It's do or die for Toronto FC. (Getty Images)

Big time weekend ahead for Major League Soccer. Four clubs have punched their tickets to the post season dance with four remaining spots left open to possibly all get snatched up this weekend.

You can pretty much put a playoff implication on every game this weekend. Either a team will come closer to clinching a spot, will clinch a spot or will be eliminated from contention. Its pretty much as simple as that as we head into the final two weeks of the regular season.

Going into the weekend it is important to see where everyone stands. There will be plenty of scoreboard watching from players, coaches and fans this weekend.

Eastern Conference
1. Columbus (13-5-10, 49 pts., 2 games remaining) – X
2. Chicago (10-7-11, 41 pts., 2 games remaining)
Western Conference
T1. Chivas USA (13-9-5, 44 pts., 3 games remaining) – X
T1. Houston (12-8-8, 44 pts., 2 games remaining) – X
T1. Los Angeles (11-6-11, 44 pts., 2 games remaining) – X
Wild Cards
2. Seattle (10-7-11, 41 pts., 2 games remaining)
3. Colorado (10-8-10, 40 pts., 2 games remaining)
4. New England (10-10-8, 38 pts., 2 games remaining)
BOTTOM SEVEN OUT
Real Salt Lake (10-11-7, 37 pts., 2 games remaining)
FC Dallas (10-12-6, 36 pts., 2 games remaining)
D.C. United (8-8-12, 36 pts., 2 games remaining)
Toronto FC (9-10-9, 36 pts., 2 games remaining)
Kansas City (8-12-8, 32 pts., 2 games remaining)
San Jose (7-13-8, 29 pts., 2 games remaining) – Eliminated from contention
New York (4-19-6, 18 pts., 1 games remaining) – Eliminated from contention

For Colorado, Seattle and Chicago it is simple this weekend. You win and you are in. New England can do the same with a win along with a couple other items (DC, Dallas, TFC, and RSL all draw or losing their games this weekend).On the flip side for Kansas City they are all but mathematically eliminated here, they would need about 40 different things to happen to even have hope of reaching the playoffs. In other words this weekend will should put their eliminated status in for good.

Everyone is in action this weekend except for New York who played and lost again in the midweek. As always feel free to leave your score predictions and thoughts below. Continue Reading…

Fredy Montero. (Photo via Rick Morrison, www.digitaldadphotography.com)

Good evening folks. It’s been a rather slow day around the soccer world but there has been plenty of talk on one subject that has been pretty hot since late August, the possibility of a MLS-2. But more on that in a bit. And I have a link about SuperLiga below that is definitely worth a read.

I wanted to kickoff tonight’s thoughts/links with another look at the season awards. With a few weeks left in the 2009 season each award race is really hot right now. Tonight I want to look at the Newcomer of the Year award.

The newcomer award race pretty good this year, especially with one club the Seattle Sounders FC. That club has a chance to have three or four guys nominated for the award alone. Pretty crazy but that’s just how it worked with them this season.

Who’s on the watch list for this award? Below are the few that I think are gonna get consideration from me and other voters. And sadly most of my list below do revolve around Sounders players.

Fredy Montero (Seattle) – Pretty easy to say he may end up with this award based on his play. He’s one of the top goal scorers on the league and since the start of the season he has shown flashes of brilliance.

Osvaldo Alonso (Seattle) – Probably Montero’s biggest competition in this award is this former USL-1 star. Alonso is a beast in the midfield and has quickly become one of the best defensive midfielders in the league.

Freddie Ljungberg (Seattle) – No this has nothing to do with my biased towards Swedish players but Ljungberg has been a solid addition to the league and to Seattle since day one. When healthy he has proven to be one of the better DP signings in the league.

Kasey Keller (Seattle) – Weird to see this American keeper legend on this kind of list but it has been his first MLS season after all. No doubt he should have some consideration here because I really don’t see him winning the keeper of the year award (that should go elsewhere to Chivas’ Zach Thornton).

Jhon Kennedy Hurtado (Seattle) – The last of the Sounders for me on this list. He’s been one of the better defenders in the entire league this season.

Emmanuel Osei (New England) – Not a house hold name but believe me this guy has been a great addition to Steve Nicol’s side. As a defender his stats won’t amaze you but he’s been a rather solid rock in the defense for the Revs this season.

Eduardo Lillingston (Chivas USA) – His numbers aren’t bad (7 goals and 1 assist) but he doesn’t have the hype to get a lot of votes out west. Still he is worth a look for this award.

David Ferriera (Dallas) – It really took him a while to get use to the MLS style of play but honestly he hasn’t been a terrible signing after all for Schellas Hyndman and FC Dallas. Six goals and four assists this season really isn’t bad.

From the looks of things you gotta just pick a Sounder for this award because after that group the pickings are rather slim. And again, this award goes to non-rookies that are playing their first year in MLS. Continue Reading…

Loads of goals this week in MLS. Some were good and others were so-so. Throw in a few PKs and it was a busy weekend in MLS.

There are plenty of goals this week, especially since we had a 6-3 game and a 3-2 game.

Order of video: Frankie Hejduk, Maicon Santos, Dave van den Burgh, Jeff Cunningham, A.J. DeLaGarza, Dax McCarty, David Ferriera, Jeff Cunningham, Edson Buddle, Chris Rolfe, Jamison Olave, Josh Wolff,  Steve Zakuani, Fredy Montero, Dwayne De Rosario, Conor Casey, and Nana Attakora

Plenty of quality goals in week 20, especially considering we had a 4-3 game, a 4-0 game and a 6-0 game on our hands. Then in non-MLS play we did have a stellar goal from David Beckham (it is posted below the league goals).

Which one was the best? Too many good ones to go through if you ask me.

Order of video: Cornell Glen, Chris Wondolowski, Jeff Cunningham (1), David Ferriera, Jeff Cunningham (2), Brad Davis, Fred, Brian Ching, and Dwayne De Rosario. (Note I couldn’t fine the Patrick Nyarko or Chad Marshall’s goal – the league’s site didn’t have them available for QuickKicks).

Beckham’s classy free kick against Barcelona: