Real Salt Lake keepers and defenders
Well the 2008 saw Real Sal Lake make great improvements on defense going from allowing 45 goals in 2007 to just 39 goals allowed in 2008, tied for 5th best in MLS and allowing only 10 goals at home, which was the best in MLS. The reason is a solid group of defenders and one of the top keepers in MLS:
Nick Rimando posted a 1.30 GAA in 2008 with 8 clean sheets
Chris Seitz is considered a top goalkeeping prospect, he struggled in 2008 while playing for the reserves posting a 2.56 GAA
Kyle Reynish proved to be a great backup and posted a 0.95 GAA in reserve action in 2008
So where do the other Western Conference teams stand?
Chivas USA- since losing Brad Guzan to the EPL, they now have to rely on MLS veteran Zach Thornton who has a lifetime 1.30 GAA. They have second year keeper Dan Kennedy who was drafted in 2005 but chose to play in Puerto Rico and Chile before returning to the goats, and they have Lance Parker, who played one match last year for Chivas in Superliga.
Colorado Rapids- Gone is Bouna time and his 1.24 GAA from last season, but they do keep Preston Burpo who last year put up a 1.85 GAA and was 5-2-6. Which explains why they went to Chicago to get the rights to Matt Pickens who has a career 1.20 GAA average in MLS, but spent 2008 with GPR of the Championship where he was a backup until he got hurt. They also have Steward Ceus a 6-6 rookie from the University of Albany.
FC Dallas- Now that Dario Sala is out with an injury, the hoops will be relying on either Ray Burse who has 8 MLS matches in his career with a 1.25 GAA. They also have Josh Lambo, the 8th pick in the 2008 MLS Super draft who has no MLS first team action.
Houston- Well old man river is still around Pat Onstad is 41 years old but he has a great reputation and an incredible 1.07 GAA for him MLS career, but there is little depth behind him. The feel good story of Tyler Deric, who is the first Houston Dynamo Academy product to play in MLS, and then Tally Hall who was drafted in 2007 by LA but chose to play in Denmark for Esbjerg (he played in two matches over two seasons).
LA Galaxy- the first start of the 2009 season went to Josh Saunders and he matched his MLS average GAA by allowing 2 goals, Josh has a lot of USL experience but very little time in a MLS goal. LA did pick up Jamacian Donovan Ricketts who played several years with Bradford City of League Two in England, who currently is nursing a groin strain. Having only two keepers on your roster is a very risky move.
San Jose- Joe Cannon is the clear number one and his career 1.29 GAA doesn’t reflect how good of a year he had on expansion side San Jose last year. He posted 9 clean sheets and led the league with 124 saves, but SJ is another team taking a risk by only having two keepers on their roster. Their number two is Andrew Weber who has no MLS experience but did play with Montreal in the USL last year.
Seattle- Well what can you say about Kasey Keller? At 39 years old, Kasey has been a number one keeper in some of the best leagues in the world and many consider him to be the best American keeper of all time. His back up is Chris Eylander who was the keeper for the Sounders USL side in both 2007 and 2008.
Well RSL has the depth advantage with more quality keepers all the way up and down, but based on the past the best keeper in the west is Pat Onstad who has simply been one of the best for too long to remember. Seattle has perhaps the best keeper in US history but can he adjust to the MLS style of play? Only time will tell but I would say RSL, Houston, and Seattle have the best keepers in the West, but it is too early to pick one over the others.
Defenders
One of the biggest areas of improvement in 2008 was the defensive backline of RSL, going in to 2008 the question was simply how do you fill the empty boots of Eddie Pope? The answer was bring in a bunch of talent, anchoring the backline was Nat Borchers who played 2610 minutes for RSL upon coming back to MLS, close to him was one of the team leaders Chris Wingert who played 2589 minutes and had 3 assists. Ian Joy come over from St. Pauli and was a huge hit with the fans and proved that he could provide a spark on the pitch, joining him was rookie Tony Beltran who showed a ton of potential, but there was no bigger impact that Jamison Olave who came on a loan and after overcoming some communication issues became a monster on the backline and got everyone’s attention. At 6-3 210 lbs, many feel that Olave is more suited to the NFL than MLS but he showed that he has the grit, talent and pace to be one of the most dominating players in MLS. He also is a perfect target on set pieces, he scored two goals last year and just last weekend scored the first RSL goal against Austin.
Two players who will likely get more time in 2009 are Beltran and fellow second year player David Horst, who many consider to have had the best preseason among RSL’ers.
The goal from Olave against Austin
Tony gets forward
Ian is one of the personalities of the team, but also one of the hardest working. On this day he was the first to show up at practice.
Chris got his first US cap this year and should see more action with the national team if his performance continues to shine.
The rest of the West:
Chivas USA- Last year the goats had an average defense, they bolstered their defense with Ante Jazic who comes over from the other LA side, the question is why would you want a defender from a team that gave up a league high 62 goals? They did keep Jim Curtin who they got last year from Chicago, and Carey Talley who they got from RSL, they do have Jonathan Bornstein who showed well in 2008, but a number of questions remain, will Claudio really come back and how effective can the old man be?
Colorado- Cory Gibbs added some grit last year but Ugo Ihemelu is one of those players that is fast, but either really good or really bad, which will he be in 2009? Colorado like Chivas for some reason picked up a LA defender, they got Ty Harden, but again I have to wonder why he left MLS for all of 2008 after playing well in 2007 and he could be a real find or a real bust. The biggest part of the Colorado defense is Pablo, while he is listed as a midfielder he is the Colorado defense and if he has a good year then expect the rest of the Rapids defense to play well.
FC Dallas- Gone is DP Duilio Davino and Adrian Serioux, but the Hoops pick up Danny Torres who went to Norway after being released by RSL, and they also picked up Steve Prudy who has played the last few years in the German second division. Drew Moor and Blake Wagner both were big parts of the Dallas defensive effort in 2008 and will have to step up again in 2009.
Houston- Waibel, Barrett, Robinson,and Boswell were the anchors of the Dynamo defense last year and all are back in 2009. Joining them is Julius James from TFC a promising young player, Houston is clearly the only team with a defense to rival RSL’s in 2009.
LA Galaxy - If you want to know what desperate is just look at LA trying to revive the career of 37 year old Tony Sanneh, the oft injured defender. I am not even going to waste more time, expect LA to again lead the league in goals allowed in 2009.
San Jose - In their opener SJ went with Denton, Garcia, Leitch, and Gray as their defenders and each of them is a solid veteran and should keep San Jose in a lot of matches, add to them Ryan Cochrane, Jason Hernandez, another LA cast off Brandon McDonald, and rookie Jamil Roberts. Along with RSL and Houston, San Jose looks to have a solid defense.
Seattle - The expansion side picked up James Riley from San Jose, Tyrone Marshall from TFC, Jhon Hurtado from Deportivo Cali, Zach Scott a former USL Sounder, and they got Patrick Ianni from Houston. If you throw a couple other players from USL sides, or drafted in the MLS draft you end up with a talented group but none of them have played together before and defense is about a team effort and I predict they will struggle in 2009.
I believe that RSL will have the best defense in the West followed closely by Houston and San Jose, but look for even more improvement in 2009 from the RSL backline.
Tomorrow will be the midfielders.
OFF MY SOAPBOX
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