You know who’s going to be watching the games this weekend closest? The Montreal Impact, Vancouver Whitecaps and LA Galaxy, because for both teams, their closest competitors in the Eastern and Western Conference playoff races are on the docket.
Montreal had their best win of the season last weekend, pounding the Red Bulls 3-0 (RBNY's first loss by multiple goals in 11 months). That gave the Impact some breathing room in sixth place in the East, six points clear of both the Revs and D.C. United.
But that gap over the Revs is down to three points after New England went to the Bronx and gave NYCFC the L. If D.C. – who have three games in hand and seven straight at home coming up after this weekend – do the same, Montreal's good week will have turned very bad very quickly.
For the Whitecaps and Galaxy, it's simple: They are seventh and eighth, respectively, in the West, and need one of Portland, Seattle or RSL (who drubbed LA last weekend) to start dropping points. The Timbers have mostly been obliging in that department, having won just once in their last six, but they are prohibitive favorites this weekend.
Let's dive in:
The Whole Weekend
NYCFC vs. D.C. United
4:55 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & streaming info
So there were conflicted and conflicting feelings after NYCFC's loss to the Revs on Wednesday night – their first home loss of the year. City carried play, generated 28 shots, were mostly pretty good defensively, had better shape in the midfield than what we've recently seen of them, and won the expected goals battle.
Though they didn't win it by much for a team that outshot their opponents almost 3-to-1:
Expected goals are expected goals – it's worth the same if you generate five chances worth .10 each as it is if you generate one chance worth .50. Years of data collection and millions of shots have gone into the work determining this. Those chances (which Opta considers to be "big chances," i.e. chances that should be scored) are not inherently worth more than five half-chances.
The following statement is not backed up by years of data collection, but rather by a gut feeling: It's worrisome when a team that was once a smooth-running machine – which NYCFC were – are suddenly only generating one of those big chances per game. On Wednesday it was a diagonal over the top to Valentin Castellanos, who got stuffed by Brad Knighton. At Columbus it was Ismael Tajouri-Shradi's goal after a ball was improperly cleared by the Crew SC defense. Against the Red Bulls it was a long-ball over the top and a knockdown header from Jo Inge Berget.
None of the above came via the type of long build-up or intricate combination play we've become used to from NYCFC over the past 2.5 years. Yes, they generated a lot of shots against the Revs. No, virtually none of those shots were the type a struggling team could use to break out of a funk.
Simply: Their ball movement isn't as crisp as it was, their fullbacks aren't pushing as high into the play as early as they used to, and that means they're more often than not facing well-organized banks of four, and are being forced to shoot through a thicket of bodies. You can still score goals that way – millions of data points confirm it, right? – but I'd rather have three big chances than a dozen half-chances.
D.C., of course, have been rolling, and so much of it has come down to Wayne Rooney's ability to play as a true center forward, a target man whose ability to tie the whole room together looks like it's going to be season-defining. Rooney's main function in United's attack at this point is to draw the entire defense two steps closer toward him, which opens space for literally every one of his teammates (but especially Lucho Acosta).
That might be less effective on Yankee Stadium's small pitch than it has been elsewhere, and doubly so since none of D.C.'s first-choice wingers are available. We shall see.
Sporting KC vs. Orlando City
8:30 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & streaming info
Orlando City have taken five of the last 51 points on offer. Last weekend they parked the bus at home against the Philadelphia Union. What do you think they'll do this weekend on the road against an SKC team with the league's third-best goal differential?
Here's a thing, though:
First of all, this is one of my favorite tweets of the year. Second of all, you should all go follow Tiago – he's great. And third, just go ahead and put Peter Vermes' headshot on the "Gegenpressing" rock and James O'Connor's on the "Countering" paper.
If OCSC can sit deep, play compact, not take chances with their distribution up the gut and take the few chances that fall their way, they've got a chance at pulling off a "that's so MLS" result here.
Portland Timbers vs. Colorado Rapids
10:30 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & streaming info
It's a mostly full-strength Timbers side (the only starter they're missing is right back Alvas Powell) at home against a poor Colorado team missing anywhere from three to five starters, depending upon how you look at it. I know the Timbers have struggled lately, but if they intend to make the playoffs, they have to win this going away.
A brief refresher on how they've been playing: It's a 4-3-2-1 in which they sit deep, then throw three attackers forward. This is what their shape looks like:
That's a network passing graph from last week's 2-0 win over TFC made using Opta data. Each circle represents the location of the corresponding player's aggregate touch, while the thickness of the lines connecting them represents the volume of passes exchanged. You can see that even at home against a shoddy defensive team, Portland generally liked to push only three players forward.
Colorado could try to frustrate them by just parking the bus and deciding to defend in the 18 the entire match. I'd do that if I was Anthony Hudson, since asking Danny Wilson and Tommy Smith to try to handle Diego Valeri, Sebastian Blanco and Samuel Armenteros in the open field is asking to ship six goals for the second straight game. Pack the box, make those guys shoot through a forest, and hope to smash-and-grab on a late set piece.
Worth noting that Portland no longer have Fanendo Adi to ride to the rescue as a potential game-changing target-man. Their attacking sub of choice as been Dairon Asprilla, who – as per Steve Fenn's research – is literally the worst goalscorer in MLS history (minimum 3000 minutes & 2 shots per 90).
So maybe the Rapids can close up shop. But I doubt it.
One More Thing to Ponder
The Universe Sphere has 380,000 laser etched dots, each one representing a galaxy, revealing the largest scale structure of our universe. It contains a 3D mapping of galaxies in a volume of our universe spanning 800 million lightyears in diameter. via @Physicsfun on Instagram.
Happy weekending, everybody.
