A Couple Big DP Rumors

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.

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

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.

Seattle 0 - 1 LA: I Guess Coaching Does Matter

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.

Los Angeles Galaxy: Season Retrospective

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

Playoff Field Set

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 on Juan Pablo

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.

Contenders' Schedules: 9/28

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

NY/LA: What We Learned

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.