“Men live their lives trapped in an eternal present, between the mists of memory and the sea of shadow that is all we know of the days to come.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons
Let the above quote be both a reminder that Game of Thrones is back tonight (spoiler alert: Tyrion's sled is named "Rosebud") and warning that things are always changing. Last year's glory can become this year's folly, while problems of springtime can become the solutions of summer.
That said, there have been some serious problems with MLS this spring. Let's take a peek:
1. Shut the Door, Have a Seat
Through the entirety of the 2014 MLS season, there were 17 scoreless draws. Through six weeks of the 2015 season, there have been nine.
"Ok, take out the Rapids" said some wiseacre on Twitter. First off, it's a bad week to pick on Colorado's attack. Second, the implication that it's one or two teams that have dragged down everybody's scoring average is wrong, wrong, wrong.
Those are two of the teams that haven't been involved in a scoreless draw yet. San Jose eventually won 1-0 over the visiting 'Caps, who did not register a shot on target.
As of Sunday night, 12 of the 20 MLS teams have been involved in a scoreless draw, and overall scoring has plummeted from last year's 2.86 per game (an MLS 2.0 high-water mark) to the disappointingly tepid 2.07 of 2015. The single-season low for goals per game came in 2010, clocking in at 2.46.
A drop in goals per game is not prima facie evidence of more risk-averse soccer – we've all seen glorious, aggressive scoreless draws, right? And in this case there are mitigating factors like expansion, a decline in PKs awarded (don't get me started), expansion ofthe playoffs, and the retirement of guys like Landon Donovan, Thierry Henry and Marco Di Vaio. That's a lot of attacking talent heading off into the sunset.
As an added bonus, this week in particular suffered for the lack of Toronto FC and Chicago Fire games. Those are two of the more inventive, creative teams out there.
Anyway, scoring is always down in early spring, and usually starts ramping up around late April or early May. This year it's not just "down," though – it's fallen off a cliff. Obviously that trend bears watching.
2. The Fog
I was almost going to be snarky and slip Robbie Keane's name into the list of retired greats, but I decided A) that would be mean and B) then I'd have to throw Gyasi Zardes in there as well, and as a USMNT fan that'd be depressing.
Zardes was one of the true revelations of 2014, bagging goal after goal based around the simplicity of his game and the ability to make the right runs in the final third. Often times he looked like a tool that Donovan and Keane used to put the ball in the net – an automaton whose function on the field was to be merely an expression of his elders' will. That the Galaxy have a shiny MLS Cup to admire on their way to practice every day is proof enough of that arrangement's efficacy.
But without Donovan and with Keane a shadow of his MVP self (he missed Sunday's 1-0 win over Seattle), Zardes has been kind of lost, and his weaknesses in terms of vision or creative running are being exposed. This killed me:
The pass is the right pass, but that run is straight at Chad Marshall. Zardes doesn't really pull him anywhere, and leaves Alan Gordon – an underrated passer of the ball, and don't make me remind you that without his vision the US probably only scrapes a draw out of Antigua & Barbuda and maybe doesn't even make the Hexagonal – with just one option. Zardes seems to have a better grasp of Keane's attacking gravity than he does of his own, which is a bizarre development curve that I'm not sure I've seen in a top-level US prospect before.
To put it a different way: If that had been Keane receiving Zardes' pass instead of Gordon, he would have drawn much, much more attention, maybe pulling Marshall a step in that direction. And if that was the case, then Zardes' run would have been a good one.
But Gordon does not have the same gravity that Keane does because he is not the biggest threat out there. By Seattle's tracking, you can see it's Zardes himself they've keyed upon, and so the sequence ends up being pretty limp. I don't think Zardes quite understands that yet.
Of course he's still capable of spectacular stuff. In the below clip, Ozzie Alonso (!!!) is trying desperately not to let him spin to his right (look at his body shape), but Zardes does it anyway and maaaybe should've earned a PK:
So it's not like hope is lost for the LA attack. Things are just different now, and part of Zardes' development curve is going to be figuring out how to make that work for him. Thus far, progress has not been linear.
3. Tomorrowland
There's a certain amount of cognitive dissonance in talking about the potential of Brek Shea in a column whose overall theme is "nobody can predict the future," but I'm going to soldier on. Because Brek Shea has a world of potential at left back, and has shown both patience and maturity in his brief run there so far for Orlando City.
He and the Lions were triumphant on Sunday, winning 2-0 in Portland and never, ever looking like the visiting team. Shea lined up in his typical left back spot, with Kaká ahead of him at left wing. The shift from a 4-2-3-1 to a 4-3-3 is usually minor, but in this case it was significant.
As always in our game, it's about finding time and space for your best players. Here's how OCSC manager Adrian Heath described it afterward:
“We thought that the way that they play, [Darlington] Nagbe comes in off the line very early and nearly plays off the striker. We just wanted to make sure that Amobi [Okugo] was in his area if he did. I thought he worked really well. We managed to get the ball to Brek and [Kaká] out there, which we had been working on all week. I thought there was a little bit more space out there and if we can get two good players out there with time and space, you can create and that’s what we did in the first half.”
Shea played much higher in this one than he had in his previous outings for OCSC, which allowed Kaka to abandon the flank in its entirety and come into the middle at odd angles, both with and without the ball. Here are Shea's first-half Opta events:
And here are Kaká's:
Finding space for one created space for the other. It worked right away, while on the back line Aurelien Collin and Seb Hines (quite possibly worth a USMNT look or three if he continues to play this well) put out most of the final-third fires. It's not that Portland weren't trying to attack, it's that OCSC were almost impossible to break down in the final third.
It was slightly less good in transition, as Shea did get caught out once on a dangerous counter (watch HERE). But the risk of letting Nagbe get into that spot was largely worth the reward of pushing numbers into the attack.
USMNT fans will likely hope to see the same vs. Mexico this week. Moving Shea to left back was one of Jurgen Klinsmann's great experiments, and based on both form and long-term upside, it's panning out. Come Wednesday evening in San Antonio, Shea should start.
A few more things to ponder...
8. I wrote that Shea-centric blurb above with USMNT fans in mind, so let's expand our horizons and say that Canadian fans should be just as if not more excited about Cyle Larin. He got his first MLS goal, which stood as the game-winner, and reminds me in almost every possible way of Juan Agudelo (that's a big compliment).
Jamaica fans, meanwhile, should all be on the Alvas Powell bandwagon. This is one of the few times anyone's gotten the better of Shea this season:
7. Arguably the two most entertaining teams in the league are Columbus and New England. But ... it just didn't happen this weekend, in (yup) a scoreless draw at Foxborough on Saturday afternoon. Revs fans shouldn't be panicky about Lee Nguyen's early-season slump, but they should make note of it.
6. That was the second point in a two-game week for Columbus, who played without four starters but still managed to take a point from Vancouver on Wednesday thanks to a highly entertaining 2-2 draw. If there's one match from this week to go back and watch on MLS LIVE, that's it.
5. The weekend's biggest star was Philadelphia Union 'keeper John McCarthy, who stole hearts across the Greater Chester area with his emotional postgame interview (watch HERE). Philly's 2-1 win over NYCFC was their first of the season.
4. Bill Hamid has been Superman for the better part of 18 months, but his late spill gifted a point to the New York Red Bulls. The visitors came from two-goals down to draw 2-2 at RFK, and Hamid got our Face of the Week nod:
3. Montreal remain the only winless team in MLS thanks to Saturday's 3-0 demolition at Houston, but they shouldn't really care much at this point. All eyes in Quebec should be permanently fixed upon the CONCACAF Champions League final for the next two-and-a-half weeks.
2. The natives are getting restless in Utah despite an entirely acceptablescoreless draw this week at Sporting KC. Through five games the Claret-and-Cobalt have just two run-of-play goals, both of which came on crosses.
Change is hard.
1. Welcome back to the world of the living, Colorado Rapids! They ended a league-record tying 18-game winless skid with an absolutely emphatic 4-0 win at FC Dallas on Friday night. And their first goal ended a 601-minute scoreless drought, tied for the third-longest in league history.
So it's with no small amount of joy that I'm awarding this latest Pass of the Week to Dillon Powers for his assist on the opener:
See how he hits it early and to the spot rather than picking his head up, taking a couple of touches and trying to play it directly to the man? That is good, ruthless attacking soccer. And I hope there's more to come – not just from Powers, but from everyone.
