We just seem to keep chugging along here this season. Another week down, and time to put a cap on it with some weekly power rankings.

A couple movers and shakers this week but mostly we are starting to see some consistent play out of all the clubs, either good play or bad.

Feel free as always to pipe in your own below or comment on your club’s spot in the order.

1. New England Revolution (26 pts., same) – No need to change here. Nice road win in Houston without the likes of some key players. Clearly Steve Ralston is more important to this club than most would give him credit for. Since his return this club has looked nearly unstoppable. And is Kheli Dube the top rookie right now? I think so.

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Anytime you have two players in one week net a hat trick you always have to sit back and figure out which was actually better. Both Luciano Emilio and Edson Buddle lifted their club to victory on Saturday evening, both with different sorts of hat tricks.

In a week where a few players shined more than others, it would take a solid performance like a hat trick to get the attention of the voters. Had there not been a hat trick out of either one you could easily place the award on a number of players like Matt Reis, Jon Busch, Rohan Ricketts, Alejandro Moreno, or Kenny Cooper.

But in the end it was either one hat trick or another. Emilio or Buddle. Take your pick because either one was fine indeed.

Buddle showed off his head, Emilio showed his dangerous feet.

To me I had to look at the goals scored. All six were solid efforts but to me I ended up enjoying Buddle’s headers a bit more than Emilio’s strikes. Two of the three goals from Buddle on Saturday in Oakland against the Quakes came from his noggin. The first header was a beautiful diving header, the second was just an all out effort to beat his man and create the separation needed to head home the goal.

So again to me, Buddle’s trick was better than Emilio’s. Some may see it different but they both really were something special. 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…

A weekend full of mostly conference battles, a couple interconference games to notice. Week 12 is the typical spread that we are use to with five on Saturday and one lone game on Sunday. The biggest thing we can note is a bunch of rivalry games this weekend across the board.

I will try to keep this a bit shorter than normal, as I am currently working on a couple other things that I am hoping to get out today if time permits me to (plus there’s the Holland/France game going on that I really want to watch!).

So let’s get down to it:

Colorado Rapids – at – Toronto FC: Lots and lots and lots of callups here for this game. Both coaches will have to get creative with their lineups to make up for all the players missing. Judging by the list from the game preview, I honestly don’t know who has the edge in this one:

NTERNATIONAL ABSENCES: COL: Bouna Coundoul (Senegal; v Liberia, June 15); Pablo Mastroeni (USA; v Barbados, June 15); Ugo Ihemelu (Canada; v St. Vincent & Grenadines, June 15) … TOR: Jim Brennan, Greg Sutton (Canada; v St. Vincent & Grenadines, June 15) ; Amado Guevara (Honduras; v. Puerto Rico, June 14); Maurice Edu (USA; v Barbados, June 15); Tyrone Marshall (Jamaica; v Bahamas, June 15)

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