Week seven of the MLS season is set to kick off and two unlikely first-place teams look to hold on to their top spots.
Toronto FC has posted two straight shutout victories to move into first place in the East and now has a chance to bury defending MLS champions Columbus even further in the East basement when the team's meet today.
Chivas USA will take its league-best five wins to San Jose to face off against a struggling Earthquakes team that looks to have little chance in this all-Cali match-up.
This weekend's marquee match-up actually features two second-place teams as the Seattle Sounders look to hand the Chicago Fire its first loss of the season when the teams meet at Toyota Park tonight.
This will post will serve as the site for MLS running commentary (except for New York/LA, which will have it's own thread). I will very likely be providing a running commentary for the Seattle-Chicago match as well so keep an eye out for that as well.
Here is a rundown of this weekend's matches, as well as the Best XI individual match-ups of the weekend:
MLS Matchday Seven Schedule
SATURDAY
4pm- Columbus Crew at Toronto FC (Direct Kick)
7:30pm- FC Dallas at D.C. United (FSC)
8:30pm- Seattle Sounders at Chicago Fire (Direct Kick)
9:30pm- Real Salt Lake at Colorado Rapids (Direct Kick)
10:30pm- Chivas USA at San Jose Earthquakes (Direct Kick)
10:30pm- New York Red Bulls at Los Angeles Galaxy (MSG)
SUNDAY
3pm- Houston Dynamo at New England Revolution (Telefutura)
Best XI Match-ups to Watch
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Fredy Montero vs. Wilman Conde
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Cuauhtemoc Blanco vs. Osvaldo Alonso
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Brian McBride vs. Jhon Kennedy Hurtado
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Robbie Rogers vs. Marvell Wynne
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Amado Guevara vs. Brian Carroll
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Danny Dichio vs. Chad Marshall
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Ben Olsen vs. David Ferreira
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Javier Morales vs. Pablo Mastroeni
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Juan Pablo Angel vs. Gregg Berhalter
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Sacha Kljestan vs. Bobby Convey
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Shalrie Joseph vs. Ricardo Clark
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What match are you most looking forward to? Which individual match-up is the one you'll have your eye on this weekend? Which match-up didn't make our Best XI that you think will be a great one to watch?
If you will be watching today's matches please feel free to post your thoughts, opinions and some play-by-play in the comments section below.
Enjoy the action.
Don’t look now, but DCU are on top of the eastern conference – with a game in hand.
Chicago and Seattle tie 1-1 in a game that Chicago dominated. Chicago absolutely dominated the first half, but Seattle got a late equalizer with a man down. With 4 draws in the last 4 games, Chicago has to start winning. Especially at home.
DCU beats FCD 2-1 in a game not as close as the score. Nice corner service by VdB to Rocha for the early lead. But DCU owned possession and number of good chances from the first minute, had one ball of the post and 2 other balls cleared off the line.
Announcer-
“Theres enough caps out here to…err…sell a beach concert”
NOBODY at Fire-Sounders. Then again, they’re all watching the other game I am, Bulls-Celtics.
Ooh ooh great weather at Toyota Park, Sounders fans traveled in good #s here. Sparky is waving the flag …. And the teams are taking the field.
http://atdhe.net/
Anybody got a live feed of the Seattle-Chicago game?
Anyone have a live feed for the DCUvFCD game on Fox Soccer Channel???
Good to see Rogers healthy again. Made a big difference in the Crew attack and they look like last years team. Now if they can just hold a lead:
http://columbus.crew.mlsnet.com/media/player/mp_tpl.jsp?w_id=37306&w=http%3A//mfile.akamai.com/11504/wmv/mlbmls.download.akamai.com/11504/2009/open//mls/2009/05/02/mls_nullnull_4388579_800K.wmv&catCode=top_plays&gid=&vid=1&mid=20090502247378&cid=20090502247378&fid=top_plays800&v=2&type=v_free&spons=&_mp=1
^^^^^sorry about the caps
What’s wrong with Hejduk?
YEA I GOTTA ADMIT. MLS.NET IS AWESOME. FOR 20 DOLLARS YOU CAN WATCH ALL THE GAMES.. I LOVE IT..BETTER THAN THE 90 FOR DIRECT KICK
TFC was lucky to get out of that game with a draw. The calamity that is Adrian Serioux should have cost them a goal with that bone-headed mistake.
It’s very easy for Columbus fans to say “well, we’re just a little bit unlucky, we could easily have 4 wins”, etc.
But here’s the deal with an MLS championship: to win one, you need to get breaks with injuries (and they did–losing Moffat was their serious loss) and more importantly, you almost always have 1-2-3 players who have career years, guys who have a great season (and then coaches, media and the team’s fans assume “this player/these players are just going to build on that next year”) but instead those players slump. Classic case: Alecko Eskandarian with DCU’s last championship (playoff MVP), while he’s a good guy to have on your team, he’s never come close to that ever again. Brian Carroll had an incredible season last year–he hasn’t been bad in 2009 but I don’t rate it as the same level of play as last year. It’s really hard to win back-to-back championships or back-to-back supporter’s shields and you almost never do it without adding a few new key pieces (like Houston adding Mulrooney for instance).
Y’know – they aren’t playing great, but they have been a bit snakebit. Should’ve beat Toronto in Columbus (own goal in last 10 minutes) and should’ve beat Chicago. Between those two game, the Crew would have 4 more points than they do, and CHI/TOR are a little more back in the back. You normally don’t mind a tie on the road, but when all you have are ties, it sucketh the mighty one.
I guess Columbus will have to wait another week to get their first win.
That was Noonan that missed, not Rogers.
another week, another tie imminent. The Crew are really, *really* missing the grit of Frankie Hejduk out there.
Almost a costly mistake by serioux…
Rogers should’ve scored there.
Barrett finally found a sitter he couldn’t miss! Here comes the Crew second half collapse.
So that’s 3 weeks with Burnner losing track of someone in the middle (Casey, McBride, now Barrett) and 3 weeks of the Crew giving up goals they shouldn’t have.
Great goal by Barrett!!! TFC 1 Crew 1
Sam Cronin is gooooooooooood
Barrett with the header…1-1
A Crew goal seemed inevitable.
1-0 Crew on a nice move by Ekpo thru the TFC defense.
Brit Night on the night of the Hatton fight?
Arena and the Galaxy front office are ridiculous…Nothing has changed since Lalas left.
Toronto look offensively anemic.
wow, columbus should be up 2-0 or 3-0, bad shots all around
if you get CBC on tv its on right now. pretty slow game so far.
I’m watching it on MLSnet.com… well worth the $20 for the legit season pass.
It’s really raining hard in toronto.
Anyone has a link to the TFC game? Thanks!
25 minutes and Toronto has yet to be credited with a shot. Not a shot on goal, any shot.
I much prefer TFC’s broadcast crew to Columbus’. No offense to their guys, but the TFC guy has a great accent.
Blanco v Alonso will be intriguing, because Alonso fouls hard (3 yellows so faar) and Blanco flops.
kljestan and convey both have not had the best starts to the season. i hope one can have a breakout week because i like both of them
those are some world class matchups that i can’t wait to see, in particular the rojers vs wynne
angel vs greg
Ben Olsen vs. David Ferreira
Sacha Kljestan vs. Bobby Convey
It’s gonna be a good weekend
Go Sounders!
there is a lot of colombians in the match ups here. que viva colombia!
Chivas entered in 05, not 07.
Juan Pablo > Gregg Berhalter