FCD radio voice Steve Davis gives his thoughts on five hot topics in the week that was in American soccer...
1. Worrying about Jason Kreis at Orlando City
I ran into Jason Kreis as his team arrived for the first time into Seattle’s stadium for MLS Cup 2009; he saw me and gave me a hug.
It was a nice moment, even if from a journalist’s standpoint it was probably borderline inappropriate. But I had known the guy forever. I was in the stadium as Kreis scored his first professional goal. I was probably one of the first reporters to talk to the shy rookie. He was a young midfielder; I was a young-ish reporter.
Four years after Kreis and Real Salt Lake claimed the 2009 crown, I ran into him at MLS Cup 2013. Everyone sensed that he was leaving soon for NYCFC. I worried about it and told him so; that place looked about as stable as a two-legged stool.
Today, I’m worried about Kreis again – not that he needs it or asked for it. I’m just a worrier.
Kreis is the new manager at Orlando City SC. He’ll work hard. Probably to a fault. And Kreis knows what he’s doing. His teams at Real Salt Lake were well-balanced in the roster, well-drilled on the field and stacked high with achievement as a result.
He’ll do the same in Orlando … but only if he gets the chance, if the organization has its stuff together. I have my doubts.
Don’t listen to people’s words when they tell you about themselves; the right words come easy, as we know. Rather, watch them. They show you what they are. What has Orlando shown? Here’s a good, quick breakdown. It’s a brisk walk through the front office instability that has marked the club. Here’s another one; I’m apparently not the only one worried.
For two years Orlando City has assured everyone it has the personnel to make the playoffs – and for two years I’ve refused to buy what they are selling.
Antonio Nocerino is the very picture of a good player who doesn’t fit in MLS. Kaka is a force when healthy – but when has he been healthy over a long stretch? (A pox that goes back to his days at A.C. Milan and Real Madrid.) At $7 million a year, he’s a luxury item. There were (and still are) too many marginal talents, augmented by players whose roles are too loosely defined. There are other issues with the roster, further indicators of potential meddling ownership, but you get the idea.
Hubris is the other issue. See, expansion clubs (or clubs on the roster reboot) get themselves in trouble when they see themselves as exceptions. That is, exceptions to the rule that says “It takes time to build a winner.” Buzzed by the blooming beauty of fantasy land, they demand winning now! Lit into shape by the cold water splash of the real world, they blame everyone else and set course for more meddling.
And just who will make the personnel calls? When I see an MLS front office with no defined player personnel hierarchy, I see another two-legged stool.
Perhaps there is hope … ironically arriving in the same person I’m worried about. Hiring Kreis does tell us something good. Orlando owners Flávio da Silva or Phil Rawlins or whomever is making the calls could have gone “splashy” with the hire; they went with the best candidate, someone who clearly knows how to win in MLS.
Perhaps things are moving in the right direction. Perhaps lessons have been learned. Maybe they’ll even listen to Kreis and go easy on the meddling. We’ll see.
2. How many MLS teams go undefeated at home?
What follows is a list of ALL the teams that have gone undefeated at home in MLS over last three years:
Got it? That’s all of them.
It’s hard. Parity prevails in MLS, as we know. Navigating a full season of home matches without a couple of stinkers is doggone near impossible.
Oh, it has happened. Houston in 2012, the team’s first year inside BBVA Compass Stadium for instance. Perhaps visitors were disoriented by all that orange paint, splashed so liberally around the club’s downtown ground.
L.A. Galaxy did it in 2011, a team with stacked with Landon Donovan, David Beckham, Omar Gonzalez, Juninho, Robbie Keane and more. Real Salt Lake did the deal in 2010. Kreis’ tight bunch was coming off a 2009 MLS Cup championship.
That’s it for undefeated MLS clubs at home over the last 10 years.
Which bring us to 2016, which is shaping up to be a huge anomaly. Possibly – there’s still time for stinkers. Four clubs remain unbeaten within what we like to call “the friendly confines:” Dallas, Colorado, L.A. Galaxy and Real Salt Lake. No coincidence that those are the top four teams in the West. (Also known as way, far and away the better conference for now.)
I’ll bet my prized Oscar Pareja bobblehead that all four won’t make it. Real Salt Lake has looked wobbly lately. Dallas still has Open Cup and CONCACAF Champions League to deal with.
Let’s assign “best chances” to Bruce Arena’s team. The Galaxy has tricky spots dead ahead with home matches against the Red Bulls and surprising Colorado. But after that, four of the Galaxy’s last five visitors into the StubHub Center are currently .500 of below.
3. Multiple candidates for MVP? That’s a good sign
Show me a team where we can have a good, spirited debate about MVP for all the right reasons, and I’ll show you a strong team.
I give you the Colorado Rapids.
I’ve watched Colorado a few times this year. (Which requires MLS Live; the lack of national broadcasts for the Rapids is walking, talking, real-world evidence that MLS needs more flexibility in its national TV scheduling.) But I honestly cannot come up with a solid MVP choice.
I can come up with a handful of really good candidates, although they are almost all on the defensive end. That’s certainly not surprising since Pablo Mastroeni’s team leads the league in goals allowed (just 13 in, five better than the next club).
There’s center back Axel Sjöberg, the big Swede who makes crosses in Colorado’s 18 a questionable idea. There’s Michael Azira, who was a good performer in two years at Seattle – but held the unfortunate position of playing behind one of the league’s top holding midfielders, Osvaldo Alonso. (Colorado collected the Ugandan midfielder on waivers last December.)
Alongside Azira sits Sam Cronin, who was once just a tough guy and a bit of a one-trick pony around MLS. Under Pablo Mastroeni’s tutelage – remember, this was Mastroeni’s position as a player – Cronin has become a more complete player, more adept at pushing tempo when necessary or playing safer possession when it’s time for that. And he’s still a tough customer in his screening duties.
Just as you could make a case for Cronin, you could certainly make one for Jermaine Jones, although it wouldn’t be a strong one right now because he simply hasn’t played in enough games. Jones means so much in leadership, and his goals (three of them) have been important ones. Anyone else get the feeling that by September, we might have a stronger case for the U.S. international?
Then there’s Zac MacMath. If we’re talking about MVP at this point of the season, in any other year someone would make a case for the Rapids’ displaced goalkeeper. But making a case for a guy who just got pushed to the bench would be … well, just kind of weird. Tim Howard has the starters’ gloves now, of course, but it’s not because MacMath did anything wrong. After a couple of early hiccups in 2016, the former Philadelphia ‘keeper was splendid between the pipes at DSG Park.
Finally, between Albanian international Shkëlzen Gashi, striker Kevin Doyle and playmaker Marco Pappa (who has been mostly effective when healthy this year), any of them could elbow their way into the team MVP conversation with a big scoring run before it’s over.
There’s not enough scoring at Colorado, but there’s something special happening there just the same; you don’t go 14 consecutive matches without a loss by accident. Good performances around the park by a strong list of midseason MVP candidates is a major reason why.
4. The only competition that matters now: U.S. Open Cup
The hierarchy of trophies that matter in MLS is a little muddled. Oh, it’s easy enough to pick out the king daddy, MLS Cup. But from there, we can have a humdinger of a debate about No. 2, whether its U.S. Open Cup or Supporters Shield.
(Someday, we might add “CONCACAF Champions League winner” to the discussion. Sigh. Someone in MLS has to win that thing first.)
Of course, the argument is highly subject to time and place. Here’s what I mean:
A fairly big handful of teams remain alive and kicking in the Supporters Shield chase. But for a couple of MLS sides, perhaps even for three of them, one and only one piece of hardware matters right now. Chicago and Houston are “all in” for U.S. Open Cup. Perhaps we can add Seattle to that list very soon.
It’s all very reasonable, too – maybe for more reasons than you think.
First the obvious: Houston and Chicago are dead last in their conference – dead in the water in terms of playoff chances. Yes, it’s MLS, where one big run of “Ws” can get a club back into post-season contention lickety-split. But anyone see a big run like that coming out of Toyota Park or BBVA Compass Stadium? Me either.
Open Cup is it! Both clubs are in this week’s quarterfinals, where the real business end of this tourney begins. And make no mistake, an Open Cup title is something clubs can hang their hats on. It can be a springboard to bigger and better.
And it clearly can rescue coaching careers that are circling the drain. Anybody think Ben Olsen would still be at RFK had his otherwise awful D.C. United side from 2013 not claimed the Open Cup? That bunch won an MLS all-time low three matches, and finished with a ridiculous -37 goal difference. Yet the coach kept his job, still employed today at RFK, due a run of good Open Cup results and one night of extremely good fortune in Utah (a 1-0 win in the final).
Oh, and there’s a CONCACAF Champions League spot (and the attached prestige) that goes to the winner.
That helps explain why Chicago Fire manager Veljko Paunovic practically ran up the white flag so to speak last weekend in Dallas, sitting many key starters at Dallas. Houston had an extra day of rest (playing last Friday rather than Saturday), so Wade Barrett went with more starters at L.A. (His team lost anyway, so you wonder if Barrett might just regret that choice.)
Everyone is hungry for U.S. Open Cup success. For some teams, it’s more “starving” for it than just “hungry” for it – there’s just nothing else around to eat.
5. The Little Five
5a. When I’m king of the world, fans will pick one goalkeeper, two defenders, two midfielders and two forwards for the 23-man MLS All-Star roster. A rotating panel of five MLS managers (two from each conference, plus that year’s All-Star coach) will select the rest. It won’t be perfect … but it will be less imperfect than the current system.
5b. When that systems kicks in, we hopefully won’t have players like Diego Valeri and Matt Hedges left off the roster. No offense to Matt Besler, Steve Birnbaum, Andrew Farrell, Brandon Vincent or Kendall Waston (all All-Star defenders), but none have been the steady rock that Hedges has been this year. And while recognizing Kaka’s star appeal, and while understanding that an All-Star game is largely about the razzmatazz, there’s no way the brittle Brazilian should be on the roster over Valeri.
5c. We hear an awful lot about Colorado’s defense (including my own words above). But you know who actually leads the league in shots allowed per game? Only two clubs are below 10 in average shots allowed per match: Sporting Kansas City and Dallas. (Which makes Hedges’ All-Star snub that much more difficult to understand, because he - with a nod to rising star Walker Zimmerman as well - is the duct tape that has held together a somewhat rotating cast along the back line at Toyota Stadium.)
5d. Watching Jesse Marsch’s team blow a two-goal lead last week at Philadelphia made me think this: Marsch may have to learn the lesson Peter Vermes once learned at Sporting KC. That is, that playing high-pressure is great and all, and it will win you matches. But unless teams have a “change-up pitch,” that ability to play a different game, to throttle down under certain circumstances, winning the big one will be frustratingly elusive.
5e. After watching Sacha Kljestan score again last week, this needs to be said again. (Again and again and again, probably.) How can this guy possibly not be called back into the national team? First, just because! He’s good right now. And second, he works every day in the kind of high-pressing system Jurgen Klinsmann keeps telling us he wants. No, Kljestan hasn’t always taken full advantage of his national team opportunities. Then again, we can say the same about quite a few others who keep getting caps
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.