Ahead of the 2016 Major League Soccer regular season, SportingKC.com caught up with SI.com's Liviu Bird to discuss Sporting Kansas City, Western Conference, and the upcoming season.
What are you going to be watching heading into the start of this MLS season?
The start of every MLS season is a new chance for everybody to make good on the promise or changes that they've made. With a league that's so based on parity, anything can really happen and the start of the season is really where we get to see what teams might be. At the same time, what we see in March is going to be very different from what we see in October, November, and December. I try not to read too much into how teams start the season but at the same time, looking for patterns and trends in the beginning is always important. In this league you don't have do too much to get into the playoffs, and it's obviously everybody's goal to get into the playoffs. The beginning of the season doesn't mean a lot from the results perspective but generally looking for what teams are going to bring this season, it's always interesting to see where they are in the beginning versus where they are at the end.
The Western Conference was widely viewed as the stronger conference last season. How do you see the balance in MLS this season?
I think the West will probably be stronger again but I don't know how much this year. I don't know if it will be quite as obvious, the difference in the conferences. If you look at the East, you have the Red Bulls who did very well last year and of course Columbus. Even teams like Montreal who have Didier Drogba, if they can get their attack clicking, who knows what they can do. Chicago looks a lot better this from last year. Orlando you'd expect to do a lot better in their second year, and NYCFC with Vieira coming in you never know what he's going to have up his sleeve. With that being said, the West still has LA, Seattle, Portland, Kansas City, and Dallas. Both conferences will have their strong teams and I think the West will still be stronger but I don't expect it to be as wide of a gap as last year.
What are your thoughts on the defending MLS Cup Champions Portland Timbers and the Western Conference?
It will be interesting to see how Portland does coming off another strong year. A few years ago when they finished first in the West, they struggled the following season. It's going to be about consistency and can they carry that momentum forward and play with that target on their back from the start of the season. They didn't have that last year and now they'll have from the very beginning of the season. I think all three Cascadia teams will be strong again and you would have been surprised to see Seattle the lowest of the three last year but this year if that happens, Seattle finishing lower than the other two in the standings, I don't think it would be that surprising.
What are your thoughts on Sporting Kansas City heading into this season?
The team at the start of the season if often very different from the team at the end of the season. I think you'll see that with Kansas City just because they'll be finding out how they're going to score goals and I think it's going to be a feeling out process for a little while, exactly what the team style looks like, especially goal-scoring and even defensively. Maybe this is a team that doesn't score a lot of goals but keeps opponents from scoring often. I think the first section of the year will be kind of an interesting time to see what the identity of this Kansas City team is going to be this year. Vermes and his teams have shown an ability to be really tough to beat and being very physical in terms of being in your face. It will be interesting to see how they strike that balance between goal-scoring and defending because at the beginning of the year I'm not sure who will be providing the goals for them. Maybe it turns out that goal scoring by committee, you get a few here a few there and maybe Dom Dwyer goes on another run and defensively they're a tough team to beat. They're a number of ways for Kansas City to be successful this year.
