The fierce five-team competition for two playoff places in MLS’s Eastern Conference continued to gain storylines this weekend.
If anything, Week 25 added further confusion to two confusing playoff races. In the top-heavy Eastern Conference, where teams hovering around the playoff red line flip-flop between hopefulness and utter futility, five teams appear in the mix for two spots. The Western Conference’s clearest favorite is in seventh place. It’s a bit of a mess.
Four teams in the east are a head above everyone else. Atlanta United, the Red Bulls and NYCFC are taking part in their own little race for the Supporters’ Shield, while the Columbus Crew are safely locked in at four. The race below them is hectic.
Sixth-place Montreal dealt a death blow to the last-place Chicago Fire. The Impact have no obvious strengths beyond Ignacio Piatti, who’s probably the best winger in MLS, but they’re organized, if error prone, defensively. Saphir Taider is perhaps the truest number 8 in MLS:
Taider is everywhere. He partners effectively with Ken Krolicki in the three-man midfield triumvirate and does the dirty work. None of the creative onus is placed on him, transferring all of it instead to Piatti, which fits the last three or so years of Impact soccer. The Argentine is up to the task.
Given the struggles of every other team competing for playoff spots around them, the Impact might end up sneaking in despite losing 10 of their first 13 games. D.C. United, the hottest non-Seattle team in the league, will have something to say about that. They won their fourth game in five on Sunday in a playoff six-pointer against New England.
D.C., coming off an impressive 4-1 midweek win over Portland, had little trouble with a Revs team in the midst of an epic, drawn-out collapse. Brad Friedel’s side haven’t won since June 30 and have given themselves a hole to climb to get back in the playoffs. They’re seventh, four points off Montreal, looking over their shoulder at DCU, who have two games in hand.
Friedel tried a new wrinkle on Sunday in an attempt to turn things around. It didn’t work. The Revs started with a 4-4-2 diamond formation, using a version that often transformed into a 4-1-3-2 with true wingers. Defensively, he sometimes shifted striker Cristian Penilla wide to try and solidify the midfield further.
New England don’t have ball-movers in the center. No one on that team wants to get on the ball and control the game. You need that in a diamond, which emphasizes rotation and the sacrificing of width for midfield dominance. The Revs made up for their lack of passing with an effective press early in the season, but that’s proven to be an aberration.
The diamond is the latest tactical change from Friedel, who has done everything in his power this season to get this mismatched puzzle of a group to be more than the sum of its parts. New England are organized and often hard to beat, but there’s an increasing concern that this group can’t be maximized much more than they already are. Changes will be coming this offseason.
Philadelphia, now comfortably in fifth with two games in hand on the Impact, made another statement on Saturday. They outplayed NYCFC in every facet, winning 2-0 at home and completing 322 passes in the attacking half. The Union like to pass the ball, and their system is built to do it. Borek Dockal drifts to both flanks and creates overloads with the goal of eventually getting Cory Burke chances on goal.
Dockal plays a Federico Higuain-type role for Philly. He is a number 10 in every sense of the word, and he has a savvy in the final third that the Union have been lacking for basically their entire existence. Like Higuain, Dockal is an assist machine. Prior this weekend, he had 2.95 key passes per 96, the same number as Darwin Quintero.
He’s only part of a greater system, though. The Union use varying elements of their 4-2-3-1 to generate numbers on each wing. Essentially, they create mismatches. Every team does this, but Philly approach it differently: rather than simply having their full-backs overlap, they add additional variables to it. The winger is the focal point of miscellaneous other movements.
Alejandro Bedoya will drift out of midfield, Dockal will plop himself in any tiny half-space he can, and Keegan Rosenberry will even sometimes do the Pep Guardiola underlap. It’s a basis for further diversified looks, with Bedoya making late runs or Burke drifting into an outside channel. It’s resulted in Burke shooting with the fifth-highest frequency in MLS.
Curtain’s system takes notes from Gregg Berhalter’s in Columbus, with the emphasis on passing, the role of the number 10 and the end goal of getting the striker chances. But he’s added a few of his own adjustments and wrinkles. The full-backs aren’t always the ones who overlap. (In fact, they rarely are.) Bedoya’s freedom to find space in attack adds extra numbers and helps give Dockal time on the ball.
With Toronto FC failing to beat last-place San Jose, it looks likely that the final two spots will come down to Philly, Montreal and D.C. United.
Awards
The best team in the league
Atlanta United beat the Crew 3-1, with Josef Martinez tying the single-season goal record. Ezequiel Barco returned from his “disciplinary” suspension and did not get passed the ball very much.
The Crew went into Atlanta and tried to control the game with possession, which is not something very many teams have done this season. They did a pretty good job of it, although a couple of turnovers out of the back cost them. This Crew team could be really good with better passers in the backline and another difference-making attacker. It’s a shame their owner is trying to essentially rob the league of one of its most entertaining and well-coached teams.
The worst team in the league
San Jose pulled out a 1-1 home draw against TFC. Chris Wondolowski is now four goals away from the all-time MLS goal scoring record after converting a delightful chip to take advantage of a bad Alex Bono rebound.
Toronto tried to smash and grab a win by subbing Sebastian Giovinco in for the last 30 minutes. Giovinco got an assist, but another goalkeeper error proved costly. Bono is considered a USMNT contender, but his performances in MLS this season have shed some doubt on his international worthiness. Beyond Zack Steffen, there’s not much hope in the US goalkeeper pool at the moment.
Random result of the week
Real Salt Lake do not play well away from Rio Tinto Stadium. They, or more specifically Albert Rusnak, overcame those demons at the last possible moment in a miraculous 2-1 win in Houston. Rusnak scored twice in stoppage time as RSL rose to fourth in the standings.
The 4-8 section of the Western Conference will be fascinating. Sixth-place Portland have games in hand, but they’ve lost three straight out of nowhere and have raised questions about their ability to control games. Seattle are still in seventh despite their run of six straight wins, and will have to overtake one of Portland, RSL or LA. Vancouver keep pulling results from thin air and could throw a wrench in things.
Predictable result of the week
LAFC are comfortably in third, on 42 points from 25 games, after a nice and clinical home win over Colorado. The Rapids have been good in recent weeks, but they still have a bunch of holes all over the starting XI, so expecting them to make any sort of hope-generating run at the end of the season is probably unrealistic. But they have been a good team with Kellyn Acosta and the diamond formation.
No problem for LAFC, though, who still have issues down the spine but will happily watch the front three make everything else moot.
Goalkeeper howler of the week
This one goes to Alex Bono for the cheap rebound he gave to Wondo:
There was a howler in a San Jose game and it was not attributed to Andrew Tarbell, so maybe some progress there.