The Players Union ratified the CBA this week. It's good reading, and I recommend it highly.
Onto the games:
1. Q Who?
A picture is worth a thousand words. I'm gonna be conservative and say this picture is worth a billion:
Portland have remained a cut below the elite in MLS over the last couple of years for two reasons: Weakness defending set pieces and a propensity for conceding goals up the middle when one of their deeper-lying center midfielders gets caught out (or caught napping, as happened to Jack Jewsbury on the above play). Runs of good form - and they've had plenty - have pretty consistently ended with those kinds of concessions.
On Saturday night against Vancouver (10:30 pm ET; MLS LIVE in the US | TSN & RDS2 in Canada) they'll aim to patch that hole.
I'll also be watching...Tim Parker is the best MLS rookie you're not paying attention to. Of note for US fans, he's age-eligible for the U-23s.
3. New Ground
When Federico Higuain came into the league af few years back he played mostly as an underneath forward, drifting laterally along the front line and only occasionally dropping back to distribute.
Times have changed for the Crew, who are still kind of figuring out how to attack the way they want to (fast, furious and up the flanks) without leaving themselves vulnerable up the middle. Higuain is still a primo chance creator:
But his main function now is to release Ethan Finlay up the right, or Waylon Francis overlapping on the left. When he pushes up and plays his "old" role of in his old style Columbus become very susceptible to being stretched and countered, and as experienced as Michael Parkhurst and Emanuel Pogatetz are, neither will win any awards for their ability to close down attackers in space.
Why does that matter much? Because when they play the Fire on Sunday (5 pm ET; ESPN2 | ESPN Deportes | TSN2) they'll probably face David Accam from the start. And if it's Accam running onto this ball from Matt Polster:
It's a chance.
Also, that pass is sick. Watch how it bends back into Harry Shipp's run. I'm gonna plagiarize my own tweet: If Pirlo had hit that ball on Wednesday night we'd all be reading 4,000-word think pieces about banana passes and red wine.
I'm all for enjoying the old guys we're importing, but I enjoy watching the young guys like Polster et al show that they can hang.
I'll also be watching... As good as Polster was (and has been), it took about four minutes into Columbus' 1-0 win on Wednesday for Crew midfielder Wil Trapp to show why how and why he's regarded by most as the best young d-mid in the league. Trapp's distributive instincts are close to perfect, and he cycles through his decision matrix faster than just about anybody.
I'm glad he's back.
One more thing:
Measure twice, cut once.
Happy weekend, everyone.
