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The Top Two Teams at the Top of their Form

© Corey Arnold

The season will be summed up in one match. The Wizards, arguably the best team this season, will face a team that is representative of the rest of the teams in league, the Chicago Fire. The Wizards started the season on fire (pardon the pun). They quickly racked up an awesome record due in large part to the goalkeeping of Tony Meola. Tony was just awarded the MVP for the entire 2000 season. But the Wizards have struggled down the stretch and have not played extremely well away from home. In fact, Chicago ended the season with more wins than Kansas City with 17 wins, 9 losses, and 6 tiesas opposed to 16 wins, 7 losses, and 9 ties for KC. Chicago has a couple of their strong players that will be questionable for the match while KC will be a full strength for the most part.

Neither team was extremely strong in the playoffs. In fact neither team won any of their away game matchups. The best they could muster were 0-0 ties. It will be interesting to see which team can pull it together at RFK since it isn't home for either of them.

Chicago seemed to look a little stronger in the playoffs, but also had a slightly easier schedule depending on your view. Chicago faced New England and New York. Both of these teams were hot and cold throughout the regular season. Although they both won their home matches against the Fire, the Fire tended to dominate play and put an exclamation point on the whole affair with a 6-0 drumming of the Revs in their final home match against New England.

Kansas City looked to have the more favorable draw, but numbers can lie. Their first opponent was the Rapids who had struggled due to injuries, and yet were in the playoffs. The Rapids held KC to just one goal in the opening match in KC, and then held them to a 0-0 overtime goal in Colorado. In the final match they forced the Wizards to have to score three times to pull out the win with a 3-2 victory. The Wizards' second opponent was the LA Galaxy who held them to a 0-0 tie in KC and then beat them 2-1 in overtime in LA. The must-win game three match up in KC was barely pulled out by KC with a 1-0 win.

Although KC is the statistical leader in this match, I think Chicago could pull out the surprise.

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