The MASL season has been pretty paint-by-numbers so far.  In fact, in a prediction competition on BigSoccer, five people were a perfect 10-0, while yours truly was “only” 8-2. 

While we learned some more about the teams this week, there wasn’t enough movement for anyone to change places in the rankings. 

For instance, Cedar Rapids lost to Milwaukee, but they were always going to lose that game so the result was already built into the rankings.  Now if Cedar Rapids would have won that game it would have had a profound impact on the rankings. 

Syracuse rallied from a series of two-goal deficits to beat Turlock 7-6 in overtime at Turlock Indoor Soccer, a traditionally difficult venue for visiting teams.  Their late signing of Slavisa Ubiparipovic was crucial.  The following night they had San Diego in their sights, but lost 6-5 on a late goal.  Again, if Syracuse had pulled off a win in San Diego, it would have had an effect on the rankings. 

The same goes for Florida, they split on the road and should be happy to come home with a road win under the belt, but are no better or worse off than when they left. 

The most intriguing result was the Kansas City Comets 10-8 win over St. Louis.  On the one hand St. Louis is supposed to be greatly improved, but on the other hand, the Comets lost an astounding seven of their top players from last year.  So you have to ask, “Is St. Louis so bad they can’t even beat the bottom half of the Comets roster?”  Or “Are the next generation of Comets players so good that they can already beat a tough St. Louis team?”  We are going to need more time to figure this one out and both teams have new coaches who are still refining their rosters and trying to install their systems, as well as rookie starting goalkeepers. 

Here are the MASL Rankings for Week 2.  As we said there was no official movement from last week, but the arrows reflect momentum. 

1 1-0 The Flash had little resistance from the Florida Tropics in a 9-4 home opening win.  2 2-0 The Wave ran up a 10-3 lead on Cedar Rapids before allowing four of the game’s last five goals with the game out of reach.  3 0-0 First game November 10 4 2-0 It got a little too interesting, but the Sockers escaped the week undefeated.  5 0-0 First game November 16 6 0-0 First game November 11 7 0-1 The Rampage took one on the chin, but got a fourth quarter consolation prize.  8 1-0 The Fury exploded for 10 second half goals against Turlock and, with a hat trick, Thiago Goncalves already has one more goal than he had all last season.  9 1-1 A nice win in Rio Grande Valley, but a nasty loss in Monterrey.  10 1-0 Too early to tell what their narrow 10-8 win over St. Louis means.  11 0-1 Idle 12 1-1 Idle 13 1-1 Could have won both games as easily as they could have lost both, but they’ll take the road split.  14 0-1 Too early to tell what their narrow 10-8 loss to Kansas City means.  15 0-2 Out of it by halftime, the Barracudas got doubled up at home by Florida, 10-5.  16 0-2 The Express blew a 6-4 lead at home and lost 7-6 in OT to Syracuse and then the wheels came off in the second half in Ontario. 

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