East Chicago Fire Columbus Crew D.C. United Montreal Impact New England Revolution New York City FC New York Red Bulls Orlando City SC Philadelphia Union Toronto FC West Colorado Rapids FC Dallas Houston Dynamo Sporting Kansas City LA Galaxy Portland Timbers Real Salt Lake San Jose Earthquakes Seattle Sounders FC Vancouver Whitecaps FC Holy hell next season is going to be rough. The West sheds a perennial play-off loser in Chivas while gaining one of the stronger teams in the East and a historically strong team that’s in a lull. The East meanwhile gets two expansion teams.
^Uh, is the East where you get relegated to? Jesus. Why on earth is the West so damn hard now? Are you kidding me with those teams?
NYCFC and Orlando are expansion clubs, but are likely to progress quickly. They both have resources and ambitions. Short term, western division teams get the short end of the stick here. Long term I'm not so sure LA is not better off. Houston without Kinnear does not look to be what it has been.
It's funny that you can argue than any one of the teams from the west can make the playoffs next year.
All 10 MLS Cup Finalists from 2009-2013 are in the Western Conference next season. So that's cool.— Daniel Robertson (@Daniel_Rob27) October 27, 2014
And the Supporter's Shield now becomes even more irrelevant However, if a team from the West wins it, that'd be mighty impressive
Wow. Look at where the league is compared to 10 years ago. Look how many strong ownership groups and fan groups there are compared to then. Sometimes I want to punch Garber in the nards for his utter refusal to honor the international schedule, but the way expansion and diversification of ownership has gone is downright impressive.
I actually think that honor falls to Colorado. San Jose so obviously phone in 2014 when they figured out their stadium wasn’t going to be ready until 2015. It was a terrible plan, but it was at least a plan. Colorado on the other hand got to what a week before the beginning of the season, had no plan for a head coach and just sort of gave it to Pablo by default. They’re not even trying in Colorado.
Dashiel: I agree. I am not sure the ownership interests in Colorado care that much about the Rapids. Kroenke Sports Enterprise's (KSE) major soccer holding is Arsenal. In Denver, they own the Nuggets and Avalanche as well as Arena Football and Lacross Franchises. By my count that makes the Rapids, third or fourth on the priority list. The Galaxy are probably AEG's second most important from a controlling interest perspective.
my take 1. when 50 percent make the playoffs ( 5 of 10) , doesn't change much 2. Competition is what the league and i want.. perfect .. ( more money )
They only recently started to care about Arsenal and most their fans would say it's not enough. They just seem like a sports investment group, a bunch of mediocre run teams. I question the ambition with all the teams they own. Arsenal you can argue are the closest thing to having proper ambition, with recent big signings like Ozil and A. Sanchez but people might not know that financially Arsenal is one of the most secure clubs in the world and they actually generate large sums of cash every year which they refuse to spend. It's not like a Chelsea or City situation where they would be spending money they don't have which is why Arsenal fans get upset considering they along with Spurs have some of the highest ticket prices in the world game. That doesn't bode well for Colorado, if they do the minimum with Arsenal that doesn't give you hope with the Rapids where owners in MLS because of the structure can get away with not doing much for a long time. They do seem like a good candidate to be the next Chivas USA, in the West at least. Some might argue that Houston despite the new stadium tend to be unambitious in the market for players. At least that's what their fans say ad nauseam.
It’s going to be interesting seeing who they appoint as manager. Managers don’t last 10 years with the same team in this league let alone being the only manager a club has ever known. Houston were clearly in need of a change, but talk about your undiscovered countries.
Probably hear a lot of sexy names and end up going the former player route like Colorado or NYRB. Which could work out but I'm not sure the next guy will be all too surprising. Kinnear always struck me as the MLS version of Steve Bruce or Allardyce. Unspectacular tactically but if you want stability for the most part they tend to be your best bets because they have a systematic approach to a league season which they don't deviate from. Both Bruce and Fat Sam I think would make better MLS coaches than pure tacticians.