MLS Five-a-side:The skinny on five things that matter this week in Major League Soccer:
1. We've seen this before -- or have we?: Here's a well-worn cycle: One of the sporting equipment giants releases a new (and improved!) soccer ball. Goalkeepers hate it. Forwards love it. Everyone agrees it's more "lively" than a Saturday Night Live after party.
Then the initial hullabaloo dies down and everybody quietly admits that, "Eh ... it's a soccer ball. There all pretty much the same."
Or are they? Players around MLS are talking more about adidas' new match ball, with its knobby surface, thermally-bonded polyurethane leather, counter-weighted valve and other marketing points that mean absolutely zero to you and me. What does mean something to you and me? We're seeing goalkeepers choosing "punch away" instead of "catch," on hard shots at goal, and they say it's because more efforts are moving and knuckling as they streak toward goal.
Case in point: Robbie Rogers' shot two weeks ago that shockingly eluded Chivas USA's Brad Guzan, last year's MLS Goalkeeper of the Year.
The consensus goes something like this: once upon a time, the very special players could hit a ball that dips and swerves with pace. Now, many players can do so. The wacky, knuckling shot that can flummox even the steadiest pair of goalkeeping hands is no longer the exclusive province of the superstar ball striker.
"Now, pretty much any anybody can hit that kind of shot," New England goalkeeper Matt Reis said. "But that's OK. It's never been about the goalkeepers. Soccer is about scoring."
Still, if he had his way? "We'd play with two goalkeepers," Reis said.
2. Always on the mend: When it comes to dealing with injuries, there are two kinds of teams: Those currently dealing with a crowded trainer's table, and those that soon will.
Still, it seems as though the first month of MLS play has been cracked by a greater-than-usual incidence of injury to valuable parts.
Colorado's fast start, doused though it was last week by San Jose, has come with almost zero contribution from four potential starters. Conor Casey, Pablo Mastroeni, Ugo Ihemelu and Mike Petke have yet to be fit enough to start a match.
New England is five games into the season, but the Revs' starters have already lost about 17 games, primarily those lost to Taylor Twellman, Steve Ralston and Chris Albright.
There seems little question that D.C. United -- facing a big home match this weekend against Real Salt Lake, where Tom Soehn's men sure need to release the hand brake and get going -- is missing Ben Olsen's contagious intensity and grit. The veteran midfielder has yet to play in 2008.
The Galaxy is certainly less potent without a third of its three-headed attacking monster, Carlos Ruiz, who has appeared just once. Nathan Sturgis, Ian Joy and Fabian Espindola are on the mend at Real Salt Lake.
Problems are mounting with the New York Red Bulls. If scoring ace Juan Pablo Angel doesn't look up to 2007 standards, you might look to that nerve-related back injury as a potential cause. He's played only about a match and a half so far. Now a thigh strain for Oscar Echeverry could keep the Colombian forward out four weeks, further depleting the strike force. And you know Red Bulls manager Juan Carlos Osorio would love have defender Hunter Freeman and swift attacker Dane Richards available, not to mention a completely healthy Claudio Reyna.
What's important to remember is that April has been fairly tame to most teams in terms of scheduling. Things will get busy faster than you know, as two sides (Real Salt Lake and San Jose) will begin U.S. Open Cup play within the week. Three more (Los Angeles, Columbus and Colorado) join in about a month's time.
3. Marquee matchup ... plus: The weekend's most interesting match suddenly comes with a bonus, intriguing sidebar. It involves a player who has always been a complementary part, but who could become one of the league's truly interesting and important personalities if he can solve some problems for Major League Soccer's most high-profile side.
Chivas USA and the Los Angeles Galaxy meet in the season's first Home Depot Center derby. Front and center in the dust-up will be Joey Franchino, who made such a surprising impact last week as the Galaxy rallied twice from a goal down to manage a 2-2 draw with the defending champs.
Franchino punched up the Galaxy midfield after he came on at halftime. With greater balance, more bite and an extra layer of "want-to," Los Angeles was suddenly accommodating David Beckham and Landon Donovan better.
But prosperity as a second-half sub and consistent production from that spot are completely different matters, especially for a player who can't be close to 100 percent fitness. So we'll watch this week as Galaxy leans harder into its latest lineup experiment, hoping the longtime Revolution defender-midfielder can duplicate his initial performance.
Either way, last week's outing from Franchino was as impressive as it was implausible. The 10-year vet had only just arrived and had barely met his new teammates. He didn't have the luxury of so much as one training session.
4. On the stat sheet?: Historically and relatively speaking, New England defender Michael Parkhurst is an absolute beast, a real trouble-making bruiser, in the early part of the season. Just look at this year: We're not yet out of April, and he already has committed two fouls.
Two! The inhumanity!
Same thing last year, when he committed two fouls within the first three games he played. The kicker, of course, is that two fouls constituted 40 percent of his eventual season total. The Revs' cagey center back, known for getting the business done with brains more than brawn, was whistled for just five infractions all year.
Parkhurst got tangled up with Kenny Cooper early in Thursday's 1-0 win against Dallas, and referee Alex Prus adjudged that the 2007 MLS Defender of the Year was the guilty party, thus stamping foul No. 2 for 2008 on the Parkhurst rap sheet.
So, here's the question: with just 25 fouls over the course of his four MLS seasons, can Parkhurst remember all of them? "I can remember a lot of them," he said with a wry smile, "because I don't think I actually committed a lot of them.
"I can probably remember somewhere between half and three-quarters of them," he said.
5. The little five:
• Scoring in MLS has generally been on the decline since about 2001. There's hope, however, that the needle could move north this year; the total currently sits at 2.86 a match, and there's little evidence to show that scoring drops significantly after the season's first month. At the same point two years ago, MLS games averaged 2.7 goals a game and finished at 2.62. Last season, the first 29 MLS matches averaged 2.3 goals and then finished at 2.66. The all-time high was 3.57 a game in 1998.
• In terms of what he delivers to the team, FC Dallas' Pablo Ricchetti may be one of the league's most underrated talents. Without their veteran midfielder, the Hoops' midfield struggles to move the ball forward with any speed, largely content to move it laterally or even backward.
• Talk to MLS officials and they'll tell you that few broadcasters do their homework like new ESPN2 man JP Dellacamera.
• Crew boss Sigi Schmid is sitting on win No. 99, looking for 100. If you think that milestone isn't tough to achieve, consider a couple of quick facts: Bruce Arena, for all his spectacular MLS success, has just 77 career regular season wins; Dominic Kinnear has two league titles, but just 53 wins. Eighteen MLS managers (not counting interim bosses) couldn't even stick around long enough to reach 100 matches, much less 100 wins.
• New England's Mauricio Castro can't miss many more matches if he's going to seriously challenge Alejandro Moreno's three-year stranglehold on most fouled player leadership. (It's true. No one other than Moreno has led that category since 2004! Amazing!). Moreno and Castro are currently tied with 14 each.
Gomez back on the ball
Excitement guaranteed on final stretch
Escude would snub PL
