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 2010 Crew look a lot like the 2009 Crew, does that mean another Supporter's Shield is on the way? (Getty Images)

I had hoped to get this post out of the way earlier in the day but some issues on the back end of my site kept me busy all day (some PHP bug!). But I felt like it was still alright to move on with out look at each Major League Soccer club and how they are doing this offseason.

Today we go back east and look at the two time defending Supporter’s Shield champion Columbus Crew.

The offseason hasn’t been too busy for the Crew but they were able to make some big noise at the SuperDraft with a couple of their selections. Continue Reading…

GBS helped lead the Crew to a second straight Supporter's Shield trophy. (Getty Images)

We all expected big things in 2009 for the Columbus Crew. Anytime you win a MLS Cup and retain the bulk of a lineup that got you that title you expect to repeat or come extremely close to do so. As we saw last week the Crew fell short of that this year as they lost to Real Salt Lake at home in the semi-finals of the eastern conference.

Still what can you say about this year’s Crew other than it was pretty much a carry-over of some sorts of the 2008 team. Robert Warzycha stepped in as Sigi Schmid headed west to be with the new Seattle Sounders club and things on the roster pretty much remained the same way with Guillermo Barros Schelotto, Robbie Rogers, Chad Marshall and Frankie Hejduk all there.

The Crew stumbled a bit out of the gate though with questions of if this bunch was really good enough to repeat. Columbus didn’t earn their first win until May, eight games into the season. But even with the lack of winning early on there was only a couple losses on the fixture table.

In the summer the Crew really turned things on. Schelotto looked like the MVP that we all knew he was and instead of assisting on goals like he did in his MVP season of 2008, he was scoring goals to help the Crew win games. Between June and August the Crew only lost a couple matches in league play while their CONCACAF Champions League play started off well.

Late in the year the Crew wrapped up their second straight Supporter’s Shield title, ensuring another birth in the CCL next year. While they did fall short in the playoffs they proved once again how a stable club can do so well in the league.

What Went Right In 2009:
When all key parts were playing things looked unstoppable for this group. Schelotto was a beast when he was fully healthy, Marshall repeated as Defender of the Year even though he wasn’t totally fit and other guys like Steven Lenhart and Jason Garey filled in nicely. Its hard to complain too much about a Supporter’s Shield type season like the Crew had but I know the way things ended left a lot of folks unsatisfied.

What Went Wrong In 2009:
Injuries played a big part in things that did go wrong. Some might also point a finger at Warzycha for playing it too safe in Salt Lake for the first leg of the playoffs. Either way this club was pretty gassed by the end of the season. Their schedule in the fall months between the league slate and the CCL group stage really left them on empty. They went from being one of the most dominate home clubs in league history to a team that lost three straight home games to finish the year (including the playoffs).

What’s Next:
Next up is figuring out who is staying and who is going. We know Philly will certainly pick someone from this club in the expansion draft and then there is the likelihood that Robbie Rogers will leave. What is bigger though is whether or not Schelotto will hang it up or not. If he returns along with other veterans like Hejduk and Alejandro Moreno then this club should have no problem returning to the top of the food chain. But at the same time they definitely need to go out and find some offense this winter. It was something that lacked all year and a reason why Schelotto had to pick up the scoring slack.

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…

So this past week had  a load of quality goals. I mean a load that were just great from top to bottom. A couple could really be classed as goal of the year quality too (Landon Donvoan’s comes to mind). While I am sorting out the issues with the post I had for the weekend recap, here are the week’s best goals to get us started this week.

Order of goals: Kai Kamera, Ricardo Clark, Chris Rolfe, Peter Lowry, Pablo Mastroeni, Conor Casey (1 and 2), Robbie Findley, Alejandro Moreno, Robbie Rogers, Landon Donovan, and Jeff Cunningham.

Mainly since I am running way behind on my weekend recaps my thoughts from this weekend will be sort of brief due to lack of time on my part. Not a whole lot changed for me over this past weekend. Some certain clubs finally won games for a change this season and others continue to impress. This weekend was full of sloppy defending and cool finishing.

Here are the notes I jotted down from this weekend’s action. If you have any comments from the games this weekend feel free to post below.

- Chivas continues to roll here. The AmeriGoats get another win at home, improving to 7-1-1 on the year. An eight point advantage in the standings right now. Wow. At this rate they will clinch a playoff spot by mid-July. I’m just wondering when the flame will go out and this club will cool off for real here. They have a tough stretch coming up with hosting DC, at KC and then home again against Chicago. I wouldn’t be shocked to see them either roll through those at their current pace right now. I mentioned their fast start in comparison to other fast starts in league history. Right now they are tied for the second best start behind the 2000 KC club and the 1999 Miami club. Interesting fact that Steve Goff mentions is the common fact is Preki. He played for those two clubs and is coaching this Chivas club.

Just how are they doing this though? The cast of no-names and what nots are just getting the job done no matter what. They clean up on sloopy defending and are very tight in the back. They are showing that they don’t need to be flashy to win or be well anything great to win.

- And speaking of the club Chivas beat on Saturday, Real Salt Lake continues to be unimpressive on the road. Let’s hit reality for a second. This club has always been terrible on the road. The fact that they don’t score on the road this season only makes it worse.

Jason Kreis has a lot of work to do with this club still. Right now they aren’t a contender. Kreis will probably make a change up top soon by placing Fabian Espindola up top instead of Yura Movsisyan who has been rather poor so far this season (one goal and one assist in eight games). Continue Reading…

RSL hosts Columbus in a big time clash tonight. (Getty Images)

ESPN2 picked a good one for their game of the week. As the league’s website keeps putting it, this is a matchup of near MLS Cup rivals, or whatever that means. I think its a quality matchup no matter how you spin it. Real Salt Lake hosting the MLS Cup champs Columbus Crew, sounds like a game of the week to me.

Anyways, I’ve tried wrapping my head around this game all week to be honest. RSL got off to a real slow start last week in their opener up in Seattle and Columbus started off with two straight draws. Neither were really expected results for these two clubs but its where we stand right now.

I think the Crew have looked good so far but have been unlucky. RSL on the other hand just looked a bit lost on the road last week.

Keep up with my usual previews this season, I do have a couple questions going into this one. Continue Reading…