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MLS Week Five Review

Handshake Spat, Scoring Droughts, Vancouver's Rise

After a fairly dull week four, Major League Soccer stepped it up with a highly entertaining weekend of action that featured losing streaks, big wins, and two grown men acting like children.
BY Brooke Tunstall Posted
April 06, 2015
4:00 PM

THE NEW ENGLAND REVOLUTION FINALLY flexed its muscles, FC Dallas fell from the unbeaten ranks, and Colorado might be the limpest team in Major League Soccer’s 20-year history.

But the big story of Week Five was the Vancouver Whitecaps climbing to the top of the Supporters’ Shield standings with a dominant 2-0 win over the reigning champion Los Angeles Galaxy—a performance that served notice that there may be a changing of the guard out west.

And that was just Saturday night!

Sunday saw Real Salt Lake quietly stay unbeaten and the Philadelphia Union remain winless after one of the more epic collapses in league history. 

The Whitecaps have now won four straight and Octavio Rivero is now the early season MVP favorite after scoring for the fourth time in five games. Unless you’re a hardcore follower of South American futbol, odds are you hadn’t heard of Rivero when Vancouver signed the 23-year-old Uruguayan from Chilean side O’Higgins this winter.

But every MLS follower knows him now and, more importantly, so do opposing coaches and defenders.

Rivero’s not doing it alone. A year ago Chilean international Pedro Morales was MLS’ newcomer of the year and he’s looking even better so far this season, orchestrating the Whitecaps' relentless attack. Morales has three assists so far, the latest coming this weekend when he set up the game-winning goal with this perfect throughball to speedster Kekuta Manneh.

Meanwhile, the Galaxy are playing with a serious MLS Cup hangover. The club has scored just three goals the past four games and have been shutout in two straight as it continues to adjust to life without Landon Donovan.

But there are also issues on the other end of the field as Bruce Arena has now started seven different defenders along the back four as he looks for the best combination of players to use alongside U.S. international Omar Gonzalez, the only Galaxy defender to start every game.

As we mentioned last week, no one in L.A. is panicking over the Galaxy’s slow start. Arena’s teams are almost always designed to peak late and should get a major boost with the midseason addition of English icon Steve Gerrard. 

But the Western Conference is especially cutthroat this year and the Galaxy is digging itself into a significant hole.

FC Dallas is also ahead of L.A. in the standings but the Texans suffered their first hiccup of the season this week, losing 3-1 to a previously winless Portland team. Watch the video below if you think it's funny to watch grown men behave like nine-year-olds. 

Another team the Galaxy are looking up at in the standings: Real Salt Lake, which got the only goal it needed from veteran Javier Morales to beat San Jose 1-0 and improve to 2-0-2.

WHO’S HOT

Don’t look now but the New England Revolution are starting to remind us why it was the preseason favorite to represent the Eastern Conference in MLS Cup again this year. With a series of nagging injuries and suspensions playing a large part, the Revs stumbled out of the gate, losing its first two games and failing to score in its first three.

But after beating Colorado 2-0, Jay Heaps’ men are unbeaten in three straight and their bevy of young attackers are starting to click—as this perfect Kelyn Rowe pass and sweet finish by Juan Agudelo demonstrates.

New England isn’t the only Eastern team figuring out a successful formula. D.C. United, which won the Eastern Conference regular season a year ago, has now won three of four.

On paper United’s defense, which last year allowed the fewest goals in MLS, continues to be among the league’s stingiest, with three shutouts after Friday’s 1-0 road win over Orlando City.

But United’s defense was exposed several times by Kaka & Co. and only some poor finishing by the home team and some Bill Hamid heroics allowed United’s usually reliable backline to keep a clean sheet.

United is also showing a flare for the dramatic. For the second straight week it scored its only goal in stoppage time, this time from the under-heralded Luis Silva, who came off the bench to make his season debut.

Elsewhere, Scottish international Shaun Maloney showed why the Fire gave him designated player money this winter with a goal and an assist against Toronto FC. The assist was particularly impressive and capped a nice combo by Joevin Jones, the Trinidadian striker who has had a nice start to his MLS career, as well.

WHO’S NOT?

Given the money Toronto has invested on its All-Designated Player attacking trio of Michael Bradley, Jozy Altidore, and Sebastian Giovinco, no coach is under more pressure to win now than TFC boss Greg Vanney. But for all the money spent on attack, none of it will help the defense much and the team may be exposed by its failure to invest more in the backline.

While the attackers earn millions, Toronto’s starting backline against the Fire is set to earn a combined total of $378,500 this season and one of them,  Warren Creavalle, took down David Accam in the 69th minute of a tie game to earn his second yellow and give Chicago the advantage it needed to win 3-2.

Good attackers cost more than good defenders. That’s Soccer Economics 101 and Toronto’s not the first team to use most of its budget on attackers and try and get by with bargains in the back. But for a team that has never made the playoffs and is desperate to do so, perhaps the resources could have been spent more evenly.

And, at the risk of seeming like we’re piling on poor Colorado, nothing in MLS is currently less hot than the Rapids' offense, which is scoreless in four games this year. Dating back to last season Colorado hasn’t scored in more than 600 minutes.

And that’s not even the Rapids' worst carryover streak from 2014. Colorado finished last year 0-12-2, meaning it is now winless in 18 straight games, matching a record for futility set by Real Salt Lake in 2005 and 2006.

That RSL squad was an expansion team, which made its struggles somewhat understandable. Colorado, an MLS charter team, doesn’t have that excuse. Both head coach Pablo Mastroeni and technical director Paul Bravo have got to be worried about job security these days.

Mastroeni was hired without any previous coaching experience—assistant or otherwise—last year just months after hanging up his playing boots. Owner Stan Kroenke is notorious for his ambivalence toward his MLS team—he’s currently preoccupied trying to move the St. Louis Rams, which he also owns, to Los Angeles—but even he can’t ignore this level of futility much longer. If the Rapids do make a change, Kroenke would be wise to invest in someone with some actual professional coaching experience.

And then there’s Philadelphia. If Don Corelone’s sons were MLS teams, the Union would be Fredo—always trying desperately to impress... but never pulling it off. Yesterday the team was on the verge of its first win of the season in five tries, leading Sporting Kansas City 2-1 heading into second-half stoppage time. But Kansas City scored two goals after the clock struck 90, both on set pieces that should have been better marked.

Watch the full highlights here.

Jim Curtin ascended to the head coaching spot in Philadelphia with minimal assistant coaching experience. While that formula worked to some degree in New England and D.C., and previously with Jason Kreis when he was at Salt Lake, sometimes it seems MLS teams are opting for inexperience because it’s cheap rather than because it’s the best option for the team.

Curtin and Mastroeni may blossom into fine head coaches someday but there’s a reason why most great coaches spend time as assistants first.

NATIONAL TEAM WATCH

No player in the U.S. national team pool had a better week than the aforementioned Hamid, who made several spectacular saves to preserve a shutout.

Given how well Hamid is playing, it’s hard not to wonder what might have been had he been healthy when United traveled to Costa Rica in late February to face Alajuelense in the quarterfinals of the CONCACAF Champions’ League. Without Hamid United gave up give goals and while Hamid likely wouldn’t have saved all of them, it’s hard to imagine he couldn’t have kept things closer in a series United ultimately lost 6-4 on aggregate.

And we’re going to continue arguing that Harrison Ship and Kelyn Rowe could help the U.S. midfield create more chances. Shipp had a pair of assists in the Fire’s win and now has scored or set up four of his team’s six goals this season. And after scoring a brace last week, Rowe had the pretty assist to Agudelo shown above. 

With the roster for next week’s clash with Mexico expected to be limited to players based in North America, it would seem a good chance to give in-form attackers like Rowe and and Shipp a chance to show what they can do in the abbreviated camp before the El Tri game. 

And speaking of American playmakers, how about one with some World Cup experience who is in good form? After getting two assists against Philadelphia, Benny Feilhaber, still just 30, leads MLS with four helpers. He couldn’t help a midfield that has struggled with possession of late?

Brooke Tunstall is an American Soccer Now contributing editor and ASN 100 panelist. Follow him on Twitter

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