The Other Playoffs

(by Ryan Wise)

Sure, it's cool about the Red Sox and all, and I'm glad they broke the 100-year-old Curse of the Zombino or whatever, but I'm paying attention to a different set of playoffs. Yes, i confess, I'm an out of the closet Major League Soccer fan.

OK, honestly, I know it isn't great soccer. It quite often has jumbled gameplay, not much finesse, and only has a handful of truly great talents, but there's one key difference for me that separates it from the Premierships, the Eredivisies, and Bundesligas. It's our jumbled, finesseless league. Growing up as a young soccer player in Colorado, I really wanted a local team to root for at the professional level, and MISL wasn't doing it for me (or most of the country, for that matter). I follow the league today because I still want to see US professional soccer taken seriously by this country and the rest of the world. Who cares if all the best talents eventually get sucked over to Europe? That just makes our national team that much better, raises the level of esteem European fans have for US players, and makes room at home for rising college stars and yes, the occasional Freddy Adu.

So what's the lay of the land today? In the east, we have Freddy's team DC United taking on their arch-rivals (and winner of the Worst. Team Name. Ever. award) the New York/New Jersey MetroStars, while the New England Revolution meet the Columbus Crew.

DC United is, along with San Jose, one of my favorite teams in the league. Their passing game is clean and they can show a lot of cleverness on the ball. Jaime Moreno and Alecko Eskandarian, their two main strikers, have shown a talent for finding the net, but also the restraint and unselfishness to dish the ball out when they don't have the shot. In their first meeting with the Metros (semifinals consist of two separate games where total aggregate goals determine the winner), DC scored first when Earnie Stewart received the ball deep on the right wing, in a play that everyone, including Stewart himself, thought was offsides. But the flag stayed down, and Stewart hammered it into the top corner. To put the game away, Eskandarian pulled a split second window away from his man and slotted in a corner goal in the last minutes.

The other eastern game had a somewhat surprise upset, when the New England Revolution, coming off a terrible regular season performance, upset the league leading Crew with one rocketing shot by Avery John from almost 25 yards out. I think the Crew can and will come back this weekend, and we'll probably be seeing a Crew/United Eastern Title face-off.

Over here in the West, I'm very focused on the returning champions, the San Jose Earthquakes, and their current battle with the KC Wizards. San Jose, even though having somewhat of an off regular season, can be extremely fun to watch, and the Landon Donovan/Brian Ching partnership has really proved to be effective for both club and country. With Donovan probably leaving MLS after this season to join Bayer Leverkusen full time, San Jose may have that extra desire to grab the MLS Cup a second time in a row.

The Earthquakes handily beat Kansas City, out-passing and out-challenging them until Dwayne DeRosario's fluke cross/shot was deflected into the net in the 40th minute. San Jose put the game away after the half on a corner kick that saw second-string keeper Bo Oshonti blocked by a sea of players in the 6-yard box, allowing Craig Waibel to easily put in the far post shot.

The other Western Conference game, the LA Galaxy vs. the Colorado Rapids saw LA continuing to implode despite their management's best efforts to eke out something in the playoffs. Jean Philippe Peguero put the game's only goal past keeper Kevin Hartman in the 30th minute.

The next leg of semifinals starts tomorrow with both Western Conference matches and the DC/NY game. San Jose vs. KC will unfortunately be tape delayed until Sunday, the same day as the LA/Colorado matchup happens live (this week and next, all the games will be on Fox Sports World, or my TiVo if you guys want to join me!). Next week will see one round of Conference Finals, and then the MLS Cup Final happens on Nov. 14th on ABC.

For my money, the most exciting final would be a San Jose/DC match. The two best passing games, with the two most recognizable soccer talents in this country (Donovan vs. Adu, setting aside the fact that Adu would probably see little game time) could prove to be an action-packed game. Also, while San Jose can run with the ball and has lots of great speed, most of their goals come off set pieces, while DC has shown that they can score with improvisation and slicing open the defense. Who would win? I couldn't call it, but I'd be rooting for San Jose in the end. Y'all should come on over and root with or against me November 14th!