Week 15 Recap

By: travis | July 7th, 2008

It was a typical Fourth of July weekend - lots of fireworks. The same could be said about the five MLS games that took place on Friday and Saturday. Dallas left it late to snatch a point from KC, while the late show out West featured Razov doing the same to grab a win for Chivas to land in first place. It’s quite the merry go round out there, with Dallas, LA, Chivas, and Colorado all spending time up top so far this season. Here’s a quick recap of what went down:

Dallas 1-1 Kansas City
Tough times for the Wizards. A game that they seemed to have secured, despite a myriad of chances for Dallas, only to be beaten in injury time by an Abe Thompson header. Scott Sealy decided to show up for the Wizards, executing a nice turn and shoot from the top of the box to give the Wizards the lead. What hurt them was a tendency to go into a defensive shell for the rest of the game - almost like they wanted to win so bad they were defending with everything they had. Subbing off Claudio Lopez in the later stages of the game turned out to be a big mistake. Major props to Thompson, but more importantly,

Colorado 4-0 New York
It was celebration for one side and dejection for the other. No one on the Red Bulls side looked interested in playing defense out in Commerce City, and goals from Tom McManus, Omar Cummings, Colin Clark (pick of the batch), and Mehdi Ballouchy made it a walk in the Park. Dick’s Sporting Goods Park that is. Seriously, that name is killer. I have friends out here (in Australia) who have made fun of the MLS a good bit for having a name like that. Anyways, the Red Bull must be counting down the days until July 15. Reinforcements are needed.

Los Angeles 1-2 New England
The storyline here? Abel Xavier getting destroyed by Adam Cristman. Nothing more than that. Beckham scored - whoop de doo, and Donovan had a goal disallowed for being offside. That was about all there was. Great finishing by Cristman on both instances, and really poor marking. The Galaxy defensive struggles continue, and help will hopefully be on the way, if they can unload Carlos Ruiz and pick up some help. That’d be good for them.

Columbus 2-2 Chicago
The Crew showed their mettle over the weekend, fighting back from 2-0 and grab a point from the Fire. It only took 25 minutes for Chicago to jump out to a 2-0 lead, with Chris Rolfe scoring first than assisting on the second. But thanks to some crisp passing from Guillermo Barros Scheletto, Emmanuel Ekpo pulled one back in the first half. The Crew left it late, as Steven Lenhart bungled home the equalizer with just three minutes left of regular time. For the Fire, a disappointment, as they are now winless in five, but good to snap a 333 minute goalless streak nonetheless. And as I said before, I think Columbus is for real.

Chivas 1-0 San Jose
The Quakes couldn’t catch a break this week. Ante Razov with the bailout of Chivas, curling home a pretty free kick (eat that Beckham) in the dying minutes to vault the Goats into first place. So close San Jose, but still a long way to go. I’ll go easy on them for now. But 10 goals in 15 games is not good. It’s almost left that at Derby County status. Keep it up, and that’s where they’ll be headed. The battle going on out West will most likely go for the whole summer - I can’t see any of the contenders separating themselves from the rest, save for the Galaxy somehow finding a defense. Chivas should be right up there until the very end - even if they lost Guzan to a transfer. Not sure what his status is.

Goal of the week
Each candidate this week was deserving of the title. There was great combination play from Chicago, powerful finish from New England, but it was the free kick of Ante Razov - who showed up Beckham in LA (I know he played the night before, but Razov’s goal was much sweeter than Becks’). As per usual, don’t forget to vote.