Article by Matt Lichtenstadter
The MLS season is not quite a third of the way done, but there are some trends emerging that are worth keeping an eye on. While in MLS form is almost entire fallacy, as last season proved and said point has been made in these column inches many times before, there are some things that can’t be ignored from the start of the season. Here are a few of those:
Who is the best team? Usually, that answer can be disputed as there are multiple teams that stand out above the rest. This year, the answer is quite clearly FC Dallas. While they’ve only played eight games, they remain the only unbeaten team in the league and they haven’t been scraping those results out. Saturday’s win at RSL only further helped to prove that this team is on another level compared to the rest of the league, and that eventually, they might not be challenged for the Supporter’s Shield. Plenty of other teams in the league have had good moments and stretches this season, but only FC Dallas has been consistently good from start to finish.
Both Expansion teams have the same number of points: Atlanta United and Minnesota United as stated here before couldn’t possibly be any different from each other, and so could the start of their MLS existence. When Atlanta beat Minnesota 6-1 in the snow in Minneapolis in March, it really seemed like the Loons would be lapped by ATLU before anyone could even blink. But now, both teams have the same number of points. You’d be forgiven if you ever thought Minnesota and Atlanta would be level on points at any point the rest of this season, but that’s where it stands as of now. While it’s still doubtful that the Loons finish anywhere close to ATLU in points, getting to that point now shows how much work Adrian Heath and company have done to fix their leaky back four, and how much work Tata Martino and company still have to do on that front.
The LA Galaxy… aren’t themselves: The Galaxy went down 2-0 against the Fire at home this past Saturday and were somewhat lucky to get back into the game. They’re obviously not right at the moment and considering this team has always been the league’s standard bearer, to see them so close to the bottom of the conference is a bit of a shock to the system. MLS is MLS, so the Galaxy are still more than likely to figure out this mess, but with the back four a mess of less than stellar depth and the attack not clicking the way it should, Curt Onalfo and company have work to do to dig themselves out of this hole. Help might not be coming until the summer, either.
Home form matters: MLS as a league has gone through cycles when it seemed every home stadium was a fortress, to a phase when anyone could literally win anywhere at any time, and this year home fortresses have been re-established. Orlando City looks unbeatable at home in their new digs, but lose 4-0 at BBVA Compass Stadium against the Dynamo, who live up to their name at home but seem punchless away from it. The New York Red Bulls have been dynamite at home too, but can’t seem to get anywhere close to that same level of zip away from home. Bad teams look decent at home and the good teams somehow look even better, but when they have to travel, almost every team looks like a shell of themselves. Could the standings be entirely dictated this year by home form? Early returns seem likely.
Dominating Goal Scorers: MLS has always had a few dominating scorers, but this year the league has been owned by a batch of big time scorers who have borne the brunt of the scoring load for their teams. Larin, Villa, Altidore and Adi are some of the usual suspects on this list, but Juan Agudelo has six goals, so too new DP for the Fire Nemanja Nikolic, Christian Ramirez in Minnesota and the two co-leaders with seven goals are C.J Sapong and Cubo Torres. Sapong has scored seven of his team’s 11 goals, and Nikolic has scored six of his team’s thirteen, for instance. Plenty of other teams have the ability to spread their goals out, but it certainly seems that MLS has been dominated by a handful of big scorers this season and that trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down.
Those are just a few of the early season trends in the league, but this column will probably look fairly dated in just a few weeks as the league radically re-invents itself on the pitch almost overnight. And if there are any trends to take from this column, it’s that MLS almost always does change radically in season.
