The Weekly Dis
A look at the MLS East playoff picture at the top of the stretch, a listen to our neighbors in the community orchestra, and This Week in Discasting (with a Cincy twist). Oh, and Hell is Real.
Down the stretch they come ...
If you're from Columbus, you are conditioned to despise most every contrivance that oozes out of the MLS league office in New York. Remember, Don Garber cut his vampire teeth as a marketing whiz at NFL headquarters before his long reign as The Soccer Don commenced. He has swathed American soccer in Draper-y.
I must say, though, that the "Decision Day" concept is pretty cool. For the uninitiated, Decision Day is the last day of the MLS regular season – when every team in the league is in action, kickoffs are staggered, and playoff ramifications hit the proverbial fan in succession. It's the one day of the year when MLS fans, notoriously parochial, actually give a shit about what is happening outside of their home market.
This year, Decision Day is Saturday, Nov. 7. I'm surprised the league doesn't use "D-Day," because that would be so MLS. But I digress.
Heading into the weekend, the Crew were in 13th place in the Eastern Conference with four teams and four points separating them from ninth place. Whoever finishes in ninth place will get the last postseason berth in the conference.
Eight vs. nine is the play-in game, with the winner earning the right to play the No. 1 seed (it'll be Nashville, on the verge of clinching the Supporters' Shield) in the first round of the playoffs. It's a standard format for each conference: No. 2 vs. No. 7; No. 3 vs. No. 6; and No. 4 vs. No. 5.
Here at The Disrespected, we are proudly foot-backward; draws are usually ties and the Red Bulls remain pluralized.
Here's the way the standings look on this lovely Saturday morning.
I got out my medium-weight sketchbook and did some plotting. I posed a few questions to the teams holding eighth through 13th place. What does recent form look like? How many games remain? What's the home-away breakdown? The strength of the schedule?
(For an idea of strength of schedule, I took the Shield ranking for each opponent, added them up, and then divided by the number of remaining games. It's more of a semi-useful tool than an advanced metric; it doesn't even take into account home/road. The lower the number, the more difficult the schedule. By this unscientific measurement, NYRB and the Crew have the toughest path to the postseason.)
- COLUMBUS CREW
Recent form (last seven games, beginning with most recent): W-L-W-W-L-L-W (4-3-0). Is it interesting that the Crew have more points over the last seven games than any other team on this list?
Games remaining (5): @Cincinnati 10/18; (*H St. Louis, USOC final, 10/21); H Toronto 10/24; @Dallas 10/28; H D.C. United 10/31; @Chicago 11/7.
Strength of schedule (15.4): The Crew have two at home and three away, and the road games are a bear – at Cincy, at Dallas, and at Chicago. That said, Crew fans put the regular season aside some time ago and trained their lenses on the trophy shot in U.S. Open Cup final, here on Wednesday. As far as the horserace down the stretch in MLS, anyone betting on CBus is using house money. The Crew have nothing to lose, beginning with Hell is Real in Porkopolis Sunday. And they're beginning to look daunting.
Michael Arace
Decision Day: Old friend Gregg Berhalter will greet the Crew with his Fire in Chicago. If his tenure with the Crew (2014-2019) is any indication, Triple-G tends to have his teams firing down the stretch. The Fire will have clinched a playoff spot before Decision Day (they have a chance to do so this weekend, in fact).
Chicago is currently No. 7 in the Supporters' Shield standings.
- D.C. UNITED
Recent form: W-L-T-L-T-W-T (2-2-3).
Games remaining (6): @Orlando 10/17; @Cincinnati 10/21; H Cincinnati 10/24; @Toronto 10/28; H Crew 10/31; H NYC 10/21.
Strength of schedule (20.1): The Uniteds have two at home and four away. They've got a home-and-home with Cincinnati later this month. You'd think that Cincinnati might own D.C. given that Cincy is the womb of Midwest soccer, and D.C. long ago lost its status as a league powerhouse. Yet, the Washingtons have a 6-4-5 edge in the all-time series. Just sayin'. United has one game against a sure playoff team (Orlando) and three against teams that are scrapping to get it. Good for them.
Decision Day: Home vs. NYCFC. Like so many others, this game will likely have implications. NYCFC is currently No. 21 in the Supporters' Shield standings.
- TORONTO FC
Recent form: T-W-L-L-L-W-T (2-3-2).
Games remaining (5): @NYRB 10/17; @Crew 10/24; H D.C. United 10/28; @Atlanta 11/1; @Philadelphia 11/7.
Strength of schedule (21): Trillium North has but one more day of home cooking on their menu. That's rough. Like most teams in this league, they struggle on the road (2-8-3).
Decision Day: At Philadelphia. Tough draw. Philly is currently No. 11 in the Supporters' Shield standings.
- NEW YORK CITY
Recent form: L-L-T-L-W-L-T (1-4-2).
Games remaining (5): H LAFC 10/17; @Orlando 10/24; H Atlanta 10/28; H Montreal 10/31; @D.C. United 11/7.
Strength of schedule (21.8): Three at home and two on the road. By my ridiculous calculations, the team in the poorest form (on this list) has the easiest schedule down the stretch. Which kind of makes sense given some of the Pigeons' recent opponents – at Miami, at Chicago, home for a derby-darby against the Red Bulls, at New England.
Decision Day: At D.C. United, currently No. 24 in the Supporters' Shield standings.
- CINCINNATI
Recent form: L-W-L-T-T-L-L (1-4-2).
Games remaining (5): H Crew 10/18; H D.C. United 10/21; @D.C. United 10/24; H Philadelphia 10/31; H Nashville 11/7.
Strength of schedule (14.6): Crew interim-not-interim coach Laurent Courtois has a tricky juggling act. There's Hell is Real, one of the most significant rivalries in American soccer, on Sunday down in Cincy; then, three days later, the Crew will host St. Louis City in the U.S. Open Cup final. How much will Courtois rotate on Sunday, or Wednesday? What are his priorities?
Cincinnati coach Pat Noonan has no such problems. His team hasn't been on fire of late, but they're getting healthier and they're laser-focused on the stretch run. Ninth place is theirs to lose. Seventh place isn't out of the question. Evander (13 goals, 13 assists) says he's 100%. He's having an MVP-caliber season. Kevin Denkey (17 goals, 5 assists) is a wagon with greased axles. And Cincinnati, as mentioned, is the womb of Midwest soccer, a city as important to the American game as the birthplace (Seattle) and the city where the game was invented (Atlanta).
Decision Day: Home vs. Nashville, ranked No. 1 in the current Supporters' Shield standings.
If you'd like to support local, independent, Disrespected media and help defray the cost of my road trip to Cincinnati to cover Hell is Real, I will not protest if you click the button here and leave a small tip. Grazie mille.
- NY RED BULLS
Recent form: L-W-L-W-W-L-T (3-3-1).
Games remaining (5): H Toronto 10/17; H Miami 10/24; @New England 10/28; @Nashville 11/1; H Atlanta 11/7.
Strength of schedule: I want to point out that the Disrespected Analytics Department is currently understaffed and we're reliant upon specious calculations when we say that the Red Bulls have the most difficult schedule left here – even with a home game against Atlanta as the wrapper.
Decision Day: Home vs. Atlanta, currently No. 28 in the Supporters' Shield standings.
Greater Columbus Community Orchestra
The people's symphony
My eldest daughter, Abigail, picked up a violin when she was 7 years old, or something like that, and after all these years she hasn't dropped her ax.
For the past seven years, or something like that, she has been playing with the Greater Columbus Community Orchestra (GCCO), a remarkable band of our friends and neighbors. They all have regular jobs (Abby is a high-school teacher). They all practice. They dedicate themselves to Monday rehearsals under the baton of Alex Toa, the Music Director. Toa's birthday suit was probably a tuxedo.
Their concerts are free.
This month, they covered some Russians – Dmitri Shostakovich's Waltz II, Aram Khachaturian's Adagio from Spartacus, selections from Sergeio Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet ... They wrapped with Shostakovich's rousing Festive Overture, which elicited a standing ovation of some duration. I love the Russians.
I recorded their Festive Overture (a piece which Shostakovich's allegedy wrote in a span of a few hours). My recording doesn't do the sound justice and, besides, you can't see Abby in it because there's a plant blocking her.
Here's a better video of the whole show:
The family differed on favored pieces from this concert. Khachaturian's adagio and Shostakovich's overture are the leaders in the clubhouse. You can scroll around this video, sample each piece, pick one and crank it while you're in a hot shower with the lights out. I don't know anybody who does that. Honest.
Most of their concerts are staged at Hilliard Presbyterian Church (3600 Leap Road). Their next performance will be there on Nov. 22.
Under the headline of "Odyssey," it will include Johann Wenzel Kalliwoda's Concertino for Oboe in F major, Op. 110; Giuseppe Verdi's Overture from ‘Nabucco’ and Richard Wagner's Prelude to ‘Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg’, WWV 96.
They'll finish their season with a sign-off from Mozart:
For more information on the GCCO, visit https://www.communityorchestra.com.
See you there.
These people flat-out jam.
This week in Discasting
Dead solid
The Mayor of Jacketville is back. Sure, it's too early to panic. Right? Can fans ever trust this team? Recorded Thursday.
Making his second appearance on The Crewcible is Matthew Doyle, the Armchair Analyst, who may be the most astute, well-informed and eloquent observer of Major League Soccer. A true sicko. He's a part of the Soccerwise podcasting cabal, which took off during the World Cup, and the author of an excellent newsletter, TacticsFreeZone.com. Recorded Wednesday.
I try to get Doyle on as frequently as possible but, man, dude is busy.
On Friday, I joined a gentleman from Cincinnati on the latest episode of a long-running show produced down there. It's called "Jersey Swap." It's a good warm-up for Sunday's Hell is Real. It has show notes and everything.
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Michael Arace
