Your Saturday Kickoff: Players to watch in today’s Conference Semifinals

Happy Conference Semifinals to you and yours: An under-discussed part of this year’s Conference Semifinals is that we’ve got three games between teams that don’t care for each other. Two of those are today. It starts with New York City FC hosting New York Red Bulls at 5:30 pm ET (MLS Season Pass) and ends with LAFC welcoming Seattle at 10:30 pm ET (MLS Season Pass).

We’ve had two weeks to write every bit of analysis out of these games this weekend. Hopefully, you’re more than prepared to bring up New York City FC’s home form and Seattle’s record against LAFC to anyone within earshot today. But we have one more bit of prep work to do. And it mostly involves making educated guesses as to which individual players – besides the extremely obvious Denis Bouangas of the world – have the highest likelihood of affecting these games. Starting in New York with…

We’ve talked a lot the last few weeks about the Red Bulls’ excellent underlying numbers over the second half of the season. To keep it short: they were creating chances, but they weren’t finishing them. Over the second half of the year, New York had the third-highest xG created in the league at 1.88 xG per game. They were 18th in goals scored in that same span.

A lot of that is down to bad luck, but the other side is their attackers simply weren’t performing at a high level in front of goal, especially with Emil Forsberg missing due to injury. Forsberg will be in the lineup today, but the brunt of the goal-scoring responsibilities are still going to fall on Morgan and Vanzeir. Vanzeir scored one of New York’s three goals against Columbus in Round One. They’ll likely need another from him and/or Morgan to get past NYCFC.

Red Bulls are going to be playing for options in transition today. They won’t be peppering the goal with shots, but they will likely come across a few high-leverage, high-probability chances. That’s where Freese comes in.

We saw multiple goalkeepers – including Freese – change their team’s fortunes in Round One. It’s not farfetched to expect Freese to do that today. Don’t forget, he had a legitimate claim to Goalkeeper of the Year before Charlotte’s Kristijan Kahlina got hot down the stretch.

In general, it’s advantage NYCFC in goal. On a smaller pitch and in a game that very well may end in penalties, that could be huge.

One more semi-obvious but still important one for NYCFC. They spent so long looking for a striker, we have to acknowledge they’ve found one as often as we can. Martínez not only scored 16 times this year, he scored 12 of those at home. Can the Red Bulls keep him quiet today? Which, hey speaking of…

New York opted to start the Nealis brothers on either side of a back three in both games against Columbus. It worked pretty well, limiting the Crew to just two goals over two games. Are they going to stick with that approach today? Or will they change things up based on the simple fact that when you play on a smaller pitch, you defend in your own 18 a little (a lot) more often? Maybe they opt for 6-foot-5 center back Noah Eile instead of Dylan. Either way, one or both Neali will be involved. And they’ll have to be at their best.

Is he… going to play? He hasn’t really had much of a role lately. That’s shocking considering his talent and how critical a role he’s played for LAFC teams in the past. But he hasn’t started since Sept. 21. He hasn’t found a spot in LAFC’s 3-4-3 setup.

However, he did play a key role in LAFC’s Game 3 win over Vancouver in Round One. Atuesta came on at halftime and, suddenly, LAFC were in control after being put under serious pressure in the first 45. Will Steve Cherundolo opt for Atuesta and three midfielders today? And if he does, can Atuesta have the same effect on an LAFC side that’s looked a little too vulnerable for comfort this postseason?

Will he play? Giroud hasn’t scored an MLS goal yet and got left out of the starting lineup of Game 3. Instead, Mateusz Bogusz took his place in the center of LAFC’s attack. Bogusz is the far more mobile of the two and, so far this year, the infinitely more dangerous of the two. If Giroud starts, Bogusz still makes the XI as a winger, but for me, LAFC look more dangerous with Bogusz doing false nine things and Kike Olivera and Denis Bouanga on the wings. Olivera hasn’t been perfect, but did we mention Giroud hasn’t scored yet?

Then again, Seattle may be content to sit deep and grant possession. If LAFC are forced to use the ball and break down a low block, Giroud could, in theory, be the better option. And he does have a tendency to come up big in big games. Whatever call Cherundolo makes will likely, for better or worse, define how this game goes.

Literally anyone who can score a goal

It doesn’t matter who. Just anyone. Someone has to come up with a goal. And it doesn’t matter how. If a Roldan brother backheels the ball off Nouhou’s face and it goes into the net, it still counts. They took 177 minutes to score in their Round One series against Houston. They don’t have that time today. They’re going to have to force the ball into the back of the net if they’re going to break this streak against LAFC. There are no style points.

Tata Martino is gone. Javier Mascherano is probably in. Overnight, they’ve gone from having one of the most experienced managers in MLS to a manager with a heckuva playing career but minimal managerial experience. Just throw it on the big pile of questions Inter Miami have heading into next season.

It’s not just that they’ll have a new manager. They have work to do with this roster. Diego Gómez is likely going to Brighton soon. More of their young stars (Federico Redondo?) could be moving abroad. They’ll have to be replaced. Meanwhile, there are questions about whether or not Luis Suárez and Jordi Alba will be back. If they are back, are either of them back on DP deals? What if they want to try and add a DP who isn’t Alba, like, I dunno, let’s say Neymar? What happens then?

What if chief soccer officer Chris Henderson leaves? There are rumors surrounding his future. If he’s gone, who’s going to work through all the MLSness of roster building within cap constraints? Don’t forget, it’s not just about replacing young stars, keeping old ones, and potentially adding new old ones. Miami also have to figure out what exactly is going on with their (at times) disastrous back line.

They won’t be sitting on their hands this offseason. The team Mascherano takes over will look much different from the team Tata ended with. It’s not a given all of those changes are for the better. And if any of their moves are misses, there’s a chance the pressure will really build on this group as a championship window gets closer and closer to shutting.

Good luck out there. Enjoy a day out in the city.