MLS Week 8 Preview and Predictions

Well I blew it by picking RSL to beat the CRapids, so let’s see how I do on the rest of the week 8 action.

King of the Mountain

So the Columbus Crew regained first place from Chicago by winning their matchup last weekend 3-2 over San Jose on the road, this week the Crew get the early match as they go to Canada to face TFC at hostile BMO Field. TFC has two wins and a draw in their last 3 matches all played north of the border, a stretch where they have only given up one goal on their home turf, while scoring 4. Columbus beat Toronto on opening day 2-0 in Crew Stadium, and the Crew have only one lost to go with their 6 wins, TFC started a little slow but a 3-2 win over the Galaxy at the Home Depot Center, and their current streak at home and they are one of the hottest teams in MLS. Toronto has added a lot of talent to their roster since the start of the season, most of it coming with a good dose of international flavor and experience; perhaps the two largest signings have been Lauren Robert (French International), and Amado Guevara (Honduran International) who have accounted for 3 of TFC’s 8 goals and 3 of their 4 assists on the season. I expect the rematch to be a tight contest, but picking against the Crew is just not smart at this point of the season, 3-1 Columbus.

On the road again

The Wizards started the season with four straight home matches (2-1-1) and looked to be a top team in the East, but they are in the middle of a six game road trip (1-2 so far) and have lost their last two matches, and have struggled to score goals of late, 2 goals in last 4 matches. They will be facing the Red Bulls, who have one of the best defenses in the league and have only given up five goals so far this season, only one of those was scored on them at home where they are 2-1-0. The Red Bulls have a number of injuries with Echeverry, Roth, and Stammler out, Leitch, Reyna, and Wolyniec listed as questionable, but with Angel getting his first goal of the season last week and the dangerous Altidore, they should be able to match up with the Wizards, leaving the boys from Kansas wishing their was someplace like home, Red Bulls 1- Wizards 0

Which Revolution team will show up?

New England has been one of the biggest mysteries of the 2008 season, they start with a 3-0 victory over reigning MLS champions Houston, and then get beat 4-0 by Chicago. They then go to KC and face off against the Wizards (who were 2-0) and beat them on a cold, wet, and windy night 3-1, followed by a 1-0 defeat to the Rapids, a tie at New York, a win at Dallas, another loss to Chicago, and last weeks victory over Chivas. Trying to figure out what team will show up for New England really is tough, but this week they are at home against a San Jose team that a few weeks ago looked much better than the average expansion team when they beat the Rapids 2-0 in Denver, and had a 0-0 draw against Dallas. The problem is that San Jose has only scored 4 goals so far this season, New England on the other hand have scored 10 goals, but the Rev’s will be without Taylor Twellman after his return to MLS action last week, but even without him New England should have little problem winning this one New England 2- San Jose 0.

Winless no longer

The defending champions finally picked up their first win of the season as the Dynamo beat Colorado 2-1 last weekend, with DeRo and Ching getting their first goals of the 2008 MLS season. The bad news is they are facing the second best team in MLS at home, the Chicago Fire have won 5 of their last 6 matches, to make matters even worse for the Dynamo who have struggled to score (their 7 goals come in 3 matches and they have 4 matches without a goal) will face by far the best defense in MLS. Chicago has only given up 3 goals, while scoring 13, so this one is really easy to pick Fire 2- Dynamo 0.

The mighty have fallen

Who in their right might would have picked the two top regular season teams from last year to be a combined 3-9-2 going into week eight of the MLS season? But then again who would have picked these teams to have some of the worst defenses in MLS (Chivas has given up 15 goals, and United has given up 14), and both teams have had their offensive struggles of late, in their last two matches Chivas have scored only one goal, but even worse is the goose egg that United have scored in their last two. Bad defenses, and bad offenses, this could be really boring but I am going to pick it to be a fairly exciting match as both team put two into the back of the net United 2- Chivas 2.

Which superstar will shine?

Landon has scored over half of LA’s goals (8 of 14), Beckham has been good (3 goals and 4 assists) for LA, but their 2-3-2 record is not what one would expect from a team with 3 players that qualify as DP’s. Kenny Cooper has scored over half of the goals that FC Dallas have this year (5 of 9), their keeper Dario Sala has been solid with a 1.00 GAA so far this season. So which team will see their stars shine, it is hard to say, both teams have faced RSL recently LA drew 2-2, while FCD lost 2-1, with all 3 goals coming from stars (2 for Beckham and 1 for Cooper), I have to say that it is likely that the stars will shine for both teams, but the Dallas defense will be the real star of this match, they have only given up 3 goals in their last five matches, Dallas 3- Galaxy 2.

OFF MY SOAPBOX

This entry was posted on May 17, 2008 at 1:40 am and is filed under MLS Predictions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.