Stop the presses, the Los Angeles Galaxy finally won a game! Yes, the MLS’s flagship team ended a three month winless streak to beat D.C. United this week. This is a a look at this weekends games in Major League Soccer and how the playoff run is shaping up.
LA Galaxy 5 D.C. United 2
Landon Donovan had three goals and an assist as the Los Angeles Galaxy snapped a 12-match winless streak dating back to June 14th with a 5-2 triumph over D.C. United.
Donovan is the league leader with 19 goals this season and his hat trick finally gave Bruce Arena his first win as the Galaxy’s coach.
With the win the Galaxy moved to (7-10-8) while D.C. United fell to 10-12-3.
Kansas 2 Toronto 0
The Kansas City Wizards (8-9-8), beat a hapless Toronto (7-12-6) team 2-0 behind goals from Kevin Souter and Jack Jewsbury. Toronto who did not converted record a shot on goal all night is now winless in its last five matches.
Chivas USA 1 Real Salt Lake 0
A regular-season record crowd of 26,391 in the final game at Rice-Eccles Stadium saw Alecko Eskandarian score in the 72nd minute to give Chivas USA a win over Real Salt Lake. Chivas (9-10-6) improved to 3-7-3 on the road. RSL (8-10-7) dropped to 7-1-5 at home and has just one win in its last 10 games against Chivas.
Rapids 1 Revolution 1
Kenny Mansally scored in the 50th minute and New England held on for a tie with Colorado. The Rapids who are third in the Western Conference at 9-12-4 had opened the scoring on Colin Clark’s goal in the 42nd minute. New England (12-7-6), second in the East, hasn’t won in Colorado since 2002.
Chicago 3 New York 1
Robbie Rogers scored 19 seconds into the second half to help the Columbus Crew beat the New York Red Bulls 3-1 on Thursday night.
Frankie Hejduk and Eddie Gaven also scored for Columbus, an MLS-best 14-6-5 after winning five of its last six games. Juan Pablo Angel scored for New York (9-8-8).
FC Dallas 4, Chicago 1
FC Dallas erupted against the best defense in Major League Soccer, jumping ahead early and running away with a 4-1 rout of the Chicago Fire.
Chicago (11-9-5) had not allowed more than two goals in a single game all season, but Dallas (7-9-9) doubled that. Dallas’ Jeff Cunningham, acquired in August in a trade with Toronto, scored two goals and assisted on another to lead the Dallas attack against an uncharacteristically leaky Chicago defense.
Former Fulham star Brian McBride got the Fire on the board in the first minute of stoppage time off an assist from Tomasz Frankowski. It was McBride’s second goal of the year.
Standings
With five weeks left in the season, we are in the stretch run for teams looking to make the playoffs. The MLS playoff structure is set up so that three teams from each division get in plus two wild cards. The standings look like this:
East
Columbus – 47 pts
New England – 42
Chicago – 38
New York – 35
D.C. United – 33
Kansas City – 32
Toronto -27
West
Houston – 39 pts
Chivas – 33
Colorado – 31
Real Salt Lake – 31
FC Dallas – 30
Los Angeles – 29
San Jose – 29
If the season ended today the LA Galaxy would be watching the games on Fox. It is amazing that the Galaxy went 3 months without a league win, but they are only 2 points behind Colorado for that last spot in the west.
