Steve Davis' weekly column, drilling down on five hot topics in American soccer
1. Defending the Colorado Rapids. Again.
One more time, allow me to take a proverbial baseball bat and beat down some bad narrative. This is going to be about Colorado. And about the L.A. Galaxy. And about people just not paying attention to things that actually matter for competitive results.
Too many people just have not given the Colorado Rapids credit for what they have achieved in 2016. Pablo Mastroeni’s team was in the Supporters Shield chase until (literally!) the very last kicks of a long, 34-week season. That simply does not happen by accident.
So what kind of narrative developed as Colorado prepped to meet L.A. in the Western Conference semifinals? “The Rapids are doing it with smoke and mirrors. They got here more or less by accident. The Galaxy’s wealth of stars, plus Bruce Arena’s playoff experience, will carry the day.”
Well, how’d that work out?
I understand where bad narrative comes from – I’ve spent a career working to defeat it.
Yes, L.A. is the big-market draw, flashy, dashy and sassy. They were meeting a club from a fly-over state that doesn’t draw very well (as if attendance has anything to do with performance and results.) It’s a team that has five MLS Cup titles vs. a team that has one.
There was one problem: The Galaxy just didn’t look right all year. (Matt Doyle, aka the Armchair Analyst, kept trying to tell you so.) They just couldn’t sort out the midfield, nor find a way to get Robbie Keane and Gio dos Santos on the same page. Which is why Arena’s side came close to a league record for draws with 16 times in 34 games.
People paying more attention would have seen a team that was pretty “meh” down the stretch, aka the time in MLS when “you gotta be right.” The Galaxy was 1-2-2 down the stretch; the Rapids were 3-1-1.
The Rapids were the better team all year – even if not that many people noticed. No, they aren’t a great team to watch. But their stingy style, with so much attention focused sharply on defensive shape and attention (both with and without the ball), is brutally effective.
2. The Rapids are SO hard to play against
In some ways, I think the country remains a wee bit naïve about its soccer. Here is what one writer Tweeted as the Rapids spent an afternoon limiting the Galaxy (you know, Keane, dos Santos, Steven Gerrard, U.S. international Alan Gordon, MLS all-time leading scorer Landon Donovan, etc.) to a single shot on target over 120 minutes: “Neither the Rapids nor Galaxy looking like teams that would inspire fear for a Western Conference final series.”
No offense, but that’s just silly. I don’t know if Seattle or Colorado will ultimately survive the series ahead. But I’d like to think people who cover the game on the regular won’t continue marginalizing the Rapids’ chances just because they aren’t racing up and down the field trying to set offensive records.
You may not like their style, but at some point you had better start liking their chances.
(FYI, I’m not really talking about supporters here; they pay their ticket money and pay for the cable subscriptions to watch games, so they can say and think whatever the heck they wanna. Plus, because the Rapids were virtually invisible on national TV, most general MLS fans probably never saw Mastroeni’s team play in 2016.)
Here’s how bad narrative effects the ongoing discourse: In Leg 1 of the Rapids-Galaxy series, I kept hearing how Colorado just wasn’t doing enough! They created just one shot on target as L.A. won at the Stubhub Center, 1-0.
But that’s how the Rapids were doing it all year: ultimate attention to defense, keeping games close, then “stealing” goals here and there through counters, set pieces, magic moments (Shkelzen Gashi!) and opportunistic finishing. They are oh-so comfortable playing in close matches … so going back to Commerce City down, 1-0, just wasn’t a worry.
Then, in the end, I heard about how the L.A. Galaxy penalties were awful. Well, they weren’t great. But neither was Kevin Doyle’s shot for the Rapids, the one that Galaxy ‘keeper Brian Rowe certainly should have saved. See how the narrative played out? Once again, it was “Galaxy lost” rather than “Rapids win.” It’s all seen through the L.A. lens.
Shame on anybody who doesn’t give Tim Howard credit on those two saves. Attempts from Jeff Larentowicz and Ashley Cole lacked some pace, but both were well-placed. Howard made good reads and dug those out of the corner. In other words, he did precisely what a DP difference maker should do – he came up big when the moment mattered.
The Galaxy has plenty of big DP difference makers, past and present. Only, they weren’t making such a big difference this year. A few people noticed. Quite a few others apparently did not.
3. FC Dallas’ fascinating offseason
Oddity in American sports life: Teams that tumble from playoff grace may suddenly have the more evocative plotlines to follow (as opposed to the clubs still kicking in the post-season chase).
Heck, look at the Galaxy. What are they going to do with out-of-contract Keane? Will Donovan keep the post-retirement gig going? (He hasn’t ruled in out.) Gerrard, heart still in Liverpool, is surely done in L.A., right?
And the Red Bulls have to do … something! They can’t keep finishing atop the East only to cash out and crash out, exiting meekly from there.
So it is with FC Dallas, which finds itself in an interesting place, with decisions to make – and right quick as the transfer season cometh.
To keep progressing, Dallas probably needs: a winger to play opposite of Michael Barrios, who isn’t as effective when teams can slant the focus his way; a right back, to compete with Atiba Harris, a converted midfielder who filled in so admirably, but isn't the prototypical overlapping outside back that is tidy in possession to fit Pareja's style; a striker to push Maxi Urruti, who is an 8-10 goal scorer, someone who provides textbook “defending from the front” but isn’t the 15 to 16-goal scorer the club needs.
Now here comes the tricky part – the question FCD deciders need to answer first, because the shopping list can’t be prioritized until this is sorted out: Does Dallas need a No. 10, a playmaker to fill the gap until Mauro Diaz gets healthy?
A predicted 8-month recovery period from Achilles surgery puts Diaz back on the field, optimistically, by June. But that’s just “back on the field.” To gain full effectiveness mentally and physically? Let’s say, again optimistically, mid-July.
Mid-July will be somewhere around Week 20 (of 34) in MLS league play. And the MLS clubs will be a round or two deep in U.S. Open Cup play – which means quite a few will have been eliminated. So you’re starting to say: “Yes, go get a playmaker! That’s too long to wait.” But not so fast …
Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. Go back to that part above about “making progress.”
See, this looming whopper of a decision (on Diaz and a possible replacement playmakers) looks quite a bit different today for FCD than it would have a year ago. That’s because a year ago, this club desperately needed trophies, not just to validate Oscar Pareja’s daring plan to build on youth, but just … well … because! It had one, lonely little piece of silverware in 20 years. That’s not enough!
Now Dallas has three, including the 2016 Lamar Hunt Open Cup and the 2016 Supporters Shield. That doesn’t mean FCD won’t chase repeat awards in 2017 – it just means that priorities will be shuffled accordingly. You know, once you’ve bought a new kitchen table, you stop looking around for deals on kitchen tables – and maybe you start saving for the new chairs.
There is just one way to “progress:” win MLS Cup.
This is a club that is already the first with back-to-back 60-point seasons. They have their names on the list of Open Cup and Supporters Shield winners, and have qualified for Champions League quarterfinals for the first time. For now, it’s probably all about MLS Cup.
So maybe it makes more sense for FCD to hold off. Put their coins into the chase for a winger, a fullback, a striker or whatever else club deciders covet and just try to “hold serve” until Diaz returns. Yes, they might be tossing away points on the season’s front end, which probably means sacrificing a shot at Supporters Shield. But again, they have that.
Dallas won’t be great without a playmaker, but the structure is solid, especially at center back and with that young, versatile central midfield core. They would likely win enough to be mid-pack or thereabouts, at worst.
We know that teams can finish mid-pack in the final standings and still make their way into the final. The “final four” teams right now were 2, 3, 4 and 5 seeds. Seattle, of course, was barely breathing last July – right about the time Diaz will be back. And look where the Sounders are.
Yes, the club could goose its Champions League chase – the home-and-away quarterfinal series starts in late February – with an effective playmaker. That’s another factor. But so is the prospect of having another good playmaker (and part of your salary, not to mention some of your acquisition budget) riding the bench late next year when the silky smooth Diaz returns to health next year.
4. Alan Gordon replaces Jordan Morris. Let’s discuss …
Anyone else feeling a little conflicted about Monday’s dollop of U.S. national team news, that Jurgen Klinsmann had replaced the injured Jordan Morris with Alan Gordon for the World Cup qualifier ahead?
Yes, you build a team of complementary parts – they don’t all need to look alike. This nut doesn’t look like that bolt or like the screw, and none of them look like the 2 x 4 or the plywood – but they all come together to (hopefully) build a solid structure. It’s like that on any roster, whether it’s for an entire season or for an 18-man roster in one, single World Cup qualifier.
Gordon serves a purpose. He’s a banger. Maybe he can get you a late goal if Friday’s match becomes a mad scramble of hopeful balls lobbed into the penalty area. And he’s a foul machine, if we’re honest, one who could agitate and possibly provoke when the Ohio hostilities resume between these two CONCACAF heavies. Heck, any of these “Dos a Cero” encounters is a tinder box anyway.
On the other hand, I want to live in a world where a guy who isn’t even a starter for an MLS side can be a U.S. national team man; Gordon started just seven games this season. I want my national team to be more than this.
Seriously, there isn’t one forward out there better than a 35-year-old backup for the L.A. Galaxy?
See? Feeling conflicted. Maybe it’s just me.
5. The Little Five
5a. The cruelest day in MLS is about a month away, when expansion draft lists are announced, when clubs may lose players they’d prefer to keep. Here’s yet another reason MLS may need to re-examine the usefulness of this expansion draft exercise, or at least tweak the rules: right now, teams that sign home grown players stand to take a little extra punishment. Teams that develop rosters around young, homegrown signings, only to see them picked off by league newcomers, may be less incentivized to build that way unless things get adjusted.
5b. You talk about “thick with irony.” The team with an MVP candidate and a Coach of the Year candidate getting taken behind the woodshed by a team with neither … and by the guy who should have been the MVP leader! Talking, of course, about NYCFC, where David Villa and Patrick Vieira were looking nothing like award finalists while Sebastien Giovinco reminded everyone that MVP is a “vote,” a selection of human beings, who are fallen and imperfect, as we know.
5c. For a 6-foot-7 guy, Rapids center back Axel Sjoberg isn’t much of a set piece threat. Just sayin’.
5d. There have been quite a few DP busts in MLS through the years. But Gonzalo Veron keeps making his way up that fetid list. He and his absolutely minimal contribution over a season and a half at Red Bull Arena aren’t costing the club a ton in salary ($500,000 annually according to the union figures). But that $2.2 million transfer fee paid to San Lorenzo 15 months ago? Yeah, that’s gotta sting.
5e. Maybe it’s just me, but seems this notion of “higher seed advances in case of aggregate goals tie” is gaining steam. Anything that makes performance over the long season additionally relevant – and this tweak would – is probably a good thing.
Steve Davis has covered Major League Soccer since is first kick in 1996. He writes on-line for FourFourTwo and co-hosts the weekly radio show/podcast ESPN Soccer Today on 103.3 FM in Dallas. Davis is also the radio play-by-play voice for FC Dallas on 100.7 FM.