The first legs of the conference championships took place over the weekend, pitting a pair of familiar foes against one another.
Houston and Kansas City had met here before, with the Dynamo knocking Sporting out of the playoffs the last two seasons, while Salt Lake and Portland were well-acquainted having met four times – in league and cup play – throughout the season.
With the compressed schedule it should come as no surprise that tired legs played a factor in both matches, though with very different results.
The cautious beginnings provided one draw – a scoreless one at that – while the other saw six goals; once the deadlock was broken the floodgates opened.
And surprisingly, given how physical the Houston-KC match was, only one yellow card was shown – to Portland’s Jose Valencia, no less.
Before the results, the goals of the round:[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
Two nominations this round, in chronological order – Will Johnson’s driven free-kick and Salt Lake’s counterattack perfection, capped off by Devon Sandoval.
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Yes, Nick Rimando should have done better, but what a hit.
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Devastating perfection.
Results
Houston 0 – Kansas City 0
The Eastern Conference Championship began very tentatively, with each side feeling the other out, neither willing to risk conceding in order to go ahead.
Sad to say, but the best chance of the match came after fifteen minutes when Graham Zusi found space down the right and rolled a ball into the middle. Paulo Nagamura left it to Jacob Peterson, who whiffed on his attempt, wasting a free look from inside the box.
Two minutes later it looked as though Kofi Sarkodie had put the hosts in front – finishing a chance past Jimmy Nielsen after an Omar Cummings through-ball, but the flag was raised and the goal deemed offside.
A chalked off goal was a blow, but even worse for Houston was that midfield general, Ricardo Clark, was injured in a challenge with Benny Feilhaber, shortly thereafter. He tried to gut it out, but was back down moments after returning to the pitch and was forced off after just 26 minutes
His absence was a huge blow for the Dynamo, especially should he remain unavailable for the second leg - the half-time report indicated it was an MCL strain, the severity of which will be determined this week.
Houston shuffled their formation, bringing on Andrew Driver and switching adroitly to a three-man midfield, leading immediately to a few good chances – Cummings had a shot deflected wide by Matt Besler and Oscar Boniek Garica’s free-kick was pushed away by Nielsen.
The physicality of the match ramped up with Besler fouling Brad Davis hard and Davis shortly thereafter returning the favour to Graham Zusi.
The repeated ‘interactions’ between Bobby Boswell and Aurelien Collin were more akin to a straight-up street brawl, than any kind of actual soccer at times.
Then, the long throws set in with Mike Chabala and Besler alternately flinging missiles into each other’s boxes with reckless abandon.
Will Bruin found a slight opening on a break in the 39th minute and sent a long-range drive whistling over the bar, drawing a congratulatory nod from Nielsen for the quality of the effort.
The second half saw the introduction of Cam Weaver for Bruin, who joined Boswell in running into Collin at every available chance.
The French centre-back was lucky to not see yellow for hauling down Cummings on the turn at the side of the box and the ensuing free-kick led to a maddening goal-mouth scramble that came to naught in the end, after some desperate defending.
The effect of so many matches over the past two-plus weeks – Houston were playing their sixth match in seventeen days and Kansas City their fifth - set in and that mental exhaustion nearly led to a penalty kick when Collin stepped on Weaver’s foot at the side of the Sporting box, but the infraction went unnoticed or overlooked.
The remainder of the second half – and some seven minutes of stoppage-time – played out with no real chances, that is until Driver found himself open at the back-post in stoppage-time, volleying a flicked cross towards goal. But he got it all wrong and sliced horribly wide.
The scoreless draw leaves the tie delicately poised as it returns to Kansas City in two weeks.
Houston’s Dominic Kinnear took heart in the gutsy performance from his side driven to the edge by the schedule, “I'm really proud of the guys, the effort they put into today knowing what we've gone through in the last two weeks we easily could have taken the easy way out and complained but they didn't say nothing.
“They're enjoying the competition, tough game today probably the toughest of the six that we have played and it was just a very physical game on both sides and we couldn't get a goal, so it's going to be another tough game in Kansas City.*“
Peter Vermes acknowledge the scrappy affair and predicted a similar occasion in the return, “It was definitely not a pretty game for either team. It was an absolute battle. It's good to get out with no goals scored against. We know what the return match will be. It'll be the final because it's the last game for both teams.
“What I really credit my guys for is keeping their composure, battling every single roll of the ball, and getting a clean sheet here which is not an easy thing to do here against this team. As I've said quite a few times already, this is a very good team and we have a lot of respect for them. I have a lot of respect for Dom and we go back a long way. I think they do a great job and their guys are always prepared so it's never an easy place to play.”
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Salt Lake 4 – Portland 2
Sunday’s Western Conference Championship was historic before it even kicked off, marking the first ever Sunday match in the Mormon rich state of Utah.
It too began cautiously, as the teams poked and prodded each other without either really looking overtly dangerous.
In a contest between two heralded ball-playing teams, it was a little ironic that it took a thunderous tackle to spark the action - a ill-advised, twice-costly one at that from Chris Wingert on Diego Valeri.
Not only did Wingert succeed in injuring himself in the play – taking a heavy clattering to his rib-area that forced him off within fifteen minutes – but it set up a free-kick attempt on goal from former Laker, Will Johnson.
Will stepped up to the ball in the 14th minute, some thirty yards from goal, slightly to the right of centre, and guided a laser beam of a drive over the wall and past keeper, Nick Rimando, who was caught cheating ever-so-slightly away from the left-side of goal and was punished by the blast.
An old saying warns that a team can score too early, putting them on the back-foot, unsure whether to hold and protect that lead or play as they had originally intended.
Whether Portland became too cautious or Salt Lake ramped it up a notch, the results were devastating.
Four straight goals, starting in the 35th minute, saw the hosts take a two-one lead into half-time, add a third moments after the restart and then a fourth in the final ten minutes with an impressive display of style, largely thanks to the scintillating form of playmaker Javier Morales.
Chris Schuler, extra-time hero against Los Angeles, nabbed the first in the 35th minute, rising over Futty Danso to nod in an out-swinging Morales corner kick from the right. His header nestled in the left-side of the net to level the match at ones.
Pa Modou Kah nearly played the goat when he inadvertently redirected a Salt Lake corner kick towards his own-goal, but Valeri was on hand to clear from the line.
Robbie Findley would put Salt Lake ahead in the 41st minute when Danso again was victimized.
Findley pressured the centre-back on the ball, forcing a poor touch that allowed the attacker in clear to calmly slot past a helpless Donovan Ricketts with his right-foot, having shaped to round the keeper, before opening his body and tucking in at the short-side.
A mere three minutes into the second half the match was decided by a textbook counterattack execution:
Morales rolled the ball down the right flank for Findley, who squared to Devon Sandoval at the near-post. The first-year striker easily held off the attentions of a recovering Jack Jewsbury and put a right-footer through Ricketts for their third.
The sheer exhaustion of the visitors was particularly evident on one play where Jose Valencia attempted to take on six Salt Lake defenders, as no teammates could be bothered to get up-field in support. He did not succeed.
Ricketts would be called into action to prevent further embarassment, making a spectacular save on a flicked Luis Gil header from a lofted Morales ball.
It appeared the series would be over when Morales himself got in on the act, racing away from his marker, Darlington Nagbe, to the near-post to get on the end of a right-sided Joao Plata out-swinging corner kick and seeing his diving header deflect off Frederic Piquionne, handcuffing Ricketts for a fourth in the 82nd minute.
But the Timbers would find a lifeline in the fourth and final minute of stoppage-time, when Jewsbury was allowed to saunter up the right and pick out Piquionne with a cross. The forward won the aerial challenge, placing an arcing, bullet header beyond the reach of Rimando and closing the gap to two for the second leg.
Three goals would have been near insurmountable, but two leaves the series within grasp, given the dominant home form exhibited by Portland this season, where they have not lost since March.
Salt Lake’s Jason Kreis, buoyed by the performance, did not want to wait for the second leg, “I prefer not to wait two weeks to play the next match. I’d like to continue this week’s momentum because we’ve had similar starts-and-stops this year, and it’s been tough to deal with. It is what it is, and so we’ll just do our best. They’ve got a two-week break as well and so we’ll probably both be dealing with a little bit of rustiness in that match.”
His opposite, Caleb Porter, basically wrote a novel on what went wrong, opening with, “I thought we came out with the energy and spirit and mentality that we have shown over the last several months, really the last 10 games. We came out on the front foot, got the first goal, and then for whatever reason we just stopped playing. We dropped off far too much. We let them have the ball and come at us and you could start to feel it coming – the goal.
“I wasn’t surprised when they scored because when you sit back that much and you drop off as much as we did against a team like Salt Lake, who’s very good on the ball and has some good attacking players, then you’re bound to give up a goal eventually.”
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CanCon
Portland’s Will Johnson is the last Canadian standing in the MLS playoffs. He picked up his second goal in as many matches with that free-kick assault on his former teammate, but could do little to raise the energy of his tired team after the emotional elimination of Seattle.
Overheard
Not much to report on the sounds of the round – Peter Vermes shouted a lot, nothing new there - but there was a very good question asked of Kansas City’s Aurelien Collin, after his running battles with Bobby Boswell and Cam Weaver:
“Do you need to wear a helmet next time?” to which he responded, “I'm sure they received some hits too. I like it when it's physical. I would say the referee was good tonight. Nothing is perfect, but he was quite fair tonight and I'm happy.”
Collin, along with several other players, was on a caution warning – nobody will be unavailable for the second legs. Coincidence? Hmm.
See It Live
Several visual nuggets to bring a smile to the face:
Mike Chabala’s savvy spring-boarding off the advertising boards on his long throws, getting an extra bit of spring into the launch, though at times he looked like a bear scratching his back on a tree, while the tag-team wrestling campaign from Bobby Boswell and Cam Weaver against Aurelien Collin was truly no-holds-barred.
Diego Valeri’s goal-line clearance for Portland prevented at least one Salt Lake goal, while Donovan Ricketts came up huge on Luis Gil to deny another.
Controversy
Should Cam Weaver have won a penalty when Aurelien Collin stepped on his foot?
Opinion Poll
After a whirlwind two weeks, the playoffs fade to the background for thirteen days.
The question is, will they drift into irrelevance? Or will the remaining drama still draw eyes to the action when it resumes?
Will you be watching?
Upcoming Fixtures
Having played fourteen playoff matches in twelve days, rushing to fit in the first two-plus rounds before breaking for International fixtures, there will now be nearly two weeks before the second legs resume on the weekend of November 23-24.
Saturday: Kansas City-Houston. Sunday: Portland-Salt Lake.
Should be good.
All quotes – and the gif - courtesy of MLSsoccer.com
Each week James takes a look at the league as a whole.
You can follow James on twitter @grawsee or read more of his writing at Partially Obstructed View