Armchair Analyst: The third line, a monster in Kansas City and more from Week 19

I did something on Saturday night that I usually try to avoid: I watched a club friendly. In this case it was the LA Galaxy hosting CONCACAF Champions Club America, and thankfully it was worth it. Completely and utterly worth it.

First off las Aguilas showed, right out of the gates, why they're the best team in our federation. For the first 20 minutes they had the Galaxy on their heels, and scored a classic "We're punishing slow rotations" goal to take a 1-0 lead. That woke LA up a bit, and they came back into the game largely through the play of Juninho, Baggio Husidic, Jose Villarreal and some dude named Steven Gerrard. Robbie Keane scored a magical goal right before halftime, and I was satisfied.

"Will I watch the second half?" I thought to myself. "Will I sit through the torture of watching MLS reserves and benchwarmers get tore up by an opponent clearly convinced this is not a friendly?"

I decided that I would. I'm happy that I did, because the Galaxy's reserves – which includes veterans like Alan Gordon and Kenney Walker, but also Homegrown players like Raul Mendiola and draft picks like Andrew Wolverton and USL grinders like Daniel Steres – outplayed what I'd consider a B- Club America side. Gordon got a spectacular goal off a cross from Mendiola (who leads the USL in assists), Steres organized the hell out of his back line, Wolverton looked like a future starter, and LA won 2-1.

As Bruce Arena said afterward, be wary of reading too much into it. It's an exhibition.

However: Many, many, many times in the past we have seen MLS teams put in players 18-through-28 in these types of friendlies and get absolutely stomped. The lack of cohesion and in-game knowhow was almost always apparent from the moment they set foot on the pitch.

In this case there was no "deer in headlights" response to be found. Everyone from 18-year-old Bradford Jamieson IV to World Cup veteran Edson Buddle looked locked in and damn certain they were going to give as good as or better than they'd get.

"In the second half, our young players played with a lot of confidence, played hard. Certainly wasn't perfect, but they got the job done," Arena said afterward. "I think the way they closed the game out and preserved the three points was excellent."

Look, it's a friendly. It doesn't mean all that much as an individual result. But in the grand scheme of things it's another indicator that the smart teams in the league, the ones who are doubling down on youth development and creating a clear path to the pros, are the ones that are going to thrive both in league play and continentally. You don't become a dominant league by buying better players, you become a better league by building players from the ground up. Liga MX have done so for years, and now the top-tier MLS teams are (finally) doing the same.

To put it another way: Gerrard may be what drives interest, and he will certainly make a difference over the next few years. But it's what LA and other teams like them are doing with their infrastructure that will drive true, sustainable growth for the long haul.

Onto the week that was:

1. A Moving Display

As I said in the above video, NYCFC's defense on Sunday was bad and they should feel bad. Their 4-4 draw against Toronto FC was symptomatic of a top-heavy roster (and yes, the Reds still suffer from the same malady despite some good squad building over the last two years by Tim Bezbatchenko, Greg Vanney et al) and I doubt very strongly that the additions of Frank Lampard and Andrea Pirlo will solve the pressing issues facing the team in the Bronx.

But let's give credit where it's due: Vanney's gameplan and Sebastian Giovinco's movement as a false 9 exacerbated every single issue the Light Blues have been dealing with all season. The Atomic Ant drifted wide to his left in isolation against an overwhelmed right back (this time it was Spanish veteran Andoni Iraola making his MLS debut) and forced a turnover, or he found gaps between the lines of midfield and defense, or he played off the last shoulder of the central defenders, or... well, you've seen the highlights. Giovinco scored a spectacular hat trick and added an assist, and is a near-mortal lock to win MLS Player of the Week.

His second was the best goal on the day, and we can all enjoy it for the very obvious reasons:

Sick pass from Jackson combined with great early recognition and a classy finish from Seba. Very nice.

The play doesn't happen, though, if Collen Warner settles for the easy ball. Instead he hits a third-line pass that cracks the NYCFC defense wide open.

"Third-line pass" is terminology borrowed from Spain (read THIS– especially slide 12 – if you want more), and its meaning is simple: It is a pass that splits defenders. Warner doesn't choose the first-line pass to Damien Perquis here, nor the second-line pass out wide to Daniel Lovitz.

Instead he recognized the chance to cut four NYCFC defenders out of the play along the third line, and he took it. Seconds later, Giovinco had tied it up.

Distributing aggressively from that spot is how to make good movement actually pay off. 

2. Service Denied

Heading into this weekend I called Montreal vs. Columbus the most compelling game on the Saturday night slate, and even if it didn't quite live up to that billing, watching and processing the procedings was still a very useful way to spend 90 minutes. The Impact won 3-0 thanks to an orange cone-ish display from the Crew back line, and while I can't claim to know anything new about either of these teams, I can at least say that Montreal have started to cope with crosses and wide play in general much better than they'd shown earlier in the season.

Columbus attempted 31 crosses, including a whole mess of them from open play. They were mostly dealt with:

Particularly telling is how few of the crosses attempted down the Columbus right-hand side weren't whipped directly into the box. That's because Donny Toia and Dilly Duka played tight to both Crew right backs (Hector Jimenez started, but came off injured after half an hour for Chris Klute).

And right now, that's how you stop Columbus. Jimenez leads the league in per-90 chance generation, and Klute is up there as well. Without those guys out there providing dangerous width you can close down on Federico Higuain while essentially going man-to-man against Kei Kamara and Ethan Finlay in the central channels. Add in Justin Meram's slump on the other wing, and that's how you spell "U-N-D-E-R-A-C-H-I-E-V-I-N-G."

For Montreal it's how you spell "counterattack." Many of those cleared-out crosses turned into 100-yard speed moves down the other end of the pitch, and we know that the Impact are lethal in those situations.

We still don't know much beyond that, though. The Impact may, just like Columbus, lack a "Plan B."

If that's the case, expect them to be well and truly found out in the coming weeks.

3. Monster

The worth of "clearances" and "blocks" and "tackles" and all sorts of defensive interventions are sort of in the eye of the beholder. Maybe your right back is a crunching tackler, but he doesn't rack up a lot of numbers because teams avoid going down that side of the field. His mere presence is a deterrent.

Maybe your left back's per-90 numbers – his "work rate," if you want to misapply a term – for the same are kind of eye-popping. And maybe that's because he's good, but maybe that's because he's actually not, and teams are going at him time after time (after time).

And understand that defense isn't merely a reactive endeavor. The best teams in MLS and the world know how to force an attack down blind alleys, encouraging them to turn the ball over in the most profitable spots. Overall strategy is involved there, but so is individual competency, as Seattle's deployment of Ozzie Alonso has shown for the past six-and-a-half seasons.

I can (and have) argued all sides of the above dogmas. One has to be flexible when interpreting soccer stats, because nobody's really 100% sure what anything (other than goals on the scoreboard) actually means.

I refuse, however, to be flexible about the performance Sporting KC d-mid Soni Mustivar put in during Sunday's 1-0 win at Vancouver.

Mustivar benefits from a system in which the other two midfielders, Benny Feilhaber and Espinoza, apply high pressure and try to funnel everything right up the gut. Combine that with active wingers and fullbacks, the hardest working center forward in the league in Dom Dwyer and a teamwide commitment to pushing the pace, and you have a perfect storm of strategy and skillset.

But if Mustivar benefits from the system, it's clear that the system benefits from Mustivar. He has been a monster, as his measurables when compared with other defensive midfielders show:

All of the above should serve as context to those numbers. And these numbers: Since Mustivar's been inserted into the starting lineup, Sporting are 6-1-2 with 15 goals scored five conceded.

Sometimes, numbers talk really, really loud.

Anyway, Mustivar was superb. He won't win Player of the Week, but you can damn sure make an argument that he should.

A few more things to ponder...

7. "I think they're gonna ask me to play defense..."

Yeah, that's our Face of the Week.

6. Will Bruin comes in for a lot of stick online for what he doesn't do. He's not a particularly elegant player. His first touch, especially when his back is to goal, often leaves much to be desired; his passing is hit-and-miss (though when it's "on," it can be very good).

Still, he scores goals. He got his eighth of the season in Houston's 2-0 win at San Jose on Friday night, and has managed it on just 26 shots – 13 of which he's put on goal. His previous 35 career goals came on 298 shots, with just 119 of those finding the target. You can do the math, right?

The question is whether or not said improvement is sustainable. Sudden efficiency bumps usually aren't.

Either way, the Dynamo will be thrilled with an in-conference road win.

5. The Rapids won their second straight game for the first time since last June,beating RSL 3-1 after a late Claret-and-Cobalt collapse. Luis Gil dropped his controller at one point.

The two-straight Colorado wins have coinceded with a formation switch, as Pablo Mastroeni has gone to a 4-3-3. This has relegated 2013 MLS Rookie of the Year Dillon Powers to the bench. Yes, they've taken six points, but it's not because of their build-up play:

Gil and Powers are two of the more interesting "Hey, is that guy available for some Targeted Allocation Money?" names out there. Powers has produced like a DP during his three years in the league, and while Gil hasn't quite hit those heights, there has to be at least one or two teams out there who feel like they could create the perfect environment for him to realize his potential.

4. I wrote a bit about Matt Miazga and the New York Red Bulls after Saturday's dominant 4-1 win over the death-spiraling Revs. It is gratifying to see the Red Bulls, who sit square atop perhaps the most talent-rich area north of the Rio Grande, finally start finding answers from within. Miazga was great, Connor Lade continued to look like a contributor at right back, and Sean Davis had another productive cameo in midfield.

The least-effective RBNY Homegrown on the day? That'd be Juan Agudelo, who continued his largely anonymous return season with the Revs.

3. Orlando City without Kaka, or Cyle Larin, or any sort of attacking ideas,lost 2-0 at home to FC Dallas.

2. Both Bruin and Philadelphia's C.J. Sapong are center forwards, but they are vastly different kinds. Bruin's talent is feeding off the chances others create, while Sapong's is the way he uses his strength, balance, first touch and vision to carve out chances for others. He absolutley manhandled Portland's central defenders in the Union's dominant 3-0 win on Saturday.

Obviously Cristian Maidana was the big star of the day (he had 3 assists) along with fellow midfielder Vincent Nogueira (he had 2 goals). But neither would've had the acres of space to work in that they regularly found if Sapong wasn't ploughing a furrow through the Timbers.

1. And finally our Pass of the Week goes not to Harry Shipp (who could've had it HERE, but whatever), but to a different Chicagoan: Midfielder Mikey Stephens. He had the game-winning assist in Saturday's 1-0 win over Seattle:

Stephens shows patience in letting the play develop, but never stops pushing forward. His willingness to drive straight at the Sounders defenders keeps creating new angles, and forces Micheal Azira to make one too many decisions (and Chad Marshall to, for some reason, make none). He then feathers a perfect little ball directly into Jason Johnson's stride.

Completing attacking passes on the move is such a crucial, game-opening skill. Stephens has it. I hope for Chicago's sake that he gets more minutes to show as much.