Playoffs are set!

Well not really, but at least we know who is in and who is out.

The in teams:

WEST: LA Galaxy, Seattle Sounders, Real Salt Lake

EAST: Sporting KC, Philadelphia Union, Columbus Crew

WILD CARDS: FC Dallas, Colorado Rapids, New York Red Bulls, Houston Dynamo

There is still a whole lot to be decided in the last couple days of the season.  FC Dallas and the Houston Dynamo could move into a top 3 spot and out of the wildcard group.  Real Salt Lake, Columbus Crew, and Philadelphia Union could all drop down into a wildcard position.  That might not be all bad for Real Salt Lake actually.

The first round of the playoffs will be two game involving all the wild card teams.  the top seed will play the bottom seed and the middle two will play each other.  Of those winners, the team with the lower seed will play the LA Galaxy.  The winner with the higher seed will play the winner in the East.

Right now FC Dallas and Real Salt Lake are tied for 3rd place in the West/1st wild card seed.  Assuming they are able to win their wild-card round game, that means one of those teams will enter the East side of the playoffs against some combination of Sporting KC, Philadelphia Union, Columbus Crew, and Houston Dynamo.  That sounds much easier than having the Galaxy and Sounders to get through.

The downside to FC Dallas or RSL for finishing 4th would be that one extra game they’d need to play just to get to the round of 8.  That extra game will be against one of Colorado Rapids, New York Red Bulls, or Houston Dynamo.  So you’ve got the defending champions, and the Red Bulls who a lot of people thought were going to be the top team in the league this year.  Maybe it wouldn’t be beneficial to finish 4th over there?

On Saturday Real Salt Lake is at home to play Portland Timbers.  FC Dallas goes to the San Jose Earthquakes.  I’m sure both teams will be going for a win, but are you sure you’d want to win if you were in their situation?

Who is where in the playoffs?

The Galaxy have had the top spot wrapped up for a while.  The Sounders and Real Salt Lake have also had their playoffs spot for a few weeks.  Now there is one position remaining that 4 teams have a shot at with New York in the best position to take it.

The East side is kinda crazy right now.  Sporting KC and Philadelphia Union are tied on points with Columbus Crew and Houston Dynamo 1 and 2 points back.  Any of those teams could take 1st and any one could fall to the 3rd wildcard position.  There are a ton of scenarios for those teams in the East.  An article on Down The Byline makes it clear as mud what Sporting KC have to do.

I do hope Sporting KC end up on top, because when everyone else was saying NY was going to win the east, I was probably the only guy that was even thinking about KC as a playoff contender.  It could be that KC finish only 2 points up on NY, so that isn’t such a big win, and you can’t blame anyone for thinking NY should have been up there, they have the team do it.

No matter what happens, it will be an exciting weekend for a bunch of teams starting with Portland Timbers and DC United.  Likely one team will be eliminated and one team will still have hope after that game.  Then Thursday night New York and Philadelphia will have big impact on several teams.  Then the season is ended on Sunday with the LA Galaxy visiting the Houston Dynamo.

I see KC winning the East, with New York holding on to that last playoff spot.  How do you see it all ending?  Who gets in and who wins the East?

Kasey Keller’s last regular season home game

So Kasey Keller is retiring after this season :(

He is one of the greatest keepers we’ve ever seen, there is no doubt about that.  But instead of showing of his complete awesome-ness in goal, I wanted to find a video of a goal he gave up to Mexico sometime in the 90’s.  I remember seeing the goal on TV when it happened, but I don’t remember exactly what year or competition it was in.

It was probably a back pass to Keller that was being chased by Luis Hernandez.  Keller smacked the ball directly into the oncoming Mexican striker’s head which went straight into the goal.

I searched a little bit for the video but maybe my memory is not working right.  I know it was USA vs. Mexico, I’m pretty sure it was Keller, and it might not have been Hernandez.  But anyway….

In the 1998 Gold Cup semi-final the US beat Brazil 1-0.  According to Wikipedia, Brazilian legend Romario said “That is the best performance by a goalkeeper I have ever seen” about Keller’s game in that shutout.  Keller was the MVP of that tournament even though the US went on to lose to Mexico in the final.  A song was written about Keller’s performance in that game.  So that is what you are left with here because I couldn’t find the goofy goal he gave up sometime in the 90’s.

Kasey Keller by Barcelona:

I was supposed to be at the game tonight in Seattle but due to shit I couldn’t control, I’m stuck at home.  It is going to be a special time in Seattle.  They expect over 60,000 in attendance!

If you can think of the goal I was trying to find, leave a comment and let me know what game that happened in.

Major League Soccer on social media

I put together a Twitter list that is each of the MLS teams’ official Twitter account.  You can follow the list here: http://twitter.com/#!/mlsfanblog/mls-teams

In the process of putting this list together I started noting the other social network-y type sites some of these teams had accounts with and thought it might be interesting to share here.  Almost every team had Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube covered.  A few teams had some extra links in addition to those standard three.

Chicago Fire only seems to have an account at Facebook.

Chivas USA also had Facebook and YouTube.

Colorado Rapids on Facebook and YouTube.

Columbus Crew on Facebook and YouTube.

DC United on Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr.

FC Dallas on Facebook and YouTube.

Houston Dynamo on Facebook and YouTube.

LA Galaxy on Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

New England Revolution on Facebook and YouTube.

New York Red Bulls on Facebook and YouTube.

Philadelphia Union on Facebook, and YouTube.

Portland Timbers on Facebook and YouTube.

Real Salt Lake on Facebook and YouTube.

San Jose EarthQuakes on Facebook and YouTube (a little bit out of date).

Seattle Sounders on Facebook.  Apparently they do videos on their own website - and might not have a YouTube channel.

Sporting Kansas City on Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr.  Sporting KC even have a page with links to many Twitter accounts of players and staff.  You can see that at http://www.sportingkc.com/social-media

Toronto FC on Facebook and YouTube.

Vancouver Whitecaps on Facebook and YouTube.

2011 MLS Playoff race is on!

With just over a month of the MLS regular season remaining the LA Galaxy are the only team to have secured a playoff spot. Seattle Sounders FC and Real Salt Lake are looking to wrap up their playoff spots this weekend. 58 LA Galaxy * 51 Seattle Sounders FC 48 Real Salt Lake 46 FC Dallas 41 Colorado Rapids 41 Columbus Crew 40 Sporting Kansas City 39 Philadelphia Union 39 Houston Dynamo 36 New York Red Bulls ————————————— 36 Portland Timbers 34 D.C. United 31 Chivas USA 30 Chicago Fire 30 Toronto FC 29 San Jose Earthquakes 27 New England Revolution 22 Vancouver Whitecaps FC With the current standings the way they are right now, the match in New York on Saturday evening will have huge playoff implications.

Portland Timbers @ New York Red Bulls

Saturday, September 24, 2011 7:30pm EST

Red Bull Arena

The teams are currently even on points with 36 which has New York in the last wildcard playoff spot and the Timbers on the outside looking in.  My prediction is a 2-1 victory for the visitors which will leave NYRB on the outside.  What is your prediction?

MLS Preseason Predictions

Recently the owner of One Match Ban emailed and asked a few quick questions about what I’d predict for the upcoming MLS season. I decided to write them down and make a post of it right here.

1. Tip for the MLS Cup?
Los Angeles Galaxy. The best team through the regular season last year has added Juan Pablo Angel and Frankie Hejduk. At 35 and 36 years old they aren’t building a team for the future, they want something right now. There were good to start with and now they’ve got a lot of experience and one of the best goal scorers the league has seen in a long time.

2. Eastern Conference Winners?
Sporting KC (formerly Kansas City Wizards). The Wizards Sporting KC will start the season with a new name, eventually they will open a new stadium called Sporting Park, and they’ve got some new blood on the team that has been performing fairly well so far this pre-season. According to their website, Sporting Park will be the first MLS stadium to be fully lighted for HDTV. How can they not win the Eastern Conference?

3. Western Conference Winners?
Los Angeles Galaxy have been a very good team the past couple of years and been close to the MLS Cup, but this is the year they finally get it again.

4. Player to watch?
Charlie Davies is on loan with DC United. After missing the World Cup due to a terrible auto accident he is back. It was uncertain if he’d ever play again but here he is with DC United. Hopefully Davies can get back to the level he was at before his accident.

5. Rookie to watch?
The first pick in the draft was US U-20 national team member Omar Salgado. He has been getting playing time and scoring goals for the Vancouver Whitecaps. He could be an important player in Vancouver.

6. Match to watch?
Seattle Sounders vs Portland Timbers. Nothing beats a good rivalry and these guys will have it. I wish I was able to get to one of these games.

7. Top Scorer?
Juan Pablo Angel in his new home at the Galaxy.

So what do you think?  Where have I gone horribly wrong and where have I come close to making some reasonable sense of anything?

MLS Players in the World Cup

As the Sounders and DC United prepare for their Thursday night MLS game I started to think about what the list of MLS players in the World Cup would look like.  The list is much smaller than it was in 2006 much due to the increasing number of Yanks leaving MLS to play in other countries.  Let me know if I missed anyone.  I just browsed through the whole list of World Cup rosters and picked these guys out.

Chivas USA
Jonathan Bornstein

Kansas City Wizards
Roger Espinoza (Honduras)

LA Galaxy
Landon Donovan
Edson Buddle

New York Red Bulls
Andrew Boyens (New Zealand)

Real Salt Lake
Robbie Findley

So watching Seattle Sounders FC and DC United going at it is exciting, I can’t keep my mind off the games that we’ll see tomorrow morning.  Don’t miss South Africa vs Mexico, coverage starting at 8:30am (central time) on ESPN and then France vs Uruguay at 1:30pm.  I’m so excited I might not sleep tonight.Православни икони

Sounders FC lose big to Galaxy - offer refund to season ticket holders

The Seattle Sounders have sent a message that they won’t tolerate more beatings like the 4-0 the Galaxy put on them last week. They’ve offered refunds to all season ticket holders in the form of a one game credit if they renew their season tickets for next year.

Maybe the Sounders had decided they were going to reduce renewed season ticket prices anyway and they just decided to wait for something like this to use as a reason.

Do you think this is a good idea? The best possible outcome for the Sounders is that it actually motivates the team to perform better in the future and gives fans a little bit of satisfaction. The worst case is that the fans expect this treatment anytime the Sounders lose big like this and get mad when they find it won’t be the normal action.

Maybe the fans will just see it as a way to get more renewal of season tickets and it won’t affect the team or the ticket sales in any way.

All Seattle Sounders FC goals

As the preseason rages on you can enjoy every goal from the first season of Seattle Sounders FC right here!

How Long can the Seattle Sounders FC stay perfect?

Just a couple years ago I remember wondering how long it would take before Toronto FC would score their first goal.  They went 4 games before they got a goal which also proved to be their first ever win in a 3-1 victory over Chicago Fire.  When Seattle Sounders FC started their inagural season 3 weeks ago they didn’t take long to get that first goal.  Since then they haven’t stopped scoring and they also boast the best goals against in the league as they have not been scored on yet.

If both the Sounders and Chivas USA can get victories today they will face each other next week as the battle of the last teams to get 3 points from each game.

So how long can the Seattle Sounders FC keep up the perfect record?