It also inspired the Portland Timbers players who, like their great fans, ignored the crummy weather conditions and went out and beat the revamped Philadelphia Union in their home opener last night, rallying from a goal down to win 3-1.
Scottish newcomer KrisBoyd scored a skillful glancing header in his debut, KalifAlhassan had a goal and an assist, and AndrewJean-Baptiste also scored, atoning for a defensive gaffe minutes earlier that helped Philly go up 1-0. (Jean-Baptiste’s deflection of a GabrielGomez free kick was initially ruled an own goal.)
Apart from the weather, it was an ideal debut for Portland.
As for Philadelphia, Gomez had his moments, and Colombian striker LionardPajoy could be a good pickup, but FreddyAdu failed to put his mark on the game, the backline looked shaky, and 20-year-old keeper ZacMacMathdid his best ChrisSeitz impression, nearly tipping an early shot into his own goal, and bungling Jean-Baptiste’s header that went in for the equalizer. They’ve got some work to do.
NBC’s three-year broadcast agreement with MLS gets under way in March, and the network is ramping up its publicity push. Their second ad is out now, and it’s got a touch of the Brothers Grimm.
Take a look:
That’s New York’s JoelLindpere swinging in a corner for teammates TimReam and StephenKeel against Philadelphia’s FarydMondragon and BrianCarroll.
Needing a win or a tie to qualify for the postseason, and missing their leading scorer ThierryHenry, the Red Bulls delivered one of their best performances of the year, edging Philadelphia 1-0 in a testy, nervy game that booked their spot in the 2011 MLS Cup playoffs.
DaneRichards got the game’s only goal, in the 8th minute, heading JanGunnarSolli’s cross against the left post and in off the back of Union keeper FarydMondragon. The official ruling was an own goal, but if MLS had a Dubious Goals Panel (as the EPL amusingly dubs its committee on these things), we believe they’d give the tally to Richards. (They still could. UPDATE: And … they did. )
In any event, New York made the goal stand up, and nearly added to their lead on several occasions against a Philadelphia team gunning for first place in the Eastern Conference.
Highlights:
A number of Red Bulls produced gut-check performances, from Solli, who was Man of the Match, to holding midfielder TeemuTainio (runner-up, in our view), DaxMcCarty (bulldogging all over the place), StephenKeel, TimReam, and yes…wait for it…RafaMarquez. The Mexico captain had a few unforced errors, but mostly he was a calming presence in midfield who possessed the ball well and occasionally pulled strings to spring New York attacks.
If the real season starts with the playoffs, then New York heads into theirs on a positive note. They won’t know their wild-card opponent, or overall seeding, until this weekend’s schedule plays out. They could finish ninth or 10th depending on the remaining Week 32 results.
The wild-card round kicks off next Wednesday, Oct 26.
New England took a 3-0 lead on Philadelphia after 25 minutes last night at PPL Park—and a 4-1 lead into the halftime break. But as they demonstrated in coughing up a two-goal second-half advantage over New York last month, no lead is safe with the 2011 Revolution.
After the Union’s FreddyAdu scored his first MLS goal since 2007 to make it 4-2 in the 54th minute, you started to get a certain feeling….
Sure enough, SebastienLeToux buried a penalty in the 80th minute and then, two minutes into stoppage time, struck a fantastic equalizer to make it 4-4.
This game was a crazy-quilt of highlights and errors.
In addition to his goal, Adu completed 93% of his passes (according to Opta Sports), new Revs signing and potential Name Hall of Famer MoncefZerka opened his MLS account with a skillful header, BennyFeilhaber and RogerTorres scored sweet goals from just outside the box, and the Revs’ defense, as ESPN commentator Adrian Healey tweeted, was bagel soft.
Beyond all that—and unfortunately not included in the highlights below—both teams created golden chances to win it deep into stoppage time, after Le Toux’s equalizer, but neither could finish.
Here’s the clip:
It was an incredible fight-back by Philly, but they are still winless in seven games, with a big one coming up on Saturday against playoff contenders Portland. New England, whose playoff hopes are all but gone, return home to host FC Dallas on Saturday night.
The DC United–Portland game scheduled for tomorrow evening was moved up from a 7:30 p.m. start to a 2:00 afternoon kickoff, and both of Sunday’s MLS matches, including the sold-out New York–Los Angeles match, were postponed to later dates as the league anticipated the arrival of Hurricane Irene along the Eastern seaboard.
D.C. United vs. Portland Timbers (at RFK Stadium)
NOW: Saturday, Aug. 27 at 2:00 p.m. ET*
WAS: Saturday, Aug. 27 at 7:30 p.m. ET
*Major League Soccer, in collaboration with D.C. United and Portland Timbers, will continue to monitor the path of Hurricane Irene before making a final determination as to the status of the game between both clubs, originally scheduled for Saturday at 7:30pm ET at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C.
A further update on the status of this game will be provided by 12:00 p.m. ET tomorrow (Friday).
UPDATE: This game has now been postponed. Reschedule date is TBD.
Philadelphia Union vs. New England Revolution (at PPL Park)
NOW: Wednesday, Sept. 7 at 8:00 p.m. ET (Galavisión)
WAS: Sunday, Aug. 28 at 7:00 p.m. ET (Galavisión)
New York Red Bulls vs. LA Galaxy (at Red Bull Arena)
NOW: Tuesday, Oct. 4 at 8:00 p.m. ET (ESPN2, ESPN Deportes)
WAS: Sunday, Aug. 28 at 7:00 p.m. ET (ESPN2, ESPN Deportes)
Following days of reports suggesting that U.S. midfielder FreddyAdu would return to Major League Soccer as a member of Chivas USA, severalsources reported yesterday that the 22-year-old is indeed coming back to the league that launched his career in 2004—but not to Chivas. The new reports say Adu has worked out a deal with the Philadelphia Union.
An announcement from the club is expected today. Adu had been on track to join RobinFraser’s Chivas side, but apparently the club’s owner JorgeVergara squashed the deal at the 11th hour.
The Union recently lost striker CarlosRuiz and are looking to add firepower as they battle for the top spot in the Eastern Conference down the stretch.
The deal may raise some eyebrows among those who remember Adu’s spell under Philly coach PeterNowak when Nowak was boss at DC United at the start of Adu’s career. It was anything but smooth. But the pair have reportedly mended the fences and worked together on the 2008 U.S. Olympic team.
No word yet on the length of the deal or on whether Adu has been signed as a Designated Player.
While we wait for JurgenKlinsmann to announce his first selection of players as coach of the U.S.—which is scheduled to happen tomorrow—let’s catch up on MLS news, of the off-field variety (for our wrap-up of the most recent on-field action, see here).
The biggest development of the past week was Chicago’s signing of Mexican international PavelPardo, a long-rumored acquisition that finally came to pass on July 26.
The deal is only for the remainder of the 2011 season, and Pardo was not signed as a Designated Player. Those two elements suggest that the Fire wants to see how much the 35-year-old midfielder has left in the tank; it could be a three-month audition for DP satus next season.
Pardo, who retired from international play in 2009, suited up for the Mexican national team 148 times, and appeared in the 1998 and 2006 World Cups.
Caraglio comes to Foxborough from Argentine club Rosario Central, where he scored 11 goals in 49 appearances in Argentina’s top flight. He sat out most of the 2009-10 season with a knee injury.
Caraglio has been called to the Argentina national team once, in 2009, but could not participate because of the knee injury.
•••
This past Friday, the MLS Disciplinary Committee made league history by not only fining Real Salt Lake striker AlvaroSaborio $1,000 for his apparent dive against San Jose last week but also suspending the Costa Rican for one game. It’s the first such suspension in 16 years of MLS action.
Here’s the play:
The punishment comes roughly one month after D.C. United forward CharlieDavies was fined, but not suspended, for an even more egregious dive against … Real Salt Lake, of all teams.
RSL fans may gripe that Davies wasn’t suspended, but we like this move, and would wager that it proves effective in stopping future cases of simulation. Saborio sat out RSL’s game this past weekend against Columbus. His absence, along with that of JamisonOlave, who was hurt in the All-Star Game, no doubt contributed to the Crew’s 2-0 victory, a rare home loss for RSL.
•••
From Philadelphia comes word that striker CarlosRuiz, the Union’s leading scorer with six goals, is set to leave the team and join Veracruz of the Mexican second division.
The reason he’s leaving is as strange as the move is sudden: According to coach PeterNowak, it’s because of the Union’s fans’ attitude toward Ruiz. Really.
Here’s what the coach said when the transfer was announced:
“There were a lot of fans, even in the stands here, that have a pre-bias towards Carlos, and made some bad comments about him being a diver, or this, or that, not working hard enough, and all these little things. It was getting tiring to all of us.”
Of course, Ruiz is a diver, and a bit of a dirty player as well, but he’s also the team’s leading scorer and probably a guy you’d want on your side for the homestretch of the season.
So what we have here, apparently, is another chapter in the long, sad legacy of Philadelphia fans misbehaving, losing sight of their own self-interests, alienating players, and ruining things for their fellow fans.
On the bright side, if the Union’s fans are acting like their Phillies, Eagles, and Flyers brethren, maybe it’s a sign that Philadelphia has truly embraced MLS.
On Tuesday, the Philadelphia Union announced the signing of well-traveled 31-year-old Guatemalan striker Carlos Ruiz, who had been training with the club in presesason.
Ruiz comes to Philly on loan from Greek club Aris, and if he can recapture even 50% of his 2002 form with the Los Angeles Galaxy, he’ll be great value for the Union.
That season, El Pescadito scored a blazing 24 goals in 26 regular-season games, then added an MLS playoff-record eight goals and two assists in the postseason to lead the Galaxy to the final against New England. LA won the title game 1-0 with Ruiz scoring the goal in overtime.
His MLS Cup–winner is not on the InterWebs for some reason (the Backpost intern couldn’t find it anyway), but here’s Ruiz scoring a hat-trick for the Galaxy in a 2008 exhibition against Shanghai, with the first one coming off an effortless, inch-perfect chip from David Beckham:
That was from Ruiz’s second stint with Los Angeles; his first one ended in 2005, after which he went to FC Dallas for three years.
His return to Los Angeles was hampered by a knee injury, and the Galaxy traded him to Toronto FC in August of 2008. The Reds released him at the end of that season, and he’s since had stints with Olimpia Asuncion of Paraguay, Mexican side Puebla, and Aris.
On Wednesday, MLS unveiled its expanded playoff format, which looks like this:
The top three teams in each conference will get automatic bids to the postseason, and then the next four best teams—regardless of conference affiliation—will play one-game, wild-card play-in matches (seven-seed vs ten; eight vs nine). The wild cards will then get re-seeded, if necessary, so that the lowest surviving seed meets the Supporters’ Shield winner (top overall seed) in the conference semifinals.
Got that?
As before, the conference semifinals will be home-and-away aggregate series, and the conference finals and MLS Cup will be one-game battles.
Many, many people have a huge problem with the new format and with the MLS playoffs in general. We don’t. Until MLS gets promotion-relegation (and perhaps another extra-league competition beyond the CONCACAF Champions League), playoffs are the way to go. Otherwise you risk loads of meaningless games late in the season.
We don’t often agree with Gardner—whose columns sometimes read like a series of “harrumph, harrumph harrumphs” to us—but we think he nailed it on this one, especially regarding the arbitrary geographic designations of the conferences.
Worried that an Eastern team might win the Western Conference title due to the quirky nature of the MLS playoffs? Rename the conferences, sans geography, and … problem solved.
In other MLS news, the league is reviewing the incident that got New England players Shalrie Joseph and Kevin Alston sent home from training camp last weekend. Apparently, Joseph was arrested for trespassing at the team hotel. Details remain scarce, but the plot thickens slightly.
The Jamaican international hit two for the Rapids last night in a 4-1 romp over expansion side Philadelphia at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park. The double gives him 12 goals for the season and six in four September games, good enough to win the MLS Player of the Month award.
Cummings is certainly on a roll, but last night, he also benefitted from some AYSO-style defending by the Union.
Eight minutes into the game, MacoumbaKandji (in for the suspended ConorCasey) took a pass from right back KosukeKimura and attacked down the right side. When Philly defender MichaelOrozco-Fiscal backed waaaay off him at the edge of the box, the lanky Rapids striker used the space to center the ball for Cummings, loosely marked in front of goal. He lunged and poked a shot inside the far post.
Just seven minutes later, Cummings was left free at the back post and did well to adjust his body to volley home JamieSmith’s corner for a 2-0 lead.
WellsThompson added a goal off a rebound in the 68th minute and substitute QuincyAmarikwa took a pass from Kandji to score the fourth in the 86th minute.
Eighteen-year-old JackMcInerny pulled one back for the Union right at the end, but it was cold comfort for Philly, which was coming off one of its best performances of the year, a 3-0 rout of Chivas USA last Saturday.
The result, Colorado’s fifth straight win at home, puts the Rapids closer to their first playoff appearance in four years, and drops Philadelphia 12 points off the postseason pace with four games to play.
You may or may not have heard that Kansas City Wizards coach PeterVermes was slapped with a DUI arrest on August 30, but the Sons of Ben, the Philadelphia Union’s supporters club, certainly did.
Compared to all that, the Sons of Ben went positively OscarWilde on Vermes and the Wizards when they came to PPL Park this past Saturday.
When Kansas City took the field, fans launched into their own Vermes-tailored version of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” Very funny; very funny.
Then they kept going. And going. And it became brilliant, as they worked their way through every verse of the song. They paused now and again as game events dictated, but they eventually reeled off the whole thing.
We’re pretty sure this is a landmark moment for both MLS supporters’ wit and sports fandom in the city of Philadelphia.
