The heroes you thought you were getting aren't the heroes that you actually get. That's one of the cardinal tenets of MLS fandom, and if you want proof you don't have to look any further than Harrison, New Jersey.

Red Bulls fans cried bloody murder last year when the team signed Bradley Wright-Phillips as their late-season reinforcement. They cried it louder when he pretty much didn't deliver much at all in the run to 2013's Supporters' Shield, and louder still when he was lousy in the 2014 preseason – especially given his near-max contract.

Then when he started the year on the bench? Knives out, torches lit, storm the castle:

Seven months later, he's on 24 goals and seems a really good bet to break the single-season scoring record. He's averaging better than 1 goal per 90 minutes, which is something that's been done exactly once in MLS history (Stern John, 1998). And he just annihilated the odds-on favorites to take this year's Shield, the Seattle Sounders, with a hat trick in the weekend's 4-1 mauling.

Meanwhile, last year's hero – MVP candidate Tim Cahill – has scored just twice all year and is now basically BWP's back-up.

MLS is a weird, weird league. Always remember that.

Here are some thoughts from MatchDay 28:

1. We've seen this movie before...

The first entry in my on-hiatus video series, Between the Lines, was problematic for a couple of reasons. First, because it looks like it was shot in Tora Bora, and second because I had (have?) the charism of an empty cupboard. You can watch it HERE (please don't).

But while the presentation needed work, I still stand by the substance of that peek at the ghosts of MLS past. RSL, back then, were the masters of the left channel. RSL, now, are still the masters of the left channel. And it's uncanny how little they've changed.

This is Joao Plata's goal, the equalizer in RSL's 5-1 romp over Colorado, on Friday night:

They have scored this goal, or some variation thereof, roughly eleventy-billion times since 2007. It's been Plata or Findley, Espindola or Gil, Morales or Grabavoy, Garcia, Saborio, Sandoval or Movsisyan. Soon, I'm sure, it will be Sebastian Jaime.

They have all made that spot on the field their home, and they have reaped the rewards of talent, confidence and continuity. They'll be going to the playoffs for the seventh year running (it's not official yet, but come on), and nobody should be at all surprised if they lay the wood on any of the bigger market, bigger-name teams in the West.

Especially because of Plata. Grabavoy called the little striker "our best player" after Friday's win, and while that can be argued, Plata's grasp of RSL's system and his role in it make it a very, very good argument.

He sets up shop out wide, overloads against the fullbacks and finds those seams where nobody's sure who tracks him.

This isn't the touch map of a forward, but it's how Plata plays:

Part of being a great player is understanding how to play, both individually and within the system. Plata's 22, and he gets that – already, and my guess is for good.

I should update that silly video of mine, because nobody needs to see me stutter and stammer my way through a simple explanation that can be summed up in about 100 words. But I don't have to, because it's still relevant.

That's a credit to RSL, not to me.

2. Don't give up the ship

On the opposite end of the the "ID and development" spectrum from RSL are Toronto FC, who got a 3-0 win over Chivas TBD on Sunday that might have cured some ills.

The quick tactical rundown of that game is pretty simple: Steven Caldwell returned to organize the defense, while Michael Bradley played as the No. 6 and Jonathan Osorio played more of a pure creative role. Sometimes it looked like a diamond, and sometimes it looked like a Y, and sometimes it was flat. Throughout, however, Bradley and Osorio showed good chemistry, which is something that had been noticeably missing in previous central midfield partnerships.

That's the optimist's view. The pessimist's is... it's just Chivas:

Boy, it’s weird how much better #TFClive looks when they have their captain and a starting mid back, and are playing a hideously bad team. — Daniel Squizzato (@DanielSquizzato) September 21, 2014

The realist's view is this: TFC have to keep this group together and give them a chance to build a winner. They can't cycle through talent, old and young, like they've done in the past, or they will have exactly as much playoff success as they've had in the past.

And when I say "cycle through talent," I mean here's a list of strikers who've played for TFC since 2011, and their stats this season:

If you give this striker corps to any GM in MLS, they say "I'm going to the playoffs." If you give them to past iterations of the TFC front office, they say "maybe I can trade this guy for an extra foreign slot, or $25k of allocation cash, or this guy's handful of magic beans."

The nightmare scenario for TFC fans this offseason isn't missing the playoffs and coming back in 2015 with the same team; it's missing the playoffs, enduring more front office turnover, another rebuild, and then watching Gilberto score 16 goals for the Crew.

It's happened again, and again, and again. It is the story of this franchise, and unless the fans demand stability, it will continue to be so.

3. Correlation and causality in the central midfield

The Vancouver Whitecaps played 20 good minutes in Portland on Saturday and then ran out of gas. They got flattened 3-0, the second straight time they've been on the wrong end of that scoreline against their southern neighbors.

The Timbers are +5 against Vancouver on the year, taking 6 of the 9 points available, scoring 9 goals and picking up two shutouts in three games. Against all other teams they're -1 and have two shutouts in 26 games (both against Chivas).

They have simply owned the Whitecaps this month. And now they get to punch their own playoff ticket because of it.

It was the biggest game of the season for both teams, and it left Portland two points above the red line while Vancouver are starting to feel like they're below it for good. I'm going to talk about why I think that is, but first we need a warning from our friends at XKCD.com:

Now that you're prepared: the last time Gershon Koffie played was August 10, which was a 2-0 Whitecaps win over Sporting KC. They are 1-4-2 in the seven games since, having been shut out in five of those and sporting a nifty -7 goal differential over that span. When he plays the full 90 this season, they're 5-1-7 (including a 4-3 win over Portland), with a +5 GD.

Carl Robinson has adjusted lineups and formations, searching for anything that allows for a little more creativity in attack. That includes toying with a two-striker formation.

Yet replacing Koffie – a box-to-box terror who can hit the last pass, but whose real value is in allowing Pedro Morales complete positional freedom – has proved nearly impossible, and generating more in attack is almost never as simple as just throwing more attackers out there. The game is about time and space, and Koffie, he of limited highlight plays and "meh" numbers, creates both when he's on the field.

That said, I can't confidently state that the current slump is because they're missing Koffie. Yes, they're better with him, but they've also given themselves plenty of chances to win most of the games they've played over the last six weeks. That includes against the Timbers in those frantic first 20 minutes, when Vancouver's strikers got in on Donovan Ricketts time and again.

Better finishing? They had that once upon a time:

Home sweet home. The question is inescapable. What would this season have been like with Camilo? However it went down it's a god damn shame — Marc Weber (@ProvinceWeber) September 21, 2014

It truly is.

A few more things to ponder...

6. Gonna let my esteemed colleague Charlie Boehm take the wheel for Philadelphia's lackluster scorless home draw vs. Houston:

"I would note, as you probably did too, how good the deep mids were – Edu and especially Garrido – at destroying moves as they entered the final third, and if not there, tracking back in recovery."

That type of game will happen when you have three World Cup-blooded d-mids (Edu, Garrido, Ricardo Clark) on the same field.

5. Dom Kinnear picked up our Face of the Week in that draw, which just about closes the book on only the second bad season in Houston:

4. The Montreal Impact are 3-2-1 in Ignacio Piatti's six games, and are scoring nearly 2 goals per game with him on the field. He was brilliant (again) in this weekend's 2-0 win over San Jose before coming off with a knock, and his attacking chemistry with Dilly Duka (3 g, 2a in 7 starts with Montreal) and Andres Romero is notable.

Duka is one of those guys like the TFC cast-offs above: a super-talented on-the-ball attacker who nobody really wanted to give time to develop. I'm less sold on Romero, but he can continue proving me wrong as far as Impact fans are concerned, I'm sure.

Either way, Montreal's openly talking about how this stretch run is just preparation for 2015. Judging by the early returns, next season will be better than this one.

3. Getting back to that TFC bit: Amarikwa had a goal and an assist, while Silva had two goals in D.C.'s 3-3 draw at Chicago.

The star of the show, however, was the field:

@ChicagoFire Trying to play soccer on our $h1+ field is like trying to play hockey with a football. — Mike Magee (@magee9) September 21, 2014

2. Pass of the Week goes to Federico Higuain, who unlocked the Revolution defense in Columbus' 1-0 win:

First notice how Higuain receives the ball and uses Scott Caldwell's momentum against him. Then notice the patience he has to let Ethan Finlay's run develop. Finally notice the perfect weight of the final ball.

Don't notice another blown PK.

1. Alan Gordon moved back to the LA Galaxy, and he took #GoonieTime with him. That 2-1 win over FC Dallas was, as Landon Donovan said, a game tailor-made for Gordon's talents.

It's also a game that put LA even with Seattle on 54 points, tied atop the table (though Seattle still have a game in hand). They face each other twice more, likely with the Shield on the line.

Somebody's gonna get to be a hero.