Monday MLS Breakdown: When Playoffs Work

By Kyle McCarthy 

The playoffs work so well when the teams that deserve to go through actually advance. 

Some say the teams that deserve to advance are the ones that performed the best during the regular season. The playoff system should be set up to favor those who did the hard work during the regular season, these pundits crow. 

But that's not how the MLS playoffs are constructed. They are designed so that the best team over 180 minutes, not over 30 games, marches on to the conference finals. And in each of the four Conference Semifinals series this year, the system worked as designed. 

No one – certainly not this skeptic who called New York “not very good” and questioned whether Juan Pablo Angel could save them – pegged the Red Bulls as a team that could conceivably outplay two-time defending champions Houston over 180 minutes. Not even after outplaying the Dynamo for 90 minutes in a 1-1 draw in the first leg. 

But the Red Bulls went on to prove everyone wrong in the second leg. Houston barraged the New York goal while Danny Cepero stood on his head with the help of his friendly goalposts. While Houston misfired offensively, New York clinically finished the chances the speedy Dane Richards created.  

The Dynamo's Achilles heel proved to be their lack of team pace. Richards scored the first, created the second with the aid of Ricardo Clark's misguided arm and Angel's ensuing penalty, and conjured up the third, with a surging run and a well-directed cross. He did it all simply by running faster than those around him. Like Achilles' death by Paris's arrow, the two-time champion Dynamo collapsed once Richards exposed their hidden flaw. 

Real Salt Lake was a team no one expected to challenge Houston for its predestined berth in MLS Cup. Western Conference afterthoughts prior to this season, RSL gritted out a playoff spot through a disciplined system and a collective belief far exceeding most teams’ in the league. That belief translated into two 90th minute goals by Yura Movsisyan: one goal to send RSL to the playoffs and the other to stake them to a deserved lead after the first leg. 

Most teams would have sat back on that slender lead and watched the 90 minutes pass. Not RSL, which saw the disheveled Chivas USA backline and thought attack from the first moment. The fullbacks overlapped consistently and Javier Morales found just as much room to roam as he had enjoyed in the first leg. He’s the best Argentine schemer west of Columbus and north of the Rio Grande, and he used it just as well. Morales assisted on the first goal headed home by Dema Kovalenko and scored a killer second. Chivas USA pushed forward yet couldn't mask their defensive infirmities over 180 minutes. Not even Justin Braun's well-taken late equalizer could stop the RSL train of destiny. 

There were no late goals in Columbus. Only an early goal from Brad Evans, which placed one boot squarely on the Wizards' throat after seven minutes. After leaving the congested CommunityAmerica Ballpark with a deserved share of the points in the first leg, Columbus didn't wait long to consolidate that advantage or send its wingers forward with impunity. 

Kansas City couldn't match the league's best pair of flank roamers with its inexperienced first-year players out wide. Nor could it scrape back into the tie after one of those potent Crew wingers, Robbie Rogers, added the second goal after 58 minutes. A meager Wizards attack could only elicit two stops from Will Hesmer and the Crew sailed into the final with a comprehensive aggregate victory. 

If Columbus sailed into the Eastern Conference final, Chicago flew unburdened after the weight of past failures lifted off their shoulders. The signs of a comprehensive Fire victory loomed in the first leg back at Gillette Stadium. Only the linesman's flag saved the injury-riddled Revs from heading to Toyota Park one down courtesy of Brian McBride's head. 

The linesman wouldn't be around to save them on this night. The Revs hung tough for 35 minutes until Jeff Larentowicz went out injured and Chris Rolfe’s goal sealed the Fire's safe passage. Wilman Conde's thundering header added a second shortly after the break to erase all doubt. Gonzalo Segares's third proved mere icing as the impotent Revs mustered just one decent chance in the game. This new-look Fire team succeeded where previous versions had failed, exorcising its demons in the process. 

This four will dwindle to two next weekend. New York will travel to Sandy, while Chicago will trek to Columbus. All four teams will try to compress the 180-minute advantage gained in the first into the pressure-packed single leg to decide who plays in MLS Cup. 

The criteria for sealing that berth is simple, based on this evidence. The team who plays best on the day wins. 

Semifinals, Second Leg – Questions, Thoughts and Answers 

Goal.com Player of the Week – Dane Richards, MF, New York

Richards can't stay healthy and doesn't produce consistently, but when he's on his game, he is one of the most dangerous wingers in the league. And on Sunday, he backed up his big talk; the Jamaican said he'd “run that left back into the ground” prior to the series. One pulsating finish after ripping the center of the Dynamo defense to shreds and one drawn penalty in the first half coupled with a cross to set up John Wolyniec's first goal in seemingly forever proved that again today. Richards so thoroughly abused the left side of the Houston defense that the normally reliable Houston captain, Wade Barrett, came off at halftime. 

What was he thinking? The entire Houston team

No excuses about the congested schedule or about the missed chances. New York had won one match on the road all season and had never won at Robertson Stadium. The Red Bulls franchise boasted just one playoff road win and that win certainly hadn't come with 30,000 screaming fans against them. Its two best defensive players are suspended and the lineup Osorio put on the field – minus Juan Pablo Angel – puts the word patchwork to shame. 

Defending champions show up in elimination games and take care of business in these circumstances. Too many of the Dynamo players didn't. In the end, the MLS Cup defense ended with a whimper. 

Eight observations to start the week 

1. “They've knocked me out of the playoffs every year since I've been here,” Fire midfielder Chris Rolfe said after Chicago ousted New England for the first time in four tries with a 3-0 victory at Toyota Park on Thursday night and excised a rather large chip off its shoulder. “Tonight was big. We're obviously excited about going out there and playing our next game.” 

2. “Sometimes, it doesn't matter what you do,” Revs boss Steve Nicol lamented after his team made a rather predictable exit. “Nothing's going to go for you. Kheli [Dube] comes off with a hamstring and we end up having to put Wells [Thompson, Revs midfielder] up front. That tells you where we are.” 

3. In search of a goal, Kansas City head coach Curt Onalfo had to send on Michael Kraus with a half an hour to play. It was the former Creighton player's first ever MLS appearance. Says a lot about what the Wizards had to work with in attack during this series. Josh Wolff played the last 20 minutes, but didn't look fully fit. 

4. “BC was the king tonight,” Crew midfielder and opening goalscorer Brad Evans told the Columbus Dispatch about Brian Carroll. “Offensively, defensively, he was an animal.” Talk about one underrated central midfielder saying good things about another.  

5. In my Wednesday blog last week, I listed belief as the key for Real Salt Lake's chances to advance. After a pulsating 2-2 draw to go through to the Western Conference finals, RSL midfielder Kyle Beckerman concurred. “We just kind of believe,” he told the Salt Lake Tribune. “Somebody's got to get to the finals, and somebody's got to win the whole thing. Why not us?” 

6. “Ante, if this is the last time we played together, it's been a pleasure,” veteran Chivas USA midfielder Jesse Marsch reportedly said to former Fire teammate and current Goats clubmate Ante Razov after Chivas crashed out with a 2-2 home draw to Real Salt Lake. Razov is out of contract and may not return to the team next season.  

7. Prior to Sunday's shocking win, the New York franchise had won only one other road playoff game. It came against the Dallas Burn on Sept. 20, 2000. Angel wants another next week. “It's not over,” he said after the game. “We know that we're on the doorstep of the big party of the year. We would like to get it right, but we have a very difficult challenge ahead.”  

8. “I feel sick to my stomach,” Houston coach Dominic Kinnear said after their 3-0 loss at Robertson Stadium in front of 30,000 screaming fans. “I think it’s the most lopsided 3-0 loss I’ve ever seen in my life. You have to score to win games, and that was very evident today. Sometimes you make your own luck. They made a lot of luck, but we didn’t.” 

Kyle McCarthy’s Monday MLS Breakdown appears every Monday on Goal.com. You can reach Kyle via email at kylemccarthy@gmail.com