It would surely be nice to be able to say that your league had reached the point of maturity where it could support a clear full-season 'class' team... one that would come out of the blocks winning and stay on top all season. This looked like the year, as New England and, notably, Dallas both started looking practically invincible. To the fan it seemed that Dallas and Los Angeles in the West, and NE and DC in the East had just too much for the others to overcome and it would be a year to rise above the rest for those teams. But the confluence of injury (Ed Johnson's Turf toe has lasted seemingly longer than if he'd broken the damned thing) and WC qualifying plus the 'tits on a male pig' Concacaf Gold Cup has allowed the also-rans to get right back in at this break for the All-Star 'Classic'. You'd have to say that the most surprising team right now is San Jose.. consistently raided of managers, general managers and marquee players and having all the fan support of a middling A-League team, the orphan step-child of AEG just wont wilt away and stop embarrassing everyone involved. And San Jose is the only team who performed as expected this weekend, beating a much improved over last year, but still 'hard-luck', MetroStars 2-1. Meanwhile, better than Chivas but still bottom table, RSL helps them out by beating Dallas handily. Chicago is a little less of a shock, all observers have wondered when the Fire would recover their swagger and bully their way back to the top. This year, they have.. though the table was thrown off a little by the uneven scheduling which gave them three more games played than NE at the snapshot. But they were legit contenders, no matter the points vagaries... until this week when Colorado knocked them off! Yeah, it's tough to win in Denver.. but really! Could Columbus tying them at home have thrown off their confidence THAT much?.. not if they know their Crew History! That LA has faded might have surprised a few, but the Donovan absence is often invoked for excuse purposes. LA's real problem, of course, is their numpty manager who certainly must be sweating bullets... after all, AEG wanted LA to be their showcase team in the west and have the profile to go with the nifty soccer complex in Carson. How they thought that would happen by hiring the guy that single-handedly blew the 98 WC chances for the US is beyond me. Well, evidently the Gals put it all out on Monday against Real, because DC had little trouble holding them to just two SOG for 90 minutes ( DC fouling a LOT must have helped), giving Freddy Adu a chance to show what he is touted to become and score in extra-time on just his own effort. The LA fans must be boiling! Good... Send Sampson to NCAA where he belongs. The shocker of the week, though, HAS to be Chivas beating the Revs. No matter Chivas were at home, and NE is missing a third of their starting squad so that the US can win an asterisk cup, the Revs STILL should have beat these bottom feeding chumps. The ONLY solace I can raise out of this result is that it points out, once and for all, that the fired Rongen was the WORST manager EVER in MLS. And, of course, the Crew has embarked on a new journey back to 'never discount the Crew' but never bet on them to take it all.. by winning two games in a row and being 2-0-1 since Warzycha took over. The newer fans are all excited at the prospects, we who have been followers since 96 have seen this all before ....TWICE! But all this chaos takes me back to last season and causes me to think about the probabilites, in this league, of going unbeaten for 18 games. -sigh-
RE: MLS: Dreaded I just SUCK at predicting MLS end of year tables! Look at the results for yesterday (8/6) in MLS. Like I said, "dreaded parity"! At least I was right that Panonions would showcase cookie's fitness regime.
RE: MLS: Dreaded Chicago got rolled last night much to my dismay! At least New England lost! The East is bunching up a little bit. Kind of surprising.
