MLS Week 16: Chicago’s success, D.C. United’s scoring troubles
Chicago have surprised all of us, D.C. United might be in trouble and more thoughts ahead of MLS week 16.
Welcome back from the international break. Tons of MLS players were off with their countries, most of them with the U.S., although more than a few were with the trio of Central American countries that remain in CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying. We also had some U.S. Open Cup action midweek, in which the teams that have USL teams played a lot of young reserve players and the teams that don’t played something close to a best XI. Take from that what you will.
Some things to consider:
Chicago are making all of us look bad
To the dismay of all of us American soccer people, the Chicago Fire have seven wins and three draws in their 12 games since Aging European Superstar Bastian Schweinsteiger arrived on the scene. They’ve vaulted themselves to a solid second place in the increasingly-weird Eastern Conference, and they’ve won five of their past six games.
For a multitude of tactical reasons, the Fire shouldn’t be this good. What should be happening is Dax McCarty getting overrun in defensive midfield, Bastian struggling out of position as a No. 10 and Chicago not figuring out why they’re not in a playoff place despite splashing the cash on a World Cup winner. That’s what everybody (read: me) thought would happen, at least.
Well Veljko Paunovic is laughing at us now. He expertly figured out how to solve this massive tactical puzzle. And, I’ll admit, Schweinsteiger has been a different player than I thought he’d be. Instead of Frank Lampard, he’s been something closer to Felipe but with more technical skills and the ability to hit passes no human should be able to hit.
By that, I mean he runs more than I thought he would, and he seems to be putting some effort in, which can’t be said for someone like Andrea Pirlo, who takes about three steps a game. Schweinsteiger’s quality as a number 8 ensures McCarty isn’t completely overrun in defensive midfield, even though Dax still has to put in a ton of work every game.
That and more is the weekly output from Schweinsteiger, who, let’s not forget, was a string-puller for the German national team for years. He can get pretty ridiculous at times, so add in a serviceable amount of defensive work and you’ve got something going.
Remember that they’d be nowhere without one of the best goalscorers in MLS going out and looking like BWP, and they couldn’t take advantage of Schweinsteiger at all if not for David Accam doing David Accam things week in and week out. Not many MLS teams have somebody as good as Nemanja Nikolic scoring goals all the time, so that’s obviously a big reason for their success. Nikolic, remarkably, is looking for his third career Golden Boot in a third different country. The guy puts the ball in the net.
Accam, meanwhile, goes full Houston Dynamo At Home every week. He positions himself really far wide and very high up the field in the hopes of, at some point, being able to chase down a long switch and sprint past fools with Dom Oduro-type speed. Once he gets close to the goal, he may or may not make the right decision, but whatever happens, it’s exceptionally entertaining, and results in enough goals for Paunovic to allow it to continue.
It’s a pleasure watching Accam play with players who are actually, frankly, good. Their 2-0 win last week against Almiron-less Atlanta was a perfect example of Accam being the perfect dilemma, and it was also a showcase of how fun the Fire can be when the field opens up and Schweinsteiger goes crazy. Dax wasn’t even playing, and he’s been their MVP this year.
Chicago are good again, and everything I said three months ago has basically been thrown out the window. I won’t say I’m fully convinced the Schweinsteiger Fire are here to stay as an elite MLS team, but I will say I’m having crow for breakfast tomorrow.
They play New England Saturday.
Toronto FC are back to full-strength, so be scared D.C.
Midweek U.S. Open Cup action saw D.C. United legitimately almost lose to an amateur team. Christos FC, whose players all have full-time jobs, led for part of the first half and had the game tied until after the 80th-minute, when D.C.’s full-time athletes outlasted the guys who have never trained as a team. They put up three goals in the final 10 minutes to give themselves a morale boost. 4-1 was the final, but nobody will forget that Christos FC were often the better team against D.C. United.
Guess who D.C. get to play next? The best team in MLS, who happen to have not had to play midweek, and who also happen to be at home. Toronto FC have those two advantages — they already had their own cup scare — plus the fact they’re getting back to their top-level strength for the first time since that six-game win streak ended.
Other than injuries to center-back Nick Hagglund and super-sub striker Tosaint Ricketts, TFC will be full go on Saturday, which should scare D.C., who apparently need their sophomore backup center midfielder to go goal-crazy to put the ball in the net; after scoring once in six games, they saw Julian Buescher put up two goals and two assists against Christos. He won’t be in the starting lineup against Toronto after going 90 on Tuesday.
Per a note in MLS’s match preview, United have a grand total of 0.5 goals per game at home. The last time they scored more than one goal in a game in MLS play was April 30 against Atlanta. They last scored multiple goals at RFK Stadium on April 8 in a 2-1 win over NYCFC.
Patrick Mullins has missed a lot of time, but this isn’t that different of a team from last year’s, which dominated late in the season and sprinted head-first into the playoffs, until they were whacked down by Montreal. Patrick Nyarko, their only source of actual forward movement, is back, and Luciano Acosta still hits the crossbar every three minutes. It’s time they figure out what’s ailing them, and that shouldn’t necessarily signal a need to sign a big DP this summer. They should at least be able to tread water until they bring in July reinforcements.
D.C. play five of their next six games on the road, which could be a positive for them, or it could be a season-killer.
A few more thoughts on things:
— Columbus flamed out of the Cup on Wednesday, and now they face Atlanta on the road on Saturday. Despite more than a few stars populating their attack, they can’t seem to put it all together, which seems to have been a theme of their last two seasons. That last sentence was not kind to coach Gregg Berhalter, whose seat should be getting increasingly hot.
Justin Meram is playing like an MVP and Federico Higuain is playing five years younger, so it’s not individual performances that are killing them.
— NYCFC will be without Maxi Moralez on Saturday against Seattle. He’s been great for them as the primary midfielder, so he’ll definitely be missed.
This is a huge opportunity for Tommy McNamara to show himself as a true number 10, and maybe even convince Bruce Arena he’s worthy of a Gold Cup roster spot.
As you may have guessed, that game’s on ESPN.
— The Unimas game is at 11 p.m. ET on Saturday night between the LA Galaxy and the Dynamo. About nine people will watch.
— The other national TV game is Sunday afternoon between Philadelphia and the New York Red Bulls. Philly have found success with Illsinho playing as a 10 recently, thanks mostly to his ability to dribble a lot. They also tried CJ Sapong The Target Winger midweek, and picked themselves up a 3-1 win over the Harrisburg City Islanders. I haven’t seen that game so I can’t give much of a tactical analysis, but it could be very interesting if Jim Curtain tries it again.
RBNY found themselves in the middle of a Twitter analytics debate on Thursday. The two sides went back and forth over expected goals’ correlation with finishing ability, which is about all I’ll say, because I’m terrible at math. But the basis of the argument was Bradley Wright-Phillips’ struggles this season, and both agreed that the former Golden Boot winner has been struggling this season. That’s not good for the Red Bulls, who have seen Sacha Kljestan also struggling to create chances high up the field and have not seen anybody else step up in the attack.
The time they stop striking out on foreign additions will be the time they win an MLS Cup.
— Orlando City striking prodigy Cyle Larin was arrested on a DUI charge early Thursday morning in Orlando. He was, very dangerously, driving on the wrong side of the road and was quickly pulled over by authorities.
Larin is one of the best young players in MLS, and has consistently been linked to an overseas move to a top flight European club. This is obviously a big blow to his chances of going to Europe this summer, and in general.
MLS has a very good system to help players in this situation and make sure it never happens again. Larin will undergo an assessment by MLS doctors and will not be allowed to participate in team activities until he has been cleared. The Union’s Sapong went through a similar situation a couple of years ago, and he’s now a consistent starter and has not seen problems off the field since.
For the sake of everyone involved, let’s hope Larin experiences the same results.