MLS Wins and Losses. Week 29

As always, if you'd rather have all these links and videos replaced by interruptions and digressions, or just want to have it read to you by my dulcet tones, and want it all surrounded by an hour or so of TFC chat and malarkey, you can hear all this when this week's Vocal Minority Podcast is out.

We'll get to all that playoff implication stuff in a moment, but first off let's check in with the Western Conference's futility derby and lo and behold Colorado and San Jose tied 1-1, Colorado took the lead in the 84th minute before San Jose equalised in injury time. That stretched both teams winless streaks to 10 games and pretty much killed off any faint hopes Colorado might have been clinging to of qualifying for the playoffs. Rapids coach Pablo Mastroeni called it 'probably one of the most disappointing results that I've ever experienced.' Also adding 'the reality is it's a cruel game at times and has been for us for a while'.

Staying in the west and Vancouver took advantage of TFC beating Portland with a come from behind win over Real Salt Lake, Pedro Morales recovering from missing a penalty to take and score another penalty to equalise and then score the winner later on. That took Vancouver up to 40 points, back into 5th, and also stopped Real Salt Lake from clinching a playoff spot just yet.  They're now very much in a struggle for 3rd place after FC Dallas beat Seattle 3-1 in midweek action to close within a point of them

That was the Sounders 2nd straight defeat, and they followed that up by actually conceding 2 goals and going behind to Chivas USA, Cubo Torres breaking the Chivas single season goalscoring record in that game. But it's Chivas, so you know what happened, yes Seattle did eventually win 4-2 officially eliminating los ameri-goats from the playoffs. Worse was to come for Chivas though with the report from ESPN's Jeffrey Carlisle that their 'hiatus' is going to be a two year suspension of operations, at least.

That win gave Seattle a 3 point lead in the West, but LA made that up on Sunday night by hammering the Red Bulls 4-0, Landon Donovan getting a goal and 3 assists which means he's now tied with Steve Ralston for the all time MLS assist record.  That bumped New York back down the East to 5th just 1 point ahead of TFC.

Also in the Eastern conference playoff picture, New England beat Sporting Kansas City, to move above them in the table, and really the sporks have got to be getting nervous. Since July 19th, other than beating TFC twice and Chivas once, they haven't won a game, and they're now only 5 points ahead of TFC in 6th, so could maybe be in trouble, which would be pretty amusing I think..

DC beat Philly and taking advantage of Kansas' slide, are now 6 points clear at the top of the East. They also welcomed Chris Pontius back into the side, just in time to ease him back into things before the playoffs start.

Columbus beat Montreal easily to move into 4th place.  Montreal were without Ignacio Piatti and immediately fell back into their pre Piatti form. Frank Klopas meanwhile was annoyed enough at a penalty called for Columbus that he got himself sent off for complaining, demonstrating what seems to be a lack off understanding of what constitutes a penalty saying...

"I know that maybe Jérémy made some contact, but he is going in the corner,"  "There's no ball played, there was no danger. He loses the ball in the corner, and the guy calls a PK. I've never seen a softer PK call ever in my life. And I said to the referee ‘In 30 games we played, we had one PK called for us.'"

So you admit that it was a foul and it was in the box? Seems pretty clear cut to me.  Anyway, that means he'll be suspended for next week's Klopassico when Montreal visit his old team Chicago which fittingly will mean pretty much nothing at all to the playoff race. Later the Impact actually got that 2nd penalty of the season, but Di Vaio's penalty was saved anyway.

Also in that game Columbus' Bernardo Anor had a contender for miss of the season,  even Gilberto could have scored this one.

Fantastic stuff bernard. No harm done though as the still original Crew, until October 8th when their rebranding makes them #NewCrew, held on for the win.

Also Houston beat Chicago 2-0, meaning the Fire are pretty much done now while Houston lurks in 8th place with 36 points and a slim chance of making the playoffs.

Perhaps more importantly to Houston, it looks like there's a very good chance they might lose Dominic Kinnear to San Jose before the start of next season as the quakes try and pull off something earthshaking before they move in to their new home next year.

Finally, and moving out of MLS, it's congratulations to Sacramento, who won the USL pro league in their first season of existence, beating Harrisburg 2-0 in the final. They are of course coached by Preki, who also got the coach of the year award, and apparently feels pretty good about himself, with a couple of choice remarks tweeted out by reporters. First up Evan Ream saying:

.@KurtLarSUN from Preki last night: "I believe I was wrongly dismissed at my previous job at Toronto." #TFC #SRFC

— Evan Ream (@EvanReam) September 28, 2014

Then Jonah Freedman added:

Wow. Forgot I had this Preki nugget from last night: "If I was left alone, there’s no way Toronto FC would’ve been where it is [now]."

— Jonah Freedman (@jonahfreedman) September 29, 2014

I don't disagree, Anyway, congratulations to Predrag and Sacramento, and that would be your MLS + wins and losses for the week.