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When we last left off, your hero (that's me) had continued his pattern of bad picks on weekends and forgetting to pick games during the midweek. Let's see where that leaves us at the moment:
- Home teams went 4-1-5 on the last weekend of May
- Home teams went 2-2-2 in early June midweek action
- Home teams have now won 71 of 139 games thus far, slightly over 50%
- I chose non-home-team wins in three of those games from May, which put me at 3-for-10 that weekend
- I chose all home team wins during the midweek games, which put me at 2-for-6
- I am now at 66 for 139 on the season (47.4%)
Picking MLS games is hard, but I'm gonna climb right back up onto that horse:
- Philly go to the Bronx and get a point
- Vancouver take all three points at home vs. the Revs
- Pipa-less Columbus top Montreal
- Orlando City win over the short-handed Quakes
- TFC got untracked with a home win over LA
- Chicago go to Colorado and get a scoreless draw
- New-look Houston top D.C.
- Portland spring a surprise and win at Rio Tinto
- Fabian Castillo runs wild as FC Dallas win at Sporting
- RBNY continue their good home form with a win over visiting Seattle
Let's take a look at a few of these:
Man in the Box
Saturday's trip to Vancouver for the Revs (7 pm ET; TSN in Canada | MLS LIVE in the US) is, in the grand scheme of things, not exactly huge. Cross-conference games are significantly less meaningful than intra-conference games, and everybody knows it. From New England's perspective, this truth is compounded by the fact that this trip is not just cross-conference, but cross-country and on short rest (they had to play hard into extra time to beat Carolina in the Open Cup on Wednesday), which is not a great recipe for success.
With all that said: Three points are three points, and the Revs' porous defense have not put them in good spots to collect:
I'm going to harp on the same point I've hammered all year: The Revs can't defend crosses. Andrew Farrell has won just nine of 20 aerial duels this year, which is 45%, while the league's best center backs tend to be around 65% (and Vancouver's Kendall Waston, who's suspended for this one, is over 75%).
That's a huge gap, and one that's ripe for exploitation against a Vancouver team that, in Blas Perez, has one of the league's best forwards in the air. I'm not saying that Blas is gonna score a header, but I'd be shocked if the 'Caps didn't try to play direct to him at least a little bit and look for knock-downs around the area.
I'll also be watching:Kekuta Manneh, because he's two months from US citizenship (sorry, but I still have international soccer on the brain). Fans have at times been frustrated that his progress hasn't been linear, but is he better than he was 12 months ago? Yes, pretty clearly. Think he'll be better still 12 months from now?
Don't bet against it. And don't bet against him torturing the overlap-happy Revs on that side of the field.
Down In A Hole
The bad news for Sporting KC is twofold: They have just one win in their last 11 outings in MLS action, and they'll be without USMNT stalwarts Graham Zusi and Matt Besler for Sunday's Western Conference showdown against FC Dallas (5 pm ET; ESPN).
The good news is also twofold: Their murderous 12-games-in-54-days stretch is finally over (they went 2-7-3), and they picked up a win midweek against Minnesota United in Open Cup action. It wasn't a great win -- they didn't play well -- but a win's a win. Anything to break a slump, and anything that might point to a way out of the hole they've dug for themselves.
Any time a team struggles like Sporting have you've got to dig into the causes, both in terms of individual performance and team chemistry. And for Sporting on an individual level, Benny Feilhaber simply has not been the two-way force he was in 2015:
It's not all Feilhaber's fault. But the simple fact is that when playing at an MVP level last season he was able to single-handedly bail Sporting out of some bad performances. That hasn't been the case in 2016.
I'll also be watching:Fabian Castillo wasn't super happy about being left off of Colombia's Copa America roster, and has the talent to tear a hole in the league for the duration of this season.
No Excuses
The Red Bulls had an absolutely miserable start to this season, going just 1-6-0 in their first seven. They've since gone 5-1-1 in their next seven (6-1-1 in eight games across all comps if you're including Wednesday's Open Cup win), and have climbed up into second place in the Eastern Conference.
Truth is this team's turnaround started a couple games before the arrival of Aurelien Collin, who a few years ago finished third in Defender of the Year voting and is now playing like that again. While the results started to show before Collin's arrival, the defense was slower in coming around.
That's no longer the case. RBNY have four shutouts in their last four games across all comps, each with Collin going 90. And there is simply nothing fancy about the way this man plays soccer -- he drops deep, dominates opponents physically, and when in doubt clears the ball as far upfield as possible.
What will be interesting is seeing how Collin pairs with the other presumptive starter in central defense for the Red Bulls, Gideon Baah. We all got a taste in the Open Cup win over Rochester, in which Baah was constantly ranging upfield to make defensive plays:
Those triangles are all defensive interventions (clearances, tackles, etc) of one type or another, and that is Baah's map above. Below, here is Collin's:
Half of Collin's actions are clearances (win the ball and get it the hell out -- the purple triangles), while only a quarter of Baah's are. Baah was constantly stepping into the play to either win second balls or come up with the type of game-breaking interceptions that launch RBNY's attack.
It's a natural fit, in theory, and in fact is very similar to how Collin played alongside Besler during Sporting's best days. The Seattle Sounders faced that exact pairing quite a few times, and on Sunday night (7:30 pm ET; FS1), they'll get to go at a facsimile thereof.
I'll also be watching:Cristian Roldan's work in central midfield. He's improved as the year has gone on, and the key to breaking RBNY's press is to have a midfield that can keep the ball a little bit and bend the rhythm of the game to their own whims. Roldan has that kind of skill, but he's struggled at times in terms of "conducting" the game, so to speak.
One more thing:
View post on imgur.com
Don't mess with physics.
Happy weekending, everyone.
