2007 Season Reviews: An Introduction

I thought about just dumping all this at top of the first review, but opted instead for a separate post – seemed unwieldy. As alluded to in an earlier post, I’m writing season reviews for each of Major League Soccer’s (MLS) 13 teams, going from worst (Toronto FC) to regular-season first (e.g. pre-playoff standings). If you take into account the fact that I rarely do weekends for this site, that should tell any interested parties when I’ll be posting on a given team.

Those familiar with this site (and the limits of human endurance) know that I don’t watch every game and follow every team. No, this series requires some research. To be totally above-board on this, the source material/research for each review will include: a review of MLSnet.com’s match reports for each team’s 30 league games; the final standings for 2007, including goals-for and against; each team’s roster. What I learn from, what I remember, and what I don’t omit is what you’ll read. I hope y’all like it.

Lastly, to help with the consistency, I created a little template based on the topics I intend to cover for each team. Here’s that:

[Team]
[Record, Goals For; Goals Against]

Overview: A big, squishy review of the team’s season.

Notable Streaks: The best and worst passages of the season – inspired, by the way, by Toronto FC

What Went Right: A record of the happy days, the good players, and situations.

What Didn’t: What sunk ’em.

Key Men (as in the Ones You Want Back): The players who stood out and must return

Anyone Who Ought to Leave: This isn’t so much who should you trade as it’s a list of either liabilities or locker-room cancers. I don’t anticipate using this one much, but, again, I did with Toronto FC.

What They’re Needin’: Every team has some holes (except Houston); I’ll talk about the plugs here.

Well, that’s that. The first review post, for Toronto FC, will be up shortly. I’ll be putting everything except the Expansion draft on hold while I work through these, but it’s going to be plenty of work. Hope people enjoy it.