It's true that the top of the East is very good. But the rest of the East is very bad indeed. Pretty much every team below us is crap. Toronto should get better, but they are the only one that's a possible exception. We're not so much good as better than the Shitcago, DC, Philly, et al. (And as Monty notes, our 1-0-2 is on our turf. If we perform a notch worse on the away legs against those guys, for argument's sake say a draw and two losses, 1-2-3 against the top of the conference looks much less impressive.) Anyway, I'm not sure if the East is really better than the West. I'm still a lot more intimidated by Dallas, KC, LAFC, and Portland than Atlanta, Red Bull, NYFC, and Columbus (the four top PPG teams in each conference as of writing). And I do think the West is deeper talent-wise, with more decent teams and fewer bad ones. But the West also has some truly dreadful teams - far worse than the East's worst - giving up all their points to their conference mates. So it's all open to debate.
That's true but the revs have given NYC a fight home or away. RB and Atlanta are a different story but here's hoping Friedel figures out a way to take points on the road both places.
What leads you to believe that? They have only one road win, 3 months ago, and that was red-card aided (not saying the win wasn't earned, but you can't count on red cards regularly). The one win last year was in Montreal, and they already lost there this year. CHI and SJE were two of their best chances, and they blew those. They have ten road games left: MIN, NYRB, ORL, DCU, PHI, NYC, LAFC, TOR, ATL, RSL Which of those will they win? MIN - maybe, but they have been good at home this year (4-2-1) ORL - can new coach turn it around? DCU - 4 pts in 2 home matches, new stadium will make it harder PHI - Already beat Revs at home once RSL - won six of seven home games If they win two of those ten, I'll be pleasantly surprised.
I think you're arguing semantics. Were the winnable? Absolutely - and it's very disappointing that they couldn't win one, let alone both. But they weren't easy games. SJ's back is to the wall. They got embarrassed at home in their previous game. They have professional pride, they are fighting for their careers - and they do have a talented attack. Their defense is weak, but we scored 2 - that's pretty good on the road. But, we're [still] giving up goals too easily. No, that's realism. It's where we are in the standings.
We added enough new, good players in the off-season to signal that things are not necessarily the same-old, same-old. If they can sign players in the off-season, they can sign them in the summer window - they have no shortage of assets to go get them.
Realism doesn't take the first 8 miles of a marathon and then call a runner better than average because, in that snapshot, he's a little above the median. Realism calmly says : "let's see what this runner is capable of as the race unfolds". Realism doesn't say "whooee, we're better than Toronto!" because in this snapshot we've more points than they. Realism says: "....hmmmmm, let's see how we compare to Toronto by the time Septermber rolls around. For now, it ain't realistic to call the Revs superior to TFC" But, realistically, what are the odds that "realism" is what really is at stake here?
If you compare the point totals for teams across conferences, each east team is ahead on points compared to their west coast counterpart. Even if the teams below the line in both conferences arent very good, the eastern variants are stronger compared to the west