The Road to MLS Cup XIII, Week Three

(1)Whose League Is It Anyway?
So the Revs crush champions Houston 3-0 in their first game, setting themselves up as the league's best. But they have some injury issues, give up an early goal and red card in Chicago and lose to the Fire 4-0. Pretty bad, right? But the Revs stuck with that game as much as they could and then they have to travel to Kansas City's odd little ballpark, which looks like it's going to be a real fortress because the Wizards had won their first two there. And what do the Revs do? They beat KC 3-1 with goals from their teenage attacking substitutes, Nyassi and Mansally. So now, you've got to be thinking: wow, the Revs are for real and coach Steve Nichol's a genius.

So what did Saturday have for us? Steve Nichol is out-coached by Fernando Clavijo, who no one thinks is a genius, and the Revs lose 1-0 at home to the Rapids. Nyassi and Mansally are contained when Colorado clogs the midfield, and the Revs waste a ton of chances, making you wonder just how quickly Taylor Twellman can get healthy. So, it's not the Revs' league.

KC? Ives Galarcep thinks they might just be the best team in the league, but the loss to the Revs makes me think twice.

DC? After a 4-1 victory over Toronto FC, I was ready to forgive their week one loss to the Wizards. But then they get crushed-- 4-0-- by Real Salt Lake. It's not their league either.

Chivas USA? I think they've got the pieces to be the best, but those pieces are unfortunately injury-prone or older than the spoken word.

Dallas deserves some love: a pair of ties against good teams and a win over New York. Kenny Cooper is one fire. This backline-- Drew Moor, Duilio Davino, Adrian Serioux, Dax McCarty-- ought to be pretty good in MLS. Juan Toja is threatening to be the best player in the league. But then you think about how they were bossed around the field by Houston. You think about how disjointed the defense looked.

And Chicago? Along with Dallas, the other unbeaten team, but man, they looked awful against a supposedly toothless San Jose team. And they looked awful against Real Salt Lake, despite earning a point. And they looked about as bad as you can look when you win 4-0 against a 10 man New England.

So whose league is it? For now, I'm going with (1) Dallas, (2) Kansas City and (3) Chivas USA, but every team has a lot of question marks right now.

(2) The Weekend's Most Shocking Result?
There are a few strong contenders.
(A) Chad Barrett scores again. The graphics people on Fox Soccer Channel didn't believe it either: their graphic indicated that it was his first of the season.
(B) Real Salt Lake beating DC United 4-0. I mean, seriously? 4-0? When does Real ever beat anyone, let alone Supporters Shield winner DC, by four goals? (for what it's worth, the answer turns out to be: never-- the 4-0 victory was RSL's largest margin ever).
(C) Tony Caig kept a clean sheet. I didn't see the Houston-KC game, but I honestly wasn't expecting Caig to get another start after giving up 3 goals in his two previous games, with a solid majority being his fault. Then I looked to see who Houston's backup GK was. A kid named Corbin Waller. Here's an excerpt from his biogarphy on Yahoo Sports:
" "
That's right. THere's nothing on him. But you know what? I'd rather put Corbin Waller out there, with his empty bio, than Tony Caig with his stint in the premiership.

But Tony Caig got his clean sheet, so maybe there's a reason Dom Kinnear is a coach and I work in a cubicle.

3. Most embarassing performances?
If DC fans had recovered enough after drinking grain alchohol chased with vodka to help them forget their loss to Real Salt Lake, they had to be chuckling to themselves watching the LA Galaxy game, where Greg Vanney falls down instead of bodying up to Danny Dichio and allowing a goal, and then repeating the same trick half a game later to give up the game winning goal to Jeff Cunningham.

But United fans still shouldn't laugh too hard: I think we found out a little bit more about the pieces of United's reconstructed backline. Gonzalo "I'm not Peralta" Martinez has got range, some pace, helps distribute the ball cleanly out of the back and generally cleans up messes. Unforutnately, he wasn't playing Saturday night. Gonzalo "I'm not Martinez" Peralta was, and he had a disasterous night, before finally gifting the fourth goal to Real Salt Lake when heading the ball back to DC's keeper. It could have just been an off game for Peralta-- RSL's turf apparently is not easy to play on. But I'm beginning to feel like, if United is to have success this year, it will depend greatly on Martinez staying healthy and on the field.

I had to feel bad for Chivas USA's Eric Ebert, who did his best Greg Vanney impersonation by gifting Columbus with two goals after entering the match in the 64th minute. My guess is that the rookie doesn't start next week.

4. San Jose-Chicago
Here's the thing about the Quakes: they do have guys who can pass. Ronnie O'Briem followed up a completely anonymous performance against DC with a solid, unpredictable (in a good way) showing against Chicago. Ned Grabavoy may be the league's less-heralded #10, but I bet you he puts together a decent season. You might think Ramiro Corrales is garbage because you last remember him at the US national team level, but he's pretty good at the MLS level.

So how did San Jose lose?

Kei Kamara and Gavin Glinton seem to have developed a great, consistent partnership. The problem is that, while Kamara consistently whipped balls in, Glinton consistently missed the shot. San Jose put Chicago under tremendous pressure and really ought to have tied. But in the clutch, slow-motion moment when a ball is floating up invitingly, who is the Earthquake player to strike the ball from just feet in front of the Chicago goal?

Enter young Shea Salinas, who manages to shoot the ball at an approximately 89 degree angle so that it goes out harmlessly. Tough moment for a rookie, but ideally San Jose would have a late game finisher to handle stuff like that. They just don't, and it's really going to hurt this otherwise carefully constructed team.

5. LA-Toronto
This was the kind of game that gives equal amounts of fuel to Donovan haters and lovers. He and David Beckham have developed good rapport and Donovan's one of the few MLS players with the speed and intelligence to take advantage of some of Beckham's passes. Time and time again, Donovan went racing off with the ball, with three or four Toronto defenders trailing after him like tin cans on a Just Married car. Donovan fails each time. Now, these aren't necessarily easy chances-- he's running top speed with the ball with defenders closing in. But then Donovan, with a look of determination on his face, takes the ball, does a step over, leaves his defender stumbling like an outtake from NBA Ankle Breakers and shoots a hard, clean shot from distance. Goal.

But, as his teammates mob him, Donovan doesn't celebrate-- instead, he's got a furrowed brow. It's like he knows that he should have had 3 or 4 goals by that point so he needed to decide to play up to his potential for a brief moment in time to make up for it.

My take? The guy's by far the best American player. If he chokes a few chances here and there, keep in mind that other guys wouldn't have had the skill to even have those chances to choke. I'd pick him first on my sandlot team anytime.

But what about the rest of his team? I am no fan of Ruud Gullitt, but I liked how the Galaxy midfield defended as a unit, adjusting their positions to clog passing lanes. LA is a hard-working team, even on a day when temperatures on the field were above 100 degrees. But I'm not sure they're up to it. Beckham seems like a luxury. The rookies (and there were three of them starting) seem earnest, but they're not able to take advantage of the players created by Donovan and the Englishman. Galaxy forward Alan Gordon just isn't getting it done.

And so the Galaxy, despite creating so much more than their Canadian rivals, fall 3-2 at home. It doesn't seem fair. And yet... when David Beckham ends up being your last man on defense against Jeff Cunningham, one of the leagues speediest and deadliest forwards, something's wrong with the team. Cunningham didn't score that time, but what does it say about the Galaxy's defense that it happened at all? Of course, given Greg Vanney's performance, you wonder if the years he spent in France hadn't rubbed off on in, such was his insistence on surrender to the foreigners.

Bizarro World (Continued)

The Revs crush the Dynamo and, in turn, are crushed by the Fire.

The Galaxy are crushed by the Rapids and, in turn, crush the San Jose Earthquakes.

None of these results are, by themselves, really all that surprising, but put together, they sure make a decent case for the existence of karma. Or at least an ESPN Primetime Curse.

Each game was interesting, although truth be told, the Fire-Revs matchup was a much better match. Even when the Revs lost Jeff Larentowicz to a soft red card in the 7th minute, the Revs continued to threaten Fire goalkeeper Jon Busch. For a team that lost 4-0, New England looked pretty good. Their young additions Nyassi and Mansally created problems for the Fire-- Mansally's skill created a few of New England's 11 corner kicks. The Revs have always had a fairly sticky midfield with Shalrie Joseph, with the ball always landing at his feet, but the young players, in addition to offseason addition Mauricio Castro, seem to give New England an element of surprise that they lacked, even with since-departed better players like Dempsey, Noonan and Dorman. It's hard to take much out of a match with an early ejection, but in bizarro world MLS, I found myself thinking that New England established themselves as an excellent team, even in a disasterous defeat. With Taylor Twellman in the lineup, you just know they would have finished at least a couple of their 11 corners.

The Fire, on the other hand, still look flawed. The Fire defense looked vulnerable and I have to think they'll be punished in the future. The attack looked, I suppose, better. New Polish attacker Thomasz Frankowski scored a pair of goals that I'm not sure Chad Barrett would have finished, but Chad Barrett scored a decent goal himself. Blanco got involved and showed his ability to hold onto the ball and kill the game. But despite the offensive fireworks, I found myself unconvinced by the Chicago attack. They've got an absolutely loaded midfield with Blanco, Mapp and Rolfe, but it didn't quite seem to click. I'm especially curious if Frankowski is going to continue to score goals. On the plus side, Barrett had a couple of nice runs and showed better decision-making.

But then again, I've got a soft spot for guys who suck. I want to believe that Chad Barrett is going to be a star, and, no, not just because he looks vaguely like Wayne Rooney. I remember feeling similarly about Matt Taylor of Chivas USA. Formerly of Chivas USA, at least.

Speaking of guys who aren't very good, how about Alan Gordon? On the same day Chad Barrett scores, Alan Gordon of the LA Galaxy gets a secondary assist in the Gal's win over the San Jose Earthquakes. But the predictions of those who said that Gordon would become a 10 goal scorer on the back of David Beckham's crosses look to be off by about 8 or 9 goals. I really want to see Gordon succeed-- I just have doubts about whether it will happen.

But his Galaxy got a much-needed win against the expansion Earthquakes. It was a poor match. The Earthquakes looked completely disjointed: their was no midfield to speak of, so defenders took to launching balls towards the relatively weak Quake forwards. Ronnie O'Brien, at times one of the best players in the league, was curiously absent. For a team that was supposed to have a solid core defensively, the Quakes seemed to lack a little nastiness. I know they're probably looking for a marquee attacker, but I half wonder if they wouldn't do better going after Pablo Mastroeni, or at least someone like him...

The Galaxy deserve some credit, too: both goals were scored because David Beckham can pass a ball and Landon DOnovan is quick with great vision. In other words, they were scored for reasons that make sense given how the team was constructed. Donovan's speed was, in particular, necessary for both goals-- he was simply doing what he does best. Beckham did fine, although some with high expectations of him may still claim to be disappointed.