A quick note before we dive into the week that was in MLS: Dwayne De Rosario retired today. Quietly, and with little fanfare, and on social media.
If you are an MLS lifer, you know what this means. If you are new to our league, then here's a quick tl;dr about DeRo: He's one of only two guys (Landon Donovan is the other) with multiple MLS Cup game-winning goals; he also added a Cup-winning assist in 2003, putting a beautiful pass right onto Donovan's foot; he was an MVP, a seven-time All-Star, and conjurer of some of the most spectacular goals in league history:
DeRo was one of those guys who, quite frankly, you'd pay good money to see. Because he had the guts to try anything, and the talent to pull it off. Even against the very best.
Part of becoming a great league is not just creating history, but appreciating it. In the MLS annals, DeRo's name is right up there with Donovan's, or Jaime Moreno's, or Preki's. So take a minute to watch THIS from back in 2012, and be on the lookout for more DeRo content as the week rolls on.
Now to the weekend's games...
1. New Amsterdam
Somewhere in the South Bronx, NYCFC are frantically searching for their shinebox. They were thoroughly – almost overwhelmingly – dominated by the Red Bulls in Sunday evening's 2-1 RBNY win, a game that wasn't nearly as close as the scoreline indicated in spite of the fact that RBNY were down a man for nearly an hour.
Michael Caley's expected goals chart breaks it down pretty nicely:
That dominance was born of a few things. First and foremost: It's hard to put together an expansion team, even for as experienced a hand as Jason Kreis.
You can find that observation somewhere on the "to be expected" chart. Not even on the same diagram is "Sacha Kljestan & Bradley Wright-Phillips completely outplay their opposite numbers, Mix Diskerud & David Villa." NYCFC bet heavily on their high-priced acquisitions to carry the team, and so far in 2015 they've come up well short.
Which is not to say that Kljestan and BWP are better players – they're not (though I think Sacha vs. Mix is a push). Rather, they're complementary pieces who've shown the ability to work together, and an understanding of the week-to-week grind of MLS that NYCFC, to this point, lack. Part of this is because Kljestan is really, really clever with his vision and movement while BWP is thriving as a lone true forward; and another part is that NYCFC lack their own Dax McCarty, Felipe Martins or Lloyd Sam.
So let the first edition of this derby (whatever you want to call it) go down as not just a win for RBNY, but a reminder that bottom-up team-building and cohesion are both of oversized importance in MLS. The Red Bulls got their spine right, filled their team with proven MLS players, and integrated kids from the academy and draft picks.
It's not rocket science, but it's also not the easiest thing to grasp for free-spending clubs.
So on that note, let's head north...
2. Red In The Face
I was dumb enough to predict great things from Toronto FC upon their return to BMO Field, forgetting that, above and beyond everything, they are still not the finished product yet. Nothing will come easy for a club that's regularly, over the years, traded in luxury items at the expense of a solid foundation. I actually like much of the roster-building the current group overlooking Lake Ontario has done, but the Reds are still a mis-matched amalgam of parts that don't yet fit together – or at least, don't quite know how to fit together.
It was especially apparent in the first half of Sunday's soul-crushingly disappointing 2-1 loss to the Houston Dynamo, a team that had won just once in their last nine and... well really, a team Toronto should have beaten.
But the Reds got their formation and tactics all wrong from the start, opting for a flat 4-4-2 with two true wingers and a pulley system in central midfield for Michael Bradley and Benoit Cheyrou.
It didn't work. At all:
With Bradley & Cheyrou overrun, Houston took control of the game and got a deserved opening goal just before the break. Then on the other side of halftime, Will Bruin made it 2-0 thanks to a well-struck finish following a delightfully savage one-man counterattack by man of the match Giles Barnes.
Greg Vanney made some subs and adjustments, and TFC eventually came back into the game. They got a goal courtesy of Jozy Altidore's head, and could have gotten another via the same route if it wasn't for an excellent last-second intervention from Houston right back Raul Rodriguez. By the 70th minute they were playing what looked much more like a 4-1-3-2, and at the final whsitle it was arguably some sort of 3-4-3.
The point? That TFC are still in the experimentation phase, and that when they're able to hit on the right answers, they can play some very good, very dangerous soccer.
The problem is that they don't know the right answers going in, not in the way the league's best teams (I'm thinking D.C., Seattle, Columbus, RBNY, Dallas, Vancouver and New England in some order) do. The elephant in the room wears No. 4:
I maintain that, above and beyond anything else, Bradley needs a d-mid behind him to protect both him and the backline. That might be Collen Warner, or it might be Cheyrou in a more restrained role, or it may be insert midsummer acquisition here, which would mean three more months of waiting until we all get to see what TFC really look like.
I still expect great things from the Reds. But only "eventually," and perhaps only in short bursts.
3. The Inheritance
Barnes has an argument for Player of the Week, though he won't get it. That vote almost always goes to whoever scores the most goals, which means the odds-on favorite is Columbus forward Kei Kamara, who had another two goals and propelled the Crew to a 3-2 win over the Sounders in what became something of a mano a mano duel between Kamara and Clint Dempsey.
Kamara won't be at this summer's Gold Cup, but both Barnes (Jamaica) and Dempsey (USA) will, barring injury. So will Cyle Larin (Canada), who got the second goal of his young career in Friday night's 2-2 draw vs. New England, a contest in which he aerially dominated USMNT vet Jermaine Jones (I'll talk about Jones' weakness in the air at a later date).
Altidore (USA), Blas Perez and Gaby Torres (Panama), Gyasi Zardes (USA) and Chris Wondolowski (USA), Alvaro Saborio (Costa Rica) and even Darren Mattocks (Jamaica) all got on the scoresheet this week, too. It was a good week for CONCACAF goal-scorers, guys who'll likely be gone for parts of June and July on Gold Cup duty.
Two guys whose respective fates are still up in the air? Tesho Akindele of FC Dallas and Ethan Finlay of Columbus. Akindele got the game-winner in FCD's 2-1 win over LA on Saturday night, while Finlay picked up his fifth assist of the season, tied for the league lead.
Both guys are eligible for the US and Canada, who could use them both - but especially Finlay, with his explosiveness in the open field and "sure, I'll try that" attitude in the 18:
That goes down in the boxscore as a good chance missed, but it's a good chance that few wingers in the league would have created in the first place. Finlay's early recognition of the transition opportunity, acceleration and top overall speed, and quickness in the box are all damn impressive.
So far, Jurgen Klinsmann hasn't shown any interest, despite the fact that Finlay (who was born and raised in the US, and inherited Canadian citizenship through his father) has made it clear he finds the Red, White & Blue of the US preferable to the Maple Syrup & Poutine of Canada.
Nobody's asked me for my two cents, but for both guys, it's this: If Benito Floro comes calling, pick up the phone. Both are the type of talent that deserves a spot on the international stage sooner rather than later.
As an American, it would bum me out to see two good players go elsewhere. But as a fan of good soccer, I'd love to see a Canadian frontline of Akindele-Larin-Finlay.
A few more things to ponder...
10. BWP might give Kamara a run for his money in Player of the Week balloting, but let's also keep an eye on FCD's magic little unicorn, Mauro Diaz. He's figured it out after a slow-ish individual start to the season, and racked up two more assists in that win over LA. The equalizer (watch HERE) was particularly ridiculous.
9. As great as that pass from Diaz was, though, it's Pedro Morales who'll take our Pass of the Week. This is filthy, And-1 mixtape stuff from Vancouver's 3-0 win over Philadelphia:
8. The San Jose Earthquakes went on the road this week for Western Conference games and came away with four points thanks to a 1-0 win at Houston on Tuesday, and then a 1-1 draw at Colorado on Friday. Total possession for the Quakes across those two games? 34 percent.
7. RSL also had two games this past week, drawing 0-0 at home against LA on Wednesday before going on the road to Chicago on Saturday for a vital 2-1 win. A formational change – they went with a 4-1-3-2 in Chicago, which simplifies defensive switches and gets the wingers a little bit higher – was the big difference.
The wide midfielders shoulder more of the creative burden in the 4-1-3-2 than they do in the diamond, hence the pedantic insistence upon labeling these formations differentlly. Regardless, you can see the worth of that wide play on this sequence:
That's Jordan Allen making the defense-splitting, killer pass. He continues to be superb and yes, I hope we see more of that with the US U-20s.
6. I wrote a bit about that RSL win over Chicago with an eye toward Fire rookie d-mid Matt Polster. Given that both Fatai Alashe and Wil Trapp are currently sidelined with injury concerns, I'd hope that Polster gets called into the next US U-23 camp. He's not the finished article yet, but his ability to open the game and still protect the back line bodes well for his future.
5. Larin is obviously going to be with the Canadian national team this summer. His opposite number on Friday night, New England's Charlie Davies, is making a strong argument to be there with the US. He still opens up space with his movement as well as anyone in the pool.
4. If you're looking for one game from this weekend – or hell, this season – to re-watch, it's that Columbus win over Seattle. It was fast, open, honest, precise and creative.
3. Sporting KC's 1-1 draw at D.C. United is also up there in terms of both quality and entertainment value, though it wasn't quite so pretty as CLBvSEA. Worth noting that Perry Kitchen continues to add dimensions to his game
2. Diego Valeri is back, and fit, and doing "Diego Valeri things." He got the game-winner in Portland's 2-1 win at Montreal on Saturday, and generally looked like the best player on the field.
1. It's a cop-out to give Pablo Mastroeni our Face of the Week again, but how could I not?
