The League Soccer

 Exactly two weeks ago  I wrote  a blog about Sporting's struggles and the path forward I felt both respected Vermes' storied history with the club and worked towards moving SKC into a modern competitive MLS club. However last night a new rock bottom was reached, and a historic rock bottom is only a couple of weeks away.  Sporting KC lost at home to CF Montreal who are both completely rebuilding after moving on from Kei Kamara, Djordje Mihailovic, Kamal Miller and others this past offseason. They also hadn't scored a goal or gotten a single point from a road match this season. Neither of those statements are true after beating SKC 2-0 at Children's Mercy Park on Saturday night.  If you're reading this blog you probably don't need breakdowns of match strategies, so let's talk about the important chant coming from the Cauldron: Vermes Out. From some internet research as fall as I can tell Vermes is the longest tenured manager in MLS (I know) and in major socce...

 There has and always will be a TON of talk around MLS budgets. We've all grown to love (or mostly hate) Designated Players, Allocation Money, Allocation Ranking, U-22 initiative's, Homegrowns, Supplemental or Senior Roster spots, and all of the beautiful mess that is MLS budgets. The main school of thought of how to fix it is to just set a hard salary cap and remove all monikers of salary designations and just let the teams spend the money how they wish. I am personally opposed to this for a couple of reasons. First, I don't think that the salary cap would be high enough for teams like Toronto and LAFC to go sign players like Carlos Vela, Lorenzo Insigne, and Federico Bernardeschi. Inter Miami would have no shot at Lionel Messi with a hard salary cap that I would imagine would be somewhere around $20 million based on how most teams spend. These players are good for the league. It's not likely but if players like Ronaldo wanted to go to Sporting KC that would be a game ...

 What a week of soccer we have had! US Open Cup games have kicked off with MLS sides entering in the third round, there were some upsets, MLS clubs were playing at alternate stadiums it was a blast. Across the league last week teams wore the One Planet jerseys. A really neat design that confuses the hell out of me every year, as all teams are wearing the same two colors. Kudos to the league and Adidas for taking the initiative but let's hope to see some team colors brought into the fold in the future.  Now on to the power rankings! 1. LAFC 5-3-0 Last Week: 1; LAFC are the last undefeated squad in MLS all while this past week alone managing a draw after going down 1-0 to Nashville on the road and then continuing further east to take a 1-1 result at Philadelphia in the CCL semi-finals. They have incredible talent and depth. I think this team will compete for every trophy this season: CCL, US Open Cup, Supporters Shield, Leagues Cup, and MLS Cup.  2. St. Louis CITY 6-1-...

 It’s a beautiful spring day in the MidWest and there are two amazing US Open Cup games being played in St. Louis and KCK tonight. There are teams from MLS, USL League 1, and the National Premier Soccer League participating. It’s what makes this competition so amazing.  Never could your men’s beer league hockey  team play against the Red Wings, nor your baseball club take on the Cardinals. I don’t mean to say Tulsa Athletic or Union Omaha are recreational league teams, they are not. Both have won big games to get here.  In Kansas City, Kansas Sporting KC come into the game without a win in league play. They’ve gone 0-3-6 to start their season while scoring just 3 goals. Their opponent, Tulsa Athletic have already taken down USL Championship side FC Tulsa and won’t be intimidated to take on another Goliath squad.  If I’m coaching Tulsa Athletic I’m high pressing the SKC defense and not letting Russell or Salloi get the edge on my wing backs or center backs. I’m p...

 I was so disappointed after the game on Wednesday that I had to take a few days to gather my thoughts. Which is essentially that some of the guys in this game are probably past their National Team windows in their career. Namely Aaron Long, Sean Johnson (outside of a 3rd keeper), Walker Zimmerman (will be used as depth this summer) and unfortunately DeAndre Yedlin. The disappointing part was how shaky everyone looked. This was a squad of experienced National Team players that seemed shaky on the ball and not confident with the ball at their feet.  If Hudson had started Neal, Wynder, Wiley, and Aidan Morris then I would expect the nerves to get the better of them and play on their heels a bit. But these guys had some caps: Zimmerman 40, Acosta 58, Long 32, Johnson 12 (over 350 MLS aps), Yedlin 78. I expect guys with that kind of experience to look cool, calm and collected under pressure. They did not. Dest was rusty, which is to be expected. But when the moment got big in the ...

 MLS Week 8 is in the books and what a great weekend of soccer it was. The Portland-Seattle game was just phenomenal. There was a tornado near CITY Park in St. Louis (or a Tornado warned storm with a funnel cloud at the very least) and the most damage done was afterwards as City cruised to a 5-1 win over FC Cincinnati.  With all of the wild matches in Week 8 there is definitely some shuffling at the top of this weeks' Power Rankings: Top 8 1. LAFC 5-2-0 Last Week: 2; What can you say about LAFC other than they are the class of MLS right now. They're the last undefeated team in Major League Soccer and they're cruising through CCL. Carlos Vela may still be the best player in this league, and they took care of business in El Traffico this weekend.  2. St. Louis CITY SC 6-0-2 Last Week: 6; As I've said before, if you beat (or destroy) the previous number one I will give you a nice bump in the power rankings. St. Louis ended their two game skid by dominating FCC at home....

 We are now eight games in to the 2023 MLS campaign and Sporting Kansas City are in last place in the league, have not won a game, and have scored two goals. They're coming off of a 3-0 loss in which they had control for exactly 0% of the game. After the Quakes scored in the 9th minute everyone who has spent anytime watching this team knew it was over. Then when Robert Castellanos was given a red card and San Jose were awarded a penalty kick, it was just a matter of running through the motions for 60 minutes before Sporting went home still searching for their first win.  Designated player Ghadi Kinda hasn't taken the pitch since 2021, and Alan Pulido and Johnny Russell still aren't in full form and fitness and the team lost Kortney Ford right before the season began. So it's to be expected that SKC would be off to a slow start, but no one envisioned this. Late last season's saviors Willie Agada and Erik Thommy have just seemed off. I think it's safe to say that ...

 The USMNT roster dropped this week ahead of the Continental Clasico. We all expected it would be a primarily domestic squad with Sergino Dest. At Goal Keeper the obvious reaction is Sean Johnson will be in net against Mexico with two new keepers coming in with him. On the back line I'm disappointed to not see Miles Robinson, but it's not surprising that Atlanta didn't want to release him for the second time in the young MLS season.  As it stands Walker Zimmerman, Matt Miazga, Aaron Long, and Josh Wynder are the center backs. I expect to see Miazga and Zimmerman. It's cool for Wynder to get the call up, but he is definitely not ready to play the full Mexico squad. I'm happy that Aaron Long got to go to a World Cup, but he is just not National Team quality anymore. We don't know who did or did not get released by their club (other than Zendejas and Miles) but Jalen Neal and Brendan Craig are a couple of players I would've liked to see get a chance in this cam...

 So after seven weeks I've decided to shift a little bit. While I enjoy doing the recaps, there are other avenues to get most of the information so I'm going to try to give my Top 8/Bottom 5 power rankings and then talk about things that stuck out to me. Let's get into those rankings! Top 8 1. FC Cincinnati 5-2-0 Last Week: 2 FCC took down the Union in a huge Eastern Conference matchup. It says a lot about Pat Noonan's squad that they haven't played extremely well, Vasquez and Brenner haven't been scoring at the same clip as last season and they're still sitting atop the standings.  2. LAFC 4-2-0 Last Week: 4; I know I have them jumping a really good Seattle team, but they're balancing being undefeated in MLS with making a solid CCL run. Carlos Vela has been critical of his play but they are still rolling. Denis Buoanga's hat trick keeps him the hottest player in North America right now.  3. Seattle Sounders 5-1-1, Last Week: 3; I'm a hypocrite. ...

 Happy Matchday 7 to all! The league is slowly starting to take shape, and soon enough more teams are going to have to start juggling competitions as the US Open Cup third round will feature 19 Major League Soccer teams. It's safe to say you will know pretty quickly who is taking the competition seriously and who is focusing on the regular season.  All that aside let's look ahead to the matches ahead. Again this week we will be without a nationally televised early game (LAFC-Austin will air on Fox but at 6:30). I've briefly mentioned that I believe the league fumbled the scheduling and when I saw that European league's were playing afternoon Good Friday games, I thought 'MLS missed out again'. So our 6:30 CDT kickoff games get underway with the Revs hosting CF Montreal . The Revs should look to continue their impressive start against a Montreal squad that is struggling right now.  DC hosts the Columbus Crew  and Christian Benteke has been great, but if they are ...

 Sorry to be getting the recap out so late in the week, but I will always get it written! The biggest story of the weekend was St. Louis CITY dropped their first game, at home to Minnesota United . The bigger story to me is this Minnesota team is playing well. St. Louis was going to lose eventually and it wasn't like they did so in some horrendous fashion.  Nashville came out ahead 2-0 in a battle with Orlando City . It's another disappointing home result from the Lions, while Nashville showed that they are a force to be reckoned with in the Eastern Conference. The Revs  drew a home match against NYCFC who are bolstering their squad with the recall of James Sands and recently added Richie Ledezma. I ran a poll the week to see which side would be effected the most by transfers: Atlanta United with Miles Robinson and Thiago Almada, FC Cincinnati with Vasquez and Brenner, and my third late option was the Revs if they were to lose Buck, Gil, and Petrovic. Not to mention that ...