Week 21 Results:
DC United 1 - 1 Colorado Rapids
Columbus Crew 1 - 0 Red Bull New York
Real Salt Lake 3 - 1 Houston Dynamo
Chivas USA 1 - 1 Kansas City Wizards
New England Revolution 0 - 1 Chicago Fire
Los Angeles Galaxy 2 - 0 FC Dallas
NOTE: MLS’s in-house match reports are embedded under the scores, interested parties can watch highlights of most the games in MLS’s Sights & Sounds page, here are the standings, and, finally, here’s how ESPN figures the weekend’s action impacted each team’s “power” relative to the rest of the league.
Man. Man and damn, this was one screwy weekend, a half-productive one at best with the only constant being that it was a decent week for teams whose name or home city started with "C." Most results only served to tighten the playoff races, which means that the under-achievers over-achieved and the over-achievers under-achieved. Then again, the league’s rigid parity makes it damned hard to state with any certainty what is and is not the norm.
What did each match tell us? Taking them chronologically:
- DC United’s home draw to the Colorado Rapids confirmed the former's rut; it will only take a loss or two to deepen it. The worrying thing, from DC’s perspective, comes with where their heads seem to be down the regular season stretch. Like it or not, winning MLS Cup is the relevant definition of success in the league and that means success in the post-season leading to the Cup. Without the Cup, they won’t get much satisfaction out of reminding about the Supporters’ Shield they won in 2006. On the other side, ESPN’s stable holds up this weekend’s tie with the league leaders (that’s DC) to dub Colorado “the most underrated team” in the league. That goes too far: they’re more like high-end spoilers, a team no one wants to play, particularly in Colorado. But they’re certainly not contenders.
- Tragically, I actually saw the Columbus Crew end their 13-game winless streak; because I haven’t seen every game this season, I can’t call this the worst game of the season, but it’s a strong candidate for that title. There’s an old Monty Python skit in which a team of philosophers lined up against a team of one-legged pirates; nothing happens till it occurs to one of the philosophers that he’s got to do something or the game will be for nothing; he then runs down the field and scores. Joseph Ngwenya’s goal, and it was a nice one, had a similar feel to it. Before that, it was a whole lotta nothin’. Red Bull New York shares a large portion of the blame for that; of the two teams, they surely must view this as the greater let-down, the unwanted hiccup in Red Bull’s mini-revival. For all the talk of weary legs, every team in the league has to deal with over-demanding schedules and Red Bull’s coach - can’t think of who that could be - has to figure it out. He didn’t and that brings back the question marks.
- Hello Real Salt Lake (RSL)! Even with the league’s resolute devotion to parity regularly producing unpredictable story lines, Real Salt Lake’s (RSL) four-game winning-streak came from beyond left field (not to mix sporting metaphors). In a related note, does Jeff Cunningham’s 14 goal, 9 assist season put him to the top of the MVP 2006 race? Can anyone think of another player more vital to his team? Now comfortably a part of the playoff picture, the next question seems to be how high RSL can go. The question for the Houston Dynamo points the other direction. Most reports give the impression that Houston more than held their own in the first half, but their “Ching-less”(as in Brian Ching) offense continues to sputter. Frankly, it wasn’t all that hot before Ching went down injured either - and Ching was part of the problem. Houston’s fall from contender status ranks as one of the bigger stories of 2006. An off-season shopping spree for a quality striker seems nothing short of necessary. After all, you can't win if you don't score...more than the other guys, especially.
- Chivas USA continued their schizophrenic run through 2006; on the upside, it will only take a trip to the post-season for Chivas to claim success (ditto, by the way, for RSL). As one of three members of the “10-Ties Club” (other members, New England Revolution, Red Bull New York), Chivas could very well rue their inability to put away games once the league gets paired into post-season brackets. On the other side, the Kansas City Wizards probably feel an opposite emotion: relief, especially given that this came on the end of a long road-trip. They may currently hold down the final playoff spot, but with the way things have gone this year Kansas City seems likely as any team in the East to fall out of the playoff picture.
- Reports of the Los Angeles Galaxy’s win over FC Dallas name Dallas goalkeeper Dario Sala as the chief culprit; two big, first-half gaffes built a hell of a hill for Dallas to climb. It could be that, it could be the “curse” of the Home Depot Center: Dallas hasn’t won there in eight attempts. All in all, this was a hell of a time for Dallas to sputter. As with DC United, the question becomes whether they simply gelled faster and took early advantage before the other teams caught up, or whether they’re sliding into a funk of their own. Even as I expect it with Dallas (we have a hell of history, that team and me), Houston’s loss offered them a clear chance to open up more daylight. They failed and with Los Angeles looking poised to do what they did in 2005, it becomes a worrying time.
- I have a habit of blocking out the scores when I sit down to watch the highlight reels on Sights & Sounds; that way, I still get some taste of the elation and anger that comes with watching the game live. Needless to say, I got ample doses of the latter in enduring the New England Revolution’s loss to the Chicago Fire. By the third (fourth? fifth?) ballooning header in front of Chicago’s goal left I had thoroughly scared my kids - that and taught them still more foul words. So...the old excuse was being on the road and being tired; now that they’re home, what the fuck is wrong with the New England Revolution? Is Jay Heaps' over-exotic vocabulary distracting them from the task at hand? ("I’ve only been in the league eight years and it’s mundane that we’re not getting the same calls"? Mundane?! What the fuck is talking about?) Is it as simple as Michael Parkhurst's post-game comments: “Everyone is waiting for the tide to turn, but maybe we’re waiting too much. Maybe we need to take the initiative and go get some results”? Well, no one's going to do it for you, buddy. The Chicago Fire’s Andy Herron did score a beautiful goal (goal of the week, as I see it), but, apart from that moment, it’s so, so difficult to tell where Chicago’s quality ends and New England’s incompetence begins. Based on their form, I’m thinking it’s time to readjust expectations for New England back to where they were in the late-90s, early-Dicketies (e.g. the “2000s,” for instance 2006 would be “Dickety-Six” in this usage), but I also can’t pretend to neutrality where New England is concerned. Chicago, for their part, has quietly put together a pretty decent run - decent enough to have leap-frogged New England in the Eastern Conference standings. The rest of the teams in the league - and certainly the ones in their conference - would be well-advised to keep one eye on this team.
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