By: Mark Vincent Lincir
FC Dallas? The Colorado Rapids and San Jose Earthquakes? What’s even more shocking than those three teams in the Major League Soccer semifinals is the teams that they knocked off to get there (RSL, the Crew and Red Bulls respectively). The Los Angeles Galaxy are the only favorite still in the hunt, but you gotta love the intrigue now, especially with the Rapids and Earthquakes in the Eastern Conference Final (is it just me, or are both clubs located out west?).
Real Salt Lake, the Crew and Red Bulls have got to be kicking themselves, but that is the beauty of the MLS playoffs, you never know what is going to happen…and having the first game of the two game aggregate series at the home of the lower seed always seems to help…the lower seed.
That will surely get changed for next season, but for now, there are three teams in the semis we weren’t necessarily looking forward to seeing. I’ll pick the Earthquakes behind a resurgent Bobby Convey to knock off the Rapids and the Galaxy to easily dispose of a hot, but not good enough to make the final FC Dallas squad.[picappgallerysingle id=”10131037″]
In EPL action, if you’re not wearing a Fernando Torres jersey today, you’re out of the loop. The back-from-the-dead marksman has two nice goals to down Chelsea over the weekend…maybe he’s got his mojo back?
The U.S. Women’s National Team plays Costa Rica in a must win match in order to continue its run to qualify for this summer’s World Cup…what the heck is going on? Just a few years ago, nobody could touch the U.S. Women’s team, now they might not qualify for the World Cup? I can tell you that the same thing is happening on the women’s side that is happening on the men’s side…too many of the same player. The other countries have all caught up now and individually have better players than us in many cases.
David Beckham had two nice assists last night in the Galaxy’s 2-1 (3-1 aggregate) victory over the Seattle Sounders. The win was never really in doubt, the Galaxy were all over Seattle and Beckham’s service continues to be unmatched. It seems like all the talk of him playing the offseason somewhere in Europe has died down and the Galaxy can maybe look forward to having their star signing around LA for an offseason.
Will Edson Buddle get any lucrative offers from Europe this offseason? I say no. Even though he’s scored a lot of goals this season, I still don’t see him fitting into anyone’s plans overseas. I hate to say it, because I’d love to see him go to the EPL and score goals, but he’s an MLS goal scorer, not a European league goal scorer…and we all know that there is a big difference in that.
Landon Donovan will go to Everton for his winter training spell and will not stay in England; he’ll come back for the MLS season like he always has. But it will make for some good Holiday banter and that’s about it.
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