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MLS Week 27: Your Running Commentary

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By IVES GALARCEP

The Colorado Rapids will put their nine-match unbeaten streak on the line at Sporting Park as they take on a struggling but still dangerous Sporting Kansas City side in the night’s top match-up (8:30pm).

U.S. Men’s National Team call-ups Graham Zusi and Matt Besler will lead a Sporting KC that will look to snap out of a funk that has seen KC lose four of five matches.

Rivalries are the other of the evening, with East rivals D.C. United and the New York Red Bulls clashing at Red Bull Arena (8pm, NBC Sports), while the Los Angeles Galaxy look to make it three wins in a row with a victory against the San Jose Earthquakes in the California Clasico (10pm).

About 10 days before he is expected to lead the U.S. Men’s National Team against Mexico at Crew Stadium, Clint Dempsey will be in Columbus leading the Seattle Sounders against the Crew (7:30pm). Seattle has won four of five and could jump as high as second in the West with a win and some other results around the league.

At PPL Park, the Montreal Impact will look to make it three wins in a row when they face the Philadelphia Union (7:30pm). The Union will be eager to erase the memories of last week’s 5-1 loss to New England, and will be without suspended defender Amobi Okugo as they try to contain Italian striker Marco DiVaio.

If you will be watching tonight’s MLS action, please feel free to share your thoughts, opinions and some play-by-play in the comments section below.

Enjoy the action.

Comments

  1. According to postgame comments, Deuce bothered by a tight back from early in the match, probably due to the hour lightning delay and double warmup. Played the entire 90 anyway. Down a man, coddling a lead, Evans out, EJ with a sore hammy (why he was subbed out), Martins not available, Josephs not available, Columbus unable to hit a barn door from a yard away … not unlikely Sigi told him to pace himself and pick his moments so he wouldn’t go down too. Deserves a break from the criticism.

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  2. Galaxy on another level tonight. I like Zardes on the wing rather than up top, he looked good without having all the pressure to score. Sarvas getting involved more in the attack as opposed to playing a more defensive role is working well too. And most of all Robbie Rogers no where to be seen has been great. Robbie Keane has 30 goals and 20 assists in 48 games. The dude is amazing.

    Duece is an artist and he’s playing on a team that’s color blind. MLS overall is not as fast and flowing as the EPL, and he needs to people to play off. Other than EJ there’s no one. He will either have to make his team mates better, or they are going to need to bring in a strong, and consistent winger, They should bring in someone like Joel Lindpere or Damien Duff.

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  3. Well, according to MLS Soccer, Dempsey has no shots on goals in his last 180 minutes–that includes today’s match I believe.

    Why does the word hater come out whenever someone registers criticism?

    As for the comment below from divers suck … how did you watch that game and possibly come away with the thought that anyone on Seattle toyed with anything.

    They escaped a blow out loss because Dom Oduro can’t hit the broad side of a barn and the defense registered 11 blocked shots. Stunning.

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    • I think his point is any team that goes down to 10 men is mostly going to defend and play for a draw on the road. With that said Dempsey’s return came with a lot of attention and a big check. A check that perhaps has some other players wondering why he is getting so much more.

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    • I think escaped a blowout is vastly overstating it. Columbus was incompetent for the most part. Neagle came extremely close to grabbing a goal and Dempsey muffed a breakaway. The possession stats were only something like 55/45 werent they? Not very dominant considering they were a man up for over 80 minutes.

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  4. Not sure why Dempsey is getting so much hate. It is rare for a star to join mid season and actually produce at a high level in MLS. Henry and Cahill were both very mediocre when they joined in summer. Is it disappointing he isnt playing great? Ya a bit but I will reserve true judgement until a bit later on.

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    • Discussing his lack of contribution as disappointing and acknowledging that he isn’t in the shape he SHOULD be in given how long this has been isn’t hate.

      Frankly the coddling is insulting. Where in the world does the second highest player in the league get this kind of soft-balling by reporters? Take the name off the stat sheets and people would be RIPPING him.

      Also. Thierry Henry had 2 assists in his first game and H

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      • Did you even watch the game? Seattle was down a man in the 4th minute! Dempsey still found ways to toy with Columbus and EJ still scored the winner, despite playing a man down for virtually the entire match!……Why are you such a hater?

      • Not sure what match you watched, but it absolutely wasn’t the game that just took place.

        Toyed with?

        Columbus out-shot Seattle and incredible 24 to 7. Seattle had 2 shots on goal in total and one of them was EJ’s goal.

        Columbus also had the misfortune of hitting the crossbar. They had 60% possession and their passing accuracy was 10% higher. They completed 100 more passes.

        Seattle only completed 58.5% of their passes in the attacking half.

        They were awful.

      • Who won again? Deuce megged and forced clumsy fouls against him throughout. All, again, while Columbus was playing a man up at HOME…Watching the entire match, Seattle really didn’t look like they were out played or even threatened!

      • Clint Dempsey only suffered TWO fouls the entire 90 minutes.

        That’s right off the MLS game log.

        And Seattle didn’t look threatened? Dom Oduro missed a wide open net after rounding the keeper. They hit the crossbar, and the Seattle defense blocked 11 shots, something like 8 of them within the 18.

        Seattle was thoroughly dominated.

      • It isn’t coddling, it is acknowledging that it sometimes takes a bit of time for a player to acclimate to a new team especially when said player was in preseason mode. It also doesn’t help when your team is never starting the same players due to injuries. I feel it was always a bit odd that people expected Dempsey to come back and just dominate.

      • I think the only reason anyone really cares is because of what it means to the national team. Having our captain not really playing with great confidence or form, going into 2 important matches isn’t the ideal situation.

  5. I didn’t see the Seattle game, would like to hear an honest review of Deuce…

    Tough day today, Jozy & Evans hurt, bad press about Deuce, Besler with the own goal, Brooks gives up a penalty, Jermaine doesn’t start…. all right before these 2 huge games…( and with 9 guys carrying yellow…wtf)

    But hey…. THIS is how character is built guys…..

    Have Faith… This team WILL perservere

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    • Andrew King ‏@AndrewKingMLS 5m
      Dempsey stood for a moment with his hands on his knees and is now gingerly walking around. Looks gassed already.

      That was from the first half.

      Showed some signs of the flair he’s known for, but on several occasions gave little or no effort on plays in his vicinity. He’s clearly trying too hard to impress and he’s not in the rhythm of the game. He had a great breakaway where he took a poor touch and the keeper took it from him.

      He had an entire preseason with Spurs and has been with Seattle for about a month now. He should not be this out of shape and several weeks in camp in MLS for a player of his caliber that was playing for Tottenham–well he should not need this much time to contribute.

      He might be getting used to less-skilled teammates who don’t play as his UCL-quality teammates did at Tottenham. That’s probably a big switch.

      But 4 games with no points is bad.

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      • 4 games with no points. Went to the Portland game, they won that. Won yesterday. That is 6 points..should I keep going ?

        Soccer is a team game and Duece is a BIG part of my Sounders…go find other things to whine about. CD is trying to win a championship.

    • Donovan Zusi and EJ with goals.
      Besler couldn’t do anything about the deflection, I don’t even know if that should count as an own goal.

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    • Bac…Don’t listen to SoundersOff, he’s(she’s?) a hater idiot! What he failed to mention was Seattle was playing a man down for 86 minutes! Deuce wasn’t gassed and did his fair share of toying with Columbus in a 1 nil Seattle win!!…..Bummer that Evans got injured and will likely not make the NATS qualifiers…

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  6. Some fans on Twitter seem to be turning against Dempsey. A lot of flash and no fire. Steady theme of lack of effort.

    Honestly MLS executives have to be starting to scratch their heads a bit. Wasn’t he supposed to be amazing?

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    • At one point Yedlin had the ball and Dempsey was standing near him looking for the ball. Yedlin lost it and Dempsey just turned his back on the play and walked away. Didn’t even try to close in on the play right beside him. I was pretty disappointed to see that.

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      • I saw that play as well, really disappointing to see. You are playing a man down, whenever you turn away and act like a child like he did you risk being caught on the counter. Bad pa$$es happen, get over it and help.

    • No. He wasn’t supposed to be amazing. Amazing like Lionel Messi, is that what you mean? Amazing like Bale, or Van Persie?

      He’s supposed to be Clint Dempsey. And his body of work, over 8 years or so of professional football, tells me a lot more about who he is than his first 4 matches in MLS.

      He will produce. But you’re going to have to give him more time as he finds his form.

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    • I feel like Dempsey thought it was going to be pretty easy to walk back into MLS and score. MLS won’t hurt his game if he works, but his game will suffer if he just thinks he can show up. Where is the fire we saw at Fulham? Heck, even at Spurs where he worked so hard even if he didn’t really show that well in the end…

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      • this is what i was afraid of…we always reference his ‘fire’ when we praise dempsey: he’s the perennial underdog, the overachiever, having to prove himself over and over.

        well, what happens when he’s the top dog, and doesn’t have to prove himself? hopefully i’m wrong, and this is just a blip for him.

  7. Regardless of how you feel about Dempsey, this isn’t looking very positive. When exactly is the second highest paid player in MLS supposed to start contributing on the field…?

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    • I think the money and hype has started to mess with his psyche. He seems to try to show that he has more talent than everyone else on the field and by doing that, he has lost sight of how to keep things simple.

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      • For sure. As Mike pointed out above, people are complaining about too much flash. I concur. He just does the most pointless things with the ball to no effect. It reminds me of C. Ronaldo doing no look passes with no defenders around him at mid field.

  8. Obviously as a Sounders fan I am thrilled with a win when you play 80+ minutes down a man. However I can not believe how naively Columbus played, it is like they had no idea how to play up a man. They made things way to complex and did not create all that many good chances until very late. Also Dempsey still is not quite playing right, that breakaway he messed up was brutal.

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  9. Just bad refereeing.

    One advantage I understand. But then DC United takes out another and the official plays advantage AGAIN?

    WHAT advantage? It was a 3 man break and DC United trips two different guys from behind and got two consecutive advantages called against them.

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    • For real. What the heck was that?

      It ended as a 1 v. 5 and the Red Bulls had no chance at getting anything. At least the referee went back and carded one of them. But the other guy? Just kicked Henry in the leg as he started running by him down the passing lane.

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  10. I love the way EJ is playing, but I despise those kind of ‘look at me’ histrionics on the playing field. Keep your contract situation where it belongs: behind the scenes. Plus, if you wanted the truly big soccer bucks, you shouldn’t have crapped the bed in Europe.

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  11. Andrew King ‏@AndrewKingMLS 5m
    Dempsey stood for a moment with his hands on his knees and is now gingerly walking around. Looks gassed already.

    About the 31st minute. King is the Crew reporter for FOX and MLS.

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  12. The atmosphere of this game would be much better if one of those Seattle supporters slid over to Crew section to lead cheers…. Just sayin’…

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      • Always been a fan of the DCU franchise, but Hamid lost me when he got that red card and then freaked out on the field, ran into the lockeroom and continued freaking out on Twitter.

      • Yeah, that was pretty crazy, passionate to some, crazy as f#$k to me, fairly stereotypical keeper. I honestly think Joe Willis is a better keeper at the moment.

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