Write On Sports LLC - "Expansion Normalcy + Week 2 Summaries" by Jeff Bull

Expansion Normalcy + Week 2 Summaries

2007-04-17 13:12:59 | By: Jeff Bull

Expansion teams in Major League Soccer (MLS) haven’t always played to type. For instance, when the Chicago Fire joined MLS in 1998 they came out slugging and kept on doing it until they won MLS Cup at the end of their expansion season. The Miami Fusion, who joined the league the same season but vanished when the league contracted in 2002, also enjoyed a respectable inaugural season. The newness of the league, which kicked off only two years before the Fire and Fusion entered the fold, undoubtedly played a role.

Since then, however, expansion clubs have rather grudgingly bowed to the generic, pan-sports tradition of seasons-long growing pains. Chivas USA may have righted the ship in 2006 by making the playoffs, but their inaugural season in 2005 stood as one of, if not the, worst team in MLS history; their co-expansionist, Real Salt Lake, wrapped up a second season of futility when they missed the 2006 playoffs. Only one expansion team joined MLS in 2007 - Toronto FC - and the early signs suggest they’ll continue the path to, for lack of a better word, sporting normalcy. The remarkable thing, though, is the extent to which so many observers thought they’d buck the trend.

Admittedly, this was not a universal impulse: plenty of people looked to Toronto’s defense - which features players from weaker Scandinavian leagues (Marco Reda), the North American second division (Adam Braz), and another straight out of college (Andrew Boyens) - and assumed the new team would struggle; even the starting ‘keeper (Greg Sutton) took a step up in the move to MLS. Those thin(-ish) resumes aside, the optimists, who going by memory outnumbered the pessimists, looked at the offensive talent Mo Johnston assembled and dubbed them outside contenders for the playoffs.

With the real-world test of Toronto FC now two games old, their record stands at 0-2-0 (W-L-T). Worse, they’ve allowed six goals (that’s not so unusual; after all, heavy preseason favorites, DC United, have done as much) while scoring ZERO goals themselves. For all the MLS-proven pedigree in the attack - players like long-time FC Dallas star midfielder Ronnie O’Brien (out injured), DC United’s 2004 scoring-machine Alecko Eskandarian, and he-of-the-eternal-potential, forward Edson Buddle - it takes something special to cover for a defense as porous as Toronto’s. With their offense looking unlikely to ever reach so lofty a “special” status, and with the defense seemingly needing to improve from within - e.g. without reinforcements - the smart money should go on Toronto following in Chivas USA’s weary, 2005 footsteps.

Now, to Week 2 game summaries and, as in the first week’s edition, games watched first-hand and in their (almost) entirety will be marked with an asterisk. Unlike in past editions, though, this week will feature some new items: notable details from each game, as well as the timing of each goal, will be included. To be honest, I’m still learning this gig.

Los Angeles Galaxy 1 - 2 FC Dallas*
Goals: Carlos Ruiz (DAL, 35th min. - PK), Kenny Cooper (DAL, 43); LA - Robbie Findley (LA, 86)

Week 2 started with an upset when FC Dallas spoiled the Galaxy’s home opener and beat near-universal expectations along the way. More notably, they controlled large stretches of the game, rendering the LA attack essentially toothless until the game’s waning minutes. For all the questions raised about LA’s offense, the final 15 minutes raised similarly pointed questions about the Dallas defense, which looked ragged, even desperate. But the forward pairing of Cooper and Ruiz continues to keep Dallas’ season afloat, while LA fans are left wondering where their team will be when league-talking point David Beckham arrives sometime in July.

Notable: A sliding sky-cam set up over the LA Galaxy’s Home Depot Center gave the televised airing of this game a video-game appeal heretofore unseen in the sport. Can’t say it’s an outright improvement.

Real Salt Lake 0 - 0 Columbus Crew*
Goals: None

When 2006’s worst offense met with one of 2006 worst defenses, a scoreless draw was perhaps the predictable result. The Crew, however, showed much-improved approach play and during a first half that made an eventual opening goal seem inevitable, they repeatedly threatened the Real Salt Lake (RSL) defensive third; unfortunately, that’s as far as they got. RSL made some adjustments at the half - according to other reports, they pushed their outside defenders up the field and pinched their midfielders inside - that allowed them back in the game. The Crew’s defense held firm, though, and the few promising openings came to nothing.

Notable: Both teams have yet to win or lose this season, while the Crew has yet to score; a Week 3 encounter against the New England Revolution is likely to push that to drought to three games.

DC United 2 - 4 Kansas City Wizards
Goals: Michael Harrington (KC, 3); Sasha Victorine (KC, 8); Luciano Emilio (DC, 11); Christian Gomez (DC, 34); Eddie Johnson (KC, 45+); Scott Sealy (KC, 54)

In their first game of 2007, the Wizards arguably pulled off the upset of the season - though with the palpable apprehension now hitting the DC camp, perhaps subsequent events will render this the new normal. The sub-plot to the tale, though, was the Player-of-the-Week performance turned in by KC forward Eddie Johnson, perhaps the most reviled player in MLS thanks to a wretched 2006, which somehow failed to preclude him from getting call-ups to the U.S. National Team...where he continues to fail. Whatever his past, Johnson proved relentless against DC’s clumsy, timorous defense; four different KC players may have had goals, but Johnson set up two goals as well as scoring his own.

Notable: Johnson’s two assists doubles his total in that category from 2006 and he needs only two more goals in ’07 to top last year’s haul of goals.

New England Revolution 4 - 0 Toronto FC
Goals: Taylor Twellman (NE, 12); Twellman (NE, 18); Shalrie Joseph (NE, 60 - PK); Andy Dorman (NE, 72)

For the home opener, the Revolution turned in the most comprehensive victory of the young 2007 season. Twellman, especially, put on a clinic in finishing with two sharp-shooting goals, both of them plausible candidates for Goal of the Week. With Toronto’s defense overrun early and often, Toronto fought valiantly to trade goals, with Eskandarian standing as the most persistent threat; with most of his shots coming from range, he rarely troubled veteran Revolution ‘keeper, Matt Reis. Picking up on the theme above, it’s not so much the number of goals Toronto has let in as the manner of the goals: the shots are wide-open with little to no available defensive cover in evidence; put another way, it’s hard to fault Toronto ‘keeper Sutton for his desperate goals against average.

Notable: Joseph started his first regular season game for the Revolution after asking to be traded before the season; his performance provides some (hopeful) evidence that his trade request won’t prove a distraction to the team.

Houston Dynamo 1 - 0 Chivas USA
Goals: Brian Ching (Dynamo, 65).

The rematch of last year’s Western Conference quarterfinal had game-of-the-week potential and, in terms of pitting evenly-matched competitors against one another, it looks to have delivered. Chivas had the better of the opening half; they put incredible pressure on the Houston defense, though a breakthrough never came. Word is that Houston coach Dominic Kinnear gave (another) locker-room speech at halftime that rallied his team to a sharper performance; Houston started the second half attacking and didn’t stop till they scored, if then. All in all, this Dynamo win matches the team’s template for success in 2006, when they rode wins of this sort to MLS Cup. That Brian Ching scored on a set-piece - and one sent in by midfielder Brad Davis - only builds the perception that Houston has a formula that works.

Notable: One report suggests Chivas fell apart after Houston scored their goal; that’s second-hand to be sure, but certainly something to watch for as the season progresses.

Red Bull New York 3 - 0 FC Dallas
Goals: Josmer Altidore (NY, 18); Clint Mathis (NY, 34); Dave Van Den Bergh (NY, 93)

In weather so miserable at least two players left the game suffering from hypothermia, Red Bull - and Clint Mathis, once the talismanic star of the MLS’s New York franchise - relived their salad days with an emphatic win over a road-weary FC Dallas. Dallas, to their credit, made no excuses and only speak of moving on, a fairly confident statement given that excuses lay nearby (never mind the weather; this was their second game of Week 2 and one that required a cross-country trip). But reports are unanimous in dubbing this a lopsided win for the homeside.

Notable: Increasingly substantial rumors suggest that Red Bull has found a player to help with their perceived problems with scoring: Colombian forward, Juan Pablo Angel, appears ready to join the club from English Premier League club Aston Villa.

Colorado Rapids 1 - 1 Chicago Fire*
Goals: Herculez Gomez (Rapids, 58); Chad Barrett (Fire, 85)

In what counts as the most undeserved result of the week, the Fire scored a late equalizer against a 10-man Colorado team that had not only thoroughly disrupted their offense, but that had managed to take the lead through a brilliant strike from lone forward Gomez. This game turned on the VERY early, and justified, ejection of Rapids forward Roberto Brown for a knee-high challenge on Chicago defender C. J. Brown. In spite of their man advantage, the Fire played listlessly all over the field until a clever chip from forward Chris Rolfe beat the Rapids’ offside trap and sent Barrett in alone on goal. Colorado looks like a real team this year, while Chicago still seems to be finding their feet; for all that, both teams sit on four points, so who’s to say which is better?

Notable: Gomez came to Colorado along with defender Ugo Ihemelu in an off-season trade with Los Angeles for long-time 'keeper Joe Cannon. With Colorado sitting on four points and LA sitting on one, who do you think is happier?