The Kansas City Wizards are on top of the MLS single table after their win over the Colorado Rapid this weekend. This leaves the Wizards and the Red Bulls the only teams with perfect records this early in the season. The Red Bulls only played their first game of the year Saturday with a 2-0 victory of the Columbus Crew.
| Kansas City |
2 |
0 |
0 |
6 |
| Chicago |
1 |
0 |
1 |
4 |
| Chivas USA |
1 |
0 |
1 |
4 |
| Colorado |
1 |
1 |
0 |
3 |
| Los Angeles |
1 |
1 |
0 |
3 |
| New York |
1 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
| D.C. United |
1 |
1 |
0 |
3 |
| Columbus |
1 |
1 |
0 |
3 |
| New England |
1 |
1 |
0 |
3 |
| FC Dallas |
0 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
| Real Salt Lake |
0 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
| Houston |
0 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
| San Jose |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
| Toronto FC |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
Well the playoff picture is still all up in the air. We know that Kansas City, Chicago and LA all have control of their own destiny. Columbus and Colorado are both hoping to squeeze into the playoffs, but they need some help to get there.
The Colorado Rapids played the west leading Chivas USA. The Rapids needed a victory and the game went into the 90th minute a 1-1 tie. Omar Cummings change that scoreline and kept the Rapids in the playoff race for the time being. So this is the current standings:
Chicago - 37
Kansas City - 37
————————
Colorado - 35
Columbus - 34
LA - 33
Thursday:
New York Red Bulls @ LA Galaxy
Saturday:
Columbus Crew @ DC United
Kansas City Wizards @ FC Dallas
Real Salt Lake @ Colorado Rapids
Sunday:
LA Galaxy @ Chicago Fire
The Chicago Fire, Kansas City Wizards and LA Galaxy all control their own destiny. Finish the season with wins and they will play in the playoffs. Chicago and Kansas City could both potentially still make the playoffs if they lose their last games as long as they have help from New York on Thursday and DC United and Real Salt Lake on Saturday. The Rapids need to win and need a little bit of help to make the playoffs while the Crew need a win and quite a bit more help to get in.
This is how the current situation looks, we have 5 teams fighting for the last 2 playoff spots:
#. Team - points (games remaining)
7. KC Wizards - 37 (2)
8. Chicago Fire - 36 (2)
====================
9. Colorado Rapids - 32 (2)
10. Columbus Crew - 31 (2)
11. LA Galaxy - 30 (3)
The following table represents how high the bottom 3 teams could possibly go:
LA Galaxy - 39
Colorado Rapids - 38
Columbus Crew - 37
I don’t think anything is going to change before the end of the year, unless Chicago moves into the #7 spot and KC drops to 8, but they both will be playing this post season.
DC United, New England Revolution, Chivas USA and defending champions Houston Dynamo have all claimed their playoff spots.
As the table stands right now the wildcards would be FC Dallas, New York Red Bulls, Kansas City Wizards and the Chicago Fire.
The Columbus Crew are only 1 point behind the Chicago Fire for the last spot, and behind them are the Colorado Rapids who are only 3 points back from the Fire. This is what the remaining schedule look like for these teams that will be battling for that last spot in the playoffs:
Chicago Fire:
@ Chivas USA
New England Revolution
@ DC United
LA Galaxy
Columbus Crew:
LA Galaxy
FC Dallas
@ New England Revolution
@ DC United
Colorado Rapids:
@ New England Revolution
Toronto FC
@ Chivas USA
Real Salt Lake
The Rapids might have the easiest schedule remaining, but the Fire have been the best team lately. I think this could come down to the last day of the season which has the Fire playing on their home turf with LA Galaxy visiting. The Crew are playing in DC on that day. Advantage goes to the Fire here, so they are my pick to make the playoffs out of these 3 teams. Who knows something crazy could happen and the Wizards could give up their spot to another one of these teams, but I wouldn’t count on that.
This might be what was expected at the beginning of the season. I still remember the excitement of that first Wizards game of the year when they went to DC and beat DC United 4-2. The season has a lot of promise, and it kept going good for the Wizards.
Now aparently anyone can beat them. They’ve dropped 3 strait games, including a 1-0 loss to DC today and DC United is winning now. That is probably more of what was expected at the beginning of the season, but that isn’t how it started. And now the Columbus Crew are winning games too. What the hell is going on. At least the rest of the season should be pretty interesting if nothing else.
It was a crazy weekend for Major League Soccer.
Way to go DC United, now every team in Major League Soccer has a win. Before this weekend Real Salt Lake was the only team without a notch in the W column. I don’t know if you guys felt bad for them or what is going on. And what was up with scoring the goal at the very end of the game like that? Why not just give them the shut out as well? Well done Robbie Findley, they should build a statue of you outside the stadium there in Salt Lake. Quite a way to make an impression with a new team, 2 goals that lead to the first victory of the not-so-young-anymore season. Sorry but that wouldn’t have been quite as impressive if you had been traded to someone like the New England Revolution and done that. The should be setting up their teammates and winning games. Real Salt Lake shouldn’t.
Too bad the Galaxy didn’t have Robbie Findley still on their roster for their loss to the mighty Columbus Crew. Some recent acquisitions paid off in this game as well. Alejandro Moreno scored the game winning goal for the Crew, and Edson Buddle scored a late consolation goal for the Galaxy. Not worth anything really, but it was a goal and I’m sure Galaxy fans have to take what they can get.
Moreno’s old team, Houston Dyanamo have been hot this week scoring two big wins. Well beating Chivas maybe can’t be considered real big, but they also went to Kansas City and took a one nil victory from the powerful Wizards, who also lost to the might Columbus Crew last week.
So the Crew and Dynamo win 2 games this week. Dynamo fans probably expect a lot of this, and Crew fans will probably never forget this week. The Wizards drop 2 games that a team so close to the top should expect to win. DC United’s great run comes to a screeching halt. But most importantly, the US is Gold Cup Champions!
It seems Alejandro Moreno has been sent from the Houston Dynamo to the Columbus Crew for Joseph Ngwenya.
I can’t figure who came out better on this trade. Both players are quality and could have a chance to step up their game with a new team after this trade.
Who do you think got the better deal out of this?
The Columbus Crew are out of the US Open Cup at the hands of the Galaxy. Landon Donovan hooked up with Nate Jaqua for Jaquas first goal of the season and the game winner in the 1-0 victory for the Galaxy.
The Crew suffer the same fate as the Kansas City Wizards already have this year dropping out of the USOC early. Maybe it will allow them to focus on league play a little bit more. If last year is any sign of things to come, both of these teams will need that extra time to focus on league play.
The Crew have something to smile about. Guillermo Barros Schelotto, long time Boja Juniors star, will be joining the Columbus Crew sometime this weekend or early next week. Schelotto is the winningest player in Argentina based on the 17 titles his teams have won, 15 of them coming with Boca Juniors. Hopefully he can do something about this whole no goals yet this year thing the Crew got going on.
Schelotto is not going to be one of the DP that we hear so much about in the past couple of weeks with the signings of Reyna, Blaco and now Angel. He should still be a fine addition to the Crew.
If you missed it yesterday the first annual Lamar Hunt Pioneer Cup was won by the powerhouse Columbus Crew over lowly FC Dallas. After a scoreless first half Columbus put 3 in the net and shut out FC Dallas for an impressive win by last years worst team over last years western conference champions.
I watched the game on Fox Soccer Channel and was very impressed with the amount of time they dedicated to this match. The game ended and I noticed the TV schedule still had half an hour listed for the game. They interviewed several Crew and even FC Dallas players, both coaches, presented a man of the match trophy and actually talked about the game. There was almost no crowd, but I guess that should be expected for a non-Beckham pre-season game.
I wasn’t able to give my full attention to the game with my almost 3 month old son demainding some attention so I can’t say much about any individual efforts, but it is probably too early to say the Crew are going to make the playoffs this year and FC Dallas aren’t. The Crew have a lot of potential and FC Dallas have a lot of injuries, so who knows.
technorati tags:Columbus-Crew, FC-Dallas, Lamar-Hunt-Pioneer-Cup
