Armchair Analyst: On the radar for Week 28 of the 2015 MLS season

There are nine games this weekend, and every one of them is rife with playoff implications. The biggest? That's probably San Jose vs. Seattle on Saturday night (10:30 pm ET; MLS LIVE) at Avaya Stadium.

Check out the numbers at SportsClubStats to see what I mean. Using a Monte Carlo simulation, a win puts the Quakes at nearly 80 percent likely to make the playoffs, while a loss would drop them below 50 percent. The swing is even wilder for the Sounders, as a win puts them at 86 percent to make the playoffs, and a loss drops them to 47 percent. It is, by any measure, a huge game.

Onto the others:

1. Search & Destroy

The Chicago Fire beat the New York Red Bulls 3-2 two weeks ago in Bridgeview, and on Friday night they'll try to make it a double in Harrison at Red Bull Arena (7 pm ET; UniMas). They'll try to hit New York with speed, as they did last time, and they'll try to make sure they defend compactly, and they'll try not to get their doors blown off in central midfield.

They managed that in August, and they've done as much in each of their last three games. Sure, they gave up four goals at Montreal last weekend, but that had way more to do with the backline than it did with huge swathes of space opening up in the middle of pitch. This despite the fact that they've used primarily a standard 4-4-2 during that run, a formation that's fallen out of favor on the world stage specifically because of the numbers deficit in the middle of the pitch.

This story is confirmed by the network passing viz from their game in Montreal, which is used by aggregating Opta passing events:

It's fairly simple and basic, but simple and basic often work in quite well in our game.

I do suspect, however, that Jesse Marsch will have watched a bunch of film, and will have come up with a few new wrinkles to throw at Mikey Stephens and Razvan Cocis. RBNY have overwhelmed teams all year in the middle of the park thanks to the tactical nous, fitness and skill of their three-man central midfield, and in retrospect that Fire win looks much more like a blip than the start of a trend. New York certainly responded in the right way last week, dominating D.C. United – another 4-4-2 team – in a 3-0 win.

I'll also be watching... Everybody's in love with overlapping fullbacks, but they're arguably less effective than platforming fullbacks – those who push up in support of the team in possession, rather than pushing up to initiate attack. When Connor Lade crosses the midfield stripe he becomes a passing hub, a platform that the guys in front of him can work off of to create new attacking angles.

It's less sexy than guys who bust all the way down to the endline then whip in a cross, or go direct to goal. But watch the freedom that Lloyd Sam has to attack, and how secure the Red Bulls are when they're on that side of the field. Lade is an underappreciated cog in that machine.

• UPDATE: Chicago once again hurt RBNY with speed, but this time the Red Bulls found enough answers in attack to get all three points thanks to Friday's 3-2 win.

2. Penetration

“I’ll tell you right now, I can come in here and tell you I’ve seen games where Lee [Nguyen] had zero assists, zero goals and was better than he was tonight," said New England Revolution coach Jay Heaps after Nguyen had three assists on three Revs goals in a 3-0 win over Orlando City SC. "Tonight I thought he was really good obviously, he got three assists and I don’t want to knock that all, but I really can’t look at stats when I look at film just like you don’t look at record when you look at how impactful or who you’re playing against."

Nguyen is a pure No. 10, and like all No. 10s he's going to be judged on some level by the boxscore stats he puts up. By that measure he hasn't been as productive as last season, when he was an MVP candidate and a phenomenal, uncontainable playmaking force. But Heaps is, of course, correct: It's a mistake to judge any player strictly by their counting numbers.

This is especially true for Nguyen since he's a single-player attacking scheme. His comfort and inventiveness on the ball in tight quarters, and his ability to complete telling passes at an elite clip, mean the Revs can and do advance higher up the field than anybody else in the league. Thus if you watch them play, you'll notice them knocking it around the box a ton:

That's almost a comedically large gap between first and second place, and it keeps alive the precedent this team set last season. Nguyen is the key, and disorganized defenses are particularly susceptible to the kind of penetration he offers.

Unfortunately for Toronto FC, "disorganized" is probably a good descriptor for them ahead of Sunday's game (5 pm ET; ESPN2). They've suffered through too many injuries and call-ups, and have had to tinker with too many formations to create any real defensive stability.

I'll also be watching... Can Toronto get attacking width in behind New England's overlapping fullbacks? This is where it'd be nice to have Sebastian Giovinco available (I don't expect him to play, even if TFC claim he could be available). Nobody in the league is better at flaring wide to hit those gaps, and the perfect way to punish the Revs for playing so high with the ball is to hit them wide and hard on the break.

3. The Passenger

A month ago, Sporting KC were atop the league on PPG, atop the Power Rankings, and a decent enough bet to win the Western Conference. Since then they've lost three of four (it would have been four of four if not for Tim Melia's heroics in Portland on Wednesday) and haven't been able to find real answers on either side of the ball.

One of the big problems is that the team's two most natural goalscorers, center forward Dom Dwyer and winger Krisztian Nemeth, still haven't quite figured each other out:

I think Nathan's being mildly melodramatic there, but only mildly. Nemeth and Dwyer are both capable of using the ball better than they have been, and in the process that could give the leg-weary defense a bit of a rest. In other words, Sporting don't hold the ball up top much anymore, and everybody's suffering as a result.

The good news? They're at Orlando City on Sunday (7 pm ET; FS1), and that OCSC defense gives you a lot of chances to figure things out.

I'll also be watching... Pedro Ribeiro in the hole, maybe? I kind of expect OCSC to go 4-4-1-1 with Ribeiro and Larin stacked up top since Kaka is out. And I really, really like Ribeiro in that role, since he can do some No. 9 things but still has the vision to do No. 10 things. It's a vastly different look.

Happy weekending, everybody.