I remember looking over the scoreboard a few times in the last week, including the last Open Cup game of this round, and the only words I could come up with were "Whoa. What the… whoa." I felt a little like Joey Lawrence, to be quite honest, but once that had passed I had to double check the standings. It seems like this season, every time a team or group of teams starts to pull away from the pack something happens to reel the leaders back in.
Let's start with Vancouver who had a shocking week thanks to a Thursday night loss at Qwest against the Sounders and followed that up with a 2-1 loss at home to Miami, a team that frankly at this point in the season the Whitecaps should beat. With only 10 games to go in the season, if they are going to hit that form I thought I saw last year and in the build up to this season, they'll have to start soon. Unfortunately, things get harder for the Whitecaps as they lead off the weekend with a game at suddenly first-place Portland. It should be mentioned, Vancouver has to play Portland three times in those 10 games which doesn't bode well for them.
The other team in the Cascadia group, Seattle, had an outstanding week considering they beat Vancouver on Thursday and knocked out Chivas USA in the Open Cup just last night. They'll try to maintain their solid form in a tremendous battle at Paetec Park on Saturday against Rochester. The Rhinos come limping in a little bit after being handled rather easily once again by Atlanta, 4-1 on Saturday. The Sounders are hoping to repeat the July 3rd result in which MVP candidate Sebastien Le Toux scored the only goal of the match in the 71st minute.
Speaking of Portland, how about David Hague exploding all over the Victory on Sunday? The guy gets 24 minutes and scores three times to put what had been a close game away against the Victory, 4-1. This came after they pulled out a tough 1-0 win over the same club on Friday. The Timbers have a tough road this week, though, as tonight they play the 'Caps before heading out for the Southeast where they'll play Atlanta and Charleston on consecutive nights. If anyone's looking for a tonic for Portland's torrid pace of late it might just come this weekend. I'll be shocked if they get anything more than 6 points from it and think that you'd almost have to be happy with 4 or 5 points if you're a Timbers fan.
Meanwhile, the Victory decided to shock some people as well, as they rebounded to beat Atlanta 1-0 at home on Tuesday. This comes hot on the heels of the news that club president, Dmitry Piterman, sold his stock in Alaves. The news makes many think that Piterman may divest himself of all soccer interests and that we will not see the Victory back in 2008. It's all rumors and allegations at this point but the situation does merit some watching. California still have a season to compete in though and this week sees them head to Puerto Rico and Miami where, believe it or not, 6 points could put them right back in the race for the last playoff spot.
Puerto Rico pretty much destroyed Charleston over the weekend winning 3-1 and 4-3 which puts them into 7th place and back in the hunt officially. Positive results against California and Carolina could help the Islanders climb further in the standings especially since the teams in front of them, namely Rochester and Atlanta, have been either terribly inconsistent or just plain terrible in recent weeks. The Silverbacks keep yo-yoing between looking like contenders to being more like pretenders from week to week while the Rhinos have cooled considerable since their hot streak a few weeks ago. It's opportunities like this that Colin Clarke's men need to grasp if they want to make some noise in the postseason this year.
Their opponents this weekend are teams that a contender should beat especially as the Railhawks, despite strong support from the fans, have begun to sink like a stone. They are still playing close games in each encounter but they lack that something else that turns close losses or draws into wins. Carolina will play at Miami before heading to Puerto Rico with a win in South Florida possibly providing the booster shot their campaign needs. However, it would be disappointing, to say the least, to see Miami lose this game after doing a number on the Whitecaps last week.
The Battery know the feeling all too well as they haven't won since June 22nd and got their last point back on July 7th in a home 0-0 draw with the Islanders. Things don't get much better for them as the Timbers pay a visit on Sunday. One week it looks like the offense needs fixing, the next week, the defense is in need of repairs and in between Charleston is lucky to get any points for their troubles.
And then there's the enigma of the Montreal Impact. Somehow they cling to that second spot in the standings despite some more disappointing results. Looking merely at their latest two results, they drew 1-1 and lost 3-0, at Minnesota. Encouraging? No, not really. Then you look back a little further and see that the Impact won 1-0 at Carolina just before flying out to the Midwest. So once again, they add points to their total and hang around near the top of the League. Now, they'll take some time off until August 1st which should give Nick de Santis and company time to right the ship and get back to taking fewer losses and more victories. They have a golden opportunity to get some quality rest before getting back into action for the final third of the schedule. Their opponents, Minnesota will also sit this week out before their next game on the 26th against California.
We continue to inch ever closer to the stretch run of the season and I'm not sure what's more frightening, that Portland still have 14 matches left in the season with which to pull away from the crowd or that it still feels like the season only started a short time ago? I'll let you folks make the call but for now, kick back while watching California take on the Islanders on FSC, logon to usllive.com and get out to the stadium to enjoy some of the action this weekend. That's the view from here for this time.
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