The good, the bad, and the very, very ugly.
| Seasons over, awards are given out, and the fat lady has already left the after party. So how did I do? I’ll add comments in red to my original predicions. | |
| Good lord, only 5 points. Worst season yet. Good thing this is a bit. | |
| It is time my friends for the return of one of the most useless, but yet highly entertaining, to me at least, bits in all of 3rd Degree’dom. (I just made up a word) I wrote this last week, but with all the preseason content we had, I pushed it back to this week in hopes of find a more open date to post it. | |
| So without further Adu, Edu, adieu… | |
| Twenty fearless predictions for 2007 | |
| (For recreational purposes only) | |
| 1 | Claudio Reyna will end up starting less than half of the Red Bull games due to injury. I’m thinking about ten games actually. |
| – 21… so 2/3rds. 0 points but I was close. | |
| 2 | FC Dallas will announce their third sister club affiliation with a long awaited “European” team, namely Liverpool. The Reds owner does live down the block after all, talk about a no-brainer. |
| – What has Hitckock been doing? 0 points. | |
| 3 | Cuauhtémoc Blanco will twice be ejected for taking a swing at a player in retaliation for being egregiously hacked down during play. Once in a game against New York and once in training by his own teammate. |
| – 0 red cards. BOOOO! Great signing. Yeah! 0 points. | |
| 4 | As annoying as it will be, Bruce Arena will win Coach of the Year for turning New York around. Moderate success in that media market makes Arena the odds on favorite. |
| – Preki wins it, and it was so not Bruce he got fired. 0 Points | |
| 5 | Joe Cannon will be the run away Goalkeeper of the Year for the Galaxy. Re-energized Cannon+Frank Yallop+LA Media=GOY. |
| – LA sucked so much he had no shot. 0 Points | |
| 6 | Taylor Twellman will be sold during the summer transfer window. Eric Wynalda will cry into his beer for weeks, but Twellman will be off to one of the second tier leagues like Belgium or about a $mil. |
| – He wanted to go and there was a very nice bid for him just after the season, I’m taking it. 1 Points | |
| 7 | The Rookie of the Year will be Michael Harrington after he starts virtually the entire year for the Wizards. Harrington’s coming out of UNC with a fairly complete game already. |
| – I’ll admit it up, I wossed out. I had Edu and changed it to Harrington cause I thought there was no way Mo would play Edu enough with all those signings he made. 1/2 point for Harrington starting all year. | |
| 8 | Frankie Hejduk will be Comeback Player of the Year for Columbus. Eskandarian will give it a good run, but everyone loves the surfer boy. |
| – Johnson? He wasn’t even hurt in 06. Who knew you could win this award for sucking one year instead of being injured. 0 Points | |
| 9 | The Don will announce the St Louis Kings as the 14th team in MLS, brining the league back to an even number of teams for 2008. Wait, what about the Earhtquakes? I predict they won’t have a place to play so they’ll be back in the League in 09 with one other team (either Atlanta or Philly) to get the total to 16. |
| – Stadium turned out to not be a big deal so I was off by one season on San Jose and St Louis. 1/2 point. | |
| 10 | Jeff Cunningham will win the Budweiser Golden Boot to become the fourth two-time winner. Cunningham will be the first striker to nab 20 since Carlos Ruiz in 2002, he’ll also lead the league in offside calls. They’ll score more at RSL, but that defense is still a wreck. |
| – Someone (Emilio) broke 20, it just wasn’t Cunningham after his trade. 0 points. | |
| 11 | Dwayne De Rosario will be MLS MVP. The DC juggernaut will split their vote and DeRo will finally get the MVP nod he deserved two seasons ago when he was robbed. |
| – Emilio again, an off year for DeRo. 0 points | |
| 12 | Eddie Robinson will be Defender of the Year for the Dynamo. He’s the leader on the defense that will lead the West, and second overall, in goals against |
| – Parkhurst, but it should have been Robinson for the reasons I said. 0 Points | |
| 13 | DC United will win the Supporters Shield by almost 10 points. This DC team may be the best team we have seen in MLS in some time and be the third team to hit 60 points. |
| – They only won it buy 2, but if not for that early season stumble it would have been real close. 1/2 Point. | |
| 14 | West Finish: Houston, FC Dallas, Los Angeles, Colorado, Real Salt Lake, Chivas USA. Houston has the best defense. An angry Donovan and the fan hysteria about Beckham make LA much better, but not enough to get ahead of FC Dallas who will rebound in the second half. The Rapids without Cannon is not a good thing, Salt Lake’s D is still not good enough, and Chivas is getting old in the center channel. |
| – Missed bad on Chivas who I thought was too old, but looking basically right. LA and Col wrong by 1 point. 1/2 point. | |
| 15 | East Finish: DC United, New York, New England, Columbus, Chicago, Toronto FC, Kansas City. DC wins the east going away. In the last week of the season Red Bull will edge out the Revs for second place. Chicago will suffer greatly with a messed up locker room, but KC and TFC are still worse. |
| – Swap KC and the Crew, swap NE and NY and I basically got it. 1/2 Point | |
| 16 | DC United will again be MLS Cup Champs as the home field is too much for Los Angeles to overcome. 5 teams make the playoffs from the west, Hou, FCD, LA, Col, and RSL; with only the top three form the east getting in. LA peaks with Beckham in town and Landon in top form to knock off several higher seeded teams on the way to the final. |
| – DC chocked, Beckham injury cost me. I meant 5 teams form the East. Yeah, that’s the ticke. 0 points. | |
| 17 | FC Dallas, after going all of 06 without a PK call, will get one in their forth game of the year against Colorado. Greg Vanney will bring down Carlos Ruiz in the box for a PK and Ruiz will later get a yellow card for “gamesmanship” in an attempt to get a second one. |
| – Got the PK in the second game, that’s so close I’m taking the point. 1 point. | |
| 18 | Houston Dynamo will be US Open Cup Champions. All that Champions Cup and SuperLiga play will teach the Orange how to win one-off games. |
| – Oops. Eliminated by the Charleston Battery. They won MLS Cup instead. 0 Points. | |
| 19 | DC United will win the SuperLiga and earn them a “Trebble.” A MLS team will win SuperLiga in an all MLS final, because the Mexican teams will not play their entire first teams. |
| – Nope, LA at least got to the final to represent MLS. 0 Points | |
| 20 | Later in the MLS season, when the second transfer window opens, Clint Mathis will retire. After The Bruce subs him out at the 60th minute of a game, Mathis will yell “Go f**k yourself!” at the bench, throw his jersey into the stands, walk out of the stadium, and open a bar in Tribeca. |
| – He got benched and traded to LA. Same thing. 1/2 point. | |