With MLS pursuing its typical disdain for the US Open Cup/international schedule, we’ve got a full slate of matches this weekend, with only Portland taking the weekend off (enabling it to start an A-roster in its domestic cup match…curious timing, that). While many of this week’s matches will no doubt feature bench depth (the over-under on team social-media interns suiting up among the subs is 3), our Match Predictor Algorithms don’t care.

Top Match

(Winning clubs with best combined record)
Kansas City vs. Montreal (Combined 13-6-6)

Montreal holds the best PPG record in MLS by a whisker (2.09 vs. Dallas’ 2.08) and rides into KC on the wings of a Canadian Championship victory and a Marco Di Vaio hat trick in their last MLS tilt. The Team Formerly Known As The Wiz, on the other hand, have been spotty of form lately, 2-3-2 in their last seven games. Although it seems like Les Impactaleurs should rightly take this one, our prediction man, Admiral Akbar, sees it differently.

Bottom Match

(Losing clubs with worst combined record)
Chicago vs. DC (Combined 3-16-4)

Put the records of Dallas and Montreal together and reverse the W’s and L’s, and you still don’t have as lose-tastic a record as the Fire and United have compiled. Both these clubs are arguably underachievers to an extreme degree — especially the Fire, with its all-workrate midfield — but I don’t see either one pulling an LA 2012. Prediction? Whereas in most US sports the consolation would be that somebody’s got to win, in MLS no, nobody’s got to win. 1-1, both own goals.

Closest Match

(Clubs with least points-per-game differential)
Columbus vs. Houston (0.28 PPG differential)

Whereas most weeks’ Closest Matches take that differential to the hundredths place, this week’s isn’t all that close. However, Houston has definitely fallen off their formerly division-leading pace, and they face a Columbus club who managed to draw the mighty (ha) Red Bulls in their last outing. There’s no one who scores a timely goal and parks the Greyhound quite like Columbus, and if they keep it up, maybe the city will spring for that all-chair, half-suite downtown stadium Hunt Sports is demanding. And monkeys will fly out my butt.

El Burrito Grande

(Clubs with greatest points-per-game differential)
Toronto vs. Philadelphia (0.8 PPG differential)

Because Toronto.

Like the Closest Match, this one isn’t breaking any records. Truth be told, every match this week is fairly well-challenged on paper, except maybe this one. Prediction: Toronto will float a rumor of Balotelli, Xavi and the entire Dortmund roster heading to Exhibition Park, then one hour from game time will hand out the same lineup they’ve trotted out since April.

Welcome again, my friend. It’s been a couple of great weeks for MLS fans (as long as you didn’t watch Toronto-Columbus…yetch). Let’s see if we can keep the roll of excitement going for another week — and I mean actual excitement, not the “it’s gonna be soooo cool that Liam Gallagher will be hanging out in the Yankee Stadium press box” variety.

Top Match

(Clubs with the best combined record; both clubs must have winning records):
Montreal vs. Philadelphia (Combined 11-6-5)

Les Bleus Grands continue to roll, and with Dallas’ loss last week (where we learned that “intent” is the new “he got a piece of the ball”) both clubs stand tied for the best PPG in MLS. Philly, on the other hand, is kinda middling, but there may be something to this “split up the Farfans” strategy after all. However, they’ll be playing at Stade Saputo, which probably means two goals for Di Vaio and plenty of milk and cheap Canadian baked goods for the fans.

Bottom Match

(Clubs with the lowest combined record; both clubs must have losing records)
New England vs Toronto (Combined 4-10-8)

The sad-sack Reds head down to the mostly empty NFL stadium to play the most excitement-killing club in the league. That doesn’t mean there won’t be anything to watch for: see which panic signings Toronto floats this week, and look for the Fagundez kid’s thinly veiled cries for rescue.

Closest Match

(Clubs with most similar PPG)
Los Angeles vs Seattle (0.045 PPG differential)

Seattle always seems to travel to LA on holidays. Fortunately this year MLS spared the clubs a Monday start, which is good because they’re both traveling across the country afterward for their US Open Cup matches (while DC can take a bus to theirs — on what world is that remotely fair?). Anyway, this will be a great matchup with the re-Keaned Gals facing a Sounders club who have scored eight goals in their last two matches and whose big-money DP has been coming in off the bench just to show off. Look for Landon Donovan to closely mark the ref.

El Burrito Grande

(Clubs with the most vast differential in PPG)
DC vs. Portland (1.13 PPG differential)

Look, this isn’t all that vast a differential. In fact, one win becomes a loss for either club and they’re a hair from being the Bottom Match. With DC getting the band back together (Canadians make the best musicians) and Portland the draw machine that they are (I mean…unbeaten streak!) this could be quite an entertaining tie, as they say in England. Or a tie, as they say in America.

As they say, there’s a reason they play the games…except in New England, where no one’s really sure why they continue to bother.

If you’re like me, you’re still getting over last week’s double-shot of fun (and Disciplinary Committee-worthy action). But it’s time to forge ahead, because the new week starts now. That ball boy might have become a Timbers Army legend, but legends don’t win MLS Cups. (Now watch that ball boy grow up to win an MLS Cup.)

Top Match

(Winning clubs with best combined record)
New York vs. LA (Combined 10-7-5)

The worst thing about LA losing to Vancouver last week? It only gets harder from there. The Galaxy are the only club this week playing two matches, and the only winning club facing another winnIng club — in both matches. However, if we didn’t require both Top Match clubs to have a winning record, Seattle-Dallas would have taken it, because Dallas.

As it stands, we’ll be watching to see whether Landon Donovan can stop appealing to the ref long enough to help his club prevent a goal.

Bottom Match

(Losing clubs with worst combined record)
Toronto vs. Columbus (Combined 4-9-7)

By virtue of DC playing Kansas City this week, Toronto defaults to the Bottom Match. They host Columbus, one of the clubs everyone was so excited about when the season started. Just like New England and Colorado, they’ve found that you can’t just graft a creative import onto an MLS 1.0 style and call it “progress.”

On the other side of the ball, Toronto could have anywhere between one and 11 new starters by kickoff. Because that’s how Toronto rolls.

Closest Match

(Clubs with least points-per-match differential)
Philadelphia vs. LA (0.05 PPM differential)

LA also face the club most like themselves record-wise in the midweek match. With just one extra tie separating their records, the media wisdom on these two clubs couldn’t be more different. Granted that the Gals have been without one R. Keane, but the MLS mediasphere are pretty cavalier about LA, apparently because the matches don’t really count right now.

They face a Philly club with 50% less Farfan. Got a problem with guys who accumulate yellows like Google Glass collects nerds? Ship one of ‘em off.

El Burrito Grande

(Clubs with greatest points-per-match differential)
DC vs Kansas City (1.266666666 PPM differential)

Granted, the differential looks larger when I take it to nine decimal places, but the haplessness of the Capitols can’t really be underestimated right now. And will their home pitch offer any measure of safety against the club who just marched into the House of Orange and slew its residents?

The main question in this one will be which Aurelien Collin we’ll see: the impact player in Houston or the hacky millstone against Seattle — the one MLS forgot all about when they chose their Team Of The Week? (No doubt Simon Borg lobbied to have midweek matches excluded from TotW voting on the grounds that “Wednesday” is pronounced wrong.)

Get out there and support your local club, even if that means burning its owner in effigy. Until next week…