Wow. A great debut for a city that really loves it’s soccer. Just a fantastic start to the season for Seattle and a very disappointing start for MLS Cup runner-up New York. I won’t go into too much of a review because by now everyone has probably given their two cents and then some.

I do have a couple points that I got from last nights gave to share with you though and then some highlights to enjoy.

• Fredy Montero is a beast. We knew the kid was going to be good coming into this game but his first goal showed me just how special of a player he really is. Contender for the Golden Boot this year? Possibly, but definitely an early candidate for player of the week.
• NY defense still not good. I know there are a few new guys on the way and they will improve this defense a lot but man last night they looked even worse than they did a year ago. Plus is it me or is Danny Cepero really any improvement over Jon Conway? Just a thought.
• Overall winner was the crowd. 32,500+ last night is an amazing number for MLS on a weekend, but even more impressive on a week night game like last night. They all showed up in green (finally we have a green wearing club in MLS) and made their voices heard.

Highlights:

Something about the season series between Houston and Dallas just screamed to be even this year. We start out with a 3-3 draw, move forward to a 2-2 draw, and then tonight finish up the season series with a 1-1 draw.

Yeah, you just don’t see a season series end up working out like that. Three draws. Yeah.

Obviously it was a game that was different in each half of play. I really felt Houston dominated the first half, you know the half that wasn’t seen on TV because of some WNBA game. Yeah, I bet that pissed a few people off around the country. It got me upset for about three seconds when I realized to tune to my best friend ESPN360.com. Seriously folks, if you have the ability to use that site, do it.

Back to the game though, as said before Houston controlled the opening half of play. The goal off of Brian Ching’s heat was a nice one. Some real good run of play action from the men in Orange leading up to that goal. Dallas really sat back and just watched the play develop and happen. Something you can’t do, certainly on the road against your top rival.

The second 45 was a little differnet tone. Dallas came out with a little more energy and was rewarded after the hour mark. Kenny Cooper provided another nice header for the game. A sweet cross from Juan Toja. That my friends was the kind of stuff we expect out of Mr. Toja.

The energy was good in the second half from both sides. Lots of end to end action. A bit chippy though at times. We saw our fair share of cards in the second half. Dallas got extremely lucky not to be down a man when Pablo Ricchetti pulled down Stuart Holden on a breakaway chance. Probably should have been a red card but the ref deemed it just a yellow. Continue Reading…

Not a good week to be on the losing end of the stick, then again no week is a good time to lose. But this week losing sides almost seemed nonexistent in this one. Losing teams only muster up two goals. Yes, just two goals for the losing sides this week, a big-time 17 goals for the winning sides this week.

Some weren’t as big as others but that is just the nature of the game too. A couple put up a fight in the losing effort, while others were out of it from the start of the game.

A very interesting week, mainly due to the vast dominance of some teams in the weekend.

As weird as it is to say this, but watch out folks, that team out in LA with David Beckham may actually be for real this season. Even with a hurt Beckham, probably an ineffective Beckham for more than a half of play the Galaxy showed us they have other guys who can pass the ball around and score.

New England continues to impress me a top the table.  Toronto continues their strong play at home, who would have thought they’d be in third place right now when the season started?

The butts-in-seats look was helped by a game in Oakland for the Quakes. Good lord I cannot stand that venue. It just looks weird for soccer. Can’t they at least make it look like it does when a football team plays there? And you could tell that grass was not in good condition either. Lots of slipping out there. Other than that it was a pretty typical weekend across the board. Toronto, KC both sold out their place; DC posted good numbers considering a heavy rain storm in the area; Dallas even had its average numbers on a HOT Sunday afternoon (why wasn’t that game scheduled for Saturday night?); and Chivas posted their pathetic 10k …but hopefully that will change in a topic later on this afternoon!

So what stood out in each game? Let’s get to it:

Toronto FC 3 – 1 Colorado Rapids: Continue Reading…

Nothing like picking up a win at the right time for Marco Ferruzzi and his FC Dallas players. Coming into the game today with the Chicago Fire, the Hoops were riding a three game winless streak along with some shaky play for the past two months.

But that didn’t stop the home side from putting away their old rivals from the north 1-0 on a hot afternoon.

Kenny Cooper extended FCD’s home dominance against the Fire to 11 games, dating all the way back to 1999. Yeah, that’s one of those sports streaks that is in the impressive category.

It truly was the right time for the Hoops to get a win though. Going into a week where they are expected to get a new head coach, it was a perfect way to end the interim Ferruzzi era. The interim coach pulled out all the stops in this one, which felt like a rivalry game once again between these two sides.

Cooper gets on the board early for the home side and they never looked back. Chicago honestly never really got into the game. Blanco and company looked beat by the heat and Dallas nearly made it a two or three nil game in the second half with Cooper and Dominic Oduro. Continue Reading…

Leave it to New England to continue their winning ways tonight in Houston. The Revs were able to give the Dynamo their first home loss of the season thanks to two first half goals by Steve Ralston and Kheli Dube.

With the win, New England extended their unbeaten streak to six games and are now well atop the MLS standings with 26 points after 13 games.

Matt Reis again was huge in goal for New England, with a few saves on the night. The biggest came late in the game when Reis fended off a Stuart Holden penalty kick.

Both clubs entered the match missing key players due to national duty in World Cup qualifying. New England was without midfielders Kenny Mansally (Gambia), Khano Smith (Bermuda) and Shalrie Joseph (Grenada). Houston was missing forward Brian Ching (USA), as well as goalkeeper Pat Onstad and midfielder Dwayne De Rosario (Canada).

The early goal from Steve Ralston was an initial shock for the home side, as Houston was dominating the early possession until New England was able to find the back of the net. Early goals continue to be tough to over come this season. I’m pretty sure the majority of clubs who’ve scored in the opening 10 minutes have gone on to win the game thanks in large part to the early goal.

For a tough defense like Houston it was surprising to see them give up such a quick strike early on. It definitely left the door wide open for New England to strike again, which they did with Kheli Dube late in the first half. Dube took a nice corner from Mauricio Castro.

The more I see Dube, the more I keep thinking Steve Nicol has done it again in finding fresh new talent each year. Dube was a Supplemental pick this year no less. Finding talent that works out this well in that draft is very tough to come by and Nicol is looking very smart for it.

Even though New England won the match, Houston still had plenty of chances. You can’t knock them for Matt Reis having another stellar night in goal for the Revs. Had both clubs not had all of the international callups that they had I think this could have been a very different game with the recent for of Houston.

I don’t think this knocks the Dynamo down all that much here. I think they will bounce back in their next game when they get Ching, De Rosario and Onstad back in the lineup. But it did show their lack of depth in certain areas that we all know about. Its obvious how much they need another striker. I just wonder if they are serious about making a move to make up for it at this point.

I guess maybe all along we were completely wrong about DC United. So far this season they haven’t looked at all like the Supporter’s Shield winners of the last two years and I think now more than ever we can stop throwing out the age old excuse of the CONCACAF Champions Cup hangover as to why this club is doing so poorly.

Let’s face it, Chicago looked like the better side last night and in the end they walked away with the three points after another stellar effort. Not to mention the fact that they OWN DC in RFK Stadium like no one else in this league. The 2-0 win looked easy for the most part.

It wasn’t anything special either. The first half, Chicago created chances and in the later stages of the half they were rewarded with a Justin Mapp goal. By the way, that was Mapp’s first goal since 2006. As for DC in that first half, they failed to create any real chances against Chicago. It wasn’t a defensive stranglehold on DC by the Fire defense, it was merely a United team that didn’t look at all comfortable on the pitch with one another.

There it is, this club still hasn’t come together this season as a team.

Continue Reading…