop, but I can't find anything that says he isn't so I'm starting that rumor.

Columbus saw no drop off from the midweek game, dispatching Colorado 3-1.

Random Thoughts

This time of the season is when I really like the MLS Elo ratings. There are a lot of power rankings out there, but I love how the Elo ratings really show the gaps between groups of teams. Right now there is a top-2 (LA and RSL), a next two (Dallas and Columbus), and then a smattering of teams who are fighting for the last 4 playoff spots. Also, the worst 3 teams in the league are clearly the non-NY Atlantic seaboard folk.

Chicago had 3 to 5 games in hand on it's competition coming in to this week. I don't know why that's how the schedule worked out, but that was the situation. Earning 6 points would have been huge for them, but while they took care of business at home against New England they did not play well in Houston and only got 3 this week. Now they're 4 points out of the final playoff spot with 2 games in hand. Not as great a position as when they were 7 out with 4 games in hand.

CCL Games this week:
8/24 - 10pm - Toronto FC @ Arabe Unido
8/24 - 10pm - Columbus Crew @ Santos Laguna
8/25 - 8pm - Real Salt Lake @ Cruz Azul
8/25 - 10pm - Seattle v. Monterrey

This week's slate of games is much tougher than last week. Added to that, all of these teams have tough games coming up this weekend (Columbus v. FC Dallas, Toronto FC v. Real Salt Lake, Seattle v. Chicago) so it will be interesting to see what happens.

Toronto has a great chance to get 3 road points given Arabe Unido's two defender suspensions. That could nearly guarantee them passage through to the knock out stage. RSL and Columbus will each be trying to be the first MLS team to win in Mexico during CCL. Crew will be going up against the Mexican team in the best form at the moment and RSL will be up against a Cruz Azul team fighting for their CCL lives. Meanwhile, in the one home game, Seattle will be riding their home fans to try and earn 3 points and stay in the tournament.

Rankings

MLS Elo Ratings
1,582.06 - Los Angeles Galaxy
1,580.34 - Real Salt Lake
1,559.39 - FC Dallas
1,555.06 - Columbus Crew
1,508.24 - Chicago Fire
1,505.44 - Seattle Sounders
1,500.69 - Colorado Rapids
1,497.01 - New York Red Bulls
1,491.91 - San Jose Earthquakes
1,483.67 - Houston Dynamo
1,475.71 - Toronto FC
1,475.35 - Chivas USA
1,464.93 - Kansas City Wizards
1,453.92 - New England Revolution
1,447.00 - Philadelphia Union
1,419.29 - DC United

SBI's Seattle Suggestions

2010-08-20T11:02:00.001-04:00

Nice alteration on the title there, huh? Soccerbyives has a great article up called Five things the Sounders can take from CCL loss at Marathon. Take a couple minutes, check it out, and then see my responses below.

Now, I've been very impressed with Marathon in the past. I would rank them as one of the top 5 clubs in Central America, with Saprissa, Olimpia, Arabe Unido, and Municipal making up the rest. So I don't think Seattle should be killed for this loss, even if it came at the hands of an injury-ravaged starting 11 and a horrible mistake by Tyrone Marshall. Seattle has a big game next week at home against Monterrey. If they get a win there, they're right back in the thick of things.

And now, SBI's list of 5.

1. "[I]f winning on the road is tough in MLS, it's even more daunting of a task in CCL."

So very true. Any points on the road are going to be difficult, which is partly why it hurts that Seattle had such a good opportunity and let it get away. Their other two away games, @Monterrey and @Saprissa, will be harder than this one was.

2. "[T]he Sounders have to overcome officials' calls against them."

I actually thought Seattle did a great job at this. You can argue that the ref wasn't great, but he certainly wasn't terrible and the penalty was clearly deserved. I didn't see the Sounders lose their cool, which is a welcome change from the days of Freddie Ljungberg.

3. "[T]he Sounders have to adjust to playing in cavernous and near-empty stadiums"

This seems kinda silly. Having no atmosphere is supposed to be tougher than a hostile atmosphere? I mean, they've already earned results @ Colorado, @ FC Dallas, and @ Chivas USA, right? (crappy fanbase burn!)

4. "Schmid might have to put aside his fierce loyalty to defender Tyrone Marshall and go with someone who can keep up with fleet attacking players."

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Marshall was slow and nonchalant getting back to clear the ball that cost his team a penalty. Sure he didn't mean to kick Diamond, but you can't clear a guy out with a leg sweep in the box and not expect to give up a penalty. The fact that Marshall didn't see him coming is more an indictment on his lazy play than an excuse for his foul.

5. "Five, and lastly, Schmid must keep adjusting for all the travel and busy game schedule."

Seattle does face some schedule congestion in the coming week. I'll be honest though, at this point I would go all out for the 3 points at home against Monterrey. If that doesn't work, I'm using the CCL games as opportunities for experience for the young guys like Montano and Estrada and focusing on the two competitions I have a real chance of winning.

Seattle is in a strong position to repeat as US Open Cup champs and is set up to make a deep run in the MLS Cup playoffs. Having 1 or 0 points after two games in CCL (including a home match) pretty much guarantees you're eliminated.

2 Stories From Today

2010-08-19T21:26:00.001-04:00

1) MLS Players Association released an updated list of player salaries. The price tag for some of these additions:

Thierry Henry - $5,600,004
Rafael Marquez - $5,544,000
Nery Castillo, Forward, Chicago - $1,788,060
Mista - $987,337
Branko Bošković - $516,000
Alvaro Fernandez - $300,000

At first glance, "wowowow" at Nery getting nearly $1.8m and Mista getting almost $990k. I can kinda understand the Nery number since he got stupid overpaid a few years ago by Shakhtar and every loan deal is going to require picking up a player's current salary.

Mista seems like a bad deal by TFC. Even though he's been in La Liga, he's only scored 5 goals in 61 appearances over the past 5 years. Not exactly a world-beater they brought in, but if he performs I guess he can earn that money.

2) US U-20 forward Omar Salgado's loan to the Vancouver Whitecaps for the rest of this season is apparently not going to happen.

The former Chivas youth player was signed to a Generation Adidas contract by MLS with the plan being to loan him out to a team in USSF-2 until the MLS Superdraft. The initial choice was Vancouver, but apparently FIFA rules complicated their attempt at bringing in 16 year old.

He was originally registered in Mexico when he was in the Chivas youth system and hoping to play for the Mexican National Team. Recently he changed his mind and was let go because of the Chivas policy to only use Mexican players. Because he's under 18 he can only transfer his registration to another country if his family moves there. His family has already moved to the US so he can transfer his registration to here, but not Canada.

Apparently Portland Timbers is the best bet for where he'll go on loan now, and they also have one of the top two picks in the upcoming MLS Superdraft. Since he couldn't play with Vancouver for a full year if they drafted him, this could very well be a tryout for him if he goes to Portland.

A Great 2 Days for MLS

2010-08-19T01:05:00.001-04:00

CONCACAF Champions League group play opened up this Tuesday and so far MLS teams have earned the full nine points in their three games played. Sure it involved three home games, but who are we to complain?

Every team ran out a first-team lineup, allowing for injuries and suspensions, which is great to see. I really want to see teams take this competition seriously and perform well. The UEFA Champions League is the second best tournament to watch in the world (behind the World Cup, obviously) and I would love to see something similar here.

Toronto FC 2 - 1 Cruz Azul
By far the most impressive result, Toronto defeated Mexican giants Cruz Azul behind goals from Marco Saric and Mista. Cruz Azul was able to pull one back late off a free kick by former Pachuca star (and known enemy for anyone who was way into previous CCLs or Superligas) Christian Gimenez, who seems to have put on about 94 pounds.

The best part of the result is, TFC deserved every bit of it. They went out there and played their collective asses off up and down the field and could've won by more if it wasn't for a shockingly bad DeRo pass meant for US U-20 striker Fuad Ibrahim late in the game. In this extremely tough group, getting 3 points against Cruz Azul is HUGE. Like, Precious huge.

Touching on the DP theme from last post, Mista looked really dangerous on the attack and this is the first time I can remember thinking "Holy crap, this guy is good!" basically every time De Guzman was on the ball. Hopefully he can keep up that run of form because it's missing from his play in league matches too often.

TFC v. Cruz Azul Highlights

Columbus 1 - 0 Municipal
Emmanuel Ekpo put in an early contender for goal of the tournament to give Columbus the 1-nil victory. The highlights linked below don't quite do it justice but you can still see just how gorgeous the whole thing was from his cutting through 3 defenders to lining up a perfect curling shot to the inside of the back post.

Schelotto had at least 3 chances that he buries on a better day, or this scoreline could've gotten out of control. As it stands, the Crew took their first step towards what should be a pretty easy qualification from the weak Group B.

Columbus v. Municipal Highlights

Real Salt Lake 2 - 1 Arabe Unido
Group A is the group of death, and right now the two teams sitting on top are Toronto FC and Real Salt Lake. That's a pretty welcome sight for MLS fans.

It wasn't easy for RSL though. They went down early on a deflected goal in the 13th minute. Not long afterward, Arabe Unido defender Nahill Caroll was sent off for an awful two-footed challenge on Dreads Beckerman and the game was on. Saborio pulled a goal back in the 45th minute off a gorgeous cross by Chris Wingert and then tallied again five minutes into stoppage time on a penalty.

"Wait, what?! Five minutes!" you say? Yes. And actually there were eight minutes of stoppage time total.

You see, desperate for a 1-1 draw down a man and away from home, Arabe Unido found it possible to suffer life threatening injuries from any and all contact. Referee Paul Ward did an amazing job handling the situation, getting writhing Panamanians off the pitch as quickly as possible and issuing yellow cards for obvious time wasting. He also made the right call when Nelson Gonzalez was body checked away from a header he put past defender Jose Justavino (aka the short dude with giant-Super-Monkey-Ball-esque ears) in the box.

Another good outcome for MLS is that Arabe lose two players for their match next week at home against TFC: Caroll for the straight red and Andres Santamaria for two yellows for dissent. That was going to be their best chance all stage of getting 3 points and they'll be missing two starting defenders. If TFC can go down to Panama and win, Arabe is all but eliminated and at least one MLS team is guaranteed to move forward.

Real Salt Lake v. Arabe Unido Highlights

The Rise of the Designated Player

2010-08-17T23:16:00.000-04:00

Prior to this summer MLS teams had signed 13 Designated Players in 3 years. 6 of these guys are no longer in the league (Blanco-old, Denilson-sucks, Luciano Emilio-both, Marcelo Gallardo-homesick, Luis Angel Landin-sucks, Reyna-old) and 2 of whom are still in MLS but are no longer getting paid DP money (Claudio Lopez, Schelotto).

This summer 7 MLS teams have signed a total of 9 DPs:

New York Red Bulls - Thierry Henry, Rafa Marquez
Seattle Sounders - Blaise Nkufo, Alvaro Fernandez
Chicago Fire - Nery Castillo
DC United - Branko Boskovic
Kansas City Wizards - Omar Bravo
San Jose Earthquakes - Geovanni
Toronto FC - Mista

There a couple big movements I see here.

1) It's great to see teams like KC and San Jose signing Designated Players. These are small market clubs that just spent straight-cash-homey to make their teams better. NY, Seattle, Chicago, DC and Toronto all make sense to me since they are well-funded and/or soccer-crazy. Two teams playing in minor-league baseball stadiums while their new homes get built didn't make my radar as likely DP buyers, but I dig it.

In fact, here are some rankings I put out at the beginning of the season about how likely teams were to add a 3rd DP, not that it's an option.

Definitely would
NY
Seattle
LA
TFC

Probably could
Chicago
DC United

Little chance
Real Salt Lake
Colorado
Philadelphia
Houston
FC Dallas

Never will
San Jose
Kansas City
Chivas USA
New England
Columbus

It's nice to see two of the teams I don't think will ever take full advantage of the 3 DP limit still willing to go get one. BTW, I don't think New England will ever so much as get 1 DP. Bob Kraft is waaay too cheap. They're gonna end up being like the Pittsburgh Pirates, if you ask me, where the owner just does the minimum and cashes his check due to revenue sharing.

2) The type of player teams are bringing in is changing a little. The three members of the Mexican National Team and Thiery Henry are obviously name players who can draw a crowd just with their jerseys. This is how the DP started and how I think it will continue to operate for the near future.

The other five, though, are guys with legit top league and/or WC experience who will come at a more reasonable price. Nkufo is the only one of these guys whose salary is public and it's $480,000. I would expect the others to be pretty similar, with Geovanni probably being the highest at maybe $800,000 or so. These aren't owner-killing costs and it's bringing great experience and skill to the teams.

Also, the players tend to be older and established (Fernandez excluded) unlike Denilson and Landin who couldn't latch on anywhere after success with their initial teams.

Hopefully these are the types of players that teams continue to invest in. I mean, I love being able to watch Henry okie-doke some fools or Landon Donovan run through entire defenses, but that's not the best thing for most MLS teams since it would destroy their spending power. LA, NY, and Seattle will be able to buy these names and still field deep teams. The rest of the league will have to be smarter.

Another MLS Weekend

2010-08-16T11:34:00.000-04:00

I got to watch a LOT of games this weekend because the weather was awful and I was spending a lot of time coding a project I'm working on. It was a welcome change from having to go on highlights and match reports to get the majority of my commentary

Game Reports

The marquee game this weekend was LA Galaxy visiting the DP-show that is New York Red Bulls. LA won the game 1-0 thanks to Edson Buddle's goal off a mistake by Rafa Marquez. Now, I understand that NY fans are going to be disappointed about losing ANY home game given their now-stacked roster, but Hans Backe wasn't too upset about the result and I think he's right. NY played a great game, they held possession well, they didn't give up a ton of chances, they created good scoring opportunities, they just didn't find the back of the net this time. Henry and Marquez still aren't fully integrated to the team, but you can see the talent is there. Losing 1-0 against the best team in the league isn't really that big a deal. Obviously they can wish it was better, but don't overreact.

Real Salt Lake cemented themselves as the second best team in the league with a convincing 2-0 win at home over Columbus. RSL used some bulletin board material from Crew keeper Will Hesmer (they put a quote from him saying RSL wasn't a deserving champion on the video board) to fuel a really good home atmosphere and Javi Morales provided the rest.

MOOOORRRRREEEE MMMMMMMWANGAAAAAAA!!!! Philly tied Colorado 1-1 at home thanks to the rookie-leading 7th goal from Danny Mwanga, owing to Sebastien Le Toux's 9th assist. Philly came out in an interesting formation, dropping Le Toux back to the wing and starting Moreno up top with Mwanga. I think this may have helped free up their offense a little more as they were able to play through more than just Fred in the midfield.

FC Dallas scored 4 goals visiting DC. Thankfully one of them was into their own net or else DC United would've been shut out. Again. For the third straight league game. I feel bad for this group, and I'm not sure what easy changes they can make to get back to competing.

Chivas and Seattle fought, literally, to a nil-nil draw. There were a lot of bodies flying around, but nobody could find the net.

San Jose beat Kansas City 1-0 at home on a nice goal from Chris Wondolowski. Remember, Wondo (1300 minutes, 33 shots, 7 goals) was traded to San Jose with a draft pick for Cam Weaver (329 minutes, 6 shots, 1 goal). Pretty clear winner so far on that trade.

Remember when New England and Houston was an exciting game that meant something? Sigh. Revolution got a 1-0 win at home.

Random Thoughts

LA is pretty solidly atop the league right now after a couple stumbles. This is why subjective power rankings are silly, a couple bad games does not change them from being the best team in MLS.

Nice article on Thierry Henry from NJ Post with a great quote:

“I don’t know why you guys have” — the former Arsenal and French star has to pause to find the correct word in English — “such a complex about your football.

“You guys have new stadiums. You have good players here. You have big crowds at games. Obviously, we want it to grow — that’s why we’re all here. But you should be happy about it.”

If NY can survive their next 6 games (@TFC, SJ, @RSL, COL, @FCD, @LAG) and get to October they should finish strong with 3 of the worst teams in MLS on their schedule (KC, RSL, @PHI, NE).

BTW, you want to know why NY is so low in the Elo Ratings? Look at those tough games they haven't played yet and remember that they have a already negative goal differential. Yikes.

CCL games this week:
Toronto FC v. Cruz Azul - 8/17
Real Salt Lake v. Arabe Unido - 8/18
Columbus Crew v. Municipal - 8/18
Seattle Sounders @ Marathon - 8/19

RSL and Columbus really need 3. It won't kill them, but it will hurt. Toronto and Seattle should be shooting for 1 and hoping for 3.

Rankings

MLS Elo Ratings
1,590.02 - Los Angeles Galaxy
1,580.34 - Real Salt Lake
1,555.12 - FC Dallas
1,547.68 - Columbus Crew
1,509.82 - Chicago Fire
1,508.07 - Colorado Rapids
1,505.44 - Seattle Sounders
1,492.41 - Toronto FC
1,483.95 - San Jose Earthquakes
1,480.31 - New York Red Bulls
1,479.62 - Chivas USA
1,477.19 - Houston Dynamo
1,469.14 - New England Revolution
1,457.05 - Philadelphia Union
1,454.61 - Kansas City Wizards
1,409.24 - DC United

Americans in the UK

2010-08-14T16:52:00.000-04:00

Today kicks off the English football leagues, so I figured what better time to give you guys a list of the Americans currently playing their trade in Jolly Ole England (or Scotland). Of course there's still a bit of time left for transfers so this could change, but here are the Americans in the lineups for week 1.

Barclay's Premier League

Aston Villa
Brad Friedel* (39) - GK - 82 caps
Brad Guzan (25) - GK - 17 caps
Eric Lichaj (21) - DF - 0 caps

Bolton Wanderers
Stuart Holden (25) - MF - 15 caps

Everton FC
Tim Howard (31) - GK - 56 caps

Fulham FC
Eddie Johnson (26) - FW - 41 caps
Clint Dempsey (27) - MF - 66 caps

West Ham United
Jonathan Spector (24) - DF - 26 caps

Wolverhampton Wanderers
Marcus Hahnemann (38) - GK - 8 caps

There are also a couple academy players, both without Wikipedia articles. Sebastien Lleget, a defender at West Ham, and Will Packwood, a midfielder at Birmingham City.

Championship

Derby County
Conor Doyle (23) - FW - 0 caps

Leeds United
Mike Grella (23) - FW - 0 caps

Norwich City
Zak Whitbread (26) - DF - 0 caps

League One

Carlisle United
Frankie Simek (25) - DF - 5 caps

Plymouth Argyle
Anton Peterlin (23) - MF - 0 caps

League Two

Northhampton Town
Sebastian Harris (23) - DF - 0 caps

Wycombe Wanderers
Jon-Paul Pittman (23) - FW - 0 caps

Scottish Premier League

Celtic FC
Dominic Cervi (24) - GK - 0 caps

Rangers
Maurice Edu (24) - MF - 17 caps

* - retired from international play

An Introduction to Elo Ratings

2010-08-13T10:47:00.000-04:00

One of the features of this site that I hope to build out even more are a set of proprietary Elo Ratings for Major League Soccer teams. The most up to date ratings can always be found by clicking that tab up above here that says MLS Elo Ratings. You may be familiar with the idea from the national team Elo ratings at www.eloratings.net or if you were ever a giant nerd who got really into chess. If you want some more information on how I developed it you can read this paper, otherwise just check out the 5 most common questions I get on it.

1. So what's the deal?

The Elo Ratings are based on a chess ranking system centered around a base value of 1500. A team's ranking goes up or down after each game depending on the quality of their opponent, the game's result, and the goal differential.

Anything over 1600 is up there with the best teams in MLS history. Anything below 1400 is super awful.

2. What about home field advantage, season-to-season carryover, expansion teams?

Based on historic MLS results home field advantage is worth about 85 points on a 1500 point scale, so we just add 85 points to the home team right before running the calculations.

When a new season starts, a team's rating moves halfway back to the 1500 midpoint. So if the Columbus Crew end the 2010 season with a 1540 rating they will start 2011 with a 1520 rating.

Expansion teams come in at a 1500 rating. It's not the best method by any means since most of these teams tend to be pretty poor, but it starts to correct itself over the course of a season.

3. Is it accurate?

Yes and no. It takes around 15-20 games for the ratings to normalize to the new team strength, which means at least half the season. Even then, if one team makes a big improvement during the season, like bringing in Thierry Henry and Rafa Marquez during the summer transfer window, it will take longer for the ratings to normalize than it will for a fan to notice who is playing well.

4. But my team is so much better than you say!?

Actually, even though I admit it's not perfect, odds are you are wrong here. Go back and look at your team's schedule. Look at how many of your wins were at home, or how many are against bad teams, or the overall goal differential. Beating the patsies by a goal will not help your Elo Rating very much at all.

5. Do you do other leagues?

Kinda. I've done the legwork of putting together the ratings for Premier League teams, but I haven't watched the changes for a season yet, so I'm not sure how good they are right now. It took a lot of work to get the MLS Elo Ratings developed since I used every results from the league's first season in 1996 and I want to make sure the other leagues are equally good before I unleash them on the masses.

I do answer a couple questions a month from people looking to create their own ratings though, so maybe you'll see some more pop up from other people.

Anyway, I hope that gives you a good background on how these work. If you have any questions just send me an e-mail or post in the comments and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

Should Philadelphia change their style of play?

2010-08-12T11:01:00.000-04:00

Philadelphia got another point last night in a 1-1 draw against a Real Salt Lake team that was resting some key players in anticipation of a game this weekend against Columbus and their first CONCACAF Champions League game next Wednesday. However, the big question is "why didn't they get three?"

Philly was dominating the game in the first half, really taking the action to the defending champions. They kept their foot on the pedal after going up 1-0 and that, combined with a terrible individual mistake by Juan Gonzalez (not that one, but that would be awesome) cost them a goal that ended the scoring.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened, either playing for an extra goal lead and giving up a tying goal or playing for the win instead of a draw and ending up with a loss. So now I have to wonder if their tendency to keep pressing forward is a positive or a negative. For one, it provides a very entertaining (although frustrating when it works out like this) style of play for the fans. It also helps the team grow I think, and could serve them well when they mature a little and are down a goal, pressing to get one back since that's already in their style of play.

However, it's obviously costing them goals and points right now. You have to wonder what kind of effect that's going to have mentally on such a young team. Losing points sucks and you have to hope that Piotr Nowak is able to keep his teams' heads on straight as they go through this learning process.

On a side note, MORE MWANGA!!! Danny Mwanga was in full-on beast mode last night. That kid is sick. Like, who-do-we-have-to-pay-off-in-the-government-to-make-sure-he's-American-and-not-Congolese sick. 6 goals in 734 minutes as a 19 year old? Sign. This. Man. Up.

Here are last night's highlights for you:

Portland Timbers hire a coach

2010-08-11T14:09:00.001-04:00

The Portland Timbers introduced Houston Dynamo assistant John Spencer as their head coach for next year's inaugural season. Prior to his beginning his coaching career with Houston, Spencer played with Rangers, Chelsea, Everton, and Colorado Rapids among others, also collecting 14 caps for his native Scotland.

Houston's been a very good team with him as the second in command, so he'll be expected to perform well right out of the gate. I can't find any information about this, but if he had a big hand in the talent evaluation for the MLS Superdraft then he's got a very good chance of meeting expectations based on Houston's drafts since 2006.

2006
1.08 - Patrick Ianni
3.32 - Andre Schmid
4.44 - Mike Chabala

2007
1.13 - John Michael Hayden
2.26 - Corey Ashe
3.39 - Mike Sambursky
4.52 - Eric Ebert

2008
3.42 - Geoff Cameron
4.56 - Jeremy Barlow

2009
3.41 - Danny Cruz
4.56 - Marcus Tracy

Brazil/USA Quick Recap

2010-08-10T23:22:00.001-04:00

I'm tired, it's late, but here are my starting 11 thoughts after the 2-0 win for Brazil.

1. I wasn't going in expecting the US to win so I won't say I'm disappointed in the result, it would've been nice to get a goal back somewhere though. Landon staying up in the box in the 3rd minute shows the kind of classy player he is, but I should would've loved to have seen him let the ref know he got run over and earn the penalty he deserved.

2. Michael Bradley had another solid game although he had some very uncharacteristic mental errors late in the game. Glad he got to wear the captain's armband too.

3. I would rank the performances of the 4 young guys:
Gonzalez >>>> Feilhaber = Jozy > Bedoya

4. Omar Gonzalez is a beast with a future. I'm saying he's as good, but it didn't look like we lost a whole lot with him out there instead of Gooch or DeMerit and the kid's only 21. On the flip side, we've seen young American defenders look really good against elite South American squads during friendly games in NYC before and we know how Heath Pearce hasn't quite turned out as hoped.

5. With Gonzalez (6'5") and Goodson (6'4") in the middle, that's a combined 12 feet 9 inches of defender you have to get a ball over. A scary thought for teams who want to play down the wings and cross it in.

6. Feilhaber and Jozy looked to be playing to avoid injury more than anything else. Considering all the transfer talk that's going on around those two right now I can't say I blame them.

7. Jozy's year with Hull did one thing for sure. That kid can draw fouls like no one else on the USA roster. He drew 4 fouls in his first 20 minutes of play that all lead to dangerous set pieces. Those are the things that really help the team. Not as much as if he was scoring again, but still plenty helpful.

8. Bedoya looks a step slow at all times out there and his lack of defensive ability really exposed Spector, who we already knew wasn't the greatest RB in the world. Unless the US can develop some better fullbacks any outside mid we play will have to be able to stop the attack.

9. Starting Landon in that second striker position made for a weird lineup at the end of the game when the US had 3 strikers and 3 central midfielders trying to play their part in a 4-4-2.

10. Brazil is soooooooooooo pretty to watch. They clearly had a flair that wasn't there with Dunga. Whether it was because of a friendly game they didn't have to worry about, or the infusion of young studs like Pato and Neymar, it was a joy to watch their skill even if it hurt to see the US lose.

11. If this was the last game on the sidelines for Bob Bradley, then thank you sir for all you've done these past four years. Good luck in Europe.

USA v. Brazil friendly tonight

2010-08-10T11:42:00.001-04:00

Here is the final roster that the USA will dress against Brazil tonight. Coverage will begin at 8pm on ESPN2-HD.

GOALKEEPERS- Brad Guzan (Aston Villa), Tim Howard (Everton)

DEFENDERS- Carlos Bocanegra (Saint-Étienne), Jonathan Bornstein (Chivas USA), Steve Cherundolo (Hannover), Omar Gonzalez (LA Galaxy), Clarence Goodson (IK Start), Jonathan Spector (West Ham United)

MIDFIELDERS- Alejandro Bedoya (Örebro), Michael Bradley (Borussia Mönchengladbach), Landon Donovan (Los Angeles Galaxy), Maurice Edu (Rangers), Benny Feilhaber (Aarhus), Sacha Kljestan (Anderlecht)

FORWARDS- Jozy Altidore (Villareal), Edson Buddle (Los Angeles Galaxy), Robbie Findley (Real Salt Lake), Herculez Gomez (Pachuca)

Jermaine Jones and Chad Marshall were initially called in but had to decline the invites, unfortunately. While some were worried that Jones may be second-guessing his decision to join the American squad he put those rumors to rest pretty swiftly, explaining that he wants to make sure he is 100% healthy before joining the team. I'm good with this explanation. It isn't important to me that a guy who is still recovering from a broken leg to play a friendly in August, it's important that he comes out next year and monkey-stomps Mexico in the Gold Cup.

There is a silver lining to JJ missing the game though, and that is Omar Gonzalez's USMNT debut. I <3 this kid. He's been a rock in the back line for LA, and with the US backline looking pretty shaky for 2014 grooming this kid for international duty is going to be super important.

One guy who didn't get the call up was Bobby Convey. I understand that he was kind of an entitled punk for a couple years there, but he seems to have turned his game and personality around this season. He performed well in 45 previous caps during his younger, less d-bag years, and has been a force for the San Jose midfield this season, dishing out 8 assists and providing numerous more dangerous balls. Even if he is already 27, I'd love to see him on the field as either a left-side midfielder or left-back and I think his play this year has earned that.

This week's games

2010-08-09T19:43:00.000-04:00

This is a common feature you'll see as we go forward. I'll quickly sum up all of the week's action and toss out a few thoughts on where everyone stands in the league. Some games will get more coverage than others depending on how much I get to watch and how closely, and how much extra I care about the teams involved.

Game Reports

New York and Chicago was the most anticipated game of the week, featuring 5 designated players, two of whom were making their MLS debuts, and national HD coverage on ESPN2. The game ended 0-0, but hopefully that didn't turn off the casual fan as the overall soccer was a great display of skill not usually seen in an MLS game. Castillo went 30 minutes, Henry went 45 minutes, Marquez went about 60, and Ljungberg and JPA made it all 90. Hopefully Henry, Marquez and JPA will be ready to go this Wednesday at home against TFC. The word is that Henry came out with a strained groin, but he doesn't think it's going to be a big deal.

Philadelphia lost two games this week, first 2-1 at home against Columbus and then 3-1 on the road at FC Dallas. The obvious problem is either that they need more Danny Mwanga, or that they had to play two of the best teams in the league over a span of 5 days. I'm going with MORE MWANGA!! Watch out for FC Dallas if Jeff Cunningham gets going though. They are already a very good team, but adding his scoring touch to Ferreira, Brek Shea and Atiba Harris would be brutal.

Toronto FC beat Chivas USA 2-1 at home. Chad Barrett kept up his good run of form with what turned out to be the game winning goal. Maicon looked great again and seems to be fitting in very well with the team. Justin Braun had a number of good chances for Chivas, but he couldn't find the net this game.

Seattle and Houston closed out the weekend. Seattle won 2-0 with Montero providing a goal and an assist. Alvaro Fernandez got the other goal, scoring his second goal in his second appearance. That's 2 goals in 67 total minutes played, quite the ratio so far! I know it's early in his career there, but judging by how he interacted with his teammates after the goal I think he's going be a great locker room presence on top of his talent. That's certainly an upgrade over Ljungberg.

Colorado beat San Jose 1-0 at home on a howler of a mistake from Jon Busch.

Coach Ben Olsen wasn't enough to keep DC from continuing their losing ways, as they went down 1-0 to New England in Boston. It's hard to turn away from this team right now, kinda like a car wreck on the interstate.

Real Salt Lake quickly answered an early Kansas City goal by Kei Kamara with a tally from Robbie Findley in the 33rd minute. That was all the scoring though, and the game ended tied 1-1.

Random Thoughts

Sean Johnson was easily MOTM for Chicago. A very athletic 21 year old got introduced to MLS this past week by facing the two scariest attacks in the league, LA and NY. While you would understand a rookie making some costly mistakes against these skilled veteran attacks, Johnson actually performed very well. He's been up against 41 shots, 13 of them on goal, and has only given up 2 goal with one of them on a penalty.

I made some predictions early in the season and it's time to forget about one of them. I'm officially willing to give up on my O'Brian White getting 7 goals prediction. The guy couldn't get on the field consistently early in the season and then Toronto brought in Maicon and Mista so there's little to no chance he even has the opportunity to start banging in goals.

Fredy Montero is playing on another level right now. A goal or assist in his last 9 games, and 8 goals and 9 assists on the year. In a year that looked like it would be the Donovan/Buddle show, Montero and Sebastien Le Toux have made themselves serious contenders for MVP.

New England and Morelia will meet next month for the Superliga finals. Houston put up a good fight in the first half, but couldn't convert on their chances. Still, come September 1st, "gogogo MLS!!"

MLS, fix the scripts on your freaking scores page (http://www.mlssoccer.com/scores/Aug-02-2010). You have a very "cool" website but it takes forever to load everything. Function > Form.

A little about this blog

2010-08-09T13:10:00.001-04:00

Before we get to the whole "me posting" part, here's a little background on what you can expect from This American Pitch.

I hope that over the next few weeks and months this will become a regular stop for you to get commentary on everything relating to American soccer. This means MLS (a lot of MLS actually), Americans playing overseas, US National Teams at all levels, and anything else I feel like talking about at the time. I'll toss out plenty of random statistics, talk about young players I really like, and hopefully get to interact with you guys in the comments section.

There are only two things I hope you'll get from this site (and if you don't, yell at me in the comments):

Intelligent, well-explained commentary
Amusement

That's all. Please let me know if I'm missing one of the two.

As for me, I grew up on the southside of Atlanta, never playing a ton of soccer even though plenty of teams around me were very good. Now I live in Decatur (as in "College Park, East Point and Decatur they got my back" and "This is for Decatur, what's up, Bobby Ray") and still somehow found it in me to support a league that doesn't have a team within 600 miles. This is my outlet for that passion now.

Thanks for stopping by.