Western Conference Preview Part II
St Louis and Vancouver: pretty good! Austin: pretty bad! Minnesota and SKC: scatalogically-related emoji?
Part II! Here’s the link to part one, in case you missed it.
FC Dallas
Play the Rapids: Home, April 20
2023 Final Position in Conference: 7th out of 14
Key Additions for this season: Petar Musa, Enes Sali
Key Subtractions: Jader Obrian, Facundo Quignon
If Seattle invented soccer, then Dallas invented developing fantastic academy players and then selling them. They developed and sold Ricardo Pepi in 2021 to Augsberg for €16.4 million and Bryan Reynolds to Roma for €6.9 million. They sold Tanner Tessman in 2022 for €3.6 million, and Chris Richards in 2019 to Bayern Munich for €5 million, and Reggie Cannon to Boavista in 2020 for €2.5 million.1
The hot topic for Dallas this offseason is that they had a deal in the works with Spartak Moscow to sell Jesus Ferreira for $13 million, but it was nixed by the league because – Russia. Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine resulted in the US providing aid and weapons to the Ukrainians. Russia has arrested and imprisoned basketball player Brittany Griner and journalist Evan Gershkovich under murky-at-best circumstances. Suffice it to say that there are tremendous risks to being an American in Russia right now, and I’m not entirely sure what either FC Dallas or Ferreira’s agent were thinking in even contemplating this deal. That said, by the time you read this, Ferreira may have already been sold to Europe for a hefty fee.
No problem. Dallas still has a really stellar core of players; Nkosi Tafari anchors a defense that conceded the second-fewest goals in the conference.2 The core attacking players include Sebastian Lletget, Paul Arriola, and Paxton Pomykal. They have Marco Farfan as a wide defender, and recent USMNT-u23 callup Bernard Kamungo on the wing.
To that group, Dallas adds Croatian striker Petar Musa, transferred from Benfica for a $10 million fee, plus performance incentives. Along with that big fee comes big expectations. Maybe the sale of Ferreira pays for Musa, and another youngster like Enes Sali steps into the void left behind. Or maybe Ferreira stays till the summer and Dallas gets to start the season with two big weapons up top. Either way, Dallas’ core players are close to their peak age, and it looks like they’re making a big play to be cup-dangerous this year.
Offseason got better/got worse: Got better
Team is in better/worse shape than the Rapids: Better
xDog Factor: Medium. Lletget and Arriola have a lot of swagger. The rest of the team, I’m really not sure.
Vancouver Whitecaps
Play the Rapids: Home, May 15
2023 Final Position in Conference: 6th out of 14
Key Additions for this season: Damir Kreilach, Fafa Picault
Key Subtractions: Junior Hoilett, Russell Teibert
I didn’t think much of Vancouver to start last year: a mostly no-name assemblage trying to keep pace in an increasingly flashy MLS full of big names. But they’ve really started to create an identity as a team, and they cannot be overlooked any more. Pedro Vite, a 21 year old Ecuadorean who got over 2000 minutes last year as the team’s number 10, has a pretty impressive stat radar3:
That 79th percentile for xG + xA and the 89th pct for Progressive Passes is awfully tasty.
It helps that he has two excellent targets up front in Ryan Gauld and Brian White, who each had double digit goals in 2023 and are in the prime of their careers at the ages of 27 and 26, respectively. Damir Kreilach was added as depth; Sam Adegkube patrols the left wing ably. Fafa Picault is a blowtorch of a player that causes opponents to adjust or pay the price.
The problems are on defense: Vancouver conceded 48 goals in 2023 on an Expected Goals Against of 43.1. The 5-goal difference between those two numbers is large, and indicates that they should have done better. Better defensive positioning in the final third and better goalkeeping could give them better results. Since they haven’t added any defenders in the offseason, they’ll be hoping those improvements happen in house for Tristan Blackmon, Ranko Veselinović, and Javian Brown. Could happen! Also, they could get worse on defense!
Offseason got better/got worse: A little better
Team is in better/worse shape than the Rapids: Very similar.
xDog Factor: Medium-High. Kreilach and Picault are both obnoxious irritants. However, their big name DP is Scotsman Ryan Gauld, and I feel like, for a guy with 19 goals and 17 assists over the past two years, we never talk about him. Is that due to a critical lack of xDog?
Minnesota United
First Match Against the Rapids: Home, May 25
2023 Final Position in Conference: 11th out of 14
Key Additions for this season: Alejandro Bran, Victor Eriksson
Key Subtractions: None
After nine years at the helm – since their very inception as an MLS club – Adrian Heath was finally sacked from his job as Minnesota’s head coach on October 6, 2023. MNUFC named a replacement, Sean McAuley, as interim manager. But somehow, either the fit wasn’t right or the ‘interim’ tag didn’t sit well with him, and he signed on to be the head coach of USL’s Indy Eleven after just four months, leaving Minnesota to hire their MLS Next Pro coach Cameron Knowles to serve as the new ‘interim’. Knowles has been an assistant in Portland under John Spencer and Caleb Porter in addition to his time in Minnesota with Heath; but we don’t really know if he’s up to the task.
Minnesota started 2023 without star player Emmanuel Reynoso, who failed to report for preseason and didn’t join the team until May, missing 10 games. Having him in camp to start the season, in addition to a healthy Robin Lod, a comfortably-settled Bongi Hlongwane, and veteran striker Teemu Pukki, who came August of 2023 from Norwich, should mean that Minnesota have many of the core pieces assembled and healthy. Pukki scored 10 goals in just 1,031 minutes. Michael Boxall will be joined on the backline by new Swedish defender Victor Eriksson (or perhaps Eriksson is the new Boxall.)
I’m not, like, blown away by what Minnesota has put together. They have a good striker and a true number 10, but the supporting cast are all in various states of decline, like 31-year-old Wil Trapp, 30-year-old Lod, and 32-year-old Jan Gregus. If there isn’t a big reload midsummer, I can’t see this being a playoff team this year.
Offseason got better/got worse: A little worse (age)
Team is in better/worse shape than the Rapids: Worse.
xDog Factor: Medium-Low. Hassani Dotson loves outrageous screamers and is a fun player. Reynoso and Lod have some sauce. But this team is kinda meh all around - not appointment viewing.
Austin FC
First Match Against the Rapids: Home, June 15
2023 Final Position in Conference: 12th out of 14
Key Additions for this season: Diego Rubio, Jader Obrian, Guilherme Biro
Key Subtractions: Will Bruin, Maxi Urruti, Memo Rodriguez
Imagine if you were a team almost identical to the Colorado Rapids at the end of 2023; a long, bad season, trouble scoring, and questions at centerback. But instead of having the Colorado Rapids offseason of adding a DP midfielder, a DP goalkeeper, a top-10 left back, and a young number 10 – you did none of that. Instead you … added former Rapids attacking mid Diego Rubio. That was more-or-less your whole plan for 2024.
Seems bad! That’s Austin at the moment. Three weeks from opening day and the team is hoping for rebounds of two good-but-underwhelming-in-2023 players, Sebastian Driussi (11 goals, 4 assists) and Emiliano Rigoni (5 goals, 4 assists). Those two players together earned $5.4 million in 2023, but their production didn’t quite match their paychecks. Rigoni’s probably a right wing, but with the only other option at striker being a declining Gyasi Zardes, Rigoni is probably the striker going into the season.
DNVR’s Mitchell Carroll probably summed it up in the Rapids media group chat after Verde signed Rubio. Mitch quipped “I’m surprised Austin wants to run back the 2022 Rapids attack.”
Offseason got better/got worse: The same.
Team is in better/worse shape than the Rapids: Worse.
xDog Factor: Low. Will Bruin and Maxi Urruti were Big xDogs and now they’re gone. Diego Rubio is a small, yappy xDog who, in 13 years as a professional footballer, has exceeded 2,000 minutes just twice.
Sauce? Yes.
Is he the kind of sauce where you run out of it mid meal and ask the waitress for more and she says ‘Aww honey that was all we got right there’? Yes.
St Louis City
First Match Against the Rapids: Away, June 19
2023 Final Position in Conference: 1st out of 14
Key Additions for this season: Chris Durkin, Nikolas Dyhr, Tomas Totland
Key Subtractions: Nicolas Gioacchini, Jared Stroud
Nobody expects the St Louis City SC! Our chief weapons are surprise! Surprise and fear. Our two chief weapons are fear and surprise … and ruthless efficiency…
I’m not sure how every MLS pundit, including Matt Pollard and I, looked at St Louis and determined almost reflexively that they would finish either last or second-to-last, but we did. I think we saw overpriced former Borussia Dortmund keeper Roman Bürki, some MLS detritus like Jared Stroud, Tim Parker and Jacob Nerwinski, and three expensive but unaccomplished stars in Eduard Löwen, Klaus, and Nicholas Gioacchini and thought ‘cute, but this won’t work.’ But it did, and St Louis made the playoffs with a first round bye in just their first season in existence.
The goal for 2024 will probably be a Cup semi-final or final, as the team fell short in a bid for Supporter’s Shield, didn’t advance in the MLS Playoffs, won just one US Open Cup match, and were knocked out of Leagues Cup. ‘We are a really good team’ is a cool thing to say, but unfortunately you can’t hang it in a trophy cabinet.
Offseason they sold 10 goal-scorer Nicholas Gioacchini to Serie B side Como for $4 million and added two outside backs in Nikolas Dyhr and Tomas Totland, who should challenge or replace Akil Watts, Kyle Hiebert, and Jake Nerwinski.
The player to watch for me in 2024 on this team is Samuel Adeniran. Acquired from Seattle for $100,000 in GAM, Adeniran had 8 goals for STL in just 949 minutes. Prior to that but the same calendar year, the Nigerian/American scored 4 goals for San Antonio in USL in just 431 minutes. This guy is low-key already on Golden Boot watch for me.
Offseason got better/got worse: The same. Not sure Chris Durkin is ever going to deliver on the promise I think he was hyped at, and that’s the biggest move City made over the winter.
Team is in better/worse shape than the Rapids: Better.
xDog Factor: Medium. Now that Gioacchini is gone, there’s no one player on this team that wows me; but they all still have the capacity to whizz the ball around and look in command from minute 1 to minute 90. And they have that ‘new MLS team smell’ with the irrationally excited supporters and the brand spankin’ new facilities. St Louis City has rizz.
Sporting KC
First Match Against the Rapids: Home, July 4
2023 Final Position in Conference: 8th out of 14
Key Additions for this season: Memo Rodriguez
Key Subtractions: Gadi Kinda
Sporting Kansas City go into 2024 with Peter Vermes at the helm for his 16th season. Graham Zusi has been there since 2009, too, back when the team as still called the KC Wiz. Tim Melia, their keeper, has been the starter for ten seasons. Forward Daniel Salloi is in his eighth year; Khiry Shelton has been in Kansas for five years4; Johnny Russell is there seven years. Heck even Alan Pulido seems like an old timer as he starts his third season with SKC.
Somehow, despite finishing 12th in the Western Conference in 2022, and 8th in 2023, there hasn’t been much change, or panic. I don’t really get that. The average age on the 2023 team, unadjusted for minutes played, was 28.6 years old; the average age of SKC’s opponents was 26.9 yrs old. Of the team’s 13 players with more than 1,000 minutes last year, nine are 28 years old or older.
Maybe they have some youngsters waiting in the wings. Maybe they’re waiting for the summer window to make changes. We’ll see. From where I sit, this team looks incredibly vulnerable.
Offseason got better/got worse: Worse. Gifted midfielder Gadi Kinda went to Maccabi Haifa, and wasn’t replaced by anyone.
Team is in better/worse shape than the Rapids: Worse.
xDog Factor: Medium-High. Alan Pulido is pretty irritating, and deadly if you give him too much space. Johnny Russell is a mean, salty, cantankerous son of a bitch who is covered in tattoos. Seems like an amusing bunch.
LA Galaxy
First Match Against the Rapids: Away, July 17
2023 Final Position in Conference: 13th out of 14
Key Additions for this season: RB Miki Yamane, inverted RW5 Gabriel Pec, possibly Joseph Paintsil, who would play inverted on the left.
Key Subtractions: Chicharito, Douglas Costa, (Michael Barrios) 6
You might be excused for being somewhat morose and depressed about the last few years as a Colorado Rapids fan; so I’m here to offer you some perspective with my quick capsule on the LA Galaxy.
Since the Galaxy’s Western Conference semi-final playoff exit by the hand of Tim Howard in a penalty shootout, things have been pretty lousy in Carson, California. While Rapids fans have some bad years mixed with a pretty great 2021 season – a first place finish in the West and the epic ‘Pidsgiving’ extravaganza playoff game – Galaxy fans basically have known nothing but pain over the past seven years.
Since 2017, the Gals have qualified for the playoffs just twice. They’ve spent buckets of cash for big flashy DPs like Giovani Dos Santos and his brother Jonathan, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Chicharito, Douglas Costa, Romain Alessandrini, Cristian Pavón7, and Kevin Cabral. The only trophy they have to show for all that burned cash is … the 2017 Wooden Spoon. [I mean, Zlatan WAS a lot of fun though.]
Last year they fired team president Chris Klein and GM Dennis te Kloese. All the while, another team, LAFC, came into the LA market, and quickly created an amazing fan atmosphere, an incredible team, a first-rate stadium, and a penchant for winning. So even though the Rapids finished 9 points behind LAG in 2023, I still would rather be us than them.
I’m dumb enough and bad enough at predictions that I’ve often said in the past ‘hey! I think LA Galaxy will fix things year.’ Nope, not gonna do that this time. The incoming transfers are exciting, and Riqui Puig (pronounced Poooo-juh) is an amazing player - appointment viewing for me on par with Lionel Messi and Hany Mukhtar. However, LA Galaxy striker Dejan Joveljić scored just 6 goals in 1,625 minutes last year: just 37th percentile in the league for strikers. His non-penalty Expected Goals of 0.44 per 90 minutes was in the 81st percentile (pretty good!) ; you can read that as ‘he’s due to do better this year’ or (insert commentators voiceover) ‘he should have scored there.’ I will bet the latter.
I have real questions about this defense, too, and LA at goalkeeper. Their netminder will either be the young untested Novak Micovic or veteran John McCarthy, who’s fbcharts plot basically screams ‘I am league average.’ Or worse.
The Galaxy will be better in 2024 than last year. But this team is probably not in contention yet until they can have another two transfer windows of rebuilding - including a timely contribution of a budding young star from their often fertile (but currently barren) youth academy.
Offseason got better/got worse: Better. I will definitely watch the Gabriel Pec-to-Riqui Puig partnership with great expectation.
Team is in better/worse shape than the Rapids: Close to even.
xDog Factor: Low. I watched LAG games in 2023 and found them to be dull, lifeless affairs. Puig is AMAZING (click here for his straight 99s percentile charts) but the rest of the team was blah. Will this year be any different?
As last reported in March 2023 by Tom Bogert, that Reggie Cannon transfer fee was never paid. Cannon left in summer of 2023, unilaterally terminating his contract for Boavista’s failure to pay wages, and is now with QPR in the English Championship. According to reports, things have only gotten worse in Portugal for Boavista; their coach just quit, and players have been complaining of needing to shower at home because the hot water has been turned off in the training rooms for non-payment.
If you’re a big nerd, this is a good time to note that Tafari’s defensive stats - Clearances, Blocks, Interceptions, and Tackles - are all on the low side. But that’s because a defense that is forced into a lot of action might be the result of poor possession or midfield defending. For me, the best indicator of a defender’s ability is to look at the whole team’s Opposing Shots, Expected Goals Allowed, and Goals Allowed. Dallas faced the 10th-most shots in MLS in 2023, but conceded the 6th-fewest non-penalty Expected Goals, and their G-xG was -2.3; 9th-best in MLS. Altogether, a good-to-very-good defense.
This is the new fun toy over at fbref - a thing I originally saw at statsbomb but that was not available outside of the Prem, or for a fee. This is a great visualization, and fb ref is getting better at picking out advanced stats that really can tell us about a player. ‘Progressive Passes’ for example is a hugely informative stat for a number 10.
Kansas City is overwhelmingly in Missouri, but Children’s Mercy Park is in Kansas.
Soccer 201 Primer on Inverted wings:
A right wing normally is right footed, since there is an advantage to having your dominant foot be to the outside of field while your defender cheats in to be between the player with the ball and goal. The defender is going to ‘shade in’, and thus will be CLOSER to the dribblers left side, and FURTHER from their right. That mean a regular wing dribbler will ‘show’ the ball less to a defender.
An inverted right wing is left footed. Their one cool trick is an ability to cut in on their dominant foot. The Rapids did this on occasion with the left footed Braian Galvan on the right and the right footed Michael Barrios on the left. Additionally, Arjen Robben made a whole career of being a left footed right wing. Watch highlights of him, and it is amazing. According to interviews, defenders *knew* that at some point he was going to cut inside on that left foot of his, but they still could almost never stop him.
Not a ‘key subtraction’ really but Rapids fans will want to know that this man is out of contract.
The Pavón signing included off-books payments to the player in an attempt to circumvent making him a DP. MLS found out, and the Galaxy were sanctioned.