It doesn’t happen that two teams swap players, then face off against each other and have both players score against their old teams. It happened earlier when Houston and Columbus made a trade and now it has happened again. This time it was Jeff Cunningham scoring for his new team Toronto FC against Alecko Eskandarian and his new team Real Salt Lake.
Toronto FC got the better of this one today as they also got a goal from Collin Samuel when he took a PK in the 79th minute. Cunningham also made it into the ref’s book getting a yellow card!
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!
Jeff Cunningham is headed to Toronto FC and in return Alecko Eskandarian is going to Real Salt Lake. This is a surprising trade to me. I can’t imagine why Real Salt Lake would give up Jeff Cunningham. Alecko is a great player, but for my money I don’t think this is an even swap. I’d rather have Cunningham on my team, but I guess I wouldn’t complain about Alecko, he does have a much more enjoyable name to say.
I can’t be long, gotta get on to some hockey tonite. go Ducks.
If the goal scored around the 12th minute by Herculez Gomez had not been called back due to a bad offiside call, the Rapids would have gone up 2 - 0. Instead of that happening, Real Salt Lake scored a just a short time afterwards to tie the game at the final score of 1 - 1.
Had the goal been allowed and the Rapids gone up 2 - 0 anything could have happened during the rest of the game. Maybe Real Salt Lake gets pissed off and scores 4 2nd half goals, who knows? But the one thing I know is that I would have been much more likely to have a correct Thursday prediction. I would have bet $100 that Real Salt Lake is not going to come back from 2 down. They did that last week, they won’t twice in a row.
But no matter what I think, I was still wrong. This isn’t going so good with 1 correct out of 5 weeks. I’ll probably manage to screw up Dallas/Chicago next week as well.
Tonite we will be treated to the next installment in the Rocky Mountain Cup, which of course is the game between the two Major League Soccer cities that are in the Rocky Mountains. The game tonight will take place at Dick’s Sporting Good Park in Colorado, home of the Rapids, terrordome if you are Real Salt Lake tonight. Well at least if you trust in my Thursday prediction this week. I don’t know what RSL did to put 3 past NY last weekend, but
Colorado Rapids 2 - 0 Real Salt Lake
The Kansas City Wizards with their 90th+ minute moved to the lone position at the top of the table. New York really didn’t want to keep that scoreless streak going by giving 3 to Real Salt Lake in a 3-3 tie. Mathis got a couple of goals to help out my fantasy team quite a bit.
I guess what I meant was not that Houston and Colorado would end in a tie, but that New York and Real Salt Lake would be the tie game. At least I was right about Kansas City.
DC United finally get a win, will they continue in their winning ways?
What would you say if I told you Real Salt Lake coach John Ellinger was done. And not only that, but Jason Kreis was retiring today, but only to take over Ellinger’s role as RSL head coach? On top of that their GM is also done.
You say BS, right?
What if the Washington Post told you all of that?
Scott Garlick told the RSL staff that he was not going to continue his soccer career on Sunday. After trading Nick Rimando that leaves RSL with Chris Seitz as the top goalkeeper on the sqaud. Chris Seitz is a rookie and member of the US U-20 national team which will require him to miss up to a month of MLS action this summer for the U-20 World Cup. RSL will almost certainly have to pick up another keeper with some experience after the other MLS teams announce their final roster.
Utah came up with $35 million to help Real Salt Lake buid their very own soccer specific stadium. This is very good. It doesn’t bother me if Salt Lake has a team or not, but thats bad news for the League if an expansion team can’t stick around for more than 2 years. The owner of Real Salt Lake would have moved the team after this season when their lease is up at their current home. What kind of signal would that send to other cities that might be interested in getting an MLS expansion team in the future? Certainly not a good one.
Good job Utah. The governor stood behind Real Salt Lake after the county mayor would not. I hope they are rewarded nicely in the future when soccer rivals any other sport for popularity in the US.
Earlier this week Freddy Adu and Nick Rimando were sent to Real Salt Lake in exchange for a major player allocation along with the right to goalkeeper Jay Nolly.
Great trade for Salt Lake was my initial reaction to reading this. Freddy Adu impressed me really for the first time this season, he could be something special in a few years but it is no secret that he wants to play in Europe. Nick Rimando would fit in good anywhere. I don’t know who Jay Nolly is but someday maybe we’ll see him playing in the all star game, shutting out Real Madrid or something like that.
It will be interesting to see how long Adu sticks around Salt Lake.
