Well here we are again, the new season kicking off, anticipation rising with supporters dreaming of success, however that may be defined, whether it's trophies, playoffs, respectably competing, or just seeing the odd glimpse here and there of some potential future success. It's a clean slate, everyone's excited, hell even David Beckham's deigned to be here for the start of the season this time.
Obviously that means it's preview time in the media, so here I go. I haven't done much research for this, to be honest I've done no research, I'm just going by my impressions from last season, and whatever news was big enough for me to notice and remember over the last few months, I'm not going to look anything up while writing this, I'm just going with a gut feeling, Tom Anselmi style, that always works right? So here we go, my First Annual Half-Arsed And Proud Of It MLS Season Predictions. The FAHAAPOIMLSSPs. Catchy. Due to First Kick involving two western teams, I'll start with the West.
1 Real Salt Lake. A really good team who should keep going. Due to Champions league play, they'll be more ready than most teams to start the season, so should get good results early, and from there on in, they can coast on the home advantage they get at Rio Tinto stadium. Fatigue from extra cup games will cost them towards the end of the season, they'll win the West, and the Supporters Shield, but will lose in the conference final.
2 Seattle Sounders. A very successful start as an expansion club, with two US Opens and good regular season success maintaining that momentum, and this year they'll make it really count. Blaise Nkufo should do really well, and they'll somehow even manage to make O'Brian White look like a decent player again. MLS Cup champs.
3 LA Galaxy. Another successful regular season, with Donovan and Beckham playing well and Juan Pablo Angel adequately replacing Edson Buddle, the real interest lies in seeing if the notoriously sweaty Chad barrett manages to avoid completely evaporating over the course of a long hot LA season. It will hilariously end with a first round playoff defeat, Seattle gaining their revenge for last year.
4 Colorado Rapids. The 2010 MLS cup champs should be strong again, with new signing Nyassi from Seattle combining with Kandji if and when he's fit to take some of the scoring pressure off Casey and Cummings. Basically though it's all going to come down to those two, and they'll do alright, securing the top wild card seed and once again representing the East in the final, where they'll lose.
5 FC Dallas. Bloody hell, there's a lot of good teams in the West. Last year's losing finallists will do ok, mainly on the back of another good season from David Ferreira. Due to being in the West, they'll only secure a wild card spot, and will lose at that stage.
6 Portland Timbers. As an expansion side, they'll be closer to Seattle than Toronto, and Kenny Cooper will pick up where he left off with Dallas and score plenty of goals. They'll beat Dallas in the wild card game, then lose to RSL.
7. San Jose Earthquakes. Wondolowski won't score half as many goals as he did last year, and they'll muddle along at the edge of the wild card spots all season before falling short.
8 Chivas USA. A new coach, some new players, Nick Labrocca. They'll be better than last year, but still not good enough.
9 Vancouver Whitecaps. More out of spite than anything. In a way, they're the anti TFC, what seems to be blandly professional behind the scenes, with continutiy in the coaching ranks, and slowly putting together what might eventually be a decent team, and no sign that they'll make a lot of panic moves if it doesn't start out right. The team generally reflects that, they'll be ok, tough to beat, but unexciting, hopefully their DP Hassli can score them some goals.
So there you have it, by far the stronger conference, 3 of the 4 wild card spots will go to Western teams, as will the Supporter's shield, both MLS Cup final spots and the MLS Cup winners.
Coming sometime in the next couple of days, the mediocrity that will be the Eastern Conference.
No comments:
Post a Comment