Bobby Convey Parties Like It's 2006

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.

New York Red Bulls: Season Retrospective

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

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.

JPA 2 NYRB: ttyl

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.

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.