FiftyFive.One

In March of 2015, Northern Pitch unveiled a revolutionary concept of sports analytics. I, your humble revolutionary, looked at the ways in which Major League Soccer has been developing its own sartorial tactics. Namely: MLS is all about the sweater game.

Unlike the route one tracksuits of Northern England or the tiki taka svelte designer suits of the Continent, Major League Sweaters is about a close-feeling warmth. MLS look to project comfort with its seriousness. But as we go into the playoffs, I wanted to return to the analytics to examine what they can tell us about the playoffs beginning this week.

Western Conference
Seattle Sounders’s Sigi Schmid v. LA Galaxy’s Bruce Arena
The two teams who should have been duking it out for the Supporters’ Shield now see themselves matched up in the first round of the playoffs. I would say I didn’t see this coming, but I’m a damned genius, so excuse me if I tell you I saw it coming.

The problem comes from this: Sigi Schmid is a mensch. He’s got a tactical understanding of the game and now he’s partnered with Garth Lagerway, the Kreis whisperer. But–and this is a big but–the man’s sweater game is crap. Take a second to drink it in.

Sure, the dude’s got the Euro scarf knot that he learned at his Tuesday night Sip & Stitch Meet Up at his local cafe. But the sweater vest. THE SWEATER VEST. You’re trying to command a group of eleven athletes and deftly drive them toward a championship whilst adopting Les Vêtements de Guerre of Rick Santorum?

In the other corner is Bruce Arena, the Honeybadger of American soccer. Maybe he’ll wear a sweater. Maybe he’ll wear a suit. Dude might just show up dressed for a Jimmy Buffet concert.
And you know what?

Honeybadger don’t give a f*ck.

Galaxy win this in a clip.

Portland Timbers’s Caleb Porter v. Sporting KC’s Peter Vermes
In the previous edition of this story, I recounted the time Caleb Porter dropped his puffy vest on the chair across from me so he could mingle. At the time I thought it was funny. “Hey, Porter is dressed like Michael J Fox in Back to the Future.” What a frickin’ idiot I was. What I didn’t know is that Caleb Porter had been to the goddamned future with Doc Brown, got the sports almanac, and… well he didn’t read the part about sweaters. He wears a suit. Sometimes he’ll wear a scarf, but that’s just one step above Sigi, Caleb. So Portland is in trouble, right?

Wrong. Here’s the thing: this is a suit on suit match up. No sweaters? So what’s the tactic? How does one adjust to the climate? Well, this is where I have to go with Portland. Even if Porter wants to bring his foreign, non-sweatered culture to Providence Park, the Twelfth Man & Woman are gonna be there with cable knit tifo. THEY OWN THIS. Maybe three or four Kansas Citizens will show up with BBQ-stained dickies, but this is going Portland’s way despite Porter’s lack of tactical nous. For chrissakes, Nat Borchers’s beard wears a sweater.

DC United’s Ben Olsen v. New England Revolution’s Jay Heaps

Strictly speaking, Ben Olsen is not an orthodox sweater man. At times he’ll dress like Chas Tenenbaum in the Royal Tenenbaums. Other times, he wears a regular nice suit. In the picture above, he chooses to set that sweater in a quasi-Doctor Who climate. He has tactical flexibility, as we say.
That will help, because he’s up against the Jay Gatsby of soccer sweaters, Jay Heaps. The dude looks like he owns a sweater that his yacht wears. One word: Gravitas. And so, I have to believe that Heaps’s New England will easily… “wait, what’s that? Breaking news from our google image search bureau. It isn’t, it can’t be…”

A GODDAMNED SWEATER VEST? Unbelievable. Just when you thought Heaps had Olsen under his thumb he scores an absolute own goal. A hat trick of own goals. A remarkable upset, DC United advance 4-2 with 4 second half goals.

Montreal Impact’s Mauro Biello v. Toronto FC’s Greg Vanney
Who saw this coming? No one, I say no one thought that Montreal Impact would end this season in third place. In my preseason analysis, I pointed out Frank Klopas’s severely stunted sweater game. And guess what? I’m a genius. Dude gets the sack. Who do they replace him with? Mauro Biello, that’s who.

Mauro Biello might just be the most Quebecois man on the planet. He gives you the feeling like every weekend he, Justin Trudeau, and Celine Dion have raucous maple syrup & poutine fueled menage a trois. Yeah, but does he sweater, you ask? Dude sweaters like a champ. And you know who else can sweater?Didier effing Drogba, companero.

But hang on, don’t start counting your sweaters before they’re knit. Check out this guy:

Greg Vanney has grit. He wears sweaters that look to be made of fur personally shorn from one of his grizzly bear friends (he’s got a 5 a side league with some of the guys). This match up is a quintessential style versus substance, espresso versus coffee, maple syrup versus O negative grizzly bear blood. And though Biello’s Montreal put the beating on Toronto just this past weekend, I think Greg Vanney is going to literally go for the jugular and bit Biello neck off. Toronto 3-0.

FC Dallas’s Oscar Pareja v LA Galaxy’s Bruce Arena

Oscar Pareja is just a cold ass motherf*cker. Plain and simple. He missed out on the supporters shield on Decision Day ™ by only goal differential. Black shirt, black sweater, black ink w/ his mother’s face on the left pectoral, and the black heart of a cold-blooded killer.

His team had a lot of doubters, sure you can come out of the gates with the punk rock dad look, but would it lose its edge as the season drags into the summer? The answer was a resounding no. And guess what? Yeah, it’s sweater season, homies. Pareja’s gonna look pretty damned good standing amidst the beautiful fall foliage bespeckled with the blood of Bruce Arena, who he has stabbed with an improvised shiv. That’s right, Dallas win 4-1 on aggregate. Tis the season of the sweater, Bruce. Get with the times.
(this post has turned really violent, let me take a minute).

Vancouver Whitecaps’s Carl Robinson v Portland Timbers’s Caleb Porter

By the end of Season 4 of Homeland I’m not really sure why I was watching. The first season was bright, mostly clever, and refreshing. But in the end isn’t every spy show the same? OMG the world is going to get blown up by this crazy dude who really hates America! Damian Lewis’s character was always a hard sell, but who doesn’t love Damian Lewis?

By the time the show broke its Lewis ties we were left with Carrie Mathison going crazy AGAIN! We got it, she’s crazy.

The show’s revelation (beyond the spectacular Mandy Patinken) was really Peter Quinn, the quiet, tortured CIA assassin. The assassin with a heart of gold! And season 5 of Homeland has been surprisingly tame and domestic. It has a quiet mystery and finally we can see drama without always ratcheting up the stakes.

Well, Vancouver’s Carl Robinson looks like Peter Quinn. Seriously. Therefore, Whitecaps 5, Portland Timbers 1.

New York Red Bulls’s Jesse Marsch v Toronto FC’s Greg Vanney

LOOK. AT. THAT. HAIR.

My god, I could get lost on a Sunday afternoon, tussling those dirty blond feathers as we laugh and struggle through the NY Times crossword. 6 letters down, Don Garber’s FAV chalice? MLSCUP. Screw sweater talk, homeboy is going to trounce Toronto. NYRB 7, Toronto 0.

Columbus Crew’s Greg Berhalter v DC United’s Ben Olsen

Jesse Marsch might be the love of my life, but that doesn’t stop my promiscuous heart of thinking, “what if?” about Greg Berhalter. Hands down, he has the best sweater game in MLS. It’s like your college boyfriend, Jason Statham, went to Stockholm for a two year postdoc and just waltzed into a dinner party Samantha was hosting. SAMANTHA? Why the hell didn’t you tell me Greg was coming?

Columbus Crew 3, DCU 3. Columbus through on PKs.

Pareja v Robinson
It’s Thanksgiving, Oscar. Don’t you think you could dress just a little more appropriately for the occasion? I’m not saying like a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving sweater, but like a chestnut brown sweater over a chocolate button down would be nice. Grandma is gonna be there and you know how particular she is.

Oh and Carl Robinson is still Peter Quinn. He wears bulletproof vests because he careful. Whitecaps 3, FC Dallas 1.

Marsch v. Berhalter
Don’t make me do this.

Don’t make me do this.

Why do I have to choose? No, it’s not fair. I love you both the same. It’s not about who gets which weekend, WE’RE A GODDAMNED FAMILY! DON’T MAKE ME CHOOSE!

Red Bulls 4, Columbus Crew 3. My heart 2 [pieces].

Robinson v Marsch
You didn’t think this could happen. Everyone was like, “Mike Petke has unimpeachable sweater game!” All you haters and doubters saw Petke’s firing and Ali Curtis’s assent to the Red Bulls sporting director role as a crime against humanity. Well you know who has sweater game? Ali goddamned Curtis, that’s who.

Welcome your new overlords, Curtis and Marsch are sweater gods. They rule us all. NY Red Bulls 3, Whitecaps 0.