Seattle’s depth too much for the Galaxy
It had been billed as a great spectacle to bring the regular season to a close – two of the biggest-spending teams in MLS clashing in a winner-takes-all match for the regular season title, home advantage in the MLS Cup playoffs, and perhaps a twist in Seattle’s perennial reputation for choking in anything other than Open Cup situations.
For the best part of the match it was a scrappy affair, with neither side doing much more than seek to negate the other. Seattle looked content to mark Gyassi Zardes out of the game and soak up the limited Galaxy pressure for the draw that would give them the Shield, while LA, missing the injured Robbie Keane up front, were reluctant to commit men forward until the end of the game, and consistently fouled to break up Seattle counters, and in doing so killed any hope for an exciting contest.
But in the end there was a decisive intervention, and fittingly, given this season of multiple angles of attack for the Sounders, it came from beyond the celebrated pairing of Clint Dempsey and Obafemi Martins – even if both played a part in the goal that broke the game open.
It’s been a while since Marco Pappa was the main man at any of his clubs but from the point that Sigi Schmid made him the first substitute of the game, he was the clear difference. Not just for the way he strode onto Martins’ beautiful pass to score low into the corner in the 85th minute, or the way he robbed Penedo in stoppage time before chipping a second, but in putting his foot on the ball, running down the clock and generally looking like the man who would make the difference.
And that’s important. The Sounders have been found wanting in previous seasons but this year has been one where their support cast have both profited from and augmented their stars in attack, and it was fitting that they should take the Shield in such a fashion – beating yet another opponent with the greater sum of their parts.
For LA, who brought on Alan Gordon when they were already chasing the game, and who saw him spurn two very presentable chances, this was a game they never looked wholly convinced they could win – playing the game partly with an eye on the playoffs (certainly where it came to risking an injury-hampered Keane on the rain-slick turf of the CenturyLink Field was concerned).
Perhaps history will prove Bruce Arena was right to be cautious, but it will also show that when it came down to it, Schmid had the wherewithal and resources to win the Shield rather than just let it pass to them. Seattle’s squad are worthy regular season champions for the first time – now their minds will turn to another possible first. GP
Bradley Wright-Phillips shows his value
In the race to MVP, several names have cropped up repeatedly, though the emphasis of late has tended to be on the players who’ve contributed to the frontrunners in the Shield race (Robbie Keane and Obafemi Martins in particular), rather than players such as Lee Nguyen, whose nine game-winning goals among his 18 this season look pretty valuable, or Golden Boot winner Bradley Wright-Phillips.
BWP equalled the all-time MLS regular season goal record on Sunday night, matching Roy Lassiter and Chris Wondolowski on 27 goals with a brace in Kansas City. But where Wondolowski’s goals were enough to win him the 2012 MVP award, Wright-Phillips has generally been routinely dismissed from the MVP conversation, ironically because there’s been a perception that he both doesn’t score enough, and that somehow a tally seen as built on the back of Thierry Henry’s perfectly placed assists is somehow less legitimate than one built largely on his own inventiveness (as is the impression with, say, Keane).
In fairness, Henry hasn’t helped that impression with comments such as the one he made in the wake of Wright-Phillips hitting 20 goals and breaking the club single-season record – Henry said he’d told the striker he should have had 40. Indeed there’s been an almost apologetic air to the way the humble Wright-Phillips has celebrated goals that have come in games where he’d already spurned good chances, that seems to acknowledge he sees more to Henry’s comments than unreasonable perfectionism.
ButWright-Phillips has taken those 27 chances, and on Sunday night he did so without Henry pulling the strings. After Columbus had pulled off a dramatic late victory earlier in the afternoon, New York had arrived in Kansas City knowing they were playing for the right to bring the hosts back to New York for an elimination game on Thursday night (perhaps a dubious honor given New York’s 0-4 playoff record at Red Bull Arena). They did so without Henry – who had been feeling an achilles strain and did not travel.
Without his prompting Wright-Phillips did what he does anyway — making defense- stretching runs and finishing coolly: his goals were microcosms of both teams’ seasons – the New York attacker finding finishes after appearing to have taken one touch too many, in a reflection of his own team’s strange pattern of intermittent attacking effectiveness throughout the year. Kansas City, for their part, looked like the stretched and weary team they are.
Sporting must now regroup to travel to New York after a week in which they were knocked into fifth place in the Eastern Conference and out of the Champions League at the group stage. They look a shadow of the force that swept to the MLS Cup last year, and while New York’s goals both came against the run of play, they were never under the type of high pressure Sporting can exert when Peter Vermes has them at their intense best.
But none of that diminishes the value of Wright-Phillips’ goals throughout the year or on the night. And if he missed a one on one chance late on to make it 28 and break the record, perhaps it’s perfectly apt. After all, he should have had 40. GP
Chivas USA depart with some pride
With three wins in their last four games, Chivas USA actually finished the season with their best performance in five years. Ordinarily, this would be a moment for coaches to clutch at such positives as something to build on for next year, but for Chivas, there is no next year.
Officially the team will be on hiatus, but few are in any doubt that Chivas USA played their last game on Sunday, before dispersing the club’s players to follow “individual training programs”. For most sides that’s a prudent approach to an off-season – for Chivas it’s more of a final prudent mothballing of assets for a dispersal draft.
There was a game to be played to conclude business – a dead rubber against San Jose Earthquakes. The Earthquakes have had a dismal season themselves – that had featured the unedifying sight of their approach to club favorite and Houston coach Dom Kinnear being made public, to force the club hierarchy into relieving Mark Watson of his duties before the end of the season.
At least Kinnear’s impending arrival and the soon-to-be-completed new stadium for the Earthquakes means there’s something on the horizon for disgruntled San Jose fans who can’t wait to see the back of 2014. They may have slipped to the bottom of the West with the 1-0 defeat to Chivas that ended the year, but they may reflect that better that than slip out of existence.
For the Chivas fans who, though few in numbers, have shown more loyalty to the club than many of its owners could legitimately ask for, the circumstances of the league’s unresolved attempts to find a buyer mean that they haven’t even had the consolation of a formal farewell. Sunday was as near as they’re likely to get – and true to the club’s recent history, most eyes this weekend were on the other team from LA. GP
Vancouver Whitecaps’ slim victory over the Rapids an ode to coach Carl Robinson
It was, on paper, a cinch. In order to make the MLS playoffs for only the second time in their history, the Vancouver Whitecaps needed only to beat a team that had gone 0-2-11 in their last 13 matches. But “on paper” rarely determines things in MLS, and so the Whitecaps, while not exactly struggling to create chances against Pablo Mastroeni’s inept Colorado Rapids on Saturday night at BC Place, still kept the result in shadow of a doubt until the very end.
It didn’t help Vancouver’s cause that Colorado were a team with nothing to play for but intent to play for it anyway. While the Rapids shelled for much of the game, Charles Eloundou and Gabriel Torres still forced Whitecaps’ David Ousted into a few key saves.
But the dynamic Vancouver offense, key to their success in recent weeks, didn’t help at times either in their eagerness to seal the result early. In the first half they played an aggressive style that verged on the overcooked, with Mauro Rosales sending in as many wayward crosses as Pedro Morales took wayward shots. Perhaps the most disappointing was Darren Mattocks, who went off in the 66th minute for Erik Hurtado, a player who yet again failed to offer much of a difference for Vancouver up front. Panic didn’t exactly settle in, but it knocked loudly on the front door.
That was until the 70th minute, when the big Costa Rican defender Kendall Waston saved the day with a header from a Pedro Morales corner. It would be the only goal in the Caps’ postseason-sealing victory.
Few saw it coming, except maybe Caps coach Carl Robinson. Back in August, when Robinson explained to reporters about why he sought out the 6ft 6in Waston, a player with a noted ability to score headers from dead-ball situations, Robinson responded “I think it’s been a problem for us since we’ve come into Major League Soccer that we haven’t been that great on set pieces. You’ve got to try to identify areas where you can improve the team throughout, and that’s an area I identified.”
That’s why Waston’s winner and Vancouver’s playoff qualification on the back of a record-breaking 50 points says as much about the coach as it says about the club. Successful teams are all about depth, about ensuring that if one key player falls out of form, another will rise to the occasion. In a league where many talk big about visionary projects, Robinson calmly built a competitive side with several key pieces like Waston and Rosales added midseason. The fruits of Robinson’s careful labour – a Cascadia Cup, CCL qualification, and now a wild card play-in this week against FC Dallas – are richly deserved. RW
Nagbe’s only goal of the season was Portland’s winner, but it was too little, too late
It was Darlington Nagbe’s first goal of the season and it came, perhaps fittingly, in the Portland Timbers’ final game of the season.
After menacing Dallas all evening with several politely uninterrupted runs into the 18-yard box, Nagbe finally found the net after 30 starts for Portland, though not without the guiding foot of Lady Luck – the shot took a deflection off defender Zach Loyd. Even so, it was well-deserved on the back of the Timbers’ impressive counter-attacking game, and they would add another in the 82nd minute courtesy of Max Urruti.
Nagbe’s only goal of the 2014 season might have been part of the ultimate clutch performance narrative had the Vancouver Whitecaps failed to win their match later that night. That would have seen Portland leapfrog their Cascadia rivals into the last playoff spot in the Western Conference after a weeks-long back and forth for fifth place. Instead, Nagbe’s better-late-than-never strike underscored the Timbers’ season – a team that tried and failed all year to overcome a disastrously slow start in which Portland went eight games without a win.
FC Dallas for their part didn’t look like a team that had until Saturday night posted a 12-1-3 home record. FCD coach Oscar Pareja clearly saw an opportunity to bypass a normally vulnerable Portland by having Fabian Castillo repeatedly charge down the left hand side, but it came to little under the careful pressure of Alvas Powell in right back. Meanwhile Dallas looked dazed retreating on the break, seemingly unable to find a way to challenge the Timbers’ offense.
Nevertheless, Portland did need a little bit of luck to sustain them on at least one occasion. Minutes after Castillo had his sloppy attempt at a Hand of God goal on a free-kick scratched off in the 63rd minute, a throw-in following a set-piece attempt ended up with Blas Perez’s header disallowed after the ball was judged to have crossed the goal line before Castillo crossed it. TV angles weren’t enough to judge the call, but in the end, it was Portland’s night regardless.
In all, Dallas didn’t look like a team particularly determined to avoid the wildcard play-in match this midweek As for the Timbers, coach Caleb Porter could only look back and wonder what might have been had his team strung together a group of like performances back in March and April. RW
Wild Card playoffs
WESTERN CONFERENCE: FC Dallas vs Vancouver Whitecaps (Weds)
EASTERN CONFERENCE: New York Red Bulls vs Sporting KC (Thurs)
