Write On Sports LLC - "Major League Soccer: Dispatches from Week 11" by Jeff Bull

Major League Soccer: Dispatches from Week 11

2007-06-25 14:29:20 | By: Jeff Bull

Call it the week of the shoot-out, perhaps even the shoot-out draw. Two games featured a total of six goals (both of them draws), one game had five goals (obviously, not a draw), and two more had four goals...the other games, well...

Also, in a familiar, maddening way, Major League Soccer’s Week 11 failed to answer many questions. Sure, one or two came good - for instance, Real Salt Lake demonstrated they are unquestionably the league’s worst team while DC United continued to make like Lazarus - but the rest of the league kicked in results that smeared another layer of gunk on an already muddied picture. Also, it’s becoming clear that the Western Conference is a mess, with no team able to scramble to the top of that heap of loose, shifting dirt...though a couple teams - notably, Chivas USA and the Houston Dynamo - are giving it a shot. Whatever. At least the crowds came (for the most part) and, with all the goals on display, most fans went home happy.

Summaries for each of Week 11’s seven games appear below, each linking players to goals and passing on a number of talking points. The games appear in order of the time I spent observing each.

New England Revolution 3 - 3 Columbus Crew (Viewed in its entirety)
Goals: Robbie Rogers (Crew, 9); Adam Cristman (NE, 13); Pat Noonan (NE, 17), Adam Cristman (NE, 32); Guillermo Schelotto (Crew, 46+); Alejandro Moreno (Crew, 85)

- The big take-away here: after previous results ratcheted up expectations, New England looks a lot rickety as their four-game home-stand peters out; they have gone 0-1-2, with two of those games going against MLS’s weakest teams (Real Salt Lake and, yep, the Crew).

- Columbus, for all the disappointment of a one-win season, is proving to be a tricky pain-in-the-ass on the odd occasion; better still, a few recent additions are starting to click on offense...which makes the goals conceded by their defense all the more depressing.

- Revolution rookie Adam Cristman is showing as well as any first-year youngster in the league, posting three goals on the season. More than that, he brings energy and a physical presence - good stuff. The most hopeful sign, however, came with his second goal, a clinical finish off a nice combination with Pat Noonan.

- His celebration for that goal, though...creepy.

- Getting back to Pat Noonan (don’t think of the celebration, don’t think of the celebration) Revs fans must be happy to see him back - and outrunning defenders to balls played over the top. The assist shows what makes him such an asset - when he’s healthy.

- The Revolution had a good deal of success running at Rusty Pierce, a former Revolution player for the record. Crew coach Sigi Schmid introduced him to the bench for the second half after Noonan burned him for one goal and posted up against him to set up Cristman’s second. Curiously, after Pierce left the field, so did the Revs’ offense.

- Turning to the Crew’s offense, midfielder Ned Grabavoy still makes so much happen: he played a ball over the top to Robbie Rogers for that player’s first and fought off a hip-check at the top of the area to complete the pass that Schelotto knocked in for the Crew’s second.

- Speaking of Schelotto, he’s picking up a lot of press for finally showing a little of what he can do. The aging Argentine was pretty effective.

- But the player who seems to have brought the most improvement to the Crew’s offense: Moreno. Whether it’s holding up the ball (and drawing the foul) or scrapping for headed goals, Moreno is always active.

- One last thing: good to see a promising young American like Robbie Rogers getting involved. And he’s not the only one for the Crew: Tim Ward had a good day on the Crew’s left.

Los Angeles Galaxy 3 - 2 Real Salt Lake (Viewed in its entirety, albeit on a choppy, choppy feed)
Goals: Nate Jaqua (LA, 4); Chris Brown (RSL, 6); Edson Buddle (LA, 25); Cobi Jones (LA, 65); Chris Brown (RSL, 73)

- The Real Salt Lake blog for The Offside said it well as anyone: “That’s right, folks. The waiting is over. We now, officially, have a worst team in the MLS.” Having gone winless for eleven games, there’s simply no question. Worse, they’re challenging for all-time honors.

- LA doesn’t have much to brag about either: after all, Real scored two on them. Worse, RSL defender, Daniel Torres, all but gifted them the first goal thanks to a botched pass back to his ‘keeper.

- On the subject of ugly goals, Chris Brown’s second goal for RSL bounced in off his shoulder. In a related bit of news, it is reported that this was the first corner on which RSL scored in 250 attempts. It has been, literally, years since the Utah team scored off a corner kick.

- The good news for LA comes with a couple promising debuts: Portuguese defender Abel Xavier, despite some shaky moments, showed pretty well for a guy who joined the team only days before; forward Edson Buddle, acquired in a trade from Toronto FC, both scored a goal and pinged another attempt off the crossbar.

- The $64,000 question: can LA build off this rather unimpressive win? With the Crew coming to town next week, could be. But it will take only one loss for the ugly, and entirely justified, questions to return.

- RSL, on the other hand, hosts a red-hot DC United. Hey...at least it’s a home game.

Red Bull New York 3 - 3 Kansas City Wizards (Viewed through Quick Kick highlights)
Goals: Juan Pablo Angel (RBNY, 6); Clint Mathis (RBNY, 15); Kerry Zavagnin (KC, 43); Yuri Movsisyan (KC, 70); Yuri Movsisyan (KC, 79); Juan Pablo Angel (RBNY, 90-PK)

- KC earned so much more than a draw on the road against MLS’s officially #1 team: based on everything read and seen, they should have won. Simply put, they’re the better team - right now, anyway.

- Red Bull’s big excuse: a positively injury-ravaged defensive line. But, as Red Bull head coach Bruce Arena pointed out, the failure to defend a two-goal lead involves more than the defenders. The hard reality is Red Bull has gone 1-2-1 (W-L-T) over their past four games, surrendering 11 goals on the way. That’s bad.

- On the plus side, Angel has scored in an unbelievable six straight games, which tied him for the lead for goals scored (Eddie Johnson, missing for KC, is the other nine-goal man). In all honesty, when (if?) the defense shapes up, Red Bull should do all right. But no one knows when that will happen.

- As well as their offense is playing, those same players must be shooting dirty looks at the KC defense: giving up three goals nearly always spells trouble. Seeing as this team was once built on defense, cognitive dissonance is real problem.

- A visit to a couple KC Wizards blogs reveals that Movsisyan helped himself immensely with this two-goal performance; fans were beginning to give up hope. Two nicely-finished goals later, though...

- But playmaker Carlos Marinelli continues to draw the raves. In all seriousness, this guy is something special, as good as any player in the league. See him if you can.

Toronto FC 4 - 0 FC Dallas (Basic highlights)
Goals: Maurice Edu (TFC, 22); Danny Dichio (TFC, 25); Carl Robinson (TFC, 65); Jeff Cunningham (TFC, 92+)

- If nothing else, Toronto FC will not start their existence as the worst team in MLS history (that honor still goes to the 2005 edition of Chivas USA, who compiled a 4-22-6 record; RSL, currently “rocking” an 0-5-6 record remains in the running).

- No team placed more question marks on or around their team in Week 11 than FC Dallas (see below as well). The worst-case question: are these guys actually any good? The answer is tilting toward no. Yeah, they’ve played two more games than any other team in the league; yeah, that’s taking a hell of a toll, but this is how the games are scheduled in MLS. The good teams sort it out.

- Reports generally agree that Dallas came out flat in nearly every department, except at ‘keeper (go Dario Sala!); fatigue can do that.

- Whatever caused it Toronto resoundingly out-muscled and out-played the visiting team. They’ll need that as they embark on a six-game road-trip, where they’ll face some defining games against quality opposition (a New England looking for home-field redemption this weekend; a Houston Dynamo team back on track and looking for revenge, etc.)

Real Salt Lake 0 - 1 FC Dallas (The final half hour, plus short highlights)
Goals: Dominic Oduro (FCD, 93+)

- Call this the prelude to Sunday’s pain for RSL.

- In general, this game pitted a determined RSL versus a smarter, quicker Dallas team; and, yes, what I said above about Dallas stands, which says a lot about RSL. At the same time, the entire game received something less than wide endorsements in terms of quality. Sadly, determined is all RSL has to offer.

- If there’s good news for RSL, goalkeeper Nick Rimando has recovered from his early season jitters to become solid in goal. Damn shame about the support he receives from his defense.

- In a bit of tragic news, long-time all-star defender and all-round American icon, Eddie Pope, announced his retirement before the game, giving RSL every incentive to win this game. They failed.

- A couple Dallas players are doing well for this team: Arturo Alvarez and Juan Toja. They genuinely stand out when you watch Dallas play.

Colorado Rapids 0 - 2 Chivas USA (Short highlights)
Goals: Terry Cooke (Chivas, 49-own goal); Maykel Galindo (Chivas, 63)

- A funny thing happened late last week, and almost all at once, across the soccer “blogoverse.” That Chivas has the best defense in MLS (8 goals allowed) and the best goal-differential in the West (now +7) suddenly dawned on fans. The phrase “dark horse in the West” was uttered.

- On the other hand, Colorado is, frankly, a mess. They haven’t won since May. The loss to Toronto on the road was one thing, but two consecutive losses to conference rivals (the Houston Dynamo and, now, Chivas) is something else again.

- Worse, I haven’t read a single report with anything positive to say about the Rapids.

- Chivas, on the other hand, has won three straight and haven’t lost since, curiously, early May.

DC United 3 - 1 Chicago Fire (No highlights available)
Goals: Rod Dyachenko (DCU, 6); Luciano Emilio (DCU, 25); Luciano Emilio (DCU, 51); Jerson Monteiro (Fire, 54)

- It’s getting past the point where asterisks can be justifiably attached to DC’s winning streak.

- Ditto for Chicago’s losing streak - though there is the matter of the lengthy injury list; call-ups for the Gold Cup haven’t helped, either. Name a starter in a forward position (Chris Rolfe, check; Chris Armas, check; Ivan Guerrero, check; Justin Mapp, check; Thiago, check, etc.) and chances are they were unavailable last Saturday. In depressingly real terms, Chicago started a decent imitation of a top college team last Saturday.

- At the same time, injuries happen, call-ups happen; if a coach/GM fails to build a team to handle that, the blame has to go somewhere.

- Put another way, Fire coach Dave Sarachan should, by all rights, be toast. So far, he’s holding on as slightly-singed bread. But I do check MLSnet.com every morning looking for word of his (deserved) firing.

- Returning to DC, the good news about players finding their rhythm just keeps piling up, whether it’s Fred, or Ben Olsen, or Emilio, or Brian Carroll, or Troy Perkins, etc. The Eastern Conference knows this. The question is who stops them? Real Salt Lake....um, never mind...the Colorado Rapids....er, hold on....ah, there we go; the Kansas City Wizards get first crack at that...but that’s not till July 4.

- Yeah, things are looking up for DC.