MLS Week in Review. Week 3

The MLS season is only 3 weeks old and we only have two teams left without a point as well as only two teams who have collected maximum points. At one end of the table you have Sporting Kasas City (3-0-0) and Seattle Sounders (2-0-0) while the other end features the Philadelphia Union (0-3-0) and our beloved Toronto FC (0-2-0).

The weekend saw New England Revolution, Columbus Crew, Chicago Fire, Chivas USA, and New York Red Bull all pick up their first wins of the young campaign. It was a weekend that finally saw the Eastern Conference teams picking up some points but that was mainly due to two factors. Firstly more intra-conference games, and secondly games between the conferences actually taking place in the East, New England, Kansas City and New York all picking up wins against Western teams on home soil.

Seattle Sounders 2 - 0 Houston Dynamo: The week kicked off with the Dynamo picking up their first defeat of the season as they learned a similar lesson to the one that TFC and Santos have already learned this season. It may be early days but in Seattle's three games at Century Link Field they have looked very impressive. The match itself was fairly even but Seattle made a good five minute stretch count as they netted twice in a short span. The first goal came from on fire David Estrada who had his shot take a kind deflection off of Geoff Cameron and into the goal. Cameron's night only got worse 5 minutes later when he was whistled for a penalty which Brad Evans converted past Tally Hall. The Dynamo tried to fight back but their first two goals allowed of the season were too much to overcome, and it got worse for them with the negative publicity surrounding Chris Clark's verbal abusing of a ball boy.

New England Revolution 1 - 0 Portland Timbers: Jay Heaps picked up his first win as the head coach of the Revs while the club continued a 6 year winning run in home openers thanks to Saer Sène's first MLS goal. Sene needed less than a minute in his MLS debut to head home the only goal of the game. He got on the end of a cross from Chris Tierney on basically the first play of the game heading home inside the first minute of the game. After that there were a lot of Timbers chances including a handful to Chris Boyd but the visitors continually squandered them and as a result came away from this one with nothing.

Columbus Crew 2 - 0 Montreal Impact: In a match that TFC fans would have been hoping for both teams to lose, the Crew came away as winners thanks to an early red card to Montreal's Jeb Brovsky. Brovsky was sent off in the 19th minute after he threw an elbow to the back of Milovan Mirosevic's head. Mirosevic would make things even worse for the expansion side in the 30th minute when he converted a penalty that Emilio Rentería had earned after being tackled in the box by Felipe Martins. A goal in the 66th minute from the head of Olman Vargas was enough to see off the challenge of the Impact who made things interesting with a number of shots including one off the woodwork.

Chicago Fire 1 - 0 Philadelphia Union: To put it bluntly the Union are a mess right now and it led to them bringing a very youthful side in to Chicago on the weekend. The Fire took advantage of the 4 missing Union players (3 to Olympics, 1 to "injury") for the 1-0 win thanks to a very solid team performance. The Fire were on top from basically the opening whistle and were rewarded in the 28th minute when some good moves on the wing allowed Marco Pappa to get a cross into the box which was headed home by Dominic Oduro for the games only goal.

Real Salt Lake 0 - 1 Chivas USA: Coming in to the weekend Chivas had never gone to Salt Lake and returned from Rio Tinto with all three points. Add in the fact that they were winless on the season and their late winner against RSL was certainly a surprise to many. Chivas got the winner from Casey Townsend in the 72nd minute as he rose to challenge Nick Rimando for Ante Jazic's cross and was able to force the ball through the keeper's hands for the only goal of the match. RSL were within inches of getting the goal back in the 85th minute when Álvaro Saborío chipped the ball over Dan Kennedy but his effort hit the cross bar. Kennedy needed to make a big save in the 93rd minute on Fabián Espíndola to wrap up the surprise result.

Vancouver Whitecaps 0 - 0 DC United: The two teams played to a scoreless draw in what was a bit of a dull affair which saw the Caps drop their first points of the season. The Whitecaps probably were the better team on the day with Camilo making several dangerous runs in the midfield but they never looked all that threatening to score. For DC the best chance fell to Hamdi Salihi who's headed effort forced a good save from Joe Cannon to keep things scoreless. Cannon came up big again late in the game when Dwayne De Rosario was sent in on goal but could not beat the keeper, meaning the Whitecaps are still to let a goal in after 3 games.

New York Red Bulls 4 - 1 Colorado Rapids: New York finally got their season on track and they did it with a big bang. The Red Bulls attack burst to life with a pair of goals in the opening 10 minutes through Thierry Henry and Kenny Cooper. Henry opened the scoring in the 3rd minute after he got on the end of a very poor back pass and was able to slide his shot home. Only 3 minutes later Cooper doubled that lead as he took a pass from Henry and slotted home the games second goal. Things calmed down until the second half when Willam Conde sent a free kick over the top of a poor Rapids back line which Henry got on the end of to fire home a vintage right footed volley. The scoring was rounded out by Omar Cummings who pounced on a Rafa Marquez mistake to get Colorado on the board before Cooper added his second of the game applying the finishing touch to a low cross from Roy Miller.

Sporting Kansas City 2 - 1 FC Dallas: The final game of the weekend saw Sporting improve their record to a perfect 3-0-0 as they needed an 88th minute strike from Kei Kamara. FC Dallas got on the board first in the game as Ricardo Villar curled home a first half free kick. It looked like Dallas would be going in to the break up 1-0 but a goal deep in stoppage time from Aurélien Collin who headed home a Graham Zusi freekick. In the second half SKC continued on the attack and it nearly paid off but Kamara had his penalty kick stopped by Kevin Hartman in the 50th minute before scoring the late winner.