Portland have seen their promising early season run turn into a series of misfortunes. After not losing any of their opening 13 matches, Portland have then proceedd to lose 6 of the next 9. How? A series of random GK injuries, some bad luck in winnable matches, and just simply some of the other teams have passed us up in terms of skill. We've run into the issue that we have too many age 2 and 3 players to train, given that we had so many age 1s last year. We probably should have traded away one, but that part comes down to mismanagement on our part. We now sit about where we deserve to be, with the Dave Dowson Shield being our only hope for silverware in the last part of the season.

Mt Tabor has done a bit better, though we have also seen some bad luck come our way in important matches. However, they sit 3rd in the league, just 3 points back of 1st, which is a substantial improvement on how Portland has been doing. MTS could make a late surge for the division 4 promotion places, and perhaps they can finally win a golden boot through Pierre Pontchartrain. 

The last issue that we face is that our finances are in rather rotten shape. We will have to hope that we end up with enough in our coffers to not run into trouble next season.  We really should have been paying more attention to this team! Rumor is that the management has been spending much, much more time with their sister club, Motherwell...

Bad last midweek when I completely forgot to put in a team line (actually 2). We lost both games, so an early Christmas present for the opponents.

We turned up at the weekend though and despite a scratch team due to EL problems, our youth side gained a useful 0-0 draw versus the division leaders Savannah. Not that we are going anywhere soon, but it gives the youngsters a wee lift as the training kicks in.

The big difference was in the senior team as we came out of the blocks at a fair gallop at home to Portland and although the scorer at the break was 1-0 the supporters could feel we were just warming up. We raced to a 3-0 lead at which point Timbers went to Press. That gave us a cracking 30% shot chance and although they initially pulled a goal back we went on to score 3 more. Sabovic claiming a hat trick. We are still more to the bottom than to the top but we keep gpoing and now our GD is worth a point should it be needed.

We are pleased to report a successful season thus far for Los Angeles FC and their junior team, Orange County.

To start with the juniors, Orange County secured promotion to Division 3 last season and are looking secure, in second place, three points behind the leaders.  Results are of course less important than the training programme for these youngsters.  Three are showing particular promise : Hugo Loris (GK), Ryan Hollingshead (DF) and Son Heung-Min can all expect to join the senior team next season.

Los Angeles FC disappointingly crashed out of the Al Sellars Cup in the group stages but have shown good form in the league, currently lying third in the table, and like the junior team, three points off the lead.  Our captain and top scorer Pickle Pop has shown great leadership and the atmosphere in the dressing room is fantastically supportive.

All is well on the West Coast!

Our season goal at the start of the season was a return to Division 1 with Atlanta and a return to Division 3 with Savannah. 

We weren’t too worried about the cups with our primary goal focused on the league but would have definitely liked to do better than we started out with in the Al Sellers Cup. Even though our first three games included two at home we only managed 2 points and it took until our 4th game of the season to get our first win. We followed up with another one at home and only needed a draw away to Colorado for advancement but were not able to hold on and in the 90’ we let one in to watch our spot in the knockout round slip away.

We recovered from the disappointment well and got off the mark immediately in the league with 7 points in our first three games with a 9-1 goal differential over those three games. At that point we topped the league on goal difference but things have been more up and down since then. Our offense has been a bright spot led by rising star Randy Johnson who is second in the D2 golden boot with 7 league goals. Our defense has struggled and we owe quite a bit to our star goalie Erik Hanson who is also in second in the D2 golden gloves competition.

We currently sit in 3rd in the league with a good goal difference. We are 3 points behind league leaders Houston and one point behind Columbus for the second automatic promotion spot. San Jose and Kansas City sit 3 and 4 points behind us so it is still a tight race. We still have two more games against Houston including a trip out to Robertson Stadium on the final day of the season that could be hugely important. We have quite a few age 2 players still training up and that could make the difference for us coming out of the neutral set of games when we should be able to put in a good chunk of training in by then including into our best two players mentioned above. So we are not in the automatic promotion places yet but still think we can get there by season’s end and accomplish our goal.

In terms of Savannah things are looking good there as we sit on top of D4. Our last couple of games have not gone well but we maintain a 3 point lead at the top and have the best GD in the league so we are on track to accomplish our season’s objective of promotion there too.

Just back from a short break but didn't go till Thursday morning . Imagine my surprise to learn I forgot to put team lines in for both teams last midweek. :-(

My only one this season in any of the 3 set ups and of course it handed points out to my opponents.

Sorry about this, although I do have mitigating circumstances. Suffice to say I can't say it won't happen again this season - am on the High Seas from 2nd to 14th July and not sure about wifi.  But I am not threatening the top of either division, more so the bottom.