Write On Sports LLC - "2006 MLS CUP" by Jeff Bull

2006 MLS CUP

2006-11-09 01:35:20 | By: Jeff Bull

In the 21st minute of the second leg of the New England Revolution’s first-round playoff series against the Chicago Fire, New England’s Taylor Twellman put a near-range header miles wide with Chicago’s goal at his mercy. The specter of squandered opportunities, painfully familiar from the long regular season, reared up once again. New England started the 2006 season with one of Major League Soccer’s (MLS) most imposing rosters, yet they found themselves two goals down with only 76 minutes of regulation time to play.

In their Western Conference final against the Colorado Rapids, the Houston Dynamo surrendered a sloppy penalty kick in the fourth minute of the game. When Colorado’s Jovan Kirovski converted, Houston had only 86 minutes to reverse the seemingly deep reservoir of luck that MLS’s surprise package rode into the post-season.

In the end, both clubs roared back. Just 20 minutes after missing, Twellman buried a trickier shot into the lower-left corner of Chicago’s goal, kicking off a rally that didn’t stop till he scored the goal that propelled them past DC United; Houston not only came back in the Western Conference final, they stretched Colorado’s defense till they broke, knocking in three goals - two of them by late-summer acquisition Paul Dalglish.

Both clubs’ fighting spirit played a major role in getting them to the 2006 MLS Cup. Sunday’s championship game (TV: ABC, 12:30 p.m. ET) pits two deserving finalists in a game that continues this year’s tradition of near-total unpredictability. Entirely reasonable arguments suggest an advantage for either team, but none of them make the telling case. Even the details - player match ups, injuries, and suspensions - contain wrinkles of their own. Everything, down to the way the game will unfold, remains an open question.

With no one holding clear advantage, why not make the case for both clubs?

WHY THE HOUSTON DYNAMO WILL WIN:

In a word: offense. No team scored more in the post-season: six goals in three games and they could easily have scored more. The threat begins with battering-ram forward Brian Ching, who feeds off service from Brad Davis and Brian Mullan, two of the league’s top wide players. Dwayne DeRosario, arguably Houston’s key man, provides so many options in attack that that he’s the soccer equivalent of a Swiss Army knife. And Paul Dalglish’s recent form suggests that he has found his feet in MLS. Taken together, Houston has more ways to get the ball into the goal than New England.

When the team picks up a corner kick, one can add Craig Waibel and Eddie Robinson to that list. Left-back Wade Barrett further complicates defending the right side for the opposition when he combines with Davis by overlapping into the attack. Attacking aside, Houston has proved a little porous in defense, but they’re fundamentally sound - especially with goalkeeper Pat Onstad minding the net.

But the key comes with the fact New England prefers to play with three defenders at the back, a set-up that leaves them vulnerable where Houston is strongest: on the wings. In Davis and Barrett on one side and Mullan and Waibel on the other, Houston certainly has the players to get behind New England’s defense. And if they work too hard to cover the flanks, space opens up in the middle for DeRosario, Ching and Dalglish. No matter how one slices it, the challenge for New England is a stiff one.

The final advantage comes courtesy of where MLS Cup will be played: Pizza Hut Park, home of the ousted FC Dallas. In other words, the Texas team has the fewer miles to travel by far. That also means their fans face a short, cheap bus ride as opposed to a long, pricey flight for Revolution supporters. Expectations are that several thousand will make the trip, clad themselves in the team’s orange jerseys and lend their praiseworthy support to Houston’s cause.

Yessir, a bet on Houston looks to be a strong one.

WHY THE NEW ENGLAND REVOLUTION WILL WIN:

No team suffered the same injury woes New England did this post-season - and that, perversely, is the good news: the latest reports point to a return of nearly all the teams’ players for the final. For all Houston’s diverse talent, New England’s offensive stars are something else again: it’s the difference between fighting with a net (Houston) and fighting with a sword (New England); the former poses the more complicated challenge, but the latter is more lethal. But the key to New England’s success comes with their defensive solidity. From goalkeeper, through defenders, through their defensive midfielders, no team in MLS is harder to break down.

Regarding the injuries, no player has attracted as much attention as New England’s magic man, Clint “Deuce” Dempsey. Dempsey will run at any player and, often as not, beat them; once that happens, things open up VERY quickly, both for him and the rest of the team. Pat Noonan provides a touch of Dempsey’s dribbling, but he compliments that with more sophisticated passing. On the right wing, Steve Ralston plays possibly the simplest, cleanest game in MLS; it’s also deadly effective. Leading the line, as he has done throughout the post-season, is Taylor Twellman, whose uncanny ability to find space in the penalty area sets him apart. With him putting away his chances this post-season, the stars look lined up for a New England win.

That, however, comes courtesy of New England’s incredible defensive resilience. Shalrie Joseph, their holding midfielder, is widely regarded as best in the league; scary-big, alarmingly strong and, best of all, master of kick-starting the offense, Joseph dominates the middle of the field. Swarming around, but by no means seconding, Joseph are players like Andy Dorman and Daniel Hernandez, both of whom run and fight like hell. Behind them are three rugged, mobile defenders - Jay Heaps, Avery John, and second-year sensation, Michael Parkhurst - all of them sharp and rock-solid. Goalkeeper Matt Reis provides the final layer of protection to New England’s goal; he commands his penalty area and blocks shots with the best of them.

Yessir, a bet for New England looks to be a strong one this year...

Obviously, they can't both win. In a nutshell, either of these teams have the talent and chops to lift MLS Cup. The odd lapse aside, the most daunting of them noted up top, both teams proved well capable of recovering in the 2006 post-season. But for all their weapons, capabilities, and experience both have little holes to cover for the final. For Houston, it’s the suspension of their holding midfielder Ricardo Clark, who has been a mainstay in the Dynamo midfield in every sense of the word. They do have replacements - Adrian Serioux and Kelly Gray to name two candidates - but Clark’s 31 starts on the season means the team knows him better and the adjustment may not be easy.

As for New England, it’s true they have those players back, but not a few of them will be playing at something less than full speed; that certainly applies to Dempsey and Ralston, but it goes well beyond them. Daniel Hernandez, Joe Franchino (almost inexcusably omitted above), Pat Noonan, and Andy Dorman all picked up late-season, nagging injuries: what will that mean to their performance? Will it be enough to cope with the undeniable quality of Houston’s players?

Overall, both teams are playing pretty well. Failing that, they’re playing to their strengths and available personnel. Every edge one team holds over the other dulls when it comes against compensating factors from the other team. Games between teams like this can go either way: there’s no point denying they can bore you to tears when things break a certain way. But they can also produce the kind of games that go down in history. Let’s pull for the latter, yeah?

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