Six weeks ago I was certain that the six Western Conference teams then residing above the red line would, in fact, be the six Western Conference teams playing soccer in November. At the same time I was convinced the Eastern Conference would see all kinds of shake-ups going right down to the wire, since everybody in spots 3-through-10 all seemed fatally flawed to just about the same degree.
It looks like I may have been wrong. Those same half-dozen West teams are all still above the red line, but only barely. The San Jose Earthquakes are two points back of Portland and Sporting KC, and have mostly home games left. RSL, Houston and even Colorado are all just a few points back as well, and everybody plays everybody else over the final few weeks of the season. I'd still put my money on the teams that are currently in the top six (and have been there just about all year), but it's far from a sure thing.
Back East, though? That's a sure thing. Montreal just went to LA this past weekend and got a point in their scoreless draw, so I'm pretty sure their games in hand mean something even if they are still technically level on points with Orlando City. Move up the ladder a notch and Toronto have a five-point buffer and home games in hand, while the top four teams have evolved into four top teams (though I'm willing to let D.C. United talk me out of that).
The point is that we're into the "jockeying for a home game" segment of the Eastern playoff push, while out West a few postseason regulars are just fighting for survival.
Let's start there:
1. Road To Nowhere
Right now, there's nobody in more trouble than Sporting KC. They're winless in five, they've conceded 13 goals over that time, and the injuries they've suffered through all season are truly starting to mount up. Tim Melia comes in and saves the day in goal? Tim Melia goes to the bench with a pulled hamstring. Roger Espinoza comes back into the lineup and works his way toward his former peak? Roger Espinoza goes to the injured list with a fractured left foot.
And it's even started to hit the back-ups. Amobi Okugo came in to provide depth at three spots, was seen for one half and has been on the shelf nursing a sore hamstring since. Saad Abdul-Salaam and Chance Myers are both permanently questionable at right back these days, while Soni Mustivar has been in and out of the lineup recently after a strong and consistent first few months in MLS. Add in Ike Opara's long-term injury, Paulo Nagamura's gimpy knees and Seth Sinovic's stop-start return to the lineup, and you have a group whose season is slip-slidin' away.
| Player | Aerial Lost | Aerials |
| Ellis, Kevin | 56 | 103 |
| Borchers, Nat | 54 | 115 |
| Besler, Matt | 52 | 129 |
| Miazga, Matt | 49 | 147 |
| Boswell, Bobby | 49 | 92 |
| Raúl Rodríguez | 48 | 78 |
| González, Omar | 43 | 144 |
| Goodson, Clarence | 42 | 119 |
| Leonardo | 42 | 93 |
| Bernárdez, Víctor | 41 | 114 |
To be fair, Sporting did well to get a midweek point at Portland in a scoreless draw, and traveling cross-country on short rest for another road game on turf less than 100 hours later was not a recipe for good times. In fact it was a recipe for the exact kind of listless, 3-1 loss they suffered to a previously death-spiraling OCSC. The game didn't happen in a vacuum -- there are mitigating circumstances.
There are also lots of dropped points as teams repeatedly punish KC, and in that context "mitigating" is a fancy word for "excuse."
Right now their front-foot defense, long a franchise trademark, pushes them forward and offers acres of space in behind to exploit even on something as simple as a long-ball over the top. That scenario is doubly terrifying since their next game is at home against FC Dallas, a group that's only too happy to sit and defend deep, then try to hit on the counter. Sporting just haven't had the speed or energy to keep up, and they certainly won't be able to compete with Blas Perez for knockdown headers.
Don't read that table at the right as a whole-cloth condemnation of Kevin Ellis and Matt Besler, by the way. Not all aerials are created equal, and these guys do a ton of work covering ground that the team's hyper-aggressive defensive stance often leaves open. They're smart and they work well together.
They're also, it appears, out of gas -- which is problematic, because we've heard this story before. It's a new year and mostly the same malady.
As of yet, there are no signs of a cure.
2. Life During Wartime
Kei Kamara is having a historically significant season. In Saturday's 2-1 win at Philly the Columbus striker picked up his 19th and 20th goals of the season, and did so by showing the kind of predatory, back-post power and guile that was a hallmark of his earlier years in MLS.
Most of the year he's been used almost exclusively as a pure No. 9, running the central channels and going to war with opposing central defenders every single week, so what he did against Philly was both a divergence from his current responsibilities and a return to his roots. And that's another wrinkle the league's best attack can throw at opponents as autumn rolls around.
Why the change? Mostly because of the presence of Harrison Afful, the overlapping right back who plays ridiculously high:
That's a network passing map, which is created by aggregating the location of each player's passes as recorded on the Opta chalkboard. Line thickness indicates the number of passes exchanged between players.
And yeah, Afful is basically a winger, which pushes Ethan Finlay -- who's listed as a winger -- both higher and more central than he'd previously played. Kamara is still a true center forward, but with Afful moving Finlay, and Finlay's aggressive runs creating off-the-ball gravity, there are suddenly gaps in other spots.
Those are the gaps that Kamara has been smart enough to find and hit really freaking hard. So hard that he's got an outside shot at joining the Roy Lassiter/Chris Wondolowski/Bradley Wright-Phillips holy trinity on 27 goals, and a slightly better shot at winning MVP, and an actual pretty good shot at posting a ridiculous "20+ goals, 10+ assists" season.
It may take that much to keep the Crew alive against the East's other good teams, since they're committed to throwing numbers forward (they are, at worst, the third-most entertaining team in the league). So far, Kamara's made that gamble a good one.
3. Building On Fire
Sporting aren't the only high pressure team that struggles with speed as the Eastern Conference-leading New York Red Bulls showed (once again) on Friday. This time it was a 3-2 win over the Chicago Fire, which is much more "bad match-up" than "good team."
I still think RBNY are the favorites for the Supporters' Shield, but their record this year in track meets has not been great: A scoreless draw vs. FC Dallas; a 2-1 loss to Vancouver; a 1-1 draw against Montreal; and a win and a loss against both Columbus and now Chicago. It's not that teams have them totally figured out -- like I said, I think they'll win the Shield -- but RBNY give themselves little room for error because of how and where they hold the ball.
Every back pass has to be precise. When they aren't, it requires some brilliant intervention from the central defenders:
Matt Miazga gives them a little more leeway because of plays like that, but it's not a well they'll want to go back to too often.
And it'll be interesting to see how they approach Wednesday night's trip to New England, which is a huge game for Eastern Conference supremacy. The Revs inflicted one of New York's seven losses this year, and they did it by playing at a sprint and punishing the exact type of turnover you saw above. They're not a "running team" in the way that Chicago or Dallas are, but they most definitely have guys who can and will run, and in Lee Nguyen, an in-form playmaker who'll punish any sloppiness from the visitors.
A few more things to ponder...
6. I mentioned Nguyen, who picked up two more assists in New England's 3-1 win at TFC on Sunday and now has 10 on the season. He's been excellent, and so has central defender Andrew Farrell. Watch the video embedded at the top of the page for more.
5. As I said at the top, I'm willing to let D.C. talk me out of believing them to be "elite" -- by Eastern standards -- because they're capable of playing absolute stinkers like Saturday's 1-1 draw at Colorado. The thing that makes me believe, though, is that United are one of the few teams that can play so poorly, but still go on the road and get a result.
Getting Fabian Espindola back and healthy surely helps as well. Anyone who's completely writing this team off because of their ugly August is jumping the gun.
4. Pass of the Week! Let's give it to Vancouver Homegrown Kianz Froese for his inch-perfect through-ball to Kekuta Manneh:
This sequence ended with the capper in Vancouver's 2-0 win over Colorado last Wednesday. Based upon my limited viewings, Froese is a rare talent, and should feature prominently for Canada in this round of World Cup qualifiers.
It's also possible that he makes one of the 'Caps' veteran midfielders expendable this winter.
3. Andreas Ivanschitz made his Seattle debut in Saturday's 1-1 draw at San Jose and impressed with his movement, vision and delivery. The Sounders will need him to be good, because they don't get any other creativity out of their midfield.
2. Juan Manuel Martinez wasn't making his debut for Real Salt Lake, just his debut as a starter. And he was pretty great in a 3-1 road win that kept RSL's faint postseason hopes alive. Unlike the other guys on that roster, he's a true wide player meant for a 4-3-3.
1. And finally our Face of the Week goes to Willem Dafoe:
NYCFC lost 2-1 at Dallas on Saturday despite a strong second-half performance from Patrick Mullins.
