2023 Audi Cup – A Storyline of Firsts….Again

Last year the storyline heading to the playoffs was all the firsts that had occurred with the biggest being that for their first time in club history the Seattle Sounders failed to make the playoffs. Apparently putting all their eggs into winning the CONCACAF Champions League (which they did) was just too much while trying to stay afloat in the MLS regular season. Well this year has a bunch of firsts too so lets stick with that theme.

1. I just their 2nd season in the MLS Charlotte FC has made the playoffs. Granted its as a wild card team but still their fans have to be happy with that progress. And you know what they say about the playoffs. Get in and then anything can happen.
2. Cincinnati FC has won the Eastern Conference for the first time in just their 5th season.
3. Trying to balance the number of teams that make the playoffs (all about the revenue), while still rewarding teams play in the regular season the playoff format is substantially different this year. First the 8th and 9th seed wild cards will play a single heads up match to move on. Then the first round is where things get interesting. Given that playoffs in most sports are crap shoot to begin with and especially so in a low scoring affair like soccer, MLS has attempted to minimize the one off results by going to a best of three setup for the first round. Then it will revert back to single elimination for the Conference Semi-Finals and Finals as well as the Audi Cup Final. And hey if a lesser ranked team can pull off the upsets in a best of three then they’ve earned the right to move on.
4. But the granddaddy of all first has got to be the St. Louis City FC club. Not only did they make the playoffs in their inaugural MLS season but they flat out won the Western Conference. Long way to go but they sure are playing for some history in the making.

So with that lets preview the playoffs and see how things are shaping up.

Eastern Conference

Wild Card Round

NY Red Bulls vs Charlotte FC –  Well it is the playoffs and anything can happen right? First the good news. One of these teams has to win. Now the bad news. They win and they get to go to Cincinnati the overall #1 seed. But one game at a time. The Red Bulls had a Red Bull season. They look great to the eye test and the metrics like them much better than the actual standings. They had the 5th best expected goal differential in the league and according to American Soccer Analysis they had the best Goals Added metric in the entire league (over 2 goals better than 2nd best LAFC). But as has been the case of late all those metrics somehow haven’t translated to the actual record. They were tied for fewest goal allowed in the Conference (39) but they only scored 36 times (fewest of any MLS playoff team). As to Charlotte, they took 10 of a possible 12 points in their last 4 matches including a 1-0 Decision Day win over Inter Miami. The only team to beat Miami in a regular season game in which Lionel Messi started. But they have not earned a single win over an Eastern Conference playoff team in over 5 months and they will play every game except one away where they went 4-5-8.

Prediction – New York Red Bulls to advance

Best of Three Round

Cincinnati FC vs NYRB/Charlotte FC – Clearly Cinncy is the favorite here and with good reason. First off they will play every single playoff game but one at home this fall. For a team that went 13-2-2 TQL Stadium their fans may see a lot of playoff soccer the next month. They have two game changing forwards in Lucho Acosta (17 goals) and Brandon Vazquez (8 goals), a terrific defense lead by Matt Miazga (likely MLS Defender of the Year) and a solid keeper in Roman Celentano. All that parlayed into an MLS second best + 18 goal differential (almost .5 goals/game). They will be a very tough out and in this round’s best of three format hard to see  either team upsetting them.

Prediction – Cincinnati FC

Orlando City vs Nashville FC –  Orlando comes in with the second best record in the league all while having the lowest payroll. Got to give a load of credit to head coach Oscar Pareja. The team is deep and uses about 16 players routinely and they all understand their role and expectations. What do they do great? Not really anything. They have a solid defense but nothing really special. They score some goals but certainly not near as many as a lot of teams. But there they shine is that they don’t have any real flaws. They are solid just at every position and play a cohesive style. They don’t need one player to step up to beat you. They just push you all over the field until they force a mistake. Their leading scorer is Facundo Torres with 14 goals only good enough for a tie for 11th. In the net Pedro Gallese is 5th in the league in clean sheets (10) and has an acceptable save rate at 70.5%. Again solid but not earth shattering. Shots on target they were way down the table with 146. And their defensive stats are very similar. Just middle of the pack in all aspects. But that is the key. ALL aspects. They just don’t have an obvious weakness for teams to try and exploit. Nashville on the other hand is very, very good at one thing. Defense. They are perennially among the stingiest defenses in the league and this year was no exception allowing just 32 goals tied for best in the league. They are very comfortable sitting back and absorbing pressure while minimizing opponents shot quality. And they have some counter attacking tools in Hany Mukhtar (15 goals) and Sam Surridge who came alive in the next to last regular season match (5 shots). But Mukhtar and defender Walker Zimmerman have looked tired of late and they will need them to be refreshed in order to make a run.

Prediction – Orlando City moves on over a tired Nashville

Columbus Crew vs Atlanta United FC – The Crew lead MLS in goals scored and goal differential. Sure there are more advanced metrics you can look at but those two things are still pretty telling come playoff time. They have two strikers in Cucho and Christian Ramirez who combined for 24 goals. Lucas Zelarayan added 10 goals out of the midfield. The major downside to this team is they continually showed an inability to close out games when they had the lead dropping 22 points from being ahead. Second worst in the league. But Crew fans have one huge plus in their back pocket. The Crew don’t lose at Lower.com Field with just a single home loss in 17 matches. Then there is Atlanta second in goals scored just one behind Columbus. And it all starts with Greek National Team striker Giorgos Giakoumakis and his 17 goals. But if teams try to concentrate on defending him they open the door for Thiago Almada (11 goals and league leading 19 assists). But Atlanta has two major problems. First is their defense. They allowed 53 goals on the season, worst of any team in the playoffs. You can deal with a weak defense if you have a great keeper. Of you can deal with an just ok keeper if you have a stout defense. But Atlanta has neither. While kudos have to go to keeper Brad Guzan for his speedy comeback from his Achilles injury but he has clearly slowed up a step. Now problem #2 which may be the killer. Almada took a horrible red card on Decision Day and will miss the first leg. Tough to envision them winning without him and a less than 100% Giakoumakis (took a knock on Decision Day). So if they lose the first match can they really comeback and win two in a row?

Prediction – Columbus is just better.

Philadelphia Union vs New England Revolution – A real coin flip here and you can make a case for either team. New England scored one more goal on the season than the Union but gave up 5 more. Still pretty close in differential. Both teams don’t lose at home (each lost only once) however the Revs did have two more wins were the Union had draws. The Revs problems just grew once Bruce Arena resigned. They have changed lineups and tactics a lot trying to find the right combination but nothing has seemed to really jump out as the answer. But if you want to use recency bias as a discriminator then look no further than the Decision Day result. The Rev beat the Union 2-1 at Gillette Stadium.

Prediction – Union in three with the teams winning their home matches

Western Conference

Wild Card Round

Sporting KC vs San Jose Earthquakes –  To the casual fan who just looks at the final standings this would seem to be a very close match and just a coin flip. But if you dig a bit deeper you’d quickly come to the conclusion that Sporting should be the clear favorites. And that would be a correct viewpoint. The first level analysis says but they were tied in total points and their goal differentials were within one of each other. Again correct. But dig a bit deeper and you see that Sporting started the season horribly  bad getting just 3 draws in their first 10 matches. Three points out of a possible 30 yet they came back and made the playoffs! How was that possible? They did it the old fashioned way. One game at a time. No long winning streak but few losses never losing 2 in a row. After that terrible start they earned 1.71 points/game. Had they done that for the entire season they would have finished first in the Conference not 8th! So what do Quake fans have going for them? Well Daniel in the nets. He is flashy. He is really good. And he has the ability to get really hot. The problem for the Quakes is a team thing. They have only earned one win the last two months and only two road wins all season.

Prediction – Sporting is at home and the Quakes are terrible on the road. Enough said.

St. Louis City SC vs Sporting/San Jose – What a story in St. Louis, a team winning the conference and earning home field advantage until at least the Final in their first MLS season. SC lead the Conference in scoring and goal differential and only lost 4 home matches all year. They have a three pronged attack in Nico Gioacchini (10), Joao Klauss (10), and Samuel Adeniran (8) who combined for 28 goals. Then they have Roman Burki in the nets who stood on his head this season with an almost 75% save rate. Now pundits figure that Gioacchinii, Klauss, and Burki have all played at an unsustainable level based on their past performances. And I’d have to agree. But they have done it all year long so why not one more month? Talent wise they should win no matter which team comes out of the Wild Card match. But beware of Sporting. They hate St. Louis (the feeling is mutual) and could go in to St. Louis and pull off the road upset.

Prediction – St. Louis City SC is too good a story to end just quite yet.

Seattle Sounders vs FC Dallas – All is right with the MLS soccer world as the Sounders are back in the playoffs after a one year hiatus. Lets get right to the brass tacks. On Decision Day they went into St. Louis and beat them 2-0. Sure St. Louis had already clinched the Conference title blah blah blah. The Sounders went in there and made a statement and probably not many teams you’d like to avoid right now than them. They tied with Nashville for the fewest goals allowed at 32 and probably have the best overall defense in the league. What do they say about defense and winning championships! Another interesting thing about the Sounders is that they are almost identical at home compared to on the road. They went 7-6-4 at home and 7-5-5 on the road so a single draw over a loss. Point being they don’t care much about where they play they just go get the job done. Now certainly playing at home in front of an average of 32K fans at Lumen Field is a plus in the playoffs and they have home field advantage for every Western Conference match except if they face St. Louis. They likely will be on the road in the Cup Final. The issue in the northwest is that Nico Lodeiro and Raul Ruidiaz are just a year older. Will their legs hold out for one more month? Dallas actually scored the same number of goals as Seattle and only allowed 5 more. Not that bid a difference across a span of 34 matches. Jesus Ferreira seems to be the key to this side. He lead the team in goals with 12. Next in line are Bernard Kamungo and Jader Obrian with 6 each.  They can find the net with their skill and smarts. But and this is a pretty big but, take a look at the size of these guys. 5 ‘8″ and 150#, 5’9″ and 150#, and 5’5″ and 137 #. I know soccer is a sport where size isn’t paramount. Yeah ok this scares me against a stout defense like Seattle will send out there.

Prediction – Seattle moves on.

LAFC vs Vancouver Whitecaps – LAFC is the same old story. Attack, attack, and attack which they do quite well including league goal scoring leader Denis Bouanga with 20 goals. Then there is that other guy Carlos Vela who only scored 9 times (and 12 last year) but is only a few season removed from a 34 goal campaign. They are strong all through the middle of the field and the metric geeks have them neck and neck with Cinncy as the best two teams in the league. The Caps have a very strong front press with Brian White and Ryan Gauld and even when the front press fails they back line couple with dmid Andres Cubas was able to shutoff opponents counters. Like so much of the league this might boil down to the home fields. LAFC is solid at home (10-3-4) while Vancouver is not too good on the road (4-6-7). One other issue for the Caps is the injury to Cubas. He was back in training last week but failed to make the Decision Day roster and is feared to be out a bit longer. Missing him for the LAFC series would be a significant blow to their chances.

Prediction – LAFC but this one has a potential upset smell to it.

Houston Dynamo vs Real Salt Lake – Beware of the Dynamos. They won the Open Cup and that was no fluke. They are a solid team and capable of beating anybody. They drew St. Louis last month but were the better team by far they just couldn’t find that second goal. The downside of Houston is that don’t have one or two go to guys who they can call on when they just have to find a goal. Their two leading scorers were Amine Bassi (10) and Corey Baird (8). Neither of those guys are overly scary to opposing defenses. But they also have 78 players who have scored 3 or 4 goals meaning they find ways to score from all over the field. And that does scare opposing defenses. And they have a quality keeper in Steve Clark who was second in the league in clean sheets. They will be a tough out if the defense plays well and Clark gets hot. RSL has scored some goals and allowed a few more. The concern for them is the injury to Pablo Ruiz. Once he got hurt (out for the season with a knee injury) they pretty much fell apart. Manager Carlos Bocanegra tried all kinds of different lineups and tactics including a full on bunker defense trying to find some way to hang on. They conceded 10 chances off set pieces so even that didn’t work too well. The one thing in their favor? They are actually a better team on the road than at home (two more road wins than home wins). One of two teams in MLS with more road wins than home wins (Minnesota Loons are the other). They will need some of that road magic to get past Houston.

Prediction – Houston holds serve and moves forward.

So lots of entertaining soccer over the next 6 weeks. Good luck to all MSL fans’ teams. Overall what do I think happens in the end?

Technical Prediction – Cincinnati over LAFC

Heart Prediction – Seattle over Cincinnati