MLS Review Week 31: Just Three Games to Go

By: Daryl | November 4th, 2007

Fire celebrat Last week I believe I promised you some playoff-related joy and despair, and MLS certainly delivered. Not a bold prediction considering four teams were going through to the Conference finals and four teams were definitely going home with their season in tatters, but still.

Here’s a quick recap of what happened. Skip the next four paragraphs if you’ve heard all this before:

DC United 2-2 Chicago Fire (Fire win 3-2 on aggregate)
-DC Hosted Chicago at RFK Stadium, trailing 1-0 from the first leg, and found themselves a further two goals down at half time thanks to Chad Barratt and Chris Rolfe. In a very watchable second half DC staged a comeback with two goals in five minutes from Clyde Simms and Cristian Gomez. Gomez even had the ball in the net again in the 92nd minute, which would have leveled the tie on aggregate, only to have it disallowed for handball.

Chivas USA 0-0 Kansas City Wizards (Wizards win 1-0 on aggregate)
-Chivas hosted Kansas City Wizards in a similar situation to DC, trailing by one goal. A goalless draw was enough to see the Wizards through, with kepper Kevin Hartman (and the frame of his goal) keeping Chivas out. Not that the Wizards sat on their lead, they showed plenty of enterprise to get forwards and deserve to go through on aggregate.

Houston Dynamo 4-1 FC Dallas (Dynamo win 4-2 on aggregate)
-The only team that did turn over a first leg deficit was Houston Dynamo, who hosted fellow Texan’s Dallas FC trailing by one goal. That deficit doubled when Carlos Ruiz put a great volley into the upper 90, but it all went wrong for Dallas in the second minute of the second half when Arturo Alvarez lost his rag and blatantly kicked Brad Davis in the groin after the play. There’s only one rewards for doing that, and it’s red. Ten man Dallas struggled as Holden scored for Dynamo in the 66nd minute and Brian Ching levelled the tie five minutes later. In extra time Brian Ching profited from a mix up in Dallas’ defence to put Dynamo ahead before – just to make Alvarez feel even worse – Brad Davis bent it like some sort of left footed Beckham to score from a free kick. Lights out Dallas.

New England Revolution 1-0 New York Red Bull (Revolution win 1-0 on aggregate)
-At Foxboro, New England and New York started level after a goalless first leg. Taylor Twellman finished off a great team move involving Shalrie Joseph and Steve Ralston in the 63rd minute and that was the difference.

And so the fallout, losers first:

DC United: That makes two years in a row that DC have dominated the regular season, won the Suporter’s Shield comfortably and failed in the playoffs. It’s hard to know what they can do exactly, except maybe pretend the Supporter’s Shield is what counts most anyway. They were in horrible form coming into the playoffs but you could argue that’s the systems fault. Because DC wrapped up a playoff spot early, it’s possible they lost their cutting edge in the closing weeks. And cutting edges are a lot harder to rediscover than to lose. Also there’s the argument that the 1st seed playing the 8th seed is massively unfair, as the 8th seed is usually the form team with all the momentum as they’ve probably just put several results to sneak into 8th place, just as Chicago did. On the other hand DC played too defensively at Chicago, placing too much faith in their home form, and so possibly deserved to lose just for that.

Chivas USA: I was really hoping they’d go further, and I think a few other neutrals felt the same. But sadly their incredible season is over. In some ways they won’t be too upset as they’ve probably done better than even they expected this season, but they will still feel disappointed to have their season ended by a team that wasn’t looking too hot at the close of the regular season.

Dallas FC: Never really seriously looked like they were going to do anything this year. The team has also developed a nasty reputation as Carlos Ruiz continues to make MLS enemies, while Arturo Alvarez probably isn’t popular in the Brad Davis household either. Worse has been Designated Player Denilson, who hasn’t done anything of note and may be a big ol’ waste of cash.

New York Red Bull: Claudio Reyna has still got plenty of talent, but I don’t see how he can justify his DP status when he’s always injured. Captain America limped out injured (again) in the 25th minute of NYRB’s 1-0 defeat to New England and unless anyone knows about some miraculous body lotion he’ll be another year older in 2008. In Juan Pablo Angel and Jozey Altidore the team have the beginning of a beautiful partnership, but with all the money Red Bull have spent Bruce Arena might want to keep one eye on the want ads, just in case.

And now the winners:
Seems odd that neither of the regular season Conference champs will be featuring in the Conference Championships, though it may also be evidence of the relative equality throughout the league. Here’s how it will all play out later this week:

Eastern Conference Championship
New England Revolution vs Chicago Fire
Thursday, Nov 8th, 7:30 pm EST, ESPN2

Western Conference Championship
Houston Dynamo vs Kansas City Wizards
Saturday, Nov 10th, 8:30 EST, Fox Soccer Channel

And now the big question for a league that’s still not yet a teenager: what’s best for MLS? One of these four teams will win MLS Cup on November 18th. From a purely health of the league public relations perspective, who would make the best champion?

New England Revs: Would make a nice story after four MLS Cup defeats, will prove MLS teams can lose their star player (Clint Dempsey) without worrying about it, will make a nice double with the US Open Cup

Chicago Fire: Would make an incredible story after their horrific start to the season, would make Cuauhtémoc Blanco an instant legend and so put a positive spin on the DP idea, which it maybe needs after the Beckham injury, Reyna’s record and Denilson’s form. None of the other three teams have a DP.

Kansas City Wizards: Erm. From a PR standpoint I really can’t think how KC winning MLS Cup would help. Would maybe be nice for Eddie Johnson to light up the big games and then leave for Europe in triumph.

Houston Dynamo: Would make Houston the first back to back MLS Cup winners since DC, giving the league a team everyone wants to beat. Would also prove that relocating a franchise isn’t necessarily the worst thing that can happen.