With J Hutcherson -- For those of you that spent last night in the company of the World Series, that was a pretty good lesson on the why for the best out of seven games. Aside from the extra revenue courtesy of extended playoffs, baseball, hockey, and basketball set it up so it takes more than just one dominant night or a fluke win. You have to prove it four times, and with baseball you can't rely on the same pitcher with the same effectiveness game after game.
Major League Soccer doesn't have that out. Play badly enough in game one, and a two-game total goals series could make the second-leg all but irrelevant home or away. With no away goals rule to confuse the announcers, it's a system setup to push through the better playoff team.
That's not a throwaway statement. Real Salt Lake and New York demonstrated what that meant last season. Scratch your way through to the next round if necessary. All of what you might have learned turning losses into draws in the regular season work to your advantage in the playoffs. If only Dallas was still around to make the same point about the multi-goal blowout.
Chivas USA went out of their way in the second half of the season and again in the final week to show us that even an elite goalkeeper isn't likely to score. Without offensive support, a low goals against is never going to be low enough.
Kasey Keller will always make a team better, but this series should end up about Seattle playing to form tonight at home and scoring at Robertson Stadium.
For Houston, it's knowing better than to try to absorb the Seattle attack while only producing a handful of chances. Unlike Atiba Harris last week, the Dynamo shouldn't be looking to silence the crowd or even to play their game.
Instead, game one should be about the professional effort. Don't give to much away. Don't try to play with all of the midfield behind the ball and ceding space. Get out of there with any result that doesn't have you facing a multi-goal differential.
This is not a game where two heavyweight offenses need to pound it out to see who is best. At the same time, it's not one that's likely to favor subtlety. There's no credit for close, and Houston especially needs to keep their shots down and force Keller to work.
Houston needs to remind the rest of the League that they're a complete team even without some of the pieces from their championship years. It's a proof of concept MLS style that you really can rebuild without scraping a roster or spending a couple of years out of the playoffs. That doesn't necessarily mean rolling over all opposition. It does mean leaning on an understanding of the playoffs that comes through experience and responding accordingly to Seattle's second big debut.
Comments, questions, solutions to problems that have yet to present themselves. Please, tell me all about it.
