HexagonalBlog

San Jose go 1-for-2 in MLS record chase

San Jose Earthquakes entered today's match at Portland Timbers with an opportunity to break two long-standing MLS records: become the first team in seven seasons to average more than two points per game and the first to reach that landmark twice (LA Galaxy 1998, Miami Fusion 2001, San Jose Earthquakes 2005), and set the individual goal-scoring mark in a season through two goals by Chris Wondolowski (Roy Lassiter's 27 goals in 1996). 

In the end, the Quakes had to settle for one of the two records as they drew 1-1 with the Timbers.  They finish the regular season with 66 points from 34 matches, two points shy of the 68 required, and one win short of 20 wins, which no MLS team has achieved since 1998.  (The LA Galaxy had 24 wins in 1998, of which two were shootout wins.)  Timbers players said during the week that they were in no mood to gift Wondolowski the record, but when the Quakes drew a penalty midway through the first half, there was no doubt who would take the kick.

So Chris Wondolowski will share MLS' goalscoring record with Lassiter and will almost certainly win Most Valuable Player for this season.  The Quakes will host return legs in all of the MLS Cup playoff ties and host the final should they reach it.  There's no way the league will allow the Final to be played at Buck Shaw Stadium so we'll have to find out if another site in the Bay Area will be available.

San Jose win Supporters' Shield, more records to follow?

The San Jose Earthquakes clinched the 2012 MLS Supporters Shield on Saturday night without having to kick a ball -- Sporting Kansas City's goalless draw in the NYC metro left San Jose with an unassailable 64 points.  The Quakes will now play the 2013-14 CONCACAF Champions League with perhaps an easier draw in the group stage.

The Quakes picked up another point today in a 2-2 draw against California Clásico rivals LA Galaxy, which sets up a history-making weekend.  If the Quakes win at Portland on the 28th they will become the fourth MLS side to win more than two points per match.  If Chris Wondolowski scores a goal (he scored one tonight to move up to 26 goals), he will equal Roy Lassiter's MLS single-season goalscoring record at 27 goals, and he scores two he will own the record outright.

MLS' competitiveness in CONCACAF Champions League

After Real Salt Lake's run to the CONCACAF Champions League final last season, and the first-ever wins by MLS  teams in Mexico this season, there was a lot of misplaced optimism about the chances of Major League Soccer teams to contend for the CCL.  That optimism was swiftly dispatched by Mexican clubs in the knockout stages.  Jeff Carlisle wrote a column on ESPN Soccernet inquiring if MLS clubs were doomed to second-tier status against Mexican sides in the competition.  I don't believe that they are, but it takes a special team with a combination of depth, maturity, and good fortune to be competitive in the competition.

Now in Arizona

Greetings from sunny and cool Arizona, where I will be spending a few days in Phoenix.  I'm here to visit some friends but also to check out some of the MLS training camps that are going on in metro Phoenix, Casa Grande, and Tucson.  I believe that New England Revolution, Sporting Kansas City, Seattle Sounders, Real Salt Lake, and San José Earthquakes will be here, so I hope to catch a few glimpses, assuming that their sessions are open to the public, of course.

 

Becks signs on to another two years with the Galaxy

At the end of the 2011 MLS season, the conventional wisdom was that the images of David Beckham raising the Anschutz trophy would be his last in a LA Galaxy uniform.  Paris St-Germain, bankrolled with the billions of their Qatari benefactors, were pushing hard for Beckham to join their team and were willing to pay any price to have him.  So popular opinion was that upon Beckham's contract expiring on the 31st of December, he would join PSG on the 2nd or 3rd of January.  Well, we all know how the PSG negotiations worked out, but it still wasn't clear if Beckham would return to the Galaxy.  Today, Beckham settled the issue about his future by signing a two-year contract with the LA Galaxy.

So why did Beckham turn down a PSG contract that no Galaxy offer could ever match?  I think it came down to a quality-of-life issue.  That's an odd thing to say or read if you're comparing Los Angeles to Paris, but Beckham and his wife have four children and a temporary move for his family was a non-trivial matter (the classic multi-body problem).  It is even less trivial when everyone else in the family likes being in LA.  I would have thought that Beckham would relish the opportunity to become the first English football player to win league titles in four different countries, but it appears that for him, his family comes first.  Good for him.

Beckham said in his statement that he had received offers from various clubs around the world, and I wouldn't be surprised  if that were the case.  The marketing and ticketing payoffs to the club are obvious, and he can still play at a decent level but perhaps not at a major European club (PSG notwithstanding).  Beckham's not coming back to England to play for a club not named Manchester United, and even though Sir Alex Ferguson has recalled recently retired midfielders, Beckham isn't going back there.  Anywhere else gets back to the quality of life issue that I mentioned in the previous paragraph.

For the Galaxy, Beckham's return is a huge boost to their chances for the league and the CONCACAF Champions League.  They still need to acquire a replacement for Juninho to become a contender for the CCL, and that signing will pose the bigger challenge to the team.  Donovan and Keane have to return healthy, of course.

For MLS and their broadcast partners, Beckham's return makes the newly negotiated contracts much more valuable and makes ticket and broadcast promotions easier.  There are of course 300-odd other games to promote, and MLS still needs to find other players like Beckham who can become big stars and help the league continue to grow.

NBC makes an inspired choice for its MLS coverage

The news (and now confirmation) that NBC Sports has hired Seattle Sounders match commentator Arlo White as its lead man for MLS coverage is a loss for the Sounders and their fans but a much bigger boost to the state of American soccer commentary.  White came over from the BBC but not without some familiarity with American sport as he had commentated a Super Bowl a few years before.  In two years, he has incorporated the best of British and American styles to establish himself as one of the top soccer commentators in the USA and developed a strong bond with the Sounders club and its supporters.  Of course, this means one more British commentator for Paul Gardner to rail against, but I think we will manage.

Yet another call for MLS to switch to European calendar

So Joseph Blatter made a slightly less questionable pronouncement last week by repeating his call for Major League Soccer to switch to a European calendar.  I wrote a long piece earlier this year explaining the reasons why MLS won't, and to be honest shouldn't.  I am not sure that a person like Blatter truly appreciates the challenges that a fall-to-spring MLS would face, from weather to pitches to media, and when he says that such a move would improve the popularity of the sport in this country, I find it challenging to believe that he knows what he is talking about.  A fall-to-spring soccer season is even more of a non-starter in USL, NASL, and below as many of these teams share stadia with high schools or colleges, and these clubs would have nowhere to play.  So a switch to such a league schedule would see a lot more teams playing on artificial surface or with ugly gridiron lines.  How exactly that spectacle is supposed to increase the popularity of soccer in the USA is not something that a rocket scientist like me can understand.

And besides, if US Soccer told Blatter to pound sand, what would he do?  Keep the USA from hosting a World Cup?

One-nil to the Galaxy

I had it all wrong.  There was no way that the Galaxy were going to defeat the Houston Dynamo 3-1.  They always looked like winning Sunday's MLS finale, but it's only fitting that the final scoreline would be the Galaxy's 11th win by the minimum this season.  The loss of Brad Davis, who was the league's best creator alongside David Beckham, crippled the Dynamo's midfield, and the in-match injury to Geoff Cameron weakened their backline severely.  Nevertheless, the Galaxy were translating their territorial dominance into very few chances, and those few chances were being squandered repeatedly, so the Dynamo still had a chance.  One sustained possession, a flick here, a poke there, who knows what could happen?  In the end, that scenario fell to the Galaxy's three Designated Players: a flick-on by Beckham, a lovely through pass by Keane, and a precise poke to the far corner by Donovan.  Houston never looked closer to scoring after that, and the final whistle brought from celebrations from the field and around the Home Depot Center. 

The Galaxy won their third championship, one behind DC United.  Bruce Arena joined Sigi Schmid as the only managers to win MLS titles with two different clubs.  Landon Donovan won his fourth MLS Cup winners' medal and his second MLS Cup Most Valuable Player award.  And David Beckham became the second English footballer to win domestic league titles in three different countries.

The debate is starting on whether this Galaxy team is the best to ever play in Major League Soccer; John Paul Dellacamera gives his reasons why he thinks they are.  I think there is unfinished business in CONCACAF to settle, but consider what this team has achieved, not just this season, but in the last three seasons.  The Galaxy have finished in the top two in the regular season table over the last three seasons, and in the last two have topped the table with a points-per-game average of 1.97.  To the best of my knowledge no other MLS team has ever displayed such a high level of performance over two seasons.  In fact, just three MLS teams have had points-per-game averages exceeding 2.00, and none of them came close to matching that level before or after (the Miami Fusion sadly expired after 2001).  There were other teams with more prolific scoring, and there were others with better defenses -- just look at Real Salt Lake's record-setting defense last season.  But very few of those teams ended up as MLS Cup champions, and none of those sides who scored more than 2.0 points per game won the league.  What the Galaxy have done, what Bruce Arena has done, is that they have formed a team that is capable not just of playing at a high level but also winning the hard matches.  I think their match record over the last two seasons and their record in 1-0 matches indicate that.

So MLS has the ending it wanted.  I don't mean necessarily that they wanted to see the Galaxy win it, but I'm sure they wanted their league finale to be decided before a packed stadium with a partisan crowd, with raucous scenes of celebration as the players took a victory lap with the trophy, fans waving signs saying "Please stay David Beckham!"  Well, the last phrase is definitely the ending David Beckham wanted.    From the accident-filled start to his five-year run, to the non-appearances, to the Beckham Experiment, to the loan moves and injuries, and now this season, the one season where Beckham could devote himself totally to Galaxy turned out to be his best season.  He earned his place in the league Best XI (not so sure about him being named Comeback Player of the Year), and he should have been named MVP of the MLS Cup final.  I think the chances of him joining Paris St.-Germain are greater now that he has won the league, and you have to think that a man who pays as much attention to milestones as David Beckham would relish the chance to be the first Englishman to win domestic titles in four countries.  But whatever he decides, Beckham will view his time with the Galaxy as part of the same grand arc that has characterized his career.

Lots of things to happen in the off season, such as a new MLS team, a couple of stadiums opening, and a revamped regular season and playoff format.  It all begins again in four months, three if you're one of the MLS teams still in the Champions League.

MLS ends neutral-site MLS Cup, makes conference finals two-leg

Since the league's inception, Major League Soccer has been trying to find the right playoff format, right meaning one that gave some meaning to the regular season while creating increased fan interest during the post-season.  The latest iteration came yesterday, when the MLS Board of Governors approved four major changes in the league playoff format:

• Top five teams in each conference, no wild-card slots.
• Seeds #4 and #5 in each conference in a one-match play-in.
• Conference finals are now a two-leg series.
• MLS Cup final hosted by team with higher regular-season point total.

To me the biggest change to the playoff format is the end of the neutral-site MLS Cup Final.  I always felt that designating the MLS Cup as a neutral-site event was a huge mistake as it removed the opportunity to create a compelling made-for-TV event and ensure full attendance by home town supporters.  I believe I understand the rationale of Doug Logan at the time in that MLS Cup is a showpiece event on par with the Super Bowl, except for the fact that MLS was not, and is not, the NFL.  It was one of several errors of the Logan era.

That said, having a neutral-site MLS Cup Final makes a lot of logistics easier.  It is much easier to plan travel for the event when you know exactly when and where it will be.  End-of-season events like the MLS Supporters' Summit are some of the major events that are planned around the MLS Cup, as well as corporate hospitality events.  Perhaps the way to work around this is to have a MLS awards show and supporters' events in one city a week or two after the Final, which is easier to attend but would involve more travel for finalists' supporters.

As for the rest of the playoff changes, I think the switch of the conference finals to a two-leg format makes sense and is an indication that MLS teams and fans have a greater understanding of how the format works.  Once you view it as a mini-league, the format no longer appears so foreign.  And despite higher-seed teams grumbling about not hosting the first game, the result data show that teams hosting the second leg (i.e. higher seed teams) are 3-2 favorites for winning the series.  The second game also guarantees a home match for the lower seed which means a guaranteed gate for both sides in the playoffs.  MLS still won't embrace the away goals rule or even "sporting advantage", which in the end increases the probability of a series being decided by penalty kicks, which I thought everyone hated.

I do wish that the league would just do away with conferences, have playoffs between the top eight and have two-leg playoffs up to and including the MLS Cup Final.  Or even drop playoffs, which haven't been all that popular if you look at attendance figures.  But I know neither scenario will happen -- MLS is a North American sports league, after all -- so I will applaud MLS' move toward a playoff system that looks more familiar to observers in the rest of the world.

Bobby Rhine, RIP

Former FC Dallas player and current broadcaster Bobby Rhine passed away last night after suffering a heart attack at the age of 35.  He played over 200 games for the MLS team over his 10-year career, and moved into the front office and later match commentary post-playing career.  I heard his broadcasts a few times and he seemed to be coming into his own as a commentator.  Just a few days ago I saw one of his tweets on my Twitter feed.  Now he's gone forever.

My deepest sympathies to his widow and their children, and to FCD staff and supporters everywhere. RIP.

UPDATE: If you would like to make a donation in memory of Bobby Rhine, you may do so here.