MLS Castrol Index and the New England Revolution

The MLS Castrol Index, which yearns to impose white-lab-coated objectivity on the statistics-resistant game of soccer, assigns a batting-average-like number to every MLS player. (Castrol also posts rankings of players from the top five European soccer leagues.) According to the MLS website, the Index “tracks [a player’s] every move on the field and assesses whether it has a positive or negative impact on a team’s ability to score or concede a goal.” The final results are in for the 2011 MLS season, and Chris Wondolowski tops the Index with a score of 9.13 out of a possible 10.

Those who would undercut the validity of the Castrol Index might point out that 2011 MLS MVP Dwayne De Rosario did not even crack the top ten. The Index has De Rosario as the league’s 31^st ranked player. Furthermore, De Ro’s fellow-MVP candidates Brek Shea and Brad Davis finished 29^th and 58^th, respectively. Each of those players finished below Aurélien Collin (5^th), Chance Myers (6^th), and Matt Besler (17^th), all of whom played for Sporting Kansas City. I doubt there’s a GM in the league that would choose the second, more highly ranked trio over the first, so there is probably a good argument to be made that the Index is so much hogwash.

Then again, in my opinion many of the rankings ring true, particularly with regard to the New England Revolution. I argued in my last post that Shalrie Joseph was New England’s most valuable player during the 2011 season, even though Matt Reis won the team MVP award and Benny Feilhaber won the fan (Midnight Riders) vote. Sure enough, the Castrol Index ranks Joseph as the Revs’ top player. According to the Index, the Revs’ next best performers in 2011 were, in order: A.J. Soares, Feilhaber, Chris Tierney, and Rajko Lekic. Personally, I might put Kevin Alston above Lekic, but it would be a close call. Interestingly, Alston’s and Lekic’s Index scores (7.03 and 7.02, respectively) and rankings (152 and 150) are virtually identical. In short, I mostly agree with how the Index ranks New England’s players relative to each other. (For evidence of this, note that I singled out much the same group of players in an October post, writing: “I feel like the Revolution have good players—Joseph, Feilhaber, Soares, Reis, Alston, and Tierney in particular.” I also wrote a statistical defense of Lekic, which can be found here.)

Since Reis’s name came up twice in the last paragraph, I should mention that the Index ranks him as the 2011 Revolution’s eighth-best player, just below Darrius Barnes. This is almost certainly too low a ranking for Reis, who had an excellent season, though Reis’s score and ranking seem to be in line with the rest of the Index as far as goalkeepers are concerned. Reis has an Index score of 6.74 and a player ranking of 182. To put those numbers in context, MLS 2011 Goalkeeper of the Year Kasey Keller has an Index score of 7.08 and ranks 145 on the list, very close to Reis’s numbers. Dallas’s Kevin Hartman and Philadelphia’s Faryd Mondragon—both of whom were in the running with Keller for Goalkeeper of the Year—rank below Reis on the Index.

It is perhaps more interesting to see where New England’s players rank in relation to the rest of the league. The Index ranks Joseph—who as you’ll recall is the Revolution’s top-ranked player—as only the 94^th best-performing player in MLS in 2011. The only other 2011 MLS team whose top-ranked player rated below Joseph is Toronto FC, which tied the Revolution for last place in the 2011 overall standings.

Infuriatingly, I’ve been unable import the full Index rankings into an Excel spreadsheet in any kind of easily sortable format. I’d like to see each team’s average player ranking and compare those numbers to how each team finished in the final standings. In lieu of entering all that information by hand into a spreadsheet, I thought it might be interesting for Revolution fans to see each team’s top player ranking and how many players each team had on its roster that were ranked above Joseph. Remember, Joseph was ranked the 94^th best performer in MLS for the 2011 season by the Castrol Index.

·      Chicago Fire: Best player ranked 15^th; 6 players ranked higher than Joseph

·      Chivas USA: Best player ranked 25^th; 6 players ranked higher than Joseph

·      Colorado Rapids: Best player ranked 7^th; 6 players ranked higher than Joseph

·      Columbus Crew: Best player ranked 33^rd; 4 players ranked higher than Joseph

·      D.C. United: Best player ranked 31^st; 3 players ranked higher than Joseph

·      FC Dallas: Best player ranked 8^th; 9 players ranked higher than Joseph

·      Houston Dynamo: Best player ranked 9^th; 5 players ranked higher than Joseph

·      L.A. Galaxy: Best player ranked 4^th; 8 players ranked higher than Joseph

·      New York Red Bulls: Best player ranked 3^rd; 6 players ranked higher than Joseph

·      Portland Timbers: Best player ranked 39^th; 3 players ranked higher than Joseph

·      Philadelphia Union: Best player ranked 20^th; 4 players ranked higher than Joseph

·      Real Salt Lake: Best player ranked 10^th; 9 players ranked higher than Joseph

·      San Jose Earthquakes: Best player ranked 1^st; 4 players ranked higher than Joseph

·      Seattle Sounders: Best player ranked 2^nd; 8 players ranked higher than Joseph

·      Sporting KC: Best player ranked 5^th; 10 players ranked higher than Joseph

·      Toronto FC: Best player ranked 141^st; 0 players ranked higher than Joseph

·      Vancouver Whitecaps: Best player ranked 59^th; 2 players ranked higher than Joseph

Whatever one thinks of the Castrol Index, the five teams that ended the 2011 season with the most points—L.A., Seattle, Salt Lake, Dallas, and Kansas City—were the only teams that each had at least eight players on their rosters that ranked higher than Joseph. The two teams that ended the 2011 season with the fewest points besides New England—Toronto and Vancouver—managed to have only two players between them that ranked above Joseph.

These statistics I think lend some credibility to the Index. One wonders, of course, how a player like Joseph would be ranked if he played on a better team. Presumably, the more goals a team scores and the fewer goals it concedes boost the rankings of all of that team’s players. Given this, the rankings might be more accurate at reflecting a player’s value vis-à-vis his own teammates, rather than the entire league. (If this is true, then Wondolowski’s number-one ranking is particularly impressive, since his team didn’t even make the playoffs.) Still, if the Index’s overall player rankings are remotely credible, then New England’s roster could be in need of an even more radical overhaul than many of us had assumed.

Sanity Remains on Throne in Foxboro: Revolution Re-Sign Shalrie Joseph

Given the New England Revolution’s performance during the 2011 season, a mostly drab roster in need of changes, and an artificial-turf home stadium built for an NFL team, soccer fans aren’t pitching tents outside Gillette stadium to secure Revs 2012 season tickets. But the organization did something right this month by re-signing midfielder Shalrie Joseph. Here’s New England GM Michael Burns announcing the agreement, as quoted in an article yesterday on the Revolution’s website: “Getting him re-signed was a top priority for us this off-season. We expect that Shalrie will continue to lead this team on the field, but also off the field and in the community, as well, as we move ahead into 2012.”

I recently heard someone quoted on the MLS podcast Extratime Radio saying he didn’t think Shalrie Joseph was worth the $475,000 the Revolution paid him last year. I’ve heard this kind of thing before—that Shalrie Joseph is overrated and overpaid—heard it even from someone who knows a lot about soccer, and each time I get almost angry. Of all the athletes in the world, or for that matter in the Boston area, it’s almost unfathomable to me that someone would get worked up about a team paying Joseph half a million a year, even an MLS team.

Obviously, anybody that makes this “argument” did not watch the 2011 Revolution season. In lieu of watching all those games now, after the fact, I suggest those in the anti-Joseph camp watch the July friendly against Manchester United. Joseph was the only Revolution player that clearly belonged on the field with the EPL side, not because of his speed but because he’s so strong, he’s calm on the ball, and he distributes well. To me, it’s significant that the Revs’ now-departed coach Steve Nicol played Joseph the entire match against Man. U. Joseph was the only Revolution player to go the full ninety minutes. Nicol of course was a hugely successful player in the Premiership, and this gesture I believe was his way of telling Joseph and everyone else that Joseph is a world-class player.

To continue, as if I need to: Joseph has been officially named one of MLS’s best eleven players four times in his career so far, and he’s led the Revolution in scoring two out of the last three years as a defensive midfielder. He’s tough and never dives, he commands respect from his teammates, other players, and other coaches. (In that Extratime podcast I mentioned, Greg Lalas told an anecdote about going to the bathroom during halftime of a game involving Joseph and seeing Bruce Arena, who shook his head and said something like, “Man, that Shalrie Joseph is really something.”) This season Joseph passed up playing in the Gold Cup for his country because he knew the faltering Revolution desperately needed his services. This is the guy some people choose to say is overpaid at $500K? Revolution fans named Benny Feilhaber last season’s MVP, and the club named Matt Reis. Reis is a decent choice, and Feilhaber is more explosive than Joseph, but there’s zero question in my mind the MVP of that team was Joseph. 

If you care to read about contract terms, the MLS Designated Player (DP) rule and how it relates to Joseph’s new contract, and other information about the re-signing, check out Kyle McCarthy’s excellent, well-researched article in Goal.com. In it, McCarthy reports, “[Jonathan] Kraft's public support and his private guarantees that the club would foot some of the bill to secure Joseph's services in 2012 all but assured that the two sides would reach an agreement.” The Krafts’ reputation for being a “class” organization typically extends only to how they run the Patriots. Their decision to reward Joseph for his past loyalty to the club proves the Krafts have some class in reserve to lavish on their soccer team.

U.S. Men’s National Team v. Slovenia at Stozice Stadium, Ljubljana, 11.15.11

 Prior to this 3-2 victory over Slovenia in Ljubljana, the U.S. hadn’t scored three goals in a game since June 5, 2010, when they beat Australia 3-1 in a World Cup “tune-up” match in South Africa. That was also the last time Edson Buddle scored for the U.S. national team. I don’t recall those goals against Australia (he scored a brace), but he had a beauty against Slovenia last night. He never would have gotten the chance had it not been for some terrible distribution by the Slovenia keeper, who played the ball short to his center back. Clint Dempsey closed on the poor sap and the rebound fell to Buddle, who settled the bouncing ball with his thigh and struck it hard and low. It glanced the inside of the post on its way into the back of the net.

There were other bright spots for the U.S., including a technically flawless header by Dempsey in the 41^st minute. Dempsey shed his man and ran onto a curling Michael Bradley corner kick, snapping the header down low and to the far post. Just a couple of minutes later, Jozy Altidore got into the action by taking an unstoppable shot from the penalty spot to put the U.S. up 3-1 just before the half.

Newcomer Fabian Johnson probably turned in the most promising performance by a U.S. player. He was born in Munich to an American father and a German mother, and he played for under-21 German national teams. Klinsmann’s penchant for German-born and -raised players—Timothy Chandler, Danny Williams, and Alfredo Morales were all born in Germany—seems fully justified in this case. There were many times in this match when I mistook Johnson for Dempsey (in part because the Slovenian air was choked with the kind of fog usually seen in vintage Universal horror movies). Johnson and Dempsey not only have similar body types, they possess a high level of skill on the ball and composure on the field—qualities not normally associated with U.S. soccer players. Johnson also drew fouls like Dempsey against Slovenia, which is saying something.

Johnson made his presence known early, in the first minute, when he laced a first-time volley just over the crossbar from the top of the penalty box. In the 38^th minute, he made a nice turn near midfield and narrowly missed springing a teammate with an attempted through ball. That led ESPN announcer Ian Darke to remark that Johnson has “a little touch of class about him.” Indeed he has, and four minutes later he showed it with another good turn, this time inside the penalty box. Johnson was taken down from behind, and that led to Altidore’s penalty-kick goal.

Significantly, the lone bad play of the night for Johnson that I noticed came on defense, when in the 19^th minute he got caught flat-footed on a juke by Slovenia’s Josip Iličič, who ran right by him and got off a shot. It’s significant because, while the U.S. created some excellent opportunities in the first half and managed to finally score multiple goals in one game under Klinsmann, the U.S. defense was shaky all night long. As a result, the U.S. were exceedingly lucky to get this much-clamored-for result. That statement should be supported by evidence, and there’s plenty of it:

·      2^nd minute: A Slovenia player gets behind the U.S. defense when Chandler fails to step up and trap him offside; the attacker has a clear shot at the goal but for whatever reason elects to hold the ball, and Carlos Bocanegra clears it over the end line. This leads to a corner kick and a shot on goal for Slovenia due to some shoddy marking by the U.S.

·      13^th minute: Kyle Beckerman is beaten off the dribble but the resulting shot is weak and falls directly to Tim Howard.

·      26^th minute: Tim Matavž of Slovenia equalizes when Chandler again fails to step up, allowing Matavž to run unimpeded to the goal. The back line on that play appeared scattered and helpless.

·      39^th minute: Slovenia is granted a free kick from about thirty yards out. They play the ball short, using a training-ground sequence and catching the unengaged U.S. defense flatfooted. Slovenia created a great chance here, but failed to finish.

·      46^th minute: Steve Cherundolo tries to clear a ball with his head near the six, but the ball falls to the feet of Valter Birsa, whose shot is just wide of the mark. Another great chance wasted for Slovenia.

·      48^th minute: Matavž runs through the entire U.S. defense, looking like Gale Sayers on a football field, before Bocanegra is finally able to stop him with a slide tackle just yards from the goal.

·      49^th minute: Bocanegra fails to clear the ball with conviction and it falls to Zlatan Ljubijankič, who traps the ball and shoots but, like Birsa just three minutes earlier, he fails to score.

·      60^th minute: A Slovenia corner kick is headed into the crossbar and the rebound is collected and put on goal; Howard makes a nice save to bail out the defense, but only for the moment.

·      61^st minute: The U.S. defense continues to look toothless as Matavž and Zlatan Ljubijankič execute an impressive give-and-go inside the box, the former scoring to pull Slovenia to within one goal of tying the game.

·      67^th minute: Clarence Goodson does well to win the ball on a Slovenia break, but he then plays the ball right back to the other side, a gaffe that easily could have led to the equalizer.

I go into all of the above not to be a pedant, but to emphasize just how lucky the U.S. were to escape with their victory. The U.S. certainly created some excellent chances in the first half, but the final score can mask a pedestrian overall performance against a middling international side, a side that’s culled from a nation of a mere 2 million. The U.S. failed to create many chances in the second half, didn’t effectively kill the game, and looked poor defensively throughout.

This win ought to get the results-in-friendlies-matter types off Jurgen Klinsmann’s back for a while. But what, we should ask ourselves, if Buddle’s great goal-scoring strike—which you’ll recall glanced off the post—had been just two inches to the left? What if one of Cherundolo’s or Bocanegra’s botched clearances had been converted into goals, as they probably should have been? What if Slovenia had scored on that training-ground move? If one or more of those sequences had gone the other way, then all of those results-in-friendlies-matter types would be wringing their hands at the state of U.S. soccer. Instead they’re all smiles. It is gratifying to score three goals in a game, to win a game, even if it is only a friendly. But if the U.S. can’t defend better when playing with two forwards and pressing, as they did against Slovenia, then scoring two or three goals in a game won’t be enough—not against top-flight competition, it won’t.

U.S. Men’s National Team v. France at Stade de France, Paris, 11.11.11

Starting around the second game of Jurgen Klinsmann’s tenure as head coach of the U.S. national team, announcers and commentators began to discuss whether “results matter” in these friendlies. Unless I’m very much mistaken, in this context a “result” means whether a team wins, loses, or draws. And in almost every case, soccer authorities as reliable as Ian Darke and as illogical as some I don’t care to mention have shouted from their swivel chairs that yes, results matter!

This is absurd. The results—or if you prefer the final scores—of these friendlies do not matter in the least, any more than the final scores of NFL preseason games “matter.” As Klinsmann put it, "I don't give a crap about win records. . . . What's important is how the team develops and improves step by step, hopefully with a positive qualification, and plays an impressive World Cup in Brazil. That's our goal."

To again state what should be obvious to everyone but apparently isn’t: the final scores of these friendlies do not matter. For the U.S., final scores matter in the Gold Cup, the Olympics, World Cup qualifiers, and World Cup games. If the U.S. won (or lost) every friendly it played by fifty goals, it wouldn’t help (or hurt) them one whit in their pursuit of winning or even qualifying for the World Cup or any other tournament.

This is all very different from saying that friendlies don’t matter. As Klinsmann observed, friendlies are used to develop the team. Friendlies allow players to build a rapport and develop technical skills against top-flight competition. The games allow coaches to test out different lineups, evaluate individual talent, work on set pieces, and on and on. About the only things that don’t matter about friendlies are their final scores, which are all anyone seems to want to talk about.

Speaking of which: the final score in this one was 1-0 in favor of France. It was the fourth 1-0 loss for the U.S. in six matches under Klinsmann. The game itself was, unfortunately, not as close as that final score suggests. France probably should have scored at least another goal, probably two, and the U.S. failed to generate their own chances. Moreover, the match was fully as boring as your average NFL preseason game, by far the drabbest outing under Klinsmann. The midfield play was especially bleak. Brek Shea, Maurice Edu, and Kyle Beckerman looked lifeless to a man, and Danny Williams seemed to turn the ball over every time he found it at his feet.

On the relatively bright side, Clint Dempsey muddied his jersey en route to drawing two yellow cards and numerous other fouls. Jozy Altidore also looked strong, and should, perhaps, have drawn a penalty kick in the 20^th minute when he was taken down inside the box while making a turn. (I acknowledge it’s odd to single out two attacking players for praise in a game in which no serious chances were generated for their side.) And the U.S. defense was solid as a unit, though the woodwork helped them in the 55^th minute, Tim Howard helped them with a great save a minute later, and a carelessly inaccurate blast from close range helped them in stoppage time.

While final scores in friendlies don’t matter, individual player performances and the team’s performance do matter. The most disappointing aspect of this game was the near-total lack of creativity from the U.S. players, particularly in the final third. It undoubtedly would have helped to have had Landon Donovan (out due to the upcoming MLS championship) and Jose Torres (out with an injury) in the lineup. But one got the sense that not even Lionel Messi himself could have summoned up brilliance against France had he donned a U.S. jersey. For whatever reason or combination of reasons—the long MLS season, the travel, the full and hostile stadium, the quality of the competition, etc.—it was clear from the first kick that this was not the U.S.’s night. Klinsmann is surely hoping that this forgettable effort was an aberration and not the sorry regression it appeared to be.

Revolution at Toronto FC, 10.22.11: Steve Nicol’s Last Game

Steve Nicol is no longer coach of the New England Revolution. He coached the same team for ten years, an MLS record. He leaves New England having won four conference championships, though he didn’t win an MLS title. Fans of both American football and soccer will have already placed Nicol in a cosmically jinxed club that includes avuncular erstwhile NFL coaches Marv Levy (Buffalo Bills) and Bud Grant (Minnesota Vikings), both of whom hold 0-4 Super Bowl records. Only a truly cold-hearted person would fail to feel sympathy for these guys, who ought to form a support group. Had a ball here or there bounced another way, each would have coached a championship team and their legacies would be almost infinitely more satisfying to both them and their respective teams’ fans.

It should be noted that Nicol’s 2007 New England team won the U.S. Open Cup, and his 2008 team won the SuperLiga title. The SuperLiga competition, which consisted of four teams from MLS and four from Mexico’s first division, is gone now, and few in the soccer/fútbol world will mourn its passing. I, however, heartily enjoyed those hard-nosed Primera División v. MLS matches, and can remember at least one Revolution SuperLiga match ending in a fistfight, complete with a Mexico league team trainer coming off the sideline to throw some haymakers. It’s appropriate that one of Nicol’s teams—known more for their grit than their grace—is the only MLS team to win a SuperLiga title during that competition’s brief four-year run.

There are many soccer authorities more qualified than I am to render judgment on Nicol’s tenure with the Revolution. One such authority, whom I’ve mentioned in a few of these posts and who happens to be a teetotaler, texted me the following message on the day Nicol was released: “I think I’m going to drink 2nite. Nicol is done.” While it will take a lot more than Nicol’s departure to truly drive my friend to drink, he has long disdained Nicol’s teams’ style of play, finding it infuriatingly drab, if occasionally effective.

My friend may be right about Nicol’s lack of coaching prowess, but I wonder to what degree Nicol simply coached up or down to his players’ abilities. This season, for instance, his roster changed almost continuously, with new players coming in (like Benny Feilhaber, Rajko Lekic, and Milton Caraglio) and other players going out (like Didier Domi, Ousmane Dabo, and Marko Perovic). It is true that Nicol failed to overcome these challenges. His team ended the season at the bottom of the standings and won only 5 games in 34 attempts.

That said, how many other coaches would have fared better? In soccer perhaps more than any other sport, a coach can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. We shouldn’t forget that Nicol enjoyed success with players like Clint Dempsey and Taylor Twellman under his tutelage. As for this year, New England’s set pieces were usually dangerous and often unfolded as carefully orchestrated “training ground” sequences, surely to the credit of Nicol and his staff. You have to play with what you have, and I can’t point to many areas where I would have made decisions other than those made by Nicol. I probably would have played Chris Tierney exclusively at left back, and asked him and Kevin Alston to make at least five attacking runs per half, but other than that, Nicol’s player-related decisions struck me as mostly logical.

Along with dictating a style of play—whether it involves booting long balls to the flag and crossing them, tiki-taka-style short passing and possession, or something in between—and choosing what players to use and where to use them, another aspect of coaching is what is often called building a culture or mindset of winning. Nicol’s early record proves that he could establish that kind of winning culture. But that culture seemed to crack and crumble during the last two seasons. Given the team’s recent slump, Nicol’s departure makes sense. And for once I believe that both a coach and upper management told the truth when each side reported that the parting was amicable and mutual.

It might be worth noting here that the soccer coach who is probably most associated with creating a culture of winning—Nicol acquaintance and fellow Scotsman Sir Alex Ferguson—coached Manchester United in a 6-1 home loss to Manchester City the day after Nicol was let go. I mention this to again stress the overwhelming importance of player talent to winning soccer games. Manchester City currently has a crazily talented roster, and they’re winning. Arsenal, by contrast, has lost Cesc Fàbregas and has been forced to start a player on the back line this season that many life long Gunners fans had never even heard of, and they’re losing. In other words, the two teams’ respective fortunes haven’t changed because Roberto Mancini is a mad genius and Arsène Wenger has suddenly forgotten how to coach. They’ve changed because of the players on the field.

In American football, a great coach like Bill Belichick really can make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, overcoming player-talent limitations by employing complicated strategies (virtually every American football play is a mind-bendingly complex “training ground” sequence or set piece), synchronized precision, and brute force. Soccer has both too many and too few limitations for a coach to have that kind of impact. Individual creativity and technical skill take the place of the synchronized precision and brute force of American football. A soccer coach is helpless to instill individual creativity, and you can’t physically beat another soccer team into submission, nor can you win by a too-heavy reliance on choreographed set pieces.

But to return to Nicol: I for one will miss his red-faced British passion, so often in evidence on the sideline as he disputed a call or fumed over a defensive lapse. I’ll miss his naked loyalty to his players and his curt valedictory “cheers” after his first-half sideline interviews with Brad Feldman and Jay Heaps. Nicol had a near-perfect affect for a Boston-area coach, maybe even more suitable than Belichick’s—Nicol looks intelligent but unpretentious, and hard-nosed. I haven’t the faintest notion of who might be interested in hiring him, but I can see Nicol’s bring-your-lunch-pail-to-work personality fitting in well in a town like Chicago, and I understand the Fire may be looking for a coach.

And what of Nicol’s last game as coach of the Revolution? It was a predictably flaccid end to this lifeless season, a 2-2 draw in Toronto under chilly, gray skies, a game marred by defensive breakdowns and a lack of technical quality on both sides. Alston did play well for the Revolution’s back line and was probably New England’s man of the match, which is appropriate given that Nicol himself was primarily a right back during his playing days. Alston played solid defense and made numerous attacking runs throughout the match, some of them effective. Monsef Zerka also had his moments against Toronto. In the 40^th minute, he scored a nice header off a corner kick from Benny Feilhaber, though he was poorly marked on the play.

The Revolution actually went up 2-1 in the 46^th minute on a Milton Caraglio goal, courtesy of another Feilhaber assist. But of course they couldn’t hold the lead, and were in fact fortunate to get the tie, as Toronto was still on the front foot after pulling level in the 83^rd minute. In the 89^th, Zerka, Feilhaber, and Caraglio were all in the final third with the ball, seemingly poised to create a game-winning chance, but no. They were all too obviously spent.

Enough about the Toronto game. I hope Nicol is able to forget it, and most of this season, when he looks back on his long and mostly successful coaching career in New England.

Revolution v. Columbus Crew, 10.15.11: The Pacifier and Thumb-Sucking Celebrations

I love the smiling enthusiasm and forthrightness with the media that coach Jurgen Klinsmann has brought to the U.S. men’s national team. However, his suggestion that MLS extend its season gives me pause, if not chills down the spine. Before the MLS powers that be consent to this plan, I suggest they be made to sit in a room and watch every single New England Revolution match played this year, including U.S. Open Cup games. By the time they get to last Saturday’s match—a drab 3-0 home thrashing at the hands of the Columbus Crew—all those suits will be begging the film projectionist for mercy. The Revolution mailed in their performance against the Crew, looking hapless in the back and failing to create a single dangerous shot on goal. I doubt that any of the Revs’ players benefited from the experience, even sixteen-year-old Diego Fagundez, who saw a lot of the ball early and then faded into invisibility.

Columbus held the ball less than the Revolution—not surprising given the fact that they were up early and throughout—and generated only three shots on goal themselves, but of course they converted all those. Columbus looked strong up top with their striker tandem of Emilio Renteria and Andres Mendoza. When those two weren’t getting flagged offside (they combined for eleven such calls) or complaining about getting flagged offside, Mendoza was scoring goals and Renteria was assisting on them. After Mendoza’s first goal, in the 31^st minute, he pulled a pacifier from his shorts and sucked on it. After his second—an impressive one-time cannon of a shot off a Renteria cross—he sucked his thumb. I guess he’s never heard of the biblical injunction to put away childish things.

Jay Heaps and Brad Feldman refrained from commenting on the celebratory displays, with which almost all soccer fans are unfortunately familiar. I understand that Carlos Tevez is the originator of the pacifier celebration, which was meant to honor his baby girl. While I’m all for spontaneous celebrations on athletic fields, premeditatedly carrying around a pacifier in one’s shorts all game in the hopes of scoring and then sucking on it in public strikes me as a little embarrassing at the very least. To actually fall in line and copy someone who has done so strikes me as downright lame. Then again, it sure is degrading for opposing players and fans to watch a guy who has just scored running around the field smiling and sucking on a Nuk.  (For more information on the pacifier and thumb-sucking celebrations, check out What do Soccer Celebrations Mean? There’s even a mention of Klinsmann’s diving celebrations.)

As for the rest of this game, it’s easy to blame the loss entirely on the Revolution defense—and the back line does probably deserve the lion’s share of the blame—but New England was uninspired all around. They lacked speed up top, service from the midfield, and teeth in the back. A.J. Soares is out with an ankle injury and the Revs profoundly miss him, not just for his toughness, but for his distribution and, I suspect, for his ability to effectively communicate with his fellow defenders. In the 25^th minute against the Crew, Franco Coria stepped up near the midfield stripe to draw the offense offside, but Darrius Barnes hung back and quickly found himself helplessly sprinting back between the attacking Renteria, now with the ball at his feet, and Mendoza. Only a diving deflection of Renteria’s cross by Bobby Shuttleworth prevented a Columbus goal. When Shuttleworth regained his feet, the camera caught him exasperatedly asking his defense, “WTF was that?”

If there was a bright side to this match for the Revolution it was the return of Rajko Lekic. Many assumed he was done for the season after an ankle injury suffered in Portland on September 16. I imagine no one would have blamed him much for taking the final two games off, given his injury and the Revolution’s place in the league standings, which is now for the first time dead last. Good for him for coming back under those circumstances. Also, Benny Feilhaber showed good hustle against the Crew and as always drew a lot of fouls, including a particularly hard challenge from behind late in the second half from Danny O'Rourke that should have drawn a yellow. By the bye, Feilhaber is second in the league in fouls suffered, at 69. That’s only five behind Vancouver’s Gershon Koffie, who has played 421 more minutes than Feilhaber.

Revolution v. San Jose Earthquakes, 10.8.11

We all know the old philosophical question about a tree falling in a forest with no one around to hear it. Well, if a blog post is written about a soccer game involving two MLS teams with a combined record of 12-26-26, does it still make a sound?

Not really, but let’s get on with it. The Revolution lost 2-1 at home on Saturday to the San Jose Earthquakes, who like the Revolution are out of this year’s MLS playoff race. This game had the look and feel of a throwback MLS game, and not in a good way. To begin with, the lame name “Earthquakes” was obviously penned in a time before MLS tried to mimic established international soccer clubs by giving names like FC Dallas and Real Salt Lake. And the Revolution and Earthquakes should be on anyone’s short list of MLS teams with the lamest, most dated-looking logos. Moreover, it’s the first time I can recall seeing an MLS game being played this season on a field emblazoned with NFL yard markings, logos, etc. The soccer field markings in this game were laid down in yellow, almost as an afterthought. (In the previous Revs’ home game, the NFL markings were only barely visible, as if they’d been imperfectly erased with a pencil, giving the field the look of a medieval palimpsest.)

Playing soccer with those NFL markings on the field looks so bush league it’s positively depressing. The markings are distracting for the fans (not to mention the players), and they’re a sad reminder that the Revolution could use a soccer-only stadium if they want to draw more fans like myself to games. The Patriots logo at midfield was a great indication of where the Revolution stand in the Kraft Group’s sports hierarchy. Can you imagine the Patriot’s playing with a huge Revolution logo on the field?

The highlight of this game was a true lowlight for the Revolution. In the 8^th minute, San Jose’s young goalkeeper David Bingham made a long pass that Tom Brady himself would have been proud of. Standing at the top of his penalty box, Bingham lofted a high ball into the Revolution’s box. Chris Wondolowski took the ball down amazingly softly with a right-footed trap that was every bit as impressive as an over-the-shoulder catch in baseball or football. After that settling touch, Wondolowski immediately struck a low, accurate shot past Revolution backup keeper Bobby Shuttleworth for San Jose’s first goal. Ryan Cochrane was victimized on the play and unfortunately looked like a member of an over-forty weekend-warrior squad as he struggled to give chase. After scoring, Wondolowski looped around Cochrane and ran down sideline with his index finger to his lips, rather needlessly shushing the meager crowd of 9,111 at mammoth Gillette stadium.

Despite that solecism, Wondolowski looked in good form against the Revolution. He took a couple more dangerous shots in the first half—in the 19^th and 25^th minutes—and he scored the Earthquakes’ second and deciding goal in the second half. That goal came courtesy of a beautiful chip to the back post by San Jose midfielder Sam Cronin. Wondolowski ran onto it and headed home the point-blank shot for his 14^th goal of the year, tying him for the moment atop the league with Thierry Henry and Dwayne De Rosario. That’s good company, and Wondolowski’s 14 goals in 2011 prove that his 2010 season was no aberration. After six goals in his last seven games, the guy may win the Golden Boot again this year.

As for the Revs, they played tough at the start of the second half. Cochrane may have looked slow on the first Wondolowski goal, but he should be given credit for playing with fire against his old club. For instance, he rushed to the defense of Diego Fagundez early in the second half after Ramiro Corrales took exception to Fagundez’s pushing him out of the way to get to a dead ball. Corrales and Cochrane each got yellow cards for that scuffle. At that point the game got, as they say, “a little chippy,” so much so that I all but forgot about the NFL field markings. Corrales himself had made the foul that led to the free kick, and that free kick in turn led to an exciting goal by the Revolution. Chris Tierney’s dead-ball strike hit the San Jose wall and eventually rolled to the feet of Ryan Guy, who got off a shocking canon of a shot that Bingham punched away. Milton Caraglio headed the rebound into the crossbar and Benny Feilhaber side-volleyed that rebound into the net.

The Revolution couldn’t sustain their effort, though, and during the final fifteen minutes San Jose played on the front foot and got their game-winner. The Revolution did have a golden opportunity to equalize in stoppage time, when Fagundez took a pass from Feilhaber in the attacking third and played an excellent pass back to Feilhaber, who had made a run into the box. Feilhaber’s one-time cross found the foot of Caraglio, who was just two yards in front of the goal. Given the way this season has gone for the Revolution, need I describe the fate of Caraglio’s shot?

U.S. Men’s National Team v. Ecuador at Red Bulls Stadium, Harrison, NJ, 10.11.11

Poor Tim Ream. Prior to last night, he most recently played for the U.S. national team on June 11. In that game, against Panama, he whiffed while trying to clear a ball from his own end and was whistled for a careless foul. The error led to a penalty kick that helped Panama secure a 2-1 victory in the group stages of the Gold Cup. It also earned Ream a spot on the U.S. bench.

Eight national team games later, Ream finally got the call again. Jurgen Klinsmann inserted him into the Ecuador match last night in the 72^nd minute, the team deadlocked in scoreless tie. Ream hadn’t been on the field for ten minutes before a man he was marking beat him to a crossed ball at the six and hammered home the only shot that Ecuador managed to get on target all night. The U.S. went on to lose 1-0.

Ream has made similar gaffes for his Red Bulls team this year; those have been well documented and I won’t go into them. He looked objectively weak on Ecuador’s goal, basically getting pushed out of the way by Jaime Ayoví. It was a glaring mistake and it cost the U.S. a game against a remarkably evenly matched opponent. Still, it’s too early to throw Ream onto the national team scrapheap. As I mentioned in my last post, the U.S. back line made numerous mistakes against Honduras, mistakes that were far more egregious than Ream’s last night, since at times Honduras players were left completely unmarked near the goal. But Honduras didn’t have the quality to finish, so of course those mistakes were quickly forgotten, whereas this morning I’m sure many soccer fans across the country are calling for Ream’s banishment from the national team, if not the country.

Ream won’t get many more chances to redeem himself—especially with players like the L.A. Galaxy’s Omar Gonzalez, FC Dallas’s George John, and the New England Revolution’s A.J. Soares waiting in the wings—but I for one will be pulling for him to do so. He’s good on the ball, he’s still young, he has a good attitude, and just last year Thierry Henry said that Ream is “a great player with a bright future.” (For Klinsmann’s take on Ream after last night’s game, check out this article in Goal.com, in which Klinsmann says, “[Ream] is one of the very promising center-backs in this country. . . . He deserves to be on this squad and he has an extreme will to learn. He’s a constant asker who wants to know how to get to the next level.”)

Forgetting about Ream and the loss for a moment, the U.S. defense played exceptionally well last night, especially in the first half. Timmy Chandler and Steve Cherundolo had good performances, in particular Chandler, who tirelessly pressed forward all game long and had no lapses on the defensive end. His work with Brek Shea on the left sideline continues to impress and to inspire hope for the future. Cherundolo was skinned a few times by Ecuador’s speedy attackers, but he worked well with other defenders, and as a unit the back line always recovered. (Cherundolo did have an unusually bad night with the dead balls, however, including poor deliveries on free kicks in the 11^th and 19^th minutes.)

In my opinion Oguchi Onyewu, who played instead of Michael Orozco Fiscal alongside captain Carlos Bocanegra in the center last night, was the man of the match. He consistently broke up Ecuador’s attack and occasionally effectively ran with the ball and pressed forward, especially near the end of the game with the U.S. fighting to equalize. (The ESPN cameras caught a shot of Klinsmann in the final minutes yelling, “Gooch! Gooch!” and frantically waving his big center back forward.) In the 75^th minute, Onyewu even made an impressive turn and shot, working with DeMarcus Beasley with his back to the goal. Onyewu’s partner in the center, Bocanegra, also played virtually mistake-free last night until Ream came on for him.

 In short, Klinsmann may have finally hit on a unit to build around with that back line of Chandler, Cherundolo, Onyewu, and Bocanegra. In this crucial respect, the game against Ecuador was by far the most promising game for the U.S. since Klinsmann took over.

It seems redundant to point out that Brek Shea again looked strong. He was pulled after the first half, though certainly due to his accumulated minutes played in recent months and Klinsmann’s desire to evaluate other players, not because of poor play. Shea had the ball at his feet a lot during his 45 minutes, and he seems to be getting even better with his passing accuracy and touch on the ball. He was part of a brilliant-looking exchange of one-touch passes in the 28^th minute, working with Chandler and Clint Dempsey before passing to Maurice Edu, who unfortunately couldn’t manage to get any power behind the final touch, a shot struck without conviction to the Ecuadoran keeper. Shea had other moments as well, including a powerful strike in the 5^th minute that just missed the target.

Others looked promising, including Dempsey, Danny Williams, and Jozy Altidore. Dempsey, unfortunately, virtually disappeared for most of the second half. I nearly forgot he was on the field until the final minutes of the game, when he again made his presence known. It’s hard to know if Dempsey’s lack of touches in the second half was a result of misfortune, his own relatively diminished efforts, or the fact that four U.S. players were substituted at the start of the second half, a break in continuity that may have thrown Dempsey off. Given Dempsey’s recent stunningly good form, I lean towards the latter explanation.

At some point—likely next spring, just before the U.S. begins its World Cup qualifying matches—the U.S. will of course have to stop evaluating and start playing its best players, that is, playing a consistent lineup that is trying to win games. Last night’s loss was frustrating, especially the U.S.’s inability to create good shots on goal and (of course) to actually score. But Klinsmann is still evaluating, not having reached the stage in which scoring and winning are paramount. Obviously, he wants to score and to win, even in these friendlies. But no coach whose primary goal is to win would start four new players in the second half—not after his team had done so well in the first.

Kudos to Klinsmann for continuing to try new players like Williams, and for giving old players like Onyewu and Beasley a chance to redeem themselves. The fact is, last night’s loss—in which the U.S. controlled the first half against a very good South American team and apparently struck upon an excellent starting back line—is far greater cause for optimism than the shaky victory over a relatively weak Honduras side a few nights earlier.

U.S. Men’s National Team v. Honduras in Miami, 10.8.11

U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann got his first U.S. men’s national team victory by beating Honduras 1-0 on a windy, rainy night in Miami. The game was a friendly and had little significance even in the hermetic world of U.S. soccer, but Klinsmann continued to reshape the U.S. side’s style of play into something less reactive and more aggressive. During the first half, for example, outside backs Timothy Chandler and Steve Cherundolo, on the left and right respectively, routinely made runs into the offensive third. I thought they both had excellent first halves and deserve much credit for the victory.

The first goal would not have happened without the outside backs’ efforts. The goal came off a corner kick created by one of Chandler’s many runs down the left sideline, this one coming in the 35^th minute and ending in a cross that was played out of bounds by Honduras. Cherundolo took the corner from the right flag, playing the ball short to Brek Shea. Shea tried to cross the ball into the box but his attempt was deflected and Cherundolo did well to chase down the rebound and pass it back to Shea, who made a run to the flag. Shea’s next cross met with no resistance, in fact was flicked back through the legs of Jozy Altidore and Michael Orozco Fiscal before it found Clint Dempsey at the top of the box. Dempsey impressively created space for himself in the face of the entire Honduras back line, dribbling once to his preferred right foot before dragging the ball back onto his left and taking an accurate shot that beat the keeper high and wide. It was a calm and skillful finish.

The U.S. back line looked far shakier in second half, particularly during the first fifteen minutes or so of that period. In the 55^th minute, for example, Honduras’s Boniek Garcia took part in a give-and-go and had a great look at the goal, but he pushed his shot wide of the target. A couple of minutes later, Honduras forward Jerry Bengston was left all alone on the back post when a cross was played in, and he too missed the frame. Though I think the U.S. deserved to win this game, it should be clear that Honduras had numerous chances. A better team would have capitalized on the U.S. back line’s early second-half lapses, which are certainly cause for concern for Klinsmann.

On the bright side for the U.S., Dempsey had a second goal dubiously disallowed in the 84^th minute for coming over the back of a Honduras defender. To me it looked like a spectacular goal, though Dempsey may indeed have used the defender slightly when propelling himself towards the Jonathan Spector cross. Bad call or no, it’s nice see that Dempsey’s got some serious hops to go with his knack for putting the ball into the net.

Dempsey played with flair at other points in the match as well, and he was involved in my favorite sequence of the game. It started early in the second half with Shea receiving a pass from Chandler on the left and running at the defense. Shea cut the ball back and crossed it on the ground in the direction of Dempsey, who was standing near the penalty arc. Dempsey let the ball roll through his legs, aware that Edu was making a run close behind him. Edu then one-touched the dummied ball to Danny Williams, who was making his own run down the right side. Williams’s shot from near the right corner of the penalty box unfortunately went to the keeper, but the entire U.S. team seemed poised to pounce on a rebound or the ball itself had seen its way past the keeper and across the goal mouth. Most notably, Dempsey made a sprint to the far post that he punctuated with a slide inside the six, as he so often does. The entire sequence showed a high level of skill and fluid teamwork seldom associated with U.S. soccer, and I’m sure it pleased Klinsmann no end.

Tim Howard was his typically solid self, preserving the shutout with at least a couple of good saves, in particular a kick-save in the 19^th minute. Bengston had gotten way behind the U.S. defense and Howard rushed at him, made himself big, and deflected the shot from about eight yards off his line. It was another great opportunity lost for Honduras.

As for some of the rest of the U.S. players, Shea continues to look mostly impressive. He played the entire match and hustled on both ends. He was by no means perfect—he gave the ball away on a few occasions and horribly missed a sitter by letting a perfect Altidore cross get too far behind him—but he had a number of dangerous crosses into the box, including the one that resulted in the Dempsey goal and, five minute before that, a pass from the end line that found an open Williams near the top of the 18. (Unfortunately, Williams side-footed a shot over the bar.)

Altidore also had a strong match, hustling until the 83^rd minute, when he came off and received an appreciative pat on the back from his new coach. Kyle Beckerman had a typically gritty performance in midfield. The U.S., and indeed any team, can always use high-energy hard-tackling players that no one wants to play against, and Beckerman is certainly one of those.

Longtime U.S. fans also got to enjoy the returns of Oguchi Onyewu, who played the entire second half, and DaMarcus Beasley, who came on in the 65^th minute. The recentness of Onyewu’s return to the national team may have had something to do with the defensive lapses at the start of the second half, since of course back lines must play as a single, synchronous unit and that takes time. Onyewu didn’t have a spectacular game but looked mostly strong at center back. Unfortunately for him, he did miss a point-blank shot on a wide-open goal, painfully sending a volley over the bar in the 66^th minute. Beasley looked good as well, earning a corner in the 69^th minute and drawing a foul in the 78^th. He might have scored in the 87^th off a long ball from Howard, but he took it off his chest a little too hard, bringing the ball down too far wide of the goal to get off a good shot. I’d forgotten how slight Beasley is—his USMNT profile lists him at 5’8” 145, and by the looks of his waifish frame he must have been weighed while wearing a sodden uniform. If he wants to play under Klinsmann at that weight, he’ll have to do better with balls like the one Howard sailed to him in the final minutes of the Honduras match.

Revolution v. Seattle Sounders, 10.1.11

Revolution announcer Brad Feldman said that the final ten seconds of this game were “symbolic of the night for the Revs.” With three minutes of stoppage time previously announced by the referee, and with the game clock showing 92:50 and the scoreboard showing 2-1 in favor of Seattle, New England goalkeeper Matt Reis bizarrely eschewed sending a goal kick long to his forwards in favor of playing it short to his center back Darrius Barnes. Barnes in turn made an errant pass back towards Reis and over the end line. The ref blew his whistle and the game ended.

I’m not sure I agree with Feldman about the symbolism of that particular play, since the Revolution dominated most of the match. However I, like Feldman, often find myself viewing brief episodes of play as somehow characteristic of an entire game, team, or season. This tendency may be a result of the fact that I—a holder of two unmarketable advanced degrees in English—spent a large part of my twenties engaging in “close readings” of literary texts. In any event, just a few minutes before Feldman had made his point, I thought much the same thing about a play involving Pat Phelan. I have zero desire to pick on Phelan, who is hard-working and likeable, but the play in question I thought was neatly representative of the more frustrating aspects of New England’s disappointing season.

In the 88^th minute, with the Revolution’s hopes for a draw fading with each misstep, Benny Feilhaber and Shalrie Joseph worked together to win the ball in the midfield circle. Feilhaber received a short pass from Joseph and turned up field, spotting Phelan just a few yards ahead of him. Feilhaber made the short pass to his teammate and pressed forward, making himself available for the give-and-go. Phelan turned and wisely held the ball and let Feilhaber, who was in traffic, continue his run. The Revs were on the front foot now and it seemed as though they might be on the verge of creating a goal-scoring opportunity, which so often happens when winning the ball at midfield.

As Phelan turned, the camera showed an expanse of green on his left occupied by a wide-open Chris Tierney, New England’s best crosser. But Phelan either didn’t see Tierney or ignored him. In any case, he decided to pass the ball down the center of the field, into the teeth of the Seattle defense, to a well-marked Milton Caraglio. Phelan’s pass was, predictably, cleared, and Seattle quickly regained possession on a throw-in.

Phelan’s dubious pass brought to mind Shalrie Joseph’s quote, made after New England’s 4-4 draw against Philadelphia last month. “We didn't have the quality,” Joseph said, “and we're not good enough to hang onto a 4-1 lead.” Nor are they good enough to pull level when down a goal at home to a team like Seattle that was resting many of its best players in the midst of a brutal road trip that included flights to Vancouver, BC, Guatemala City, and New England in the space of only eight days.

New England controlled the ball for most of the game but could only manage one goal, a Diego Fagundez header off a corner kick. This was Fagundez’s first MLS start, and he played well. The Revolution need more players like him who can create and, perhaps even more importantly, capitalize on opposing players’ mistakes. He was left unmarked on that corner kick and he made Seattle pay, which is what good players do. That’s what Seattle’s Fredy Montero did a minute later, scoring the equalizer on a nice shot that came courtesy of a botched clear by Ryan Cochrane.

Steve Nicol has rightly hammered away at the point that the Revolution need to minimize their defensive lapses. But unfortunately his team’s problems go deeper than their back line, as this game—in which New England outshot Seattle 23 to 10 but still lost—showed. I feel like the Revolution have good players—Joseph, Feilhaber, Soares, Reis, Alston, and Tierney in particular. Then again, only one team in the league has fewer points than New England, and there are only three games left to play. On the one hand, the team’s problems seem obvious: They have defensive breakdowns, they can’t finish, they can’t maintain possession, etc., etc. On the other hand, the Revolution are maddeningly inconsistent and hard to figure. Against Seattle, for instance, they played well early but faded late. In their previous game, against Chicago, they started poorly and then came roaring back, scoring twice in the final three or four minutes, which wasn’t enough.

In short, I’m exasperated by the Revolution and flummoxed that they haven’t done better this year. I can’t imagine how the players and coaching staff must feel. On that last sequence against Seattle—the one that Feldman called “symbolic”—in which Reis played the goal kick short and Barnes played it back and out of bounds, I for one was beyond feeling surprised or even upset. I sympathized with Reis and Barnes as they walked off the field, their heads down after yet another loss.