They have been searching for the right way to replace him ever since he went down for the season, and it's tough to be consistent when that's the way you have to approach games. Discussing MLS, USMNT, and all things about American Soccer. I'm sure that had to frustrate Curtin & co. Other than that there's not much. They can press: In Alistair Johnston it looks like the struck gold at least once in the SuperDraft. It was a good win, but it did harken back to Timbers teams of yesteryear that couldn't really put their foot on the ball and dictate the game when it was there to be controlled. What they could've done better: Luchi Gonzalez has been hesitant to move Bryan Acosta down the central midfield depth chart for one (though Acosta has finally taken that into his own hands and done it himself), and for two there's no young, athletic center back being groomed in the first team. If you want to know who the best teams are, just look at the standings. The Sounders mostly look like champions these days, and have put together some truly stunning performances.

And the other thing they obviously could've done was avoid having such bad luck*. But a team this talented should have other tools to blow up a bunker. Dallas, thanks to their Covid-induced absence from the MLS is Back Tournament, have had a choppier and more compressed schedule than almost anyone else. But he was super-expensive, came to Miami with real bona fides, and has delivered next to nothing. What they could've done better: DP center forward Adam Buksa, who has two goals in 860 minutes, has played himself out of the starting XI. Basically: They get a C+ for being exactly what I thought they would be, but trending in the right direction. What they could've done better: At some point, Matias Almeyda is going to have to really assess his man-marking system. © 2020 MLS. By the simplest metric, they'll clear that first bar and for some, that will be enough.

Lots of coaches would go "defense first" in this situation. And sure enough, the three of them have combined to produce next to nothing. It's genuinely sad that he left on bad terms. What they could've done better: I've said time and again that I would've gone with a playmaker (Pizarro is not that) for the final DP slot over Higuain. They got out of the group stage of the MLS is Back Tournament and they are, at the midway point of the season, above the playoff line. I also think that while Ceren and Memo are born to attack as Free 8s, pushing them up is leaving Matias Vera and the backline badly exposed in transition moments. (*) You can't actually avoid having bad luck. Doyle: How Philly destroyed TFC, plus why LAFC are now a team to fear, Doyle: Why Fontana missed out on 22 Under 22, Doyle: Revisiting one big question for each MLS team, Zakuani: One take on each team after Week 19, Zakuani: Everything that's wrong with the Galaxy & why Caden Clark is the real deal, Doyle: LAFC's statement, Pozuelo MVP frontrunner & more from Week 17, Doyle: What the numbers say about Chicharito's struggles, Armchair Analyst: Reds rise up, Lions keep pace & more from Week 15, Doyle: Predicting the USMNT rosters for a very busy summer 2021, Watch: All the best saves from Week 20 in MLS, Should LAFC's first goal have stood? It's another year of a lot of the same stuff from RSL, who have endured a rocky summer off the field that does, at the least, seem to promise better days ahead. Everybody knew it was going to be a problem but it is actually a PROBLEM, and while Jhonder Cadiz should help, it's not like the striker corps already in the fold have been squandering perfect service. There's no telling which version of RSL will show up on any give game day. They are atop the East and atop the Supporters' Shield standings.


But it's hard to see them, without Blanco, getting another trophy in 2020. Houston have just two shut outs all season and the backline hasn't exactly been instilling confidence. There have been moments where they've handled it poorly, and more recently there have been moments where they look to have come through it a deeper, better and more cohesive team.

The right side of that defense gets shredded game after game after game. Canouse, Edison Flores, Felipe, Ola Kamara, Yamil Asad, Steve Birnbaum, Bill Hamid ... all out for one reason or another, and for an extended duration, at times this year. They have not. Taty Castellanos has mostly not picked up the slack, nor have any of the wingers. Valeri attempted 6 crosses while Lodeiro attempted 21. They made it to the semifinals of the MLS is Back Tournament, playing some pretty and effective soccer along the way. But as they were going seven games without a win — including a humiliating 4-1 Rocky Mountain Cup loss to RSL — Robin Fraser was adding some tweaks to both his team's shape and how he uses its personnel, and two weeks ago it just ... clicked. What they could've done better: It's incredible to me that it's still not clear who this team's best forward is, and that it might very well be their best central midfielder, Damir Kreilach. Alejandro Pozuelo, now with plenty of rest, is playing at an MVP-caliber clip in 2020 after playing at a Best XI-caliber clip in 2019 despite a tank that spent most of the season on empty. What they could've done better: They could've won the Tournament. They have achieved adequately in 2020. Chivas mostly struggled during the regular season as teams got more film of and more reps against them. What they could've done better: There has been some upset in the fanbase over Deila's defense first-last-and-always approach, one that's so at odds with Dome Torrent and Patrick Vieira, the managers who came before him. Jordan Morris, Raul Ruidiaz and Lodeiro are all playing at an MVP clip. They've been able to go on the road and counterattack teams, and have been able to weather storms when under pressure, and mostly have been able to get on the ball a ton and use it to dictate games and then, eventually, win them.

They're 2-5-1 since coming back from Florida.

The Fire, under new head coach Raphael Wicky, have shown flashes: They have also shown that they're still the same old Fire in a lot of ways, conceding soft goals and missing sitters as regularly as almost anyone in the league. The newer academy products aren't getting any playing time, and the older ones — Justen Glad, Aaron Herrera et al — have not improved year-over-year. It was time for a reset. Orlando were historically bad (or thereabouts) in one way or another for most of the past five years. The Galaxy are tough to grade. Low. They are so good on the counter and on set pieces they might not need to fix that. What they could've done better: It's not clear they have an XI that can compete at the top of the league. They have also been one of the traditionally more aggressive teams about pushing academy products through, though that seems to have now dried up. Privacy Policy   Terms of Service   Do Not Sell My Personal Information. They have been, on the whole, a worse team than they were last season, even though I'd argue I've seen some real evidence that they're building a consistent approach and have some real ideas of how they want to play the game. All rights reserved. He has not played like a DP. Michael Bradley got hurt and it kind of hasn't mattered (if anything Toronto have been better, as they've diversified their distribution routine — which always has to run through Bradley when he's out there). Signing Yuya Kubo as well as Jurgen Locadia, and then adding expensive TAM playmaker Siem de Jong to the mix never really made sense given the positional and skillset overlap. But only to a degree, and in such a way as to appear divorced from any process. The defensive issues that destroyed this team's 2019 are still there to a frightening degree in 2020. The only stretch of consistently good play D.C. have put together over the past four seasons came during the second half of the 2018 season when Canouse locked that job down, but Olsen has mostly used him at right back since. The Fire played as well as they did against Columbus and Orlando, two of the very best teams in the league. You can just be certain that they'll be there at the end of the regular season with some work to do to get across the finish line. Truth is they didn't really play well enough throughout most of it — Andre Blake was their MVP this summer — but they got to the semifinals, gave themselves a chance, and then just melted down defending set pieces against the Timbers. Father Time has caught up to mighty Maxi Moralez, who is still often magnificent when healthy but is not often healthy in the first place. Thomas Hasal probably deserves a shout for that as well. All Major League Soccer trademarks and copyrights used by permission. But as soon as Eduard Atuesta went down, the whole thing fell apart. For what it's worth: They have 12 points overall, with nine of them coming against two teams I really wanted to give an "F" to, so it's not like they've made a massive leap. Their -13 goal differential is second-worst in the league, and if you pro-rate it over the course of a normal 34-game season, it would be one of the worst marks in league history.

On March 15, 1994, Major League Soccer with, This page was last edited on 1 July 2020, at 06:12. But I'm not about to entirely disclaim process for results. Maybe they'll figure it out and it'll be more like Atlanta's 2019 season, though. This is the baseline of what should be expected from the Galaxy, who spend like few others in the league, have the best Homegrown territory to pull from and have massive expectations internally and in the fanbase. Young players breaking through? And so it's now time to hand out some midseason grades across the length and breadth of MLS. Oscar Pareja came in last winter, made a few changes* — this was not an overhaul — and have them playing arguably the best soccer in the league. So for most of this year it's been 11 men (or actually 10 men and one boy, since 17-year-old Kevin Paredes has been a regular) behind the ball, defend hard, try not to give up anything dumb and hit on the counter if the chance is there. And guess what? What they could've done better: Could've won the Tournament, I guess! But they've faced maybe the hardest road in MLS this year, and have generally handled it better than I think we had a right to expect. 10.

They are near the top of the West, which is good and appropriate for a team with as much talent, and that spent as much cash this offseason as they did. How well they fare in those outings will likely determine what kind of grade they get for the full year. It's not a perfect comparison, but in a lot of ways this is starting to feel a lot like Toronto FC's 2018 season.
It's even harder during a year in which you've sold two key players (Reggie Cannon and Zdenek Ondrasek), lost another for the year due to injury (Paxton Pomykal) and have cut ties with a fourth (Jesse Gonzalez) due to a report into domestic violence allegations.

Something close to that has to happen with one of these Impact kids. Then they went to a Galaxy team that had been playing good soccer and drilled them, 2-0, showing off many of the hallmarks of FraserBall along the way: They have not been as dominant on set pieces. As in school, we’re going in alphabetical order. A point of interest: Alex Ring, one of the five best d-mids in MLS, is playing left wing.

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