Hair Madness: Sweet 16!

Crazy first round; a few upsets, a few dominations. Clearly the Rapids and NYCFC have produced a surprising number of favorites, while MLS glam franchises like the LA Galaxy and Orlando City lag behind. Also: blog fans favored product over talented clippers, and brunettes (Bingham, Afful) to blonds and redheads (Brek Shea, Zardes, Borchers).

And Conor Casey's dome is considered a 'haircut'. A win for balds like me!

On trundles the show... with new pictures from the past two weeks! I'm far to motivated by men's hair than any straight man should be. I'm committed to quality in my journalism, people.

Mix Diskerud (1) vs Mikey Lopez (8)

An NYCFC throwdown. I'm team Mikey, because his hair is pretty original. But there are other factors to consider: Mikey barely gets off the bench, vs Mix, who plays as NYCFC's number 10. Should appearance time count? Should skill? Mix gets it done without bleach or clippers. This one is almost a hair Rorschach test for you.

Andrea Pirlo (4) vs Diego Fagundez (5)

Age vs youth. Hirsute vs clean. Au naturale vs sciency experimentally.

Marlon Hairston (6) vs David Villa (3)

Listen, I can't tell you to vote purely on hair, because I'm a Rapids fan too, and I have certain biases when it comes to local boys over Easter coasters. So I refuse to imply strongly that Marly G is obviously the only legitimate choice.

I won't do it.

Conor Casey (10) vs Robbie Rogers (2)

Bald vs beautiful. Also, we continue to ask: is being bald a hairstyle? Leave it to a rabbi to get existential about hair.

Lee Nguyen (1) vs Jermaine Jones (9)

Former teammates become foes... both on the pitch, and with their hair.

Harrison Afful (12) vs Dom Oduro (4)

Oduro is pretty strong here, but maybe- too strong? Afful's hair is cool looking, and perhaps its understatedness by comparison wins out.

Kei Kamara (6) vs Kyle Beckerman (3)

Another clash of styles- short-long, striker-d-mid.

David Bingham (10) vs Wil Trapp (15)

Two younguns. Both upset winners. Maybe this tournament isn't as much of a sure-thing for the top seeds as I thought.

Vote here! Votes will close TUESDAY, April 12.