There are five trophies that really matter up for grabs in MLS every year.
First is the CONCACAF Champions League, which has proved a hell of a steep hill to climb over the past eight years. Will LA, D.C., Seattle or (hopefully) RSL get the job done this time around? I don't know -- tune in next spring to find out for sure.
Then there's the Canadian Championship, which is only open to the three Canadian teams as well as a couple of lower-division clubs north of the 48th, and is way more fun than most Americans realize.
There's also the Supporters' Shield, which is my personal favorite because it means you've produced a season of excellent -- or at least consistently productive -- soccer.
MLS Cup is, if you ask around, the one that everybody wants to win the most. I get that, for the obvious reasons.
And finally there's the US Open Cup, which is the oldest of them all. The USOC's century-long history is colorful and glorious, and over the last 20 years has provided for some of the most entertaining midweek summer nights around. Want to watch Cal FC rise up and slay a giant? Want to see the Rochester Rhinos carve their way through MLS? Want to see Alexi Lalas sprint up a hill?
The USOC exists for soccer junkies, and even as the sport and the league grow more mainstream by the year, it retains its garage band appeal. Weird stuff can and does happen, and for that I am grateful.
Let's see what kind of fun the Philadelphia Union and Sporting KC have in store for us in Wednesday night's final (7 pm ET; ESPN2 | WatchESPN | UDN), the 102nd in Open Cup history:
What the Union will do:Get Cristian Maidana wide and on the ball
Maidana wears the No. 10, and on the lineup card he'll be listed as an attacking midfielder who plays in the central channel. He will not, however, get most of his touches there.
Instead, he will drift to the flanks, especially in transition, and try to combine with his fellow attackers on the run. The idea is for Maidana to drag extra defenders to him, and then cut them out of the play with precision crosses; cut-back passes to Vincent Nogueira, who pushes up to fill the central playmaker role when Maidana heads to the flanks; or by slipping whichever winger he happens to be working with through into enough space to make a play.
That's pretty classic Maidana right there, and it presents Sporting with a conundrum. The way most teams deal with a No. 10 is to have their defensive midfielder stay home, stay central, and do everything they can to clog up that part of the field. Maidana simply doesn't operate there, though -- even in possession -- and that kind of rules out the notion of having Soni Mustivar stay in the dude's grill all game long.
As with everything in our game, it'll have to be a team effort from KC. But keep an eye on how high Peter Vermes pushes his fullbacks, because if they're hanging back a little bit, it's a hedge against Maidana's ability to playmake from the wings.
What Sporting will do:Pull the line high and try to play runners through
Benny Feilhaber, Sporting's No. 10, is the polar opposite of Maidana. He spends the vast majority of his time in the central channel, does a ton of defensive work, and is arguably better in possession than he is running the break.
But just because Feilhaber is with the ball, and Sporting are a more technical team than they were two years ago, doesn't mean they actually have more possession than previous incarnations of Vermes's teams. They're actually below 50% on the season, and are near the bottom of the pack in touches as well. They use their skill to open you up quickly and ruthlessly, and Feilhaber's eye for the final ball is the key to that strategy:
That's a good, technical bit of play. It doesn't rate high in the "possession" stat because it's only one turnover and one pass, but I'm happy to call it jogo bonito.
Philly's challenge will be keeping their central defense -- likely to be Maurice Edu and Richie Marquez -- central and connected, and have them focus on preventing those gaps for Dom Dwyer to exploit. At the same time they have to make sure to be aware of Sporting's wide play, because if they don't...
Yeah, those guys can hurt you, too.
Edu's mobility should help a lot in this one, but he has to be careful not to run himself out of the play.
What's it mean?
I think this one will start off pretty cagey, and expect Michael Lahoud or Brian Carroll to be all over Feilhaber from the start, trying to funnel play to Sporting's flanks. In Krisztian Nemeth and Graham Zusi SKC have two very good players there, but also two guys who 1) push really, really high, and 2) turn the ball over a little bit too easily. As the Sebastien Le Toux goal embedded above shows, Philly love it when teams cough the ball up along the touchline, because that usually means transition opportunities.
For Sporting it'll be about trying to make Nogueira play square as often as possible and not letting Maidana get on the ball on the run. They've struggled with that over the past six weeks, and routinely give up run-outs these days no matter who they're facing.
The wildcard in all of this is C.J. Sapong, the ex-Sporting attacker who's now the fulltime No. 9 for Philly. He's been excellent this year, and his hold-up play forces defenders to bend around him, which in turn opens up space for the likes of Maidana, Le Toux and Tranquillo Barnetta. He's also been a threat on set pieces, another area of defensive concern for the visitors.
Sporting's been a better team this year, but Philly have the pieces to give them a hellacious time.
