Every team has that one guy that will either help lead them to the MLS promise-land or be partly the reason why they are stuck at home in November instead of seeing the playoffs. These are you X-Factor players.

I have one (maybe two) guys for each MLS team that are those X-Factors for this new season. Some guys are really no brainers while others may surprise you a bit. Its safe to say that each club needs a big year out of their X-Factors.

If you think I’m way off base on someone or think I missed a sure-fire X-Factor please list it below. Continue Reading…

The Galaxy could actually be better in 2010 than what they were in 2009. (Getty Images)

We’re a little over half way home in our look at each Major League Soccer club this winter. So far we’ve hammered out Chicago, Colorado, Chivas, Columbus, DC, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, and Philadelphia in out preseason look ins.

So far this winter the LA Galaxy have had a similar offseason that we expected them to have. David Beckham went to Italy to be with AC Milan and Landon Donovan went to England to play for Everton until March. We knew going into the winter months that those things would happen. Unlike last year when there was a lot of bad press about loan moves for Beckham, this year was a little smoother for the two sides.

Aside from that Bruce Arena has made a couple moves since then and even with one draft pick back in January at the SuperDraft he came away with a solid draft grade by me and most people.

Let’s see how the Galaxy are looking right now and what else they need to do to their roster before the season kicks off.

Continue Reading…

Today we’ve learned who MLS Commissioner Don Garber will be selecting for his picks in this year’s All-Star game.  In previous years Garber has picked guys in the final years of their career or guys that were “snubbed” by the voters.

Today Garber selected two RSL players (the game is at Rio Tinto Stadium): Kyle Beckerman and Javier Morales.

Good picks, especially since I highly doubt either would have been picked by Kinnear and since they are the home town favorites.

Good to also see Garber not go with David Beckham. However I do have three other guys that I was kind of hoping to see in these two spots. (I’m picking three because I am assuming Dominic Kinnear may do one of the picks)

Those three are: Chivas USA keeper Zach Thornton, RSL midfielder Clint Mathis, and DC midfielder/forward Santino Quaranta.

I kind of see Quaranta getting picked by Kinnear but I was kind of hoping to see The Don go this way in his selections. I put Thornton up there since he is having a stellar comeback season this year. Mathis I thought is a little more deserving than both Beckerman or Morales here if he wanted to go with a RSL player.

What do you make of The Don’s picks? Good or bad?

I love a good holiday weekend. That’s why these previews are coming today instead of it’s usual Friday timeslot. Even with the holiday comes loads of extras for me to be doing and sitting in front of my laptop isn’t going to be one of them.

After a couple weekends of SuperLiga play breaking up the flow of the season schedule the majority of the MLS clubs are back in play this weekend. Only Chivas, Seattle, and Toronto are out of action this week. Gotta love that unbalanced schedule the league has, I don’t see why a club like Toronto is off this week but oh well.

Anyways, time to get down to business. Feel free to send your game predictions as well. Continue Reading…

Even with only a few games this past week in Major League Soccer we still had plenty of quality goals to mention for goal of the week.

Order of video: Todd Dunivant, Fredy Montero, Nate Jaqua, Yura Movsisyan, Clint Mathis, Dwayne De Rosario, and Omar Cummings (no audio on his goal).

Yeah we actually are at week 15 here. Hard to believe huh? This weekend is fairly light due to a number of other games going on like SuperLiga. Then you have that all important game on Sunday afternoon over in South Africa between the US and Brazil.

I won’t go into any big detail about the Brazil/US game and I am honestly undecided on whether or not to even do a preview of that game. I may just leave that to those who’ve been doing a good job of it lately. But we will see.

This weekend has some decent games on the menu in MLS even if it is a smaller portion than what we are use to here. Only four league games to mention, two on each day.

Feel free to leave your score predictions below. Continue Reading…

The Cauldron will be loud tonight with DC in town. (Brian Stevens, WVH Photo Correspondent)

Two midweek games for week eight. A big night in general if you count Toronto FC’s game in the Canadian Champion tonight against future MLS side Vancouver. But I’ll just stick with the MLS games for the evening to preview.

RSL returns home to host the Galaxy who just scored their first win of the year. And in Kansas City, DC comes to the CAB for a big time clash of two up and coming eastern clubs.

DC United – at – Kansas City Wizards:

1. First place on the line, who steps up for DC on the road?

No Ben Olsen, Marc Burch, or Fred tonight for the boys in black. Guess the need to lead will come on Jamie Moreno who easily stepped into that role last week against Dallas. As long as the offense is rolling fine for DC they could be fine on the road here. Just remember DC only has a single loss on the season here so far and it was at Salt Lake (a place DC and no one else wins at). Also KC is a play DC typically sees success in as well. As long as guys like Moreno step up on the road they should be fine. Continue Reading…