Before I get to the national TV games, I want to talk about the most compelling game on Saturday night's slate.
No, it's not the Rocky Mountain Cup match at Colorado (9 pm ET; MLS LIVE), since neither of those teams is playing particularly compelling soccer. Nor is it the RBNY vs. New England game (7 pm ET; MLS LIVE), which is a rematch of last year's Eastern Conference championship. That game has history and bitterness, and two possible (probable?) playoff teams, but the Revs have shifted into their typical mid-summer death spiral, which kills a lot of the drama.
The best and most important game on Saturday is Montreal vs. Columbus (8 pm ET; TSN2 | RDS | MLS LIVE). It's a six-pointer for two teams that are eminently capable of playing good soccer but have been, thus far, eminently incapable of stringing multiple good performances together.
I came into 2015 thinking the Crew would contend for the Supporters' Shield and that the Impact would be a playoff team. Halfway through the year I don't trust the first and have no idea what to make of the latter.
All of that, and the relative congestion in the East standings, makes that one a must-watch.
Onto the rest:
1. Wish You Were Here
You probably knew that San Jose would be without Chris Wondolowski, and you maybe knew they'd be without Cordell Cato, who scored a nice goal for Trinidad & Tobago on Thursday. They're also without Jordan Stewart, who was suspended for his Mortal Kombat move last weekend.
Houston sees those absences, and raises the hosts an irreplaceable part:
And they head to Vancouver on Sunday night (9 pm ET; TSN1 | MLS LIVE) leading the league in points per game, fractionally ahead of the hosts.
Sporting have every chance to make a statement against a 'Caps team that I'm still not convinced is as good as their record, especially because their back line is prone to leaving such huge gaps. Those are the areas where Krisztian Nemeth and Dom Dwyer have gone to work all year, and Benny Feilhaber has been ruthless at finding them.
Worth noting: Feilhaber now has 13 assists across all competitions in 2015. I haven't been able to 100 percent confirm this, but I'm pretty certain the single-season record for an American is Landon Donovan's 22 (19 MLS regular season; 2 MLS postseason; 1 USMNT) in 2014.
Assists are a noisy stat, but in this instance they paint a pretty accurate picture of how good Feilhaber's been.
I'll also be watching... Vancouver sandwiched three straight road wins between sluggish losses at the beginning and end of their five-game road trip. This is their first time back home since May, and could also signal the return of playmaker Pedro Morales, who missed the last three games with a calf strain.
Morales is great, but he's made the 'Caps kind of one-note at times this season. If you drop your line of confrontation enough to cancel out Vancouver's speed, you can close down his passing lanes and mostly take him out of the game.
If he returns, figuring out where he operates - how gets time and space enough to create time and space for others - will be fascinating.
One more thing:
First place!
Happy weekend, everyone.
