MLS Week in Review – Round 5 - 24th Minute

Round Five of MLS action has come and gone with all eight matches played on a busy Saturday.

It was a weekend that featured the long-awaited return of Landon Donovan, the end of the last perfect team, a couple of secondary rivalry games, goal-accounts opened – from both the new and the old - and the surprising continued dominance of Dallas and Chivas.

The round provided twenty-two goals – two from the spot and one own goal, only two draws - both featuring comebacks from the away-side and a return to normalcy with no red cards, after last weekend’s trio.

Before the results, a nod to the goal of the round:

There were several stunners on offer. Whether the interplay between Luis Silva and Jonathan Osorio, the deft touch of Dax McCarty, the screamer from Dillon Powers, the set-piece majesty of Salt Lake, or the sweet back-post volley from Eric Avila, candidates were plentiful.

But try as one might, it’s difficult to look past Thierry Henry’s first goal of the season, the match-winner, against Philadelphia.

Coming on for the jet-lagged Tim Cahill after an hour, Henry, still recovering from an MCL sprain, had squandered a pair of glorious chances, most notably sending a sublime bicycle attempt agonizingly off-target, before the eighty-first minute began.

Heath Pearce sent a long ball up the left-side of the pitch where long-time Henry friend and teammate, Peguy Luyindula, collected, turned and lifted his right-footed service perfectly over the head of Union centre-back, Amobi Okugo.

Henry, without breaking stride, settles the ball with the touch of his right thigh, before, in one smooth motion, thumping a left-footed volley across Zac MacMath into the right-side netting.

A wondrous thing; class is permanent.

[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]

Results in Brief

Toronto 2 – Los Angeles 2

Old problems once more reared their head as Toronto conceded a stoppage-time equalizer to Los Angeles after raring back from an early goal.

Mike Magee opened the scoring with his league-leading fifth of the campaign - a simple finish at the back-post, touching in a low cross from Marcelo Sarvas. Robert Earnshaw again pounced on a defensive error, beating Carlo Cudicini to a weak Leonardo back-pass to tally his fourth over the retreating Omar Gonzalez. Homegrown signee, Jonathan Osorio put TFC in front with a deft redirection of a Luis Silva ball to the near-post, before Jose Villarreal leveled in the ninety-second, reacting quickest to a poorly placed defensive header from Darel Russell.

Landon Donovan saw the pitch earlier than expected, playing the final half-hour after his extended sabbatical, and wasted a glorious chance just moments into his return.

With the Champions League on his mind, Bruce Arena will accept the point and move on to the midweek test, while Ryan Nelsen must refocus his charges and hope the late-concession is a blip and not the beginning of a new bad habit.

New York 2 – Philadelphia Union 1

New York earned their first win of the young season over Eastern Conference rivals Philadelphia.

Dax McCarty opened the scoring - ending a club scoreless drought of over two hundred and fifty minutes - with a deft, right-footed touch, beating Ray Gaddis to a left-sided Jonny Steele cross, and poking his finish in off the inside of the far-post. Conor Casey quickly drew the Union level with the first for his new employers, outmuscling Marcus Holgersson to a long Sheanon Williams right-sided throw-in to the near-post, before Thierry Henry’s goal of the round decided the match in the final ten minutes of play.

First-year coach Mike Petke picks up the first MLS win of his career, while Philly coach John Hackworth could only watch as his side’s winless run in New York climbed to six matches.

New England 0 – Dallas 1

Blas Perez returned from international duty with Panama to score the lone goal of his side’s match against the Revolution.

Patient build-up allowed David Ferreira to find space on the left to deliver a chipped-cross to the back-post. Perez met the service, sending his header back across the keeper and in off the far-post. The late strike, three minutes from full time, earned Dallas their fourth win of the season - and their first in New England since 2003.

Jay Heaps’ New England have now been held scoreless in two straight home matches – nearly three hundred minutes in total; Schellas Hyndman’s Dallas sit atop the Western Conference and are tied with Montreal on twelve points, joint most in the league.

Colorado 2 – Portland 2

In a meeting of winless clubs, neither could find that elusive victory and are forced to settle for a less-than-satisfying draw.

Colorado, suffering a torrid run of injuries - shorn of up to seven first-choice starters - surged out to a two-goal lead after fifty minutes of play. Rookie midfielder Dillon Powers opened the scoring with his first in MLS - a powerful right-footed blast from twenty-five yards - before Hendry Thomas doubled the advantage from the spot after Diego Chara clipped the heel of Tony Cascio in the box.

Portland have made coming from behind a hobby this young season, falling behind in all four of their matches and drawing on three of those occasions. Captain Will Johnson grabbed the first of a brace, from the end of a left-sided Ryan Johnson cross for a header past Colorado keeper Clint Irwin at the near-post, before adding a second from the spot after a weak penalty call – an innocuous Atiba Harris collision with David Horst in the box.

Portland’s Caleb Porter must sort out the cause of his side’s troubles early in matches; Colorado’s Oscar Pareja has the difficult task of navigating the flood of injuries that have hampered his club’s start to the season.

Kansas City 2 – Montreal 0

Sporting KC ended Montreal’s perfect start with a dominant performance from start to finish in front of their home fans.

Benny Feilhaber sprung to life - after underwhelming through four matches - with a pair of assists. Claudio Bieler got the first – from the end of a splitting through-ball – to kill the club’s goal-drought of nearly two hundred minutes with a low, curling finish past Troy Perkins just five minutes in and Graham Zusi sealed the result in the final ten minutes, latching onto another perfectly-weighted Feilhaber through-ball, outmuscling Karl Ouimette and lifting a finish that trickled into the Montreal net.

Peter Vermes’ Kansas City evidenced the sort of display that made them darlings of the league last season; Montreal’s Marco Schallibaum, who was sent to the stands following the second goal, will hope his side can regroup from the loss after a bye week.

Houston 2 – San Jose 0

The old Quakes met the new Quakes in a scintillating match that saw Houston – the old Quakes – continue their impressive home form, stretching their unbeaten run to twenty-eight in the league and thirty-four in all competitions - tying Salt Lake’s record for the latter and moving one shy of the former.

Will Bruin scored his first of the season, stroking an Oscar Boniek Garcia right-sided cutback into the net after a quarter hour, and Giles Barnes added a second before half-time, rising highest to a left-sided clipped delivery from Brad Davis.

Alan Gordon returned from injury and Ramiro Corrales made his three hundredth MLS appearance, but their side could not gain a foothold, seeing their three-match unbeaten run ground to a halt.

Houston’s Dominic Kinnear got one over on his old mentor, San Jose’s Frank Yallop, in their only meeting of the regular season.

Salt Lake 2 – Seattle 1

Seattle’s woeful, winless start to the season continued in a rematch of last season’s Western Conference Quarterfinal against regular foes, Salt Lake.

Robbie Findley pounced on a Sounders error in the first ten minutes, sneaking a loose ball in at the right-post as he fell after Brad Evans’ clearance ricochet off of Ossie Alonso in the box. Findley became the first Salt Lake player not named Alvaro Saborio to score this season – the Costa Rican striker was rested following international exertions, replaced with rookie Devon Sandoval, whose tenacity was crucial on the night.

Luis Gil added a second ten minutes before the half from a fine bit of set-piece trickery with a diving header after Ned Grabavoy flicked a short-corner sent down the end-line towards the near-post area. Evans grabbed one back in the second stanza with a left-footed volley after Mauro Rosales cushioned a DeAndre Yedlin cross at the top of the box.

Sigi Schmid’s Sounders can be forgiven for focusing on their involvement in the later stages of the Champions League, but they are digging quite the hole; Jason Kreis’ Salt Lake snapped a three-game winless run with a breakout performance that could propel them towards the upper reaches of the Western table.

Chivas 2 – Vancouver 1

The night cap of the round saw Vancouver continue their Southern road trip against in-form Chivas.

A fortunate opener saw Carlos Alvarez cut in from the left before his right-footed shot caught Joe Cannon off-balance, taking a deflection off of Jun Marques Davidson twelve minutes in. Alvarez played provider in the second half with an excellent left-sided cross to the back-post where Eric Avila sweetly struck a volley that powered under Cannon to double the lead.

Kenny Miller nabbed a consolation goal less than ten minutes later to set up a tense finale, but it would only be consolation as Chivas held firm.

El Chelis, madman or prophet, continued to lead his side towards the top of the league; Martin Rennie’s Whitecaps dropped a second straight on the road having opened with a pair of wins at home.

Canadian Content

Will Johnson put in a sublime captain’s performance for Portland, rallying his side from a two-goal deficit with a sixteen-minute brace – first, a powerful near-post header and then from the spot; prompting a primal yell of a goal celebration.

He was very busy linking play – completing thirty of thirty-nine passes - and putting out fires in the middle of the park – making two interceptions and eight recoveries. He was MLSsoccer.com’s third Man of the Match; Portland’s first nominee.

Jonathan Osorio entered in the sixty-fourth minute for Terry Dunfield and provided a bright spark in a very impressive cameo appearance for Toronto.

He scored the go-ahead goal, redirecting a Luis Silva pass at the near-post and displayed some very impressive interplay with fellow sub Silva – completing fifteen of seventeen passes, helping to reassert their club in the midfield and prompting their best spell of the match. He was Man of the Match at dot-com’s recap.

Terry Dunfield put in another feisty hour for TFC and should consider himself lucky to escape a booking for a near-thigh-high challenge of LA’s Marcelo Sarvas.

He was particularly clean moving forward, but was caught up-field on the Galaxy opener, arriving too late to help prevent the goal.

Patrice Bernier was a step behind his usual dominant self in a generally underwhelming display from Montreal.

He still had genuine moments of class – completing a staggering sixty-nine of seventy-six passes, though most were horizontal or backwards, in search of time and space. He was troubled by KC’s immense pressure, forced to stay deeper than he prefers, and was caught in possession eleven times, taking that fraction of second longer than required to make a pass with options limited and stagnant.

His fifteen recoveries helped keep the score to a respectable two-goal loss, despite KC bossing the match from beginning to end.

Karl Ouimette struggled in his second consecutive start, replacing the injured Alessandro Nesta. He was partially at fault on the first goal, drifting off of goal-scorer Claudio Bieler to track the wide run of Graham Zusi, opening up the space for the Bieler to strike.

He displayed some excellent reading of the game to cut off a CJ Sapong pass that would have split the Impact wide open, but was again beaten by the elusive Zusi lift his finish over some tentative defending to score the second.

Again he got on the end of a corner kick, only to send his header well over the target.

Ashtone Morgan, Russell Teibert, Wandrille Lefevre, and Nana Attakora were all on the bench for their respective sides – Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, and San Jose respectively.

Overheard

LA’s Donovan was rejuvenated upon his return - “I felt like I felt when I was a little kid today; that's the feeling I want back. I was excited to be out there. I was engaged, I was aware and sort of in the moment, and enjoyed it. That was the desired goal when I stepped away and it was nice to be back.”

Vancouver’s Rennie pulled a move from the Sir Alex Book of Referee-Massaging – though to little avail - with the old “I trust the referee will protect us.” line pre-match.

Going on to remind, as his side braced for the physicality of Chivas, that “MLS are really big on avoiding violent tackling and violent play and I think the referees all know that, so any bad tackles tend to get punished and tend to get red cards. If there’s bad tackles I’m sure that’ll be the case.”

To access the gravitas of El Chelis, one must source his precise ramblings in their native Spanish, as the best is not always readily translated: "Soy un muy mal tecnico, malisimo, pero tengo 27 jugadores que tienen la profesion del futbol y en eso estoy muy agradecido de tenerlos. Soy el peor tecnico en esta liga."

Or, loosely translated: “I’m a very bad coach, terrible, but I have 27 professional players and I’m very grateful to have them. I’m the worst coach in the league.” – He said on ten points from five matches, sitting third overall in the league.

See It Live (We’re Seeing It Live)

Montreal’s Schallibaum reportedly threw a water bottle – or splashed water – at the fourth official following KC’s second goal and was duly sent to the stands; he, respectably, put up little argument when confronted.

The referee in Colorado, Drew Fischer, had a rough afternoon calling two penalties, the second of which was dubious. It all began when he took a spill seconds before the Powers bomb.

There was a very peculiar exchange in New York between Henry and Steele after the Frenchman scored the winner. He waived Steele away as his teammate approached to join in the celebration and later the perturbed Steele had to be ushered away by Juninho; all quite bizarre.

Upcoming Fixtures

Friday: Kansas City-DC; Saturday: Toronto-Dallas; Columbus-Philadelphia; Colorado-Salt Lake; Portland-Houston; San Jose-Vancouver; Sunday: Chicago-New York.

Seattle and Los Angeles begin their Champions League semifinal series’ hosting Mexican opponents Santos Laguna on Tuesday and Monterrey on Wednesday, respectively.

Parting Thoughts

A few questions to ponder and discuss:

Can Montreal bounce back from such a dispirited performance in KC or is their rise bound to result in a fall? Vancouver’s road troubles continue to offset their home form and they face a third such away fixture, this time at San Jose; have they any hope of points? And Toronto’s old problems of conceding early and conceding late have resurfaced; can they correct those flaws before red hot Dallas come to town on Saturday?

Kansas City may have struggled to click following the departures of key players – Roger Espinoza and Kei Kamara – but was their comprehensive display against Montreal a sign of things to come? DC has scored two goals through four matches can they muster any offense against a strong KC defense in the first Friday night fixture of the schedule? Chicago, Portland, and Colorado – as well as Seattle – are the only winless teams in the league, who will be the last to win? Salt Lake faces a difficult away test in the second of three Rocky Mountain Cup matches against Colorado; can they build from the strong win over Seattle on Saturday? San Jose has scored only four goals through five matches – perennial golden boot contender, Chris Wondolowski, has two – can they correct that imbalance against Vancouver? Speaking of scoring, Chicago has only one on the season; has the bye week allowed Frank Klopas to focus on what ails his side?

Seattle and LA face the difficult task of a first leg at home; can either take an advantage down to Mexico in search of regional glory?

Until next weekend.

Each week James takes a look at the league as a whole.

You can follow James on twitter @grawsee or read more of his writing at Partially Obstructed View

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MLS Week in Review – Round 5

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