MLS Five-a-side:The skinny on five things that matter this week in Major League Soccer:
1. It's good to be in first place ... most of the time: There is a price for leading the way in MLS.
The surprising Columbus Crew currently top all MLS sides in points. Sigi Schmid's men have achieved results at home and on the road. They have scored early and then protected the margin, and last week they overcome a deficit on the road, a particularly worthwhile moment.
Now comes the price for individual and team accomplishment: Three important figures from the Crew lineup made Bob Bradley's pool of 33 as the U.S. manager begins final prep for important, upcoming World Cup qualifiers. Eddie Gaven, Frankie Hejduk and Robbie Rogers are under consideration for three upcoming national team biggies, friendly matches against England, Spain and Argentina. The final U.S. roster for each match will probably land at around 22 players. First up is England on May 28 at historic Wembley, with Bradley probably setting the final roster for that one early next week.
The timing is less than perfect for Columbus. After playing once a week through Major League Soccer's first eight rounds, the Crew suddenly accelerate into busier times. The same week Bradley's boys visit England, Columbus has a midweek U.S. Open Cup match sandwiched between Saturday MLS dates.
What does this mean for the Crew? The team hasn't received any official promises, but all three Crew starters aren't likely to be included for all three U.S. matches. Bradley is ever cognizant of domestic schedules. Plus, everybody sees the writing on the wall with Rogers, who is increasingly likely to be a U.S. Olympic team selection, which means he'll miss ample MLS matches later this year.
Still, since the Crew's trio represents a high among MLS clubs, Schmid's bunch stands to be impacted more than others over the next three weeks.
Five MLS clubs don't have a player among the 33-man U.S. pool. Only Chivas USA and Houston (in addition to Columbus, of course), have more than one selection.
Thus begins the summer of international duty and jarring absences. Of course, a few other teams will be affected by duty to countries beyond the United States. None will land with the impact of David Beckham's temporary departure for the Galaxy; he was named for Fabio Capello's 31-man squad for May 28 clash at Wembley.
2. Dispatches from the front in the content wars: More clubs are diving into the deep end of video blogging, expanding on the concept that FC Dallas introduced to MLS a couple of years back. What began as PR brainchild at Pizza Hut Park has been adopted by other club innovators, who have taken the concept to another level -- sometimes with pretty nifty results.
FC Dallas was the first to add behind-the-scenes video clips and inside info to the team website. It was a great way to do what camera crews and reporters from local TV channels once did -- but with more control and at a greater availability of content for fans. FC Dallas could bring video directly to supporters, who wanted more sights and sound of practices, game previews, postgame comments, etc. And there were ample opportunities for special features, like talking to Michael Johnson and showing clips of team visits to the Olympic gold medal winner's performance center.
Plenty of MLS teams now have some form of it, splicing postgame audio from players with video highlights and such. But some clubs are getting more creative. At RFK, fans get a particularly insightful look at their club on Access United, now a regular staff production. One of the real treats of Access United is field-level video shots. You wouldn't want to watch an entire match that way, but it's a nice change of pace when all the high-level shots are out there, easy to find on the internet.
But perhaps the best of the bunch comes from Toronto, where TFC TV is setting the current standard for MLS in-house production.
TFC TV is a well-executed, weekly news show devoted to the BMO gang. The production is slick. The content is useful, inventive and even a little cheeky, with lots of player interaction and participation, well beyond the usual highlights and comments. For instance, this week's episode features a look at the new TFC Street Soccer program. Later, equipment man Malcolm Phillips walks you through some of his pregame routine and tells fans about Danny Dichio's sock peculiarities. And then we hear young Julius James respond to teammate Andrea Lombardo's assertion that the rookie is the worst-dressed man around BMO. ("He cannot comprehend my style. I think he's jealous." Well done, young man.)
The weekly production runs about 15 minutes.
3. Lots of intrigue for on-fire Fire: The Chicago Fire schedule gets awful delicious over the next couple of weeks, and not just because Denis Hamlett's men will be protecting the league's second-best record.
Houston visits Toyota Park this weekend. The two-time defending champs are guided ably by manager Dominic Kinnear. But don't forget that Kinnear's trusted assistant, John Spencer, very nearly became the Windy City boss. Spencer and Fire management engaged in serious talks during the offseason (as the Fire sought to replace Juan Carlos Osorio), but could never meet on contractual terms.
The Orange, with just seven points from seven matches this year and struggling mightily to score goals, have plenty of motivation without the tasty sidebars. Still, you have to think that Spencer wants this one a little more -- and the Dynamo players probably want it for him. Spencer has been around MLS since 2001, striking 37 times in four seasons for Colorado, and his time in the managerial seat will probably arrive sooner or later.
Eight days later, Chicago visits Giants Stadium, where former Fire manager Osorio now presides. That's sure to ramp up the intensity in both teams. And since both are built similarly, relying on hard-nosed defense to scoop up the points, we can all look for that one to be a particular prize among MLS May selections.
4. Improvement in strange places: On the other hand, when things are good, they are real good. Confidence is so high around Toyota Park right now, even Cuauhtemoc Blanco's pitching is improving.
Yep. His pitching. A few of the Fire men visited historic Wrigley Field to be featured guests at the Padres-Cubs game. Blanco threw out the first pitch. And it wasn't terrible. If that sounds like faint praise, consider the history:
Blanco's performance was, uh, something less than Johan Santana-esque when he tossed out the first pitch last month before a White Sox-Orioles game at U.S. Cellular Field. So, Blanco worked on his tossing a little with teammate Chad Barrett the day before his Wrigley Field outing. And it apparently paid off.
The toss still didn't quite make it to home plate, but all reports said it had improved significantly in zip and accuracy.
Barrett and Chris Rolfe sang "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," a tradition for guests at Wrigley. Having done his part, Blanco abstained from the singing.
5. Road woes at RSL: In Utah, Jason Kreis desperately wants his Real Salt Lake outfit to forget about the past, to forge bravely forward with a new mentality, especially when it comes to life on the road.
It's a fine idea -- but it won't be that easy. There is a high price to pay for three years of futility away from Rice-Eccles, and a change won't happen overnight -- especially when some of the players are the same.
RSL came into the season with a 6-31-10 record on the road and a minus-48 goal difference. That's not just ugly, it's coyote ugly.
So Kreis wanted to leave it all behind, to tamp down any talk about the road blues and just push forward into a new day. Insiders say that wasn't just a media message, that the manager preferred that nobody even bring up the old ways on the road.
The problem is that so many of the memory markers remain. The functions of life on the road don't change: the players get on the bus to head for the airport; they wait at the same terminal at Salt Lake City International Airport; they probably visit the same Starbucks there; they walk through the same tunnel at the opposing stadiums, etc.
So it's hard to truly be confident when you've done these things before, when you retrace familiar steps, the same you've taken en route to so little success previously.
Real Salt Lake looked pretty good at times Thursday, for a team on the road against a rival. The end result, however, looked pretty familiar: a 2-0 loss.
Similarly, RSL has done pretty well at times in every stop on the road this year, except for perhaps the 4-1 loss at D.C. United, a match that clearly got away from Kreis' men. But the bottom line doesn't fib: RSL has four losses in four games away from Rice-Eccles in 2008. In the Western Conference that might get just three playoff spots, a team will probably have to win two or three on the road to qualify for the postseason.
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