10 things we learned from the second legs of MLS’s conference finals
Here are the 10 things we learned from the second legs of the MLS Conference Championships. 1. The Finalists Are Set The Columbus Crew SC and Portland Timbers will contest MLS Cup 2015 at MAPFRE Stadium on Sunday, Dec. 6, at 4:00 p.m. ET. The match will be broadcast by […]

Here are the 10 things we learned from the second legs of the MLS Conference Championships.

1. The Finalists Are Set

The Columbus Crew SC and Portland Timbers will contest MLS Cup 2015 at MAPFRE Stadium on Sunday, Dec. 6, at 4:00 p.m. ET. The match will be broadcast by ESPN.

In Columbus and Portland, the league has two finalists it can be proud of. The Crew upset the New York Red Bulls in what was, save for incredible last-gasp drama, a convincing triumph. The Timbers knocked out FC Dallas thanks to a couple of stoppage time goals, set pieces, and a lot of Nat Borchers.

Columbus and Portland have taken fairly similar paths to the promised land. Both clubs have exuberant young owners in Anthony Precourt and Merritt Paulson, both believe strongly in philosophies crafted by young American coaches in Gregg Berhalter and Caleb Porter, and both have won without marquee star players.

This is the ultimate MLS 3.0 final. It might not get the biggest TV ratings, but the home of American soccer in Columbus will be packed, and we’re sure to get a fantastic game between two sides who have created and endured plenty of drama on their way to the Cup.

It’s been fun watching the LA Galaxy’s dominance over the last four years, but it’s hard not to like a league where teams from Columbus and Portland can win conference championships ahead of teams from much bigger markets with much bigger footprints.

SEE MORE: Old rules about foreign coaches may not apply in our new MLS.

2. Was That Exciting Enough?

The playoffs are always exciting, but most everyone can agree that these playoffs have been unusually fun.

The Timbers and Dallas took a while to really get going. The miserable weather in Dallas made for a subdued atmosphere, as did the new security measures at Toyota Stadium that kept fans waiting in line to get into the stadium until halftime. But Fanendo Adi’s goal opened the floodgates, and Dallas’s charge to send the match to extra time was quelled only by two heroic plays – Nat Borchers’ insane block on Blas Perez’s open volley, and Lucas Melano’s tap-dance around Jesse Gonzalez for the series-clinching goal.

There was nothing remotely subdued about the first half of New York–Columbus, which was almost uncomfortably high-octane and made the bust-up involving Tony Tchani and Felipe seem inevitable.
Columbus appeared to be costing through until stoppage time, when the Red Bulls pulled a goal back on a net mouth scramble and then came within a post-length of improbably sending the game to extra time.

Both home teams had mountains to climb, both gave it their all, and both were fairly turned back.

3. The Red Bulls Never Showed Up

Sure, Bradley Wright-Phillips hitting the post in the last minute of the game was pretty damn Metro, but there’s no way the Red Bulls deserved to equalize and send the game to extra time. Not only was Wright-Phillips offside, but as Dax McCarty acknowledged afterwards, Columbus dominated the series to a somewhat shocking degree.

The Red Bulls never really showed up until it was too late. Whether it was fatigue from a season of high-pressing and minimal squad rotation or the superiority of the Crew, New York didn’t look like themselves.

That they got pulled apart defensively routinely wasn’t exactly a surprise – Damien Perrinelle was a huge loss. The real killer was Red Bulls’ trio of McCarty, Sacha Kljestan, and Felipe playing two of their worst games of the season. McCarty and Kljestan were particularly disappointing, and pitted against Wil Trapp and Tony Tchani, the midfield was a mismatch that turned the series towards Columbus.

This was, of course, a tremendous season for the Red Bulls and a triumphant season for their management. Not only was the firing of Mike Petke and hiring of Jesse Marsch vindicated, but increased attendance showed that fans will support a team without any marquee players as long as it wins.

Still, this loss hurts. MLS Cup is the prize everyone covets, and this year marks the team’s sixth straight playoff appearance without a berth in the final.

SEE MORE: FC Dallas and the birth of MLS 3.0.

4. Dallas Needs a Forward

The Portland Timbers were a better team than FC Dallas – tougher, more organized, and more experienced – but the margins were fairly close. The biggest difference between the two teams was at striker. Fanendo Adi, who has 18 goals this season and has now dominated Kendall Waston and Matt Hedges in consecutive series, is elite. David Texeira, on the other hand, is a disaster.

His goal in the first leg notwithstanding, Texeira’s presence meant that Dallas was more or less playing with a hand tied behind its back. It was no coincidence that in both the second leg against Seattle and versus Portland, Oscar Pareja’s team only started its charge once Tesho Akindele and Blas Perez were inserted.

Akindele probably should have started instead of Texeira, but he’s not a number one forward yet, while Perez can’t play 90 minutes anymore and is probably a year away from retirement.

Dallas will mature in the coming year. If they can hold onto the likes of Mauro Diaz and Fabian Castillo – and my guess is that they keep one but not both of their young stars this offseason – they’ll be right back in contention in 2016. To reach the Cup, though, they’re going to have to find a top class number nine.

5. And Regardless, They Were A Year Away

Playoff victories take a certain kind of tenacity that Dallas only possessed in spades. Their talent was obvious, but Dallas had far too many players turn off mentally far too many times to make that talent really tell.

Castillo, for one, was bottled up all series long by Jorge Villafaña and Alvas Powell, and watching him sulk and play token defense must have been frustrating for Parjea.

Zach Loyd’s first-leg shocker got him replaced with Walker Zimmerman for leg two, but Zimmerman didn’t exactly cover himself in glory on Sunday. He’ll claim that Adi fouled him in the buildup to his goal on Sunday, but the truth is that Zimmerman needed to be tougher.

Dallas lacked a killer instinct. They had their chances – and it didn’t help that several of their best chances fell to Texeira – but when matched up against an organized, experienced team like Portland, they weren’t able to gut out games. Next year, it might be different.

6. What Got Into Columbus’ Defense?

The Red Bulls were only shut out a handful of times in 34 MLS regular season games, but the Crew held them over 180 minutes, only capitulating in stoppage time of the second leg under somewhat dubious circumstances.

All season, the book on Columbus was the offense was great but the defense was soft. Now, that’s changed. There are several reasons why. Firstly, the return and improvement – even in the last two months – of Trapp has been immense. An unusually elegant player for his age, Trapp’s improvement in reading the game and stepping up on the defensive side of the ball was huge in this series.

Gaston Sauro didn’t play the first game of the series, but his influence cannot be understated. Michael Parkhurst badly needed an athletic enforcer next to him in central defense, and Sauro has filled that role extremely well.

But on a day when there were no fullbacks in the MLS Best XI, the Crew fullbacks showed why they’re so important to their team’s success. Both Waylon Francis and Harrison Afful don’t get the plaudits – neither do Portland’s Powell and Villafaña – but they condense the game towards the middle and provide effective outlets going forward that are crucial to their team’s success.

Both Afful and Sauro were midseason signings, and all the credit in the world has to go to Berhalter for recognizing and fixing his team’s obvious flaws when he needed to. The payoff has already been huge.

7. A Masterpiece From Diego Valeri

Diego Valeri tore his ACL in Frisco on the last day of the 2014 regular season, and if his postgame comments were any indication, that injury was never far from his mind on Sunday.

It’s been a long, hard road back for Valeri this season. He’s only scored two goals, and been overshadowed for the first time in his Timbers career by the likes of Darlington Nagbe, Borchers, and even Adi, but the Argentine playmaker has quietly returned to his best form in these playoffs.

Valeri assisted both Timbers goals on Sunday – giving him four assists in the four playoff games he’s played in – and that fact didn’t really do his performance justice. For a player without exceptional foot-speed, ball control, or dribbling skill, Valeri’s ability to tie defenses in knots is incredible to watch. His feel for the game is extraordinary, and as his team tensed up late, Valeri only grew in stature. He could have had three assists in the last 10 minutes.

With Liam Ridgewell, Will Johnson, and Jack Jewsbury all out of the starting lineup, Valeri was captain for the day and got to lift the Western Conference Championship trophy – and it was a joy to watch the cathartic celebration of one of the most charming, likable players in the league.

8. Thin Margins

Columbus gets to host the Cup. Why? Goal difference. They had the same record as the Timbers, and the Timbers actually won in Columbus in September. Home-field advantage is a big thing, and while I love MLS being played at the home stadium of the team with the better record, the way it shook out this year seems awfully tough on Portland.

There probably isn’t a better way to decide which club hosts, but, once again, this situation shows how thin the margins can be.

9. The Timbers Deserved More Individual Plaudits

Dallas had Matt Hedges and Fabian Castillo in MLS’s Best XI, but neither player was one of the five best on the field at any point of the Western Conference Championship. Castillo had zero impact, while Hedges, never the main culprit, nonetheless led a defense that gave up five goals in two games. The Crew, Portland’s opponents in the final, had both Kei Kamara and Ethan Finley in the Best XI. The Red Bulls, the team they beat, had both Dax McCarty and Luis Robles in the team.

Were any Timbers expressly snubbed? Probably not, though Borchers has a very good case. Still, this team deserves some individual recognition. Nagbe, Diego Chara, and Jorge Villafaña are as good at what they do as anyone in the league. Adam Kwarasey has had a sensational year as well. Meanwhile, Caleb Porter beat both Pareja and Carl Robinson, two finalists for Coach of the Year, and the wunderkind of 2013 hasn’t put a foot wrong since his first switch to a 4-3-3 almost a month and a half ago.

Absolutely, Portland is having success because they are a well-constructed team. But it’s taken plenty of individual brilliance to get to this point, and few around the landscape of MLS have taken notice.

10. Get Ready For The Final

The Timbers Army sold out their 900 tickets for the final in six minutes on Monday morning. Portland is ready to go. A championship for the Timbers would be the city’s first major sports triumph since 1977 and cement the already incredible bond the town has with its soccer team.

Columbus has had somewhat recent success – they won the Cup in 2008 – but this is, as they like to saw, a New Crew. This once-moribund franchise has undergone a remarkable revitalization the last two years, and with a win on home soil, Crew SC would conclude a feel-good journey back to the top.

There are just 90 minutes left in the 2015 MLS season. Next Sunday, a deserving champion will be crowned.