The three teams that made our top tier did so either unanimously, or very close to it. There was only one of our 19 voters who didn't feel the Los Angeles Galaxy were worthy of the top tier and just three who don't quite believe in the New York Red Bulls. For these teams, their seasons will clearly be defined by the amount of hardware they win.
Playing For The Shield | ||
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Real Salt Lake
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100% (57 out of 57 points) |
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LA Galaxy
|
98% (56 out of 57 points) |
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New York Red Bulls
|
94% (54 out of 57 points) |
Real Salt Lake: The Quest for the Quad
On its face, trying to win four championships in one year seems absolutely absurd. No MLS team has so much as won three, after all, so why even talk about going for four. Yet that seems to be the goal RSL has set, whether implicitly or tacitly. The first part of that quest continues on Tuesday, when RSL take on Saprissa in the CONCACAF Champions League semifinals. If RSL can win that two-legged playoff and advance to the finals, that would mean additional competitive matches going through the end of April. Then there's U.S. Open Cup qualifying, and of course the continuation of the MLS regular season.
It's enough to tax any team in any league, let alone one in MLS that has both strict roster and salary limits. But if any team can do it, RSL seems well position to give it a shot. Last year, they handled the increased load of the CCL group stage just fine, although some insist on blaming their early MLS playoff exit on the added workload. This year, the only real difference is that the added work is coming early in the season, as opposed to late. If they can manage it all, this could be real breakthrough season not just for RSL, but for the league as a whole.
LA Galaxy: MLS Cup or Bust
There may be a somewhat open debate among some about whether winning the Supporters' Shield is as big of an accomplishment as winning the MLS Cup, but there's no such confusion in Los Angeles: the reigning Shield winners know nothing less than the MLS Cup will do. This team is clearly built for an all-in run this year, as the chances of Juan Pablo Angel returning for a second year seem slim, at best, and Landon Donovan seems destined for a return to Europe. In those two players, the Galaxy have statistically the two best offensive players in the league over the past four years (a combined 109 goals and 59 assists), but remarkably little scoring depth beyond them.
Assuming those two stay healthy and continue to produce at a reasonable clip, this team is likely to go as far as their defense can take them. Omar Gonzalez, Sean Franklin and AJ De La Garza are all young and coming off solid seasons. But they are not perfect, as evidenced by FC Dallas' dismantling of their defense in last year's Western Conference finals. Whether Dallas exposed a weakness that will be exploited or merely found a hole that will quickly be patched will probably determine whether this team accomplishes its main goal.
New York Red Bulls: Revolutionizing roster construction
Of the 28 players currently listed on the Red Bulls roster, just eight were born in the United States. With MLS roster rules limiting the number of international players, many of those foreign-born players are either now citizens or have green cards. But the fact remains that the Red Bulls are expanding their scope for possible talent allocation to a degree previously unseen in MLS. In many ways, it's an experiment that should some interesting results. There are 20 different nationalities represented on a roster that features two Norwegians and a Swede on the technical staff. Just five players and no one on the coaching staff have been in New York for more than a year.
This is probably not what the league's founders had in mind, but the Red Bulls already showed how quickly a team can be turned around when they went from finishing last in the East in 2009 to finishing first in 2010 by thinking differently than their competitors. Now they'll see if they can take it another step. If they're successful, this could very well be a template other teams try to follow.