ProSoccerTalk’s weekly re-ordering of Major League Soccer teams, following 13 rounds of play:
19. D.C. United – Ben Olsen and Dwayne De Rosario say they’ve made up after all this. Just one of those things, they say. We’ll see.
18. Chivas USA – May has come and gone and here is the ugly truth: four games, four losses and an absolutely dreadful 13-1 goal deficit in the month. Yikes!
17. Toronto FC – Jonathan Osorlo’s second half introduction was a bright spot in a game without many of them for the Reds, a 2-0 loss at New England.
16. Chicago Fire – Mike Magee didn’t get into the 18 as Frank Klopas’ club lost another one, this time at Real Salt Lake. The Fire’s latest acquisition can only help.
15. Vancouver Whitecaps – Kenny Miller? Staying or going? Kind of hard to tell. Maybe we’ll know more by the time the Whitecaps meet Montreal in Wednesday’s second of the Amway Canadian Championship.
14. San Jose Earthquakes – The season just isn’t going as planned around Buck Shaw. So let’s talk about when the ‘Quakes get out of Buck Shaw! How’s that pretty, green new stadium coming along? It’s LEED certified, you know.
13. Philadelphia Union – Jack McInerney scored again (now up to nine, still sharing the league lead), but the defense went on holiday in a 5-3 loss at Montreal.
12. New England Revolution – What a goal for Diego Fagundez, who is having a sensation May. (By the way, in talking about the kid’s great strike in Saturday’s win over Toronto, perhaps we didn’t give enough credit to Chris Tierney’s good work along the left to arrange his young striker. So, good on ya, too, Chris.)
11. Columbus – Considering the patchwork defense, a 2-2 draw at New York has to be filed under “success.” Federico Higuain was fantastic again.
10. Real Salt Lake – RSL’s home record isn’t bad, but it would be better than 3-1-2 if Jason Kreis’ team had more than seven goals in those six matches. Latest example was the weekend’s 1-1 draw with Chicago.
9. Seattle Sounders – Seriously, guys, we know Osvaldo Alonso is good. Check that – the dude is massive around CenturyLink. But are things going to fall completely apart without him?
8. LA Galaxy – All the talk was about Robbie Rogers, but another Robbie supplied the showy hat trick (Robbie Keane, of course) in a demonstrative 4-0 win over Seattle. It was never close by the way, a real ground and pound for the Galaxy.
(MORE: The dramatically short arc of the Robbie Rogers story)
7. Colorado Rapids – Another week, another win for the league’s most anonymous success story of 2013. Yes, it was over Chivas USA, the league’s top punching bag of the moment. Either way, Oscar Pareja’s club is unbeaten over six in a row.
6. Houston Dynamo – Big question being knocked around MLS last week (and going forward, too): Will it be Houston or Sporting Kansas City moving into the West to accommodate New York City FC? Could be Chicago, too, I suppose. But odds seem to favor SKC or Dominic Kinnear’s bunch from South Texas.
5. New York Red Bulls – Leave it to Thierry Henry to put an exclamation point on his team’s draw at home with Columbus (in fairness, a Columbus side that is quite difficult to beat when traveling): “It wasn’t good enough, especially the way we started, the goal we gave away. … It wasn’t enough, because if it was, we would have won.”
4. Montreal Impact – Marco Schallibaum’s club keeps finding new ways to surprise us, this time leading the way in the highest scoring MLS match this year, a 5-3 win over Philadelphia. Marco Di Vaio (pictured above) supplied the league’s second hat trick this year, matching a league record for goals in a half (three) along the way.
3. Portland Timbers – With all the drama around the D.C. United death spiral, it might be easy to overlook this little gem from the other side of Saturday’s contest: Caleb Porter’s team creeps ever closer to capping off half its 2013 road schedule without a loss, now at 2-0-5 after the 2-0 win at RFK.
2. Sporting Kansas City – Kei Kamara’s second half introduction was huge in an eventful 1-1 draw with Houston. Then again, aren’t games between these two Eastern toughies always eventful?
(MORE: Who says Kei Kamara isn’t fit enough to start?)
1. FC Dallas – George John was back in the lineup, but goalkeeper Raul Fernandez was the big hero in a 1-0 win over San Jose. Fabian Castillo, slowly learning how to properly deploy all that raw speed, had the Red Stripe’s goal.