Thanks as always to Climbing the Ladder for putting together a highlight reel of the goals from each week. He continues to do that this season. I felt compelled to post this for all to see and give you all my vote for goal of the week. I really enjoyed the Sainey Nyassi goal (the first one in the reel), but my nod for goal of the week goes to Colorado’s Colin Clark (about 1:16 into the video) and his silly tricks that he played on old man Xavier and the Galaxy.

Who’s your goal of the week winner?

Something new that I think I want to start here is a weekly awards type of post. Loads of good performances over the weekend but a couple guys did standout that deserve the player of the week award for week number one.

Of those players you could have Claudio Lopez of KC; Maykel Galindo for Chivas and his game tying goal against Dallas; Blanco for his heroics late against Real Salt Lake; any number of Revolution players; but one guy stood out more to me than anyone else and that was Terry Cooke.

Yes, the Englishman showed me something that I didn’t get to see from him all last season, the ability to make things happen on every goal scored by the Rapids against the Galaxy this weekend. I think the addition of Christian Gomez was a great one for Cooke due to the fact of how defenses will play off of Gomez and thus freeing Cooke to have more space on the wings to send in his dangerous crosses. I really think Cooke will have a strong season this year for the Rapids, which should be a good thing for the Rapids if he does.

After getting to view more of the Galaxy – Rapids game this morning, I felt the Rapids didn’t just beat the Galaxy, they completely controlled the pace of the game and kept the big names off the ball more than the Galaxy would have liked. Not to mention the Galaxy defense is beyond repair at this point already in the season. I guess “sexy football” to Gullit and Lalas mean “crappy football”. They were just dreadful to watch.

Again, Terry Cooke was the WVHooligan Player of the Week. I think most out there would agree with that, I know Ives did earlier and I wouldn’t be shocked to see if the rest of the MLS pundits do as well. More than likely though Blanco will get the nod from the league though.

On a side note, expect the week one power rankings to be up by tomorrow morning.

A very interesting opening weekend for the MLS. A number of clubs won big, four others tied their games, and for some reason New York and San Jose sat at home.

Here’s a bit of what we do know:

• KC looks solid and their new digs work for me…
• New England looks very strong (but please don’t call it a revenge game anymore…I need to stop that as well)
• Houston and DC are possibly in their CONCACAF lull that they get on to start the season
• Colorado thumped LA…yes the Rapids, a team that couldn’t buy a goal a year ago beat LA 4-0…
• RSL still can’t do much against Blanco and his heroics
• Columbus looked pretty good as Toronto looked just as they did a year ago
• Dallas looked average, while Chivas came on late to look strong

I will start up in Ohio with my recap here. I will admit I did not get to see all of this game but enough to get the general story and feel of it.

Columbus 2 – 0 Toronto:
We asked who would step up for the Crew and score this year and maybe, just maybe, we have an answer. Adam Moffat and Alejandro Moreno both looked more than capable of filing the scoring role as the Crew downed Toronto 2-0 on Saturday at Crew Stadium. Toronto brought their crazy fans and seemingly forgot to bring their A-game in the process.

Will Hesmer looked solid as ever, even stopping a PK before halftime, which was a point in the game that I felt really turned sour for the Reds and quite possibly told me that the Crew were going to hold out and win the game. Hesmer may be a fantasy steal for you fantasy soccer nuts out there. Keep an eye on him.

Toronto had their chances, in fact just as many as the Crew but none were good enough to beat Hesmer. Colin Samuel and Jeff Cunningham worked pretty well together but neither were able to do much when they got the ball near goal. I wouldn’t say it was the Crew defense shutting them down more so than the fact that those two couldn’t finish a chance when they had to.

Nice goal by Moffat though for Columbus. Brian Carroll played a smart restart, which quickly beat the Toronto defense for Moffat to score a nice goal from outside the penalty box. Probably one of the top goals from the weekend. Continue Reading…

There’s nothing like opening day in any sport. Yesterday in Dallas was no different really. There was something in the air that just smelled better than normal. What can I say I love a new soccer season, so that was probably it. Thankfully that smell didn’t fade too quickly either.

I wasn’t too sure that I was going to be able to make the opening game for Dallas but when I got an email saying that I had season press credentials to pick up I knew I couldn’t miss the game for anything.

I have to say, there is nothing (for me at least) like watching a game with the press. I think it was something I got very use to doing in college when I covered a variety of sports at West Virginia University. The view is higher but I think its better since you can see everything that is going on below you.

Dallas and Chivas played a fairly even game for the most part. I will break each club down, as well as a few players from each with what I saw yesterday. The game was really a story of two halves, though I would argue that it was more of a story that Dallas played well for the first 25 or 30 minutes and Chivas played better for the rest of the game, which lead to the game tying goal. Dallas should feel a bit thankful for the one point in the standings, they didn’t play like they wanted it for the majority of the game.

One last thing, I am not a fan of the new numbering on the jerseys this year. Ones and sevens look too similar. Its tough enough that Aaron Pitchkolen and Andre Rocha look a like but when one is number 17 and the other is 11, it makes it nearly impossible to figure out the two.

Mini rant but with that I will start with the visitors. Continue Reading…

Wow, let’s just say that yesterday’s games were interesting in their own right. I will go more into them tomorrow.

Let me just say that seeing DC and Houston lost by multiple goals was not at all surprising. Its the typical CONCACAF Champions Cup lull that they are probably in. Not to take anything away from KC or New England, who both looked very good, its just something we’ve seen time and time again with teams in that Cup.

Nice wins though for Columbus and Colorado. Both of those clubs had to get off to a good start this season. Tough break for Real Salt Lake losing on a late Blanco goal. Man, does he ever have it in for that club.

I will be on hand for the Dallas-Chivas game today. Thankfully I have press credentials for it so I will be able to get a little more insight than normal here on WVHooligan.com. If my game review isn’t up tonight, expect it first thing in the morning.

Anyone go to the games yesterday? Got something to say about them? Feel free to comment below about them!

One late trade to talk about before the MLS kicks off this weekend. Chivas USA have traded forward John Cunliffe for San Jose’s Chris Pozniak.

Goat fans may remember Cunliffe filling in late in the season when Maykel Galindo and Ante Razov went down with injuries. Trading him away after trading for a couple of forwards in the offseason makes perfect sense, espcially when they land a defender in Pozniak in this deal.

Honestly, this is a smart deal for both clubs. Pozniak adds depth to the Chivas defense and Cunliffe will probably get plenty of playing time for the Quakes up top this year.

According to this report, MLS Philly has already sold 3,400 season tickets  for a team that was only announced one month ago, and will not begin play until 2010.

Just like Toronto last year and Seattle in 2009, the MLS is finding markets that are selling better and getting more support before the club even steps foot onto a field. Philly still has a long way to go to catch up to Seattle, which has put up strong early numbers and sold close to 13,500 season tickets for the 2009 season.

All together it is great news for these expansion clubs. I am willing to bet that Philly will end up with at least 10,000 season tickets before they begin playing in 2010, though they could catch up to Seattle and pass them up since they have an extra year to work with.

What do you all think? Could we see Philly get to 15,000 or more? What about Seattle, could they get to 15,000 themselves?