MLS Week 24: Daylight in the East
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by user The Manly Ferry
Well, it’s Week 24 and we finally got some separation in the Eastern Conference; not a lot, mind, but things happened. The same can’t be said for the West, where the bottom four picked up a combined total of three losses and a draw.
So, what’s the tale of Week 24? Who’s up, who’s down and who’s standing pat? The answers - well, my answers - appear below. Above that, you’ll find a list of results with Major League Soccer’s (MLS) in-house match reports embedded in the result. And here are the post-weekend standings; again, the story is in the East, where some playoff dreams took big, though not necessarily fatal, hits. A second question: Is it fair to the call the West, the new East? After all, it was the East earlier this season where one saw plenty of kicking without result.
One last thing: if you haven’t checked out MLS’s Quick Kick feature, it’s well worth the look. It offers extended (if choppy) highlights of some, but not all, of the games around the league. Only three appear from this week’s slate so far; when one of those exist, I’ll provide a link to that just below the scores. One can also check out MLS’s old Sights & Sounds page; for some reason, highlights appear there (for example, Chivas USA v. FC Dallas) that haven’t yet made it to Quick Kick.
And now, the weekend’s results with the home team listed first:
Columbus Crew 1 - 2 Chicago Fire
DC United 1 - 1 Real Salt Lake (video highlights)
New England Revolution 1 - 0 Red Bull New York (video highlights)
Kansas City Wizards 4 - 1 Colorado Rapids
Chivas USA 1 - 1 FC Dallas
Los Angeles Galaxy 1 - 2 Houston Dynamo (video highlights)
Now, what to make of it all?
Columbus Crew, DOWN, big DOWN. Now seven points out of the playoffs and coping with a shrinking margin of error, no one did more harm to their 2006 season than the Columbus Crew. As much as Chicago was likely to prove a challenge, they have only two home games remaining - and those are against the top teams in the West. And the away games aren’t much better. Even if the match report paints a favorable picture, the limb one has to walk to predict that Columbus won’t make the post-season just got shorter.
Chicago Fire, HOLD: This call may seem unfair, but Chicago only did what was expected. Scratch that, they did what was required; after all, this was Columbus, the softest three points in the league this season. Again, judging from the match report, they barely managed that. Calen Carr’s sending off certainly didn’t help, but against that, it's good to read of Justin Mapp continue a fine run.
DC United, DOWN: I don’t care what anyone tells me; DC United remains in a funk. The only game I caught from start to (nearly) finish, DC United was just missing something Saturday - and though that “something” was likely half the team through suspension (see, Gomez, Christian; Eskandarian, Alecko; Gros, Joshua, Boswell, Bobby), this was a home game and an opportunity missed.
Real Salt Lake, UP, though not much: Sure, I ripped DC a little bit above, but the fact remains that RSL, being on the outside of the playoffs looking in, needs as many points as they can get. In other words, this was a good enough result for mid-season, but falls short in context. On a side-note, I like that Mehdi Ballouchy kid and continue to hope that he’s SOMEHOW eligible to suit up for the U.S. national team (some dude on BigSoccer told me in rather rude terms that he’s not, presumably based on hist time with Morocco’s U-17s, but it says here RSL coach John Ellinger thinks he is, so what gives?). Finally, Jeff Cunningham, love him or hate him, he’s my current 2006 MVP. And one only has to look to the work he put in to make RSL’s tying goal possible for the reason.
New England Revolution, UP, at last: Do I know my team (almost perfectly) or who? As predicted here, New England wins by one goal - and a cracking goal it was - and goes on to defend it. The highlights give the appearance that they really poured it into the offensive third, but got bit by the same wayward finishing (cough, cough...Taylor Twellman...cough, cough), so there’s good and bad in the big picture take-away. But the timing of the win, not to mention the win itself, suggests New England will be just good enough to make the playoffs. No, that’s not much, but it’s something and that’s enough for me.
Red Bull New York, DOWN: Amado Guevara, for all his talent, is a bonehead. The sight of him chasing the referee after getting booked for dissent and continuing to gripe paints an apt portrait of an ego gone mad. The best thing one can say about it is that Guevara’s ejection came in the 81st minute; after that, it’s all bad. The highlights show that between New England getting people around the ball and New York’s penchant for misfiring on their half-chances, the result was a fair one. Red Bull, while still very much in the hunt, isn’t showing much interest in it. With Guevara steering the ship, it’s worth wondering whether they’ve got the right hunting gear.
Kansas City Wizards, UP, and feeling groovy no doubt: KC’s victory reads like a shelling in the match report, as lopsided as the scoreline made it look. But those two extra games the Wizards have played contain the seeds of this team’s undoing. All they can do now is continue getting results - and the road ahead is comparatively amenable to that (New England and Red Bull away, with Chivas USA and RSL at home in their last four) - and hope the rest falls in place; the game against Red Bull, in particular, squats on the season’s final day. It’s good to see this talented team wake up - I’m looking at you Davy Arnaud and Jack Jewsbury - but one has to wonder whether it’s too late.
Colorado Rapids, HOLD: Does that call make sense? Probably not. But this is definitely something close to par for Colorado, who has been on the wrong end of a 4-1 scoreline on three other occasions, not to mention the 5-2 loss the suffered to start the season; for all that, though, they’re still in playoff contention. So, yes, they lost horribly, but this keeps with their trademark bipolar identity - though it's worth noting their spells of elation don't match the intensity of their depressions. They may yet miss the playoffs and, given that they’re likely as not to follow a 1-0 home leg win with a total collapse, they could be better off missing out. All this is kind of a shame because Kyle Beckerman, for one, is having the season of his life. The same can’t be said for one Clint Mathis.
Chivas USA, DOWN: This weekend’s home draw produced two negative outcomes for Chivas: first, it wasted a home game, as well as a chance at making a statement; two, it keeps them perilously close to the playoff trap-door. The failure to put this one away - and with Dallas looking shakily defensively throughout - Chivas blew this one. More below.
FC Dallas, HOLD: This would have been an “up,” but, given how much Dallas ‘keeper Dario Sala had to do - and well - these guys looked unnervingly vulnerable. The only saving grace comes from the fact that Chivas USA is a pretty handy side going forward. Dallas did, however, pull out the tie on a pretty (and pretty interesting goal) from Kenny Cooper (NOTE on this: the commentary does a good job on picking up Chris Gbandi’s overlapping run, which really messed up the defender on the play by opening the space for Cooper). All in all, Dallas keeps on doing what it needs to do. If long-time bogey-team, the LA Galaxy misses the playoffs, their chances of going deep improve somewhat. And, you know what?
Los Angeles Galaxy, DOWN - this one hurt a bit: Well, I stretched in my predictions and this game, in particular, got me; I thought sure LA was going to formally enter the playoff picture in Week 24. After watching the highlights and seeing the Galaxy find hole after gap after hole in Houston’s back line, one gets to wondering how they didn’t win this one. But the fact remains that they didn’t, thus producing the wrong kind of statistic in the most significant of places. It seems doing things right isn’t always enough. Los Angeles remains very much alive, but they’ve got a pair of ugly, ugly home-and-home series ahead (Chicago and FC Dallas, anyone?) before season’s end. It’s fair to say their in trouble.
Houston Dynamo, UP: Just when you think Los Angeles has Houston’s number, the Galaxy goes and loses it. Next thing you know, Houston is six-points deep in playoff safety and things are looking up. Once again, Dwayne DeRosario deserves a buttload of the credit. And it’s still unnerving to see right-back Craig Waibel scoring more often than Houston’s forwards. Though there are still things to sort out for this bunch, they’ll at least make the playoffs. From there, they may be able to ride the home half of the home-and-home series and DeRosario to go deeper than one would think.
Date
Mon 09/11/06, 10:50 am EST
