This article is part of our In-Formed series.
Welcome to the second edition of RotoWire's new Major League Soccer piece, In-Formed! Every few weeks, we'll examine two teams in top league form and two in a downward spiral, with some thoughts on how they got here and where we think they're headed.
First, let's look at the form table:
Portland TimbersAfter spending a good chunk of this season near the bottom of the Western Conference standings, Portland has battled back to win four of their past six matches. Only twice in that string of fixtures have they been afforded the luxury of playing at home. Also worth mentioning (but not included in the MLS form table) is an emotional U.S. Open Cup victory on Tuesday night against their mortal enemies, the Seattle Sounders. This would be a great hot streak with a healthy Diego Valeri and in-form Fanendo Adi, but largely without those two, it has been a truly impressive stretch. Caleb Porter's seat looked to be getting a little warm, but his team is heating up instead.
Adi does have three goals in the span, but all came in a substitute role as Maxi Urruti and Gaston Fernandez have added their grip to the Timbers' tug-of-war for starting attacking spots. If all three of these guys ever decided to play well at the same time, life would be easy in Portland. That's not the case, though, and Porter deserves some credit for getting results despite an unpredictable group of forwards. Enough of the offensive shuffle, though. Portland's strength this year is in defense. Liam Ridgewell is getting paid well over $1 million dollars to solidify a back line that has been the team's achilles' heel in recent seasons. Nat Borchers was brought in from Real Salt Lake and outside backs Alvas Powell and Jorge Villafana have improved defensively while still fulfilling Porter's attacking demands from the position. They've combined to shut out their opponents in each of the last three home matches at Providence Park, one of Major League Soccer's handful of true "fortresses"
It doesn't take a mathematical genius to see that adding Valeri and Will Johnson to this equation will equal an even better Timbers side. The competition for starting jobs appears to be healthy for the team, after the heavy rotation seemed counterproductive earlier in the season, and this has become a really confident group all around. While there has been very little buzz around the team as a potential contender for the MLS Cup, it's easy to see this side entering the discussion once fully fit and with a few more good performances under their belts. If they can reach that next level and push Cascadia Cup rival Seattle for the Supporters' Shield, even better!
Montreal Impact
Montreal shares the same record as the Timbers over the last six fixtures, with four wins and two losses. The biggest difference for Montreal is that they have both scored and allowed significantly more goals. The earlier CONCACAF Champions League run made for a quirky schedule, and Montreal still has three games in hand on every other MLS team, yet this current streak has them just three points out of a playoff position. While four wins in six games is a notable achievement, perhaps more noteworthy are the two losses in which they allowed three goals a piece to the Eastern Conference's two lowest teams.
The Impact have relied on the trio of Ignacio Piatti, Andres Romero and Jack McInerney for much of their offense during these matches. When they make their presence known early in the match, and force opponents to respect their strong counter attack, then they have been quite successful. When the offense has lacked bite early on, the games usually do not go Montreal's way. They have played a chippy brand of soccer, which often is successful in this league, but there have been numerous occasions when an early dose of yellow cards have hampered their performance for the full 90. Marco Donadel is a major culprit and isn't anywhere close to living up to his Serie A experience.
If Montreal is to continue to have success moving forward, they must shore up the defense as they won't continue to score goals at a rate of nearly two per game. Keeper Evan Bush has already been the team's most valuable player, so it's not fair to ask him to step up even more. Laurent Ciman has also had a really good first season in Major League Soccer, and is perhaps already one of the most influential centerbacks. Otherwise, this defense is lacking, and while Hassoun Camara's impending return from injury will help slightly, they need more solutions including better defensive help from their wide midfield players. Success in the upcoming stretch of matches is crucial if Montreal wants to compete for a playoff spot, as the schedule gets much tougher come the end of July. Ultimately, Montreal has proven they are better than everybody thought on the season's eve, but that still may not translate to a postseason appearance, let alone success come November.
Columbus Crew
If I had listed the four teams in this column two months ago, you'd have thought I got them backwards. Columbus and Dallas started as brightly as anybody, while Montreal and Portland stumbled out of the gate. Safe to say, the tables have turned lately. Until their last match against the Los Angeles Galaxy, Columbus allowed at least two goals to five straight opponents, several of them considered weaker MLS sides. In this stretch they have allowed twice as many goals (12) as they have scored (six). Like many of the the teams that pop up in this piece, Columbus can point to a some significant absences. Will Trapp (concussion) and Hernan Grana (personal leave for the season) are tough players to lose, but Columbus still has plenty of talent that should have steadied the ship.
The Crew's sudden struggles defensively are seriously concerning, and highlights how great a player Trapp is in Major League Soccer, without him even getting on the field for Columbus. No matter how dangerous their attack is, with Kei Kamara, Federico Higuain, Justin Meram and Ethan Finlay, it won't matter if they continue to suffer so many chances at the back end. Michael Parkhurst should be this team's Liam Ridgewell, a rock solid, calming presence in the center of defense. Instead, he has been uncharacteristically mistake prone, as have defensive partners Emanuel Pogatetz and Waylon Francis. With a weakened center midfield and center defense, it's no surprise that the offensive wingers, and the aging Higuain, have been beckoned backwards more often than before. The problematic part is that the balance between defending and attacking has been managed so poorly that both have ended up lacking.
While highly regarded manager Gregg Berhalter could certainly fix this domino effect that Trapp's absence causes, the young star looks set to return very soon anyway. It's difficult to overstate how important he is to the Crew. Finlay's broken toe is healing, and Meram is back from international competition. There's a good chance the team has already hit their low point of the season, and optimism in Columbus should outweigh pessimism moving forward. That said, it's really tough to look at the Crew with quite the same confident lens as earlier in the season. Vulnerabilities have become apparent, and teams with a strong spine can still exploit their shape and style. This team would have dominated MLS just a few years ago, and still might this season, but they have plenty of work left to get there.
FC Dallas
Columbus is the only team not to win any of their last six games. FC Dallas is close behind, remaining the only other team to not win in the past five. Again, this was unthinkable before this streak, when Dallas sat at 6-2-2. Dallas has a better excuse than Columbus, however, as they have faced a pretty tough schedule including Seattle, Kansas City, San Jose and New York Red Bulls. Four straight road matches does not help, but there is no excuse for being held scoreless in the past three. This team has fallen from Supporters' Shield contention to hanging onto the final playoff spot in a difficult Western Conference.
The Hoops lost a notable amount of players to international duty, but sympathy isn't the right reaction for a team shuffling between Blas Perez and Tesho Akindele, two quality forwards. More notable is a pair of matches missed from Fabian Castillo, an electric winger who really changes how teams must play FC Dallas defensively. It's very possible that Dallas is actually more reliant on a healthy and in-form Castillo than they are Mauro Diaz. On their back line, Zach Loyd and Matt Hedges haven't played a full match together in over a month. Given that they are one of Major League Soccer's better centerback pairings, this has been a significant development and Oscar Pareja will hope to have them firing on cylinders again in the near future. The defensive midfield combinations of Victor Ulloa, Michel and Kyle Bekker is not formidable enough to carry a struggling back four. Dallas is notorious for their summer slumps, and once again need to re-focus on both ends of the pitch.
Looking ahead, they should be able to turn things around. Their fixtures get marginally easier and players are returning from their national team duty, at least temporarily. Pareja is known for getting the most out of his young talent, and they almost always tend to finish the season looking far better than they began it. Also, Michael Barrios looks nearly integrated into the FC Dallas offensive machine, while newer transfer Rolando Escobar also projects to be another dangerous weapon in Pareja's arsenal. Castillo and Diaz constantly come up in European transfer rumors, and losing one of them would be tough to swallow, but should they remain the Dallas attack they can bounce back to be one of the best in the league. This team's fate really comes down to how well the defense can keep up, and that is a far murkier predicament. They have the talent along the back line, and two capable keepers, but need more consistency and must avoid any significant missed time from Hedges and Lloyd. The Western Conference will surely have capable teams missing the playoffs, with Real Salt Lake and San Jose currently on the outside looking in, and Dallas must avoid a true summer slump to guarantee they aren't at risk of missing the postseason. They should rapidly improve from this miserable streak, but at this point it's not a guarantee to be enough.
