MLS Power Rankings: Week 7
May 14th, 2008 . By: Parrish GloverThe only road teams to lose last week were those in the Western Conference. The only Eastern team to lose was the one facing an Easter Conference opponent. In the traditional standings, first place in the West is good enough for next-to-last in the East. The power rankings indicate that we can’t yet say that there’s a disparity, but there darn sure isn’t any parity to be found.
Goal differential is telling the story of the league thus far. Keeping in mind that the Chicago-New England games account for a seven goal swing for the two teams, we may either feel that Chicago is not as superior to the rest of the league while New England might be better than the numbers indicate. Or we could say that, come October, Nicol’s side may at last find itself on the other end of the result. In the pre-season rankings I was knocked for calling United’s defense suspect. Now that they have the worst goal differential in the league, I’d like to remind the haters that I’m a flippin’ genius. Fear my awesome power. Houston rises off the bottom, in part due to finally putting three on the books, but more so due to the home poundings suffered by each of the squads the Dynamo passed to reach the oh-so-lofty position of eleventh place. D.C. United at Chivas USA. A true pillow fight this week between teams that could have been considered MLS Cup candidates two months ago. Last pillow fight, I called a tie. This time, we have a Chivas side that has shown the ability to score some goals and a United team that appears to enjoy watching goals be scored. This one should be more like a pint of imported beer left too long in the fridge; pretty to look at, but it’s gonna smell bad and leave a bitter aftertaste. I’ll probably throw it out when I’m halfway through. Galaxy at FC Dallas. Dave Beckman finally comes to Dallas for a game that means something. The hoops gave up two fluky goals against a team they usually dominate. After starting the season with a shaky defense and a robust offense, they now are looking better in the back, but are having trouble scoring. (I had a couple of analogies I thought about using to describe that condition, but some of them were gross and none of them were funny enough to be that sketchy.) Despite last week’s loss, the Galaxy are hitting a stride and the Donovan-Beckman combo is doing what the optimists thought it was capable of. This one could be rough for the home side. Kansas City Wizards @ New York Red Bulls. Kansas City is rested, but the Bulls seem to be adapting to Osorio well. The fashionable team of April faces what is shaping up to be May’s hot pick. There’s still not a lot to separate teams #3 through #6 in the East, so match-ups like this are a nice filter between the above average and the purely mediocre. 8 Comments Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI Leave a comment |
TWICE?!?!
I personally can’t wait to see Landsman Donervan take the pitch in Frisco.
It’s surprising to me that no teams are idol this week.
is it me or as the spelin’ gone to ‘ell in an andcart on this thread.?
Every blog on earth has made fun of Beckham’s overhyped name by making fun of it. I find it hard to believe that anyone would fail to get the joke.
That should have read “by mispelling it”
What do we have to do to fall out of the top 5? We had the worst results of any team in the league over the past two weeks given the opponents yet we are still ranked high. I love a good homer but let’s be real.
The “Easter Conference” must include Columbus, because they are truly risen from the dead.