Have you ever seen a dolphin point mockingly at another dolphin and laugh bitterly at its humiliation? No. Partly that's because it's very hard to point using fins. But it's also because what makes us human is our ability, nay our passion, for laughing at others. But laughing at others, while fun, is just cruel if we don't also put ourselves up for the same treatment. In that spirit, the time has come to predict the utterly unpredictable. In the future, we might look back in awe at the prescience and wisdom of your MLS predictions. But, more likely, we'll just laugh at your incompetence and stupidity. The prediction winner will receive the adoration of thousands of soccer fans and millions of dollars in endorsements (*terms apply). Copy/paste the following post to participate.
MLS East: 1. NYCFC 2. Atlanta 3. Philadephia 4. The DC United 5. Toronto 6. NYRB 7. New England 8. Columbus 9. Orlando 10. Montreal 11. Miami 12. Chicago 13. Cincinnati Wooden Spoon: Cincinnati USOC: Vancouver Shield: Kansas City MLS Cup: DC United It's been a weird offseason. MLS teams have finally gone down the road of buying young talent from overseas. So most of us have never even heard the names of most of the incoming talent. That's certainly a good thing for MLS and a bad thing if you're trying to predict MLS. It's also weird that, on paper, most MLS East teams have gotten worse in the offseason. Atlanta has been shedding talent. Chicago, Philly, NY, Montreal too, but to a lesser extent. Hardly anybody is absolutely better than they were last year, not even Miami.
I want to see what teams do in the next couple of weeks before making predictions, but I do agree with the DC United in the top 4 pick. Dunno if I see Atlanta at #2 - what happens if Martinez goes down, or they can't feed him the ball consistently without Gressel?
Yeah, I agree. But then I ask myself who's gong to pass them. I don't really have an answer. The only team that seems demonstrably better this season than last is NYCFC and if history is any guide, CONCACAF will decimate them in the beginning of the season.
MLS East: 1.Philly 2.Atlanta 3.NYCFC 4.DC United 5.NYRBMF 6.Toronto 7.Orlando 8.CBus 9.New England 10.Miami 11.Chicago 12.Cincy 13.Montreal Wooden Spoon: Montreal USOC: DC United Shield: LA Gals MLS Cup: NYCFC
MLS East 1.Toronto 2. NYCFC 3.Atlanta 4.Philly 5. New England 6. Orlando 7. Redbull 8. Columbus 9. DCU 10. Chicago 11. Montreal 12. Miami 13. Cincy Wooden Spoon: Cincy USOC: Seattle Shield: LAFC MLS Cup: Toronto
I see Jans is under investigation for inappropriate comments, so Cincy as the Wooden Spoon may be a lock -- what a mess.
I think seven of those teams are better in possession and will create more chances than DC. I still see DC as a backfoot team until I see something different. I threw in Orlando as a surprise team for no reason other than they might be due.
They won't have Bradley for the first half of the season and they will have CONCACAF screwing up their schedule. I'm bearish.
After Week 1, I'm going to revise my predictions. MLS East: 1. NYCFC 2. Philadephia 3. NYRB 4. Toronto 5. New England 6. Atlanta 7. DCU 8. Chicago 9. Columbus 10. Orlando 11. Miami 12. Montreal 13. Cincinnati The East is garbage.
I predict that we will win... at least once. Working to put our best players on the field in their best positions we will employ the vaunted 3-5-2-0 formation to take advantage of our bafflingly strong proclivity for signing DMids. We will be hard to break down, but harder to watch than a candidate debate and twice as frustrating/headache provoking. Eventually, following an injury to one of our DMids we will finally make Griffin Yow our starter up top, and he will become the second coming of Roy Lassiter. He will be the first MLS player to score more than 20 goals as a teenager.
Goff: Segura is day-to-day with a tweak, so Asad and Boateng are candidates to start if he can't go. Asad looked slooow to me last Saturday and, in any case, he probably can't go 90. Yes, I would like to see Yow - and Sorga.
I've seen Yow and he didn't look uncomfortable on the pitch. Sorga is intriguing because of his output, although it was in a low level league for the most part. I would like to see if he seems overwhelmed if he gets some playing time. I've seen another candidate, ,Boateng, and wasn't overly impressed.
MLS East: 1. Atlanta 2. New England 3. Toronto 4. Philadelphia 5. Columbus 6. NYCFC 7. NJ Red Bull 8. Montreal 9. Chicago 10. Orlando 11. Miami 12. DC United 13. Cincinnati We have an MLS 1.0 roster trying to play like NYCFC. The sooner we get back to Team Defending and Bennyball, the more likely we are to dodge last place. Or maybe we'll be lucky enough to draw a PK and play 11-v-10 in all the remaining games.
...within specific parameters - still maintaining as much distancing as is possible, and no full scrimmages yet.
Germany also has competent leadership, belief in science, and enough testing infrastructure that they can intervene early. We have Orangy the Clown.