Week Eight Recap

By: travis | May 19th, 2008

Another week brought a flurry of action and excitement. Toronto finally slowed down the Crew, DC United keeps struggling, and the Galaxy dropped a five spot on Dallas. Edson Buddle had a hat trick. I don’t know if anyone who writes about soccer would ever expect to type those words down. Good work for him and the Galaxy.

Colorado 2-0 Real Salt Lake
Sparse attendance in Commerce City as the Rapids took the first matchup for the Trillium Cup. Omar Cummings notched a nice goal to give Colorado the lead in the 65th minute, and Christian Gomez put the game away when he put away a penalty called for handball. Real continues to under perform away from Salt Lake and didn’t threaten much as Colorado had the upper hand most of the game.

Toronto 0-0 Columbus
Whenever a match returns with this scoreline, it’s easy to write it off as a boring game. And while that may have been the case, from what I could tell it had plenty of excitement. The two hottest team’s in MLS fought to a stalemate, but it was a game not lacking in chances. Amado Guevara and Laurent Robert both looked threaten, more so than Guillermo or Robbie Rogers. The best chance of the match came when Robert hit the post, and it was a game that Toronto looked more like winning than Columbus. Toronto now has just a few days off before hosting DC.

New York 1-1 Kansas City
Another exciting draw, this time from the Meadowlands. The Wizards took an early lead as Captain Jimmy Conrad scored off a Carlos Marinelli corner kick. KC took control for most of the first half but didn’t threaten enough for a second. They continue to struggle to score in the run of play, and it paid the price in the 81st minute. Kevin Hartman and the KC defense played great all game (Hartman had a number of world class saves), but they left Danleigh Borman wide open in the box to smash home the equalizer. This was after Dave Van den Bergh had been sent off for an elbow to the face of Davy Arnaud, so a let down for the Wizards to concede with just nine minutes left.

Chicago 1-2 Houston
The Dynamo snuck out of Chicago with three points, with the help of a fluke goal, pouring rain, and a timely header from Bobby Boswell. Houston now has their first winning streak of the season and look to continue to rebound. They got a little bit of luck when Ricardo Clark struck a shot from about 25 yards outside the area which then took a wicked deflection off a Dynamo player and bounced past an outstretched Jon Busch. Rain poured throughout most of the second half, and after the Fire equalized through Calen Carr, Boswell netted the winner with nine minutes left off a set piece. Houston looks to be slowly creeping their way back into the mix.

New England 2-0 San Jose
Another week, another goalless performance from the Quakes. It’s a tough life for any expansion team, and they only conceded one goal scored by the Revolution - the other was an own goal - but with only four points from the first eight games, it looks to be a long season for Frank Yallop and co. Kheli Dube opened up the scoring in his first MLS start, while San Jose defender James Riley headed the ball into his own net in the 23rd minute. From there, San Jose couldn’t find a goal to get themselves back into the game, mustering just four total shots and just two on net.
Chivas USA 3-1 DC United
The same cannot be said for Supporters Shield holders United, who can’t seem to buy a win. This week saw them go ahead 1-0 off a brilliant goal from Marcelo Gallardo, only to squander the lead and concede three goals within a span of 25 minutes. Chivas was able to win despite having nearly an entire XI out through injury. And what more can be said about United? Tom Soehn benched reigning MVP Luciano Emilio which seemed to have little effect. United is dead last in the East, five points behind Toronto who is tied for fifth with Kansas City. On a bright note, Sueno MLS winner Jorge Flores scored the third goal for Chivas, marking his first career MLS goal. Congrats to him.

FC Dallas 1-5 LA Galaxy
Edson Buddle brought his “A” game this week The Galaxy took advantage of what seemed quite porous Dallas defending to get five past poor Dario Sala. The biggest shock of the game was the play of the Galaxy defense to only concede one goal - coming off a great cross from Kenny Cooper onto the head of Dominic Oduro. It was the Galaxy’s day in the end, as Adrian Serioux was sent off for a nasty challenge on Becks. The one thing about this game that pisses me off is the number of headlines that read something along the lines of “Galaxy wins 5-1; Beckham gets a yellow card.” Why?

Goal of the Week
Gallardo’s shot against Chivas. Albeit coming in a losing effort, his move at the top of the box to shape one defender before curling the ball past Guzan was the long highlight for DC. Remember to also cast your vote for goal of the week: