Write On Sports LLC - "“EJ’s” Recovery, the Wizards’ Rise? + Week 4 Summaries" by Jeff Bull

“EJ’s” Recovery, the Wizards’ Rise? + Week 4 Summaries

2007-05-01 13:06:27 | By: Jeff Bull

A favorite pastime of soccer fans is declaring this player finished, or that one on a phoenix-like rebound. Two high-profile players in Major League Soccer (MLS) have shown early glimpses of rising from careers thought to be either dead or stalled: Red Bull New York midfielder/forward Clint Mathis and Kansas City Wizards forward Eddie “EJ” Johnson. Mathis stalled his rise in Week 3 by blowing a penalty kick against the Houston Dynamo and getting ejected from the same game 25 minutes later. That doesn’t mean his season is over, never mind his career, but, with the ejection, especially, old jabs on Mathis’ discipline returned.

Meanwhile, Johnson’s continuing production - he scored the lone, winning goal in the Wizards’ Week 4 tilt against Toronto FC - keeps his tale of recovery on the rails. Johnson’s three goals and two assists already top his total haul in both categories for all of 2006 and that’s after only four games, as compared to last season’s 18 starts. With so much riding on Johnson returning to his sometimes scintillating return to quality and confidence - not least with the U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT) - it’s not surprising to see or read people christen his career’s early demise at an end.

But christening of a meaningful kind is premature and for two reasons: first, promising as Johnson’s 2007 has been, the fact remains it’s only four games old; the second reason to check the enthusiasm builds on the first, namely the teams Johnson and his team have beaten on his road to recovery. Johnson notched one goal and both assists against a DC United team that is, according to near-universal opinion, reeling - most notably on defense. The other two came in two separate games against MLS expansion team/early-days whipping-boys Toronto FC. As such, the jury Johnson should remain in chambers till they’ve reviewed some more telling exhibits. A favorite pastime of soccer fans is declaring this player finished, or that one on a phoenix-like rebound. Two high-profile players in Major League Soccer (MLS) have shown early glimpses of rising from careers thought to be either dead or stalled: Red Bull New York midfielder/forward Clint Mathis and Kansas City Wizards forward Eddie “EJ” Johnson. Mathis stalled his rise in Week 3 by blowing a penalty kick against the Houston Dynamo and getting ejected from the same game 25 minutes later. That doesn’t mean his season is over, never mind his career, but, with the ejection, especially, old jabs on Mathis’ discipline returned. Meanwhile, Johnson’s continuing production - he scored the lone, winning goal in the Wizards’ Week 4 tilt against Toronto FC - keeps his tale of recovery on the rails. Johnson’s three goals and two assists already top his total haul in both categories for all of 2006 and that’s after only four games, as compared to last season’s 18 starts. With so much riding on Johnson returning to his sometimes scintillating return to quality and confidence - not least with the U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT) - it’s not surprising to see or read people christen his career’s early demise at an end.

Johnson’s seeming return to form matches that of his team’s, the Wizards. At the conclusion of MLS’s Week 4, Kansas City places third in the competitive Eastern Conference, just one point behind the Chicago Fire and with a better goal-differential for future tie-breakers in the standings. But the Wizards’ success came out of the same games as Johnson’s goals - e.g. those against DC United and Toronto FC; with the latter, especially, teams are marking their calendar in anticipation of picking up three points (on the flipside, though, each Toronto loss also deepens the dread of being the first MLS team on which they score, or even pick up their first win). The team, like the player, could be riding what one might call the “Toronto bump” till that team starts winning.

For all that, Johnson’s youth means he can recover and that only adds to the temptation to see the signs. All these caveats about which teams he scores against is not to say Johnson hasn’t looked and played with his former sharpness either; he has, in fact, looked quite good, particularly with the Wizards’ promising signing, Carlos Marinelli, sending great set-ups his way. But great careers, even good ones, get built over time with one good year following another and another - and on and on till retirement or injury. Johnson’s got 26 more games remaining in 2007, each of them an opportunity to rewrite the story of his career so far. The Wizards certainly hope EJ is back - as do anxious fans of the often goal-shy U.S. Men.

A look at the action in MLS’s Week 4 appears below (games with asterisks were watched in their entireity). My apologies for the length, but we’ve got the league’s schedulers to thank for that.

Kansas City Wizards 3 - 0 Toronto FC
Goals: Eddie Johnson (KC, 5th min.); Kerry Zavagnin (KC, 55); Yura Movsisyan (KC, 70)

The Wizards scored early and steadily through this game, courtesy of relentless offensive pressure from Wizards forward Eddie Johnson. He had impressive assistance from new signing Carlos Marinelli who set up more chances than Johnson could score. The two second-half goals piled more misery on the fledgling Toronto club, who has thus far answered the nine goals scored against them with a big goose egg going the other way. Toronto threatened going the other way only sporadically and, by the end of the game, they fought mainly to staunch the flow.

Notable: Movsisyan’s late goal, which came from something close to a solo effort, was the second-year players’ first career goal; Zavagnin’s earlier tally was his first since 2003. There’s nothing like playing an expansion team to spread out the goal-scoring.

FC Dallas 0 - 1 Red Bull New York
Goals: Hunter Freeman (RBNY, 79)

Another impressive 1-0 win, this one on the road, and Red Bull New York suddenly lives up to last week’s hype. They have yet to concede a goal in four games and, composed as they look, they could go a bit longer still. Dallas coach Steve Morrow grumbled about his side’s possession and ability in the attack and that’s no surprise; Dallas not only lost at home, but never really seized the initiative. By the game’s final minutes, Red Bull team had Dallas chasing as they stroked the ball around the field to kill off the game. The rare attacks they mustered petered out near the halfway line.

Notable: Red Bull’s 2007 clean sheet extends now to a league-record 360 minutes. Dallas held the previous record, which Red Bull snapped by keeping the home team scoreless through the 75th minute.

Toronto FC 0 - 1 Kansas City Wizards
Goals: Eddie Johnson (KC, 81)

In a home opener featuring a packed and boisterous house just over 20,000 Toronto-area fans watched as the home side did two all too familiar things: lose and fail to score. On the plus side of the ledger, Toronto played the tightest game in their short history and they definitely forced the visiting Wizards to sweat more than a little. As their scoring drought and losing streak extends, Toronto’s woes may mount as no MLS team wants to go down in the league history books as the first on which Toronto scored, never mind defeated. The Wizards’ 3-1-0 start places them in the thick of the East on paper, but with two of those wins coming Toronto FC the true ability of this side remains an open question.

Notable: Carlos Marinelli, who looked so promising in the first game against Toronto, left this game early with a “tweak” in this hamstring.

Columbus Crew 1 - 0 DC United
Goals: Ezra Hendrickson (Crew, 28)

By adding their first win to three previous draws, the Crew suddenly looks like a trickier proposition. As for DC United, their mire of misery grew deeper and stickier thanks to a game when they failed on both fronts - e.g. offense and defense. For all the attention paid to DC’s defense, this offensive sputter will only increase worries about the once-favorites; between an attempt to snooker the refs with an ill-concealed handball (Luciano Emilio) and a clumsy dive in the area (Christian Gomez), both of which garnered yellow cards, a whiff of desperation attends the DC camp. For Columbus, however, the win offers some evidence that they’ve finally got an offense to complement their sturdy defense.

Notable: Famously gangly central defender Ezra Hendrickson stands tall as the Crew’s leading goal-scorer this season, with two of his team’s three this season. Happy as fans may be about Ezra’s haul, they’re probably wondering what happened to guys who are paid to score.

Los Angeles Galaxy 3 - 1 Chivas USA*
Goals: Landon Donovan (LA, 8); Kevin Harmse (LA, 17); Claudio Suarez (Chivas, 63); Cobi Jones (LA, 78)

The so-called SuperClasico between the two co-tenants of the Home Depot Center wilted a little under the spotlight. While a stout challenge to the LA goal quickly followed the earlier give-away goal to Landon Donovan, Chivas found themselves down by two before the game started in earnest. They did pull one back - and it was one of the “villains” in the opening goal, Claudio Suarez, that scored it after a scrum - and looked the more impressive team through the middle of the game, but the Galaxy possessed a sharpness that Chivas never reached. Game, set, match, LA - and Chivas’ record suddenly looks padded.

Notable: Now in its third year, the SuperClasico feels less like a rivalry than a quadrennial beat-down of Chivas: LA holds an 8-1-1 edge in the series.

FC Dallas 0 - 1 New England Revolution
Goals: Taylor Twellman (NE, 13)

How many New England games will follow this script: Taylor Twellman scores one goal and the Revs’ rugged defense makes it hold up? For the second straight game, the Revolution struggled to play particularly well, yet the result came nonetheless - even if this win beats last weekend’s draw against Columbus. On the Dallas side, this second home loss sends them into a welcome bye week with plenty to sort out, especially on offense, though there’s plenty of concern on the defensive side as well; most disturbing to the Dallas team was the fact that, for all their mediocre play, Twellman alone came within a referee’s flag of two goals (disallowed for offside) and had a crack at a couple more besides. Dallas’ lapses in defense, which seem wired to this team’s DNA, won’t matter as much if they can work out the offense, but always scoring more than the other bunch asks a lot.

Notable: Twellman continues to lead all scorers in MLS with four goals in as many games. With several starters returning, notably Pat Noonan and Michael Parkhurst, New England shows all the signs of being a scrappy contender.

Houston Dynamo 0 - 1 Chicago Fire*
Goals: Chris Rolfe (Fire, 60)

The untrained eye may have dismissed this game as a snooze-fest, a half-ugly midfield scrum between two sides more content to play it safe that take the chances to win. The untrained eye may have a point. But there’s also the reality that this game featured two of the most competently organized sides in the league; a low score was always on the cards. The take-away from this game for both teams is fairly significant to the rest of the league: the Dynamo offense is officially in trouble, as evidenced by the one, single goal they’ve scored through four games; on the other side, Chicago, dull as they are to watch, look incredibly compact, organized, not to mention JUST good enough to win more than they lose.

Notable: With all the talk going toward Red Bull New York, Chicago is tied with them on points (10) in the standings and only place second on goal-differential. With the league’s two most successful teams playing highly-organized, if dull, soccer, what develops in response across the league bears watching.

Real Salt Lake 0 - 2 Colorado Rapids*
Goals: Roberto Brown (Rapids, 71); Kyle Beckerman (Rapids, 75)

Colorado won this tense yet open game on the back of two, fluky goals: the first when Brown picked the ball off an inattentive RSL defender (Daniel Torres), the second off a free-kick awarded when Salt Lake’s rookie ‘keeper, Chris Seitz, appeared to have handled a back pass. Even if the second goal was dubious, it was surplus to requirements and the tale of this game still turns on Salt Lake’s penchant for slips in defense. On the other end, RSL broke down Colorado’s defense on occasion, but not enough to rattle the visitors, who took a tight defense on the road.

Notable: This game is the first of this season’s Rocky Mountain Cup, a “tournament” built on the regular season games between Colorado and RSL. Colorado has won both editions of the Cup and, silly as some observers may find these concocted tournaments to be, you can bet RSL would give plenty to win the 2007 series.