I asked a couple of people two questions this weekend. Both are tough.
First question: Who's the best team in the league? I don't mean "right now," and I don't mean "who's going to win MLS Cup." I mean on any given day, assuming full roster... who's the best?
No one felt comfortable trying to provide a definitive answer. There was some discussion about the Sounders, but they are so brutally bad right now that it's hard to remember that they were ever very good. Every positive note about LA was loaded with qualifiers. Sporting had some traction, but... again, qualifiers. Same with Vancouver and Dallas.
The above question led into the second query: Who's going to win the Supporters' Shield?
If you look at the "Who's the best team?" list above, you'll understand why I think it'll be an Eastern Conference team, and why almost everyone I talked to felt the same way. The West is a bloodbath even beyond the top five teams, and it seems pretty clear the whole conference is going to cannibalize each other's points over the next three months.
We saw some good stuff from D.C. United this weekend, and they are probably the odds-on favorite -- especially if Fabian Espindola can stop elbowing people and Alvaro Saborio continues to sip from the Fountain of Youth.
But even though it's kind of crazy to say this: Don't sleep on Toronto FC. They have 15 games left, 10 of which will be at home. They have reinforcements arriving, and reportedly more coming. They have maybe the best attack in the league, and unlike almost everybody else they have been able to consistently get points on the road.
If they take five more points from their final five road games, that puts them on track for 60 points, provided they take care of business at home.
Fine, their defense is... let's call it "messy," and there's no guarantee any midseason signing is going to step right in and fix anything.
But there is one immutable truth in MLS: Bet on the team that has the most home games.
So I'm not saying TFC are the favorites. But I'm not saying they're not.
Onto the games:
1. Pirlo Party
Andrea Pirlo, man. He made his debut in Sunday's wild 5-3 win over Orlando City, and he was good.
This goal is not his fault, but it's not not his fault, either. It's just how he plays -- he comes to the ball in situations like that, and if the ball doesn't come to him, you get Kaká wide open in Zone 14 and poor Josh Saunders picking the ball out of his net. The fans will eat up the Pirlo highlights this week, but that Cyle Larin goal is the bit of film that Kreis will be obsessing over.
Regardless, NYCFC should win a lot of games now just by outscoring you. But they're going to give you every chance to outscore them, too.
2. Game Changer
The Montreal Impact are a two-trick pony, and those two tricks are set pieces and counterattacks. They are very good at both of them, as they showed in Saturday's 1-0 win over the Seattle Sounders -- a win that lifted them officially into the playoff picture, probably to stay (I think).
They look to be on the verge of getting a boost in those efforts with the reportedly pending arrival of Didier Drogba. And Drogba will be a massive, game-changing boost.
The big issue with Montreal is that they can't take useful possession and turn it into dangerous chances, which is an issue that's now gone back through three coaches over the past four seasons. Part of that is just the natural talent of the midfielders, wingers and forwards they've built around. All of them, including DP No. 10 Ignacio Piatti, are better on the run, and even after Drogba's arrival the Impact will still be a counterattacking team.
But at the same time, in the modern game the forward doesn't exist just to stretch the field and score goals. The best No. 9s check deep into the midfield to offer passing lanes, drag defenders around with them, and turn possession into penetration.
This is one of my favorite goals of this past weekend.
C.J. Sapong drops deep off the front line, receives the ball in traffic, drags the defense with him by taking a hard dribble, then gets the ball onto his playmaker's foot with a clever misdirect of a touch.
Then once he's released the ball, he doesn't stand still. Sapong trucks right into the area and puts his back into the defender like what we think of when we say "classic center forward." Drogba's been one of the two best "classic" center forwards in the world for a long time, and while he's not at that level anymore, we're all secure enough to admit that MLS isn't the EPL, and that Drogba will be great.
This kind of space-making doesn't just lead to goals for the forward, it leads to goals for everybody. It leads to softer cushions in possession and more chances to pick the right pass instead of hitting the hopeful pass.
It'll lead, for Montreal, to a better way of playing the game -- one that's both more structured and less predictable.
3. Youth Has No Age
Obviously I'm excited about Pirlo and Drogba, but the biggest story of the weekend is what FC Dallas have done since Kellyn Acosta joined victor Ulloa in central midfield. The two play as a dual pivot, with Acosta playing more adventurous passes and Ulloa providing a bit more running.
Following Saturday's 4-1 dismantling of Portland, FCD are now 7-0-3 with the Acosta/Ulloa pairing and at the front of the Shield race. Earlier this season Ulloa was derisively nicknamed "The Crab" by Dallas fans thanks to his propensity for passing sideways -- at one point he had the highest percentage of sideways and back passes in the league -- but that percentage is dropping since Acosta's movement is both smarter and faster than Ulloa's previous partners. (EDIT: I got the etymology of that nickname wrong. Read this from 3rd Degree for the correct version)
And that's the thing: Soccer is a team sport. As much as we revere the Pirlos and Drogbas of the world for their individual skills, what truly sets them apart is that they make the people around them better.
So let's revere the kids a little bit, because "make the people around them better" is what Acosta and Ulloa have been doing every single week since Acosta returned from the U-20 World Cup. The two Homegrowns have locked down the defense and helped open up the attack.
A note about that attack: They operate as a quartet. We keep seeing increased hybridization of roles in our game, but Dallas ask for more structure out of their central midfield than most other teams. This GIF toggles between the successful passes of just Acosta and Ulloa, and the successful passes of Acosta, Ulloa and playmaker Mauro Diaz:
That is really disciplined, and you can see which gap it allows Diaz to fill. That in turn frees up Fabian Castillo and the rest of the wingers to do a ton of fun stuff.
On the flip side you run the risk of becoming predictable, which is not fun. One of Acosta or Ulloa will have to add third runs to their repertoire to take advantage of all the space that the other guys create, and the next step for Diaz -- who, to be clear, is a wonderful, Magic Little UnicornTM -- is knowing that, occasionally, he'll have to track back and defend.
However you want to cut it, though, two Homegrown kids went toe-to-toe with a Portland midfield that included two DP-caliber players in Diegos Valeri & Chara, and outplayed them.
So what if I said you didn't have to go out and buy DP caliber talent? What if I said that, if you have the right talent identification and development processes, you could build DP-caliber talent out of the raw materials you have in your own backyard? That your academy could do more work than the transfer wire? That the world where DP talent can only be bought from elsewhere is an illusion?
You'd probably like that. And you'd probably think it's the most important news there is.
A few more things to ponder:
6. About that Sapong goal above in section two: Philly lost that game, which should have been expected given the 120 hard minutes they put in midweek at NY in USOC. But to lose 3-2 after taking a 2-0 lead inside of four minutes? Philly fans were justifiably dispirited.
Lack of depth is the culprit in Chester. D.C. on the other hand now have plenty of depth, and the Sabo/Fabi tandem looked excellent in their first game back together.
5. Did A.J. Cochran hit a Zidane Pass? He did! A.J. freaking Cochran hit a freaking Zidane pass!
That's unquestionably our Pass of the Week. It came in the 51st minute of Houston's 3-0 destruction of LA. The Galaxy are 0-6-5 on the road.
4. In the wake of Friday's 2-1 win over Sporting, it feels a bit like RSL are figuring out the 4-3-3. They are the only team to have beaten SKC since mid-April, and they've now beaten them twice.
Those two teams don't much like each other, by the way:
3. Kekuta Manneh's brain is catching up to his feet. He's moving into space off the ball much better than he did at this point last season, and ends up providing more value in possession while remaining unplayable in the open field. And as for depth... the 'Caps keep getting results even without Pedro Morales, which was the story in Sunday's 3-1 win over San Jose.
I'm still not 100% sold on Vancouver, but that may be because I'm an idiot.
2. Face of the Week goes to Sean Johnson, at the 31-second mark of the below video:
FT: @sjohn25 doesn't believe it, but Rowe puts away this simple finish to steal a point in Chicago. #CHIvNEhttps://t.co/J4I7jXFOvW
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) July 26, 2015That was the game-tying goal for the Revs in a 2-2 draw at Chicago.
Fire coach Frank Yallop minced no words: "[Adailton]'s got to clear it and he just lets it go. He just cost us the game."
1. And finally, back to TFC -- whom we have to credit for trying something new. They went with a 5-3-2 at Columbus, and while it didn't quite work defensively, they made really good halftime adjustments that forced turnovers and spread the game out, and eventually clawed their way to a 3-3 draw in Columbus.
I'm not saying they're the favorites to take the Shield. But I'm really, really not saying they're not.
