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MLS week 16: reviews and previews

Posted by sportman  Published in Different

When does a good coach become a bad coach? Overnight it seems, judging by the departure of Frank Yallop from San Jose, just months after leading them to an exhilarating Supporters Shield run. Yallop became the second coach to leave an MLS side this season last week, but given his longterm status and the recent success of the team, even those critical of the 2013 ‘Quake’s indifferent start to the season were taken aback by this one.

San Jose are back in action on Saturday night at Colorado – the first of two games in a few days for a currently decent looking Rapids side. After hosting the Earthquakes they head to the Fire on Wednesday. Chicago were in action on Thursday lunchtime in Open Cup action, but don’t have a game until the Rapids come to town.

Saturday could be a big game for two struggling eastern teams. Toronto have been making some reshuffles over the past week, waiving Terry Dunfield and showing one or two other signs that Ryan Nelsen is beginning to exert a grip on his struggling squad. They travel to a DC side whose league struggles continue, but who enjoyed a breakout win and improved performance in the Open Cup against Philadelphia in midweek. The return of John Thorrington to their midfield has given Perry Kitchen some much needed support and the team some much needed shape. And of course a DeRo hat trick never hurts.

Two teams who don’t have to struggle for form are Portland and Dallas. The two had comfortable midweek Cup wins, which put them on a collision course for the quarter-finals, but they’ll meet before then this Saturday in what will be a clash between two of this year’s top teams in the West. Portland suit up again on Wednesday when they got an LA side who may be watching Mike Magee’s continued goal exploits for Chicago with slightly gritted teeth.

In the east, Montreal would perhaps have been setting the early pace if they’d played more games, but their points-per-game ratio has them in a healthy enough position as it is – and perhaps we’ll have truer sense of where they are when they’ve completed their trip to Columbus on Saturday and finished hosting a chastened Houston (who also crashed out of the Cup to Dallas).

Another team whose coaches have pointed to a tough schedule as disguising their true standing is Vancouver, who host the suddenly free-scoring Revs on Saturday and the free-falling Chivas on Wednesday. The Whitecaps come into that sequence after losing to Seattle last weekend – a game that left them still seeking their first Cascadia Cup win as an MLS side.

That Seattle game was of course a curtain-raiser for the grass surface laid especially for USA vs Panama. And somewhere in the middle of this week’s schedule is the USA’s final game in this mini-sequence of World Cup qualifiers. USA vs Honduras is at Rio Tinto Stadium on Tuesday night and as usual we’ll have live minute by minute coverage of the game (and if you want to look if not exactly smart, at least vaguely informed in the meantime, you can read up on the last game against Panama here, and what it taught us, here).

Have your say on your team, the Open Cup results, trades, conflicting feelings about nationalism below, join us for USA vs Honduras on Tuesday night, and we’ll be back on Monday with yet more things we’ve learned. Enjoy the weekend.

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