Los Angeles Galaxy Vs. Colorado Rapids: A Play-By- Play (and Other Miscellany)

This is a live blog play-by-play (and other miscellany) of the match between the Los Angeles Galaxy and Colorado Rapids. My name is Jo-Ryan Salazar, the Galaxy's featured columnist on Bleacher Report, and I am glad that you have chosen us as your source for news on the Galaxy and Major League Soccer. I hope you enjoy this live blog of all the action from a words-eye view here at the Home Depot Center in beautiful Carson, California.Read more MLS news on BleacherReport.com

Seattle Sounders Keep Hot Streak Going, Top Chivas USA 2-1

Friday night was the last Seattle Sounders MLS home match of the 2010 season.  It was also Fan Appreciation Night as the host team upended Chivas USA 2-1. The Sounders were intent on scoring their first goal and victory of their two-year history against the Los Angeles-based team, against which they were 0-2-2.  The sole Seattle win came in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup semifinal in Tukwila when the Sounders triumphed 3-1, enabling the team to advance to the finals and a 2-1 win over the Columbus Crew.Sounders FC is currently the hottest team in American soccer.  Friday‘s win enabled Seattle to advance to 14-9-6 and improve to 10-1-3 in its last 14 MLS matches.  The Rave Green is undefeated (8-0-2) at home in 10 MLS and Open Cup matches since June 10. With one game remaining in the regular season, Seattle surpassed last year's point total with 48 points on Friday.  An opportunity to soar past the 50 mark with 51 surfaces Oct. 23 in a road match against the Houston Dynamo.Meanwhile Chivas, a team accustomed to making the playoffs, will stay home this season.  Friday’s loss was Chivas’ fourth in its last five outings.  The Sounders, a team that had ...

Seattle Sounders Positioning for MLS Playoffs

The Seattle Sounders FC continues positioning for MLS playoff competition as the team wraps up the regular season with some challenging tests, beginning Friday against Chivas USA in league competition against a team that has posed past difficulties. While Seattle scored a win over Chivas in the semifinal round of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup competition with a 3-1 win in Tukwila, enabling it to go on to the finals and defend its title, circumstances have been different in regular MLS action.  In the two seasons of the Sounders franchise the team is 0-2-2 against Chivas.  The Open Cup win marked the first match in which Seattle scored on the Los Angeles-based team.Following Seattle’s Thursday workout in Tukwila, coach Sigi Schmid, in discussing the current challenge against Chivas, compared the opposition’s possession-oriented style alongside the tactics of Latin teams.“Ball possession is a big part of their game,” Schmid related.  “It’s a big part of Chivas Guadalajara’s game as well. Certainly ball possession is more of a Latin element sometimes and sometimes European teams are too direct, unless you’re Spain, and sometimes teams in South America are too indirect, unless you are sometimes Brazil...They are similar a ...

Seattle Sounders FC Looks Impressive in 3-1 Win over Chivas Guadalajara

Two familiar names in recent Sounders FC activity have been on fire in recent games.  Tonight history repeated itself as one scored the first goal of the evening and the other netted the final score.Mike Fucito launched the scoring five minutes into the game while Sanna Nyassi, coming in as a substitute in the match’s final 10 minutes, tallied the last goal of the night. That goal capped a 3-1 Sounders triumph at the Xbox Pitch of Qwest Field before 41,047 in an international friendly against popular Mexican club Chivas Guadalajara.Massachusetts speedster Fucito can be counted on to move the action forward briskly.  This time he did it before a number of the fans had a chance to reach their seats. He drilled home a winner in the fifth minute on an assist from Roger Levesque to send the home faithful into hysterics and achieve a lead that the Sounders never relinquished. It would remain for Sanna Nyassi to score the final goal. After scoring the first goal of his MLS career a week ago Saturday against Toronto, he scored twice last Tuesday to lead his team to a 2-1 U.S. Open Cup victory over the Columbus Crew. He followed ...

LA Galaxy-Colorado Rapids Preview: Galaxy Have Supporters Shield on Their Minds

It's a arrow-shaped, inch-thick silver plaque on a pedestal that sits at about two-foot tall. It has been blessed with the names of eight different clubs—current season leader included—etched on it, their place in league history secure for all to see.And this Saturday, Bruce Arena's Los Angeles Galaxy are a victory away (or a draw and a heart attack away, depending on your end of the spectrum) from lifting the Major League Soccer Supporters' Shield for just the third time ever in their existence.On Oct. 16, the Galaxy clash with the Colorado Rapids in the hopes of claiming their place as the most consistent team in a season that saw their consistency questioned, their collective will interrogated, their tenacity and resiliency tested."Let’s be fair, it could go down to the end,” Arena said after training on Monday. “We can control our destiny with a win. If we win, it’s done."If there’s a draw, it’s a possibility given some other results. I think it’s important we’d like to have that … it obviously qualifies us automatically for group play in the (CONCACAF) Champions League, which is important. If you look around this league, there’s not a whole lot of difference from ...

With Playoff Berth Assured, Seattle Sounders Focus On Tasks at Hand

There was a celebration in Kansas City Saturday night as the Seattle Sounders secured a berth in the postseason MLS playoffs with a 2-1 win over the host Wizards.  Tuesday night champagne was uncorked and splashed in earlier celebration as the Sounders achieved their second Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup triumph in a row with a 2-1 victory over the Columbus Crew.While delighted with both achievements, Coach Sigi Schmid said after the Kansas City victory that, while happy about gaining a playoff spot in the franchise’s second season in existence, the focus had to be on performing well in the playoffs.  General Manager Adrian Hanauer echoed Schmidt’s sentiments in saying that he hoped that this year the team would fare better in playoff competition than it had one year earlier.Now Seattle Sounders FC moves into an important three game home stretch that will reveal if it will be going into playoff competition with the kind of momentum it has been establishing in the second half of the season.  An important test looms Tuesday at 7 p.m. PT with the opposition CD Chivas de Guadalajara, Mexico’s most popular team, at the Xbox Pitch of Qwest Field.After Monday’s workout in the ...

Los Angeles Galaxy vs. Colorado Rapids: On the Shield’s Doorstep

After a scrappy 1-0 victory over the Philadelphia Union, Bruce Arena's Los Angeles Galaxy have found themselves on the doorstep of a major breakthrough in their 2010 Major League Soccer campaign.If you follow the action in MLB, a magic number is a number used to indicate how close a front-running team is to clinching a season title. In this case, it would be the number of points a team needs to get combined with the number of points a team needs to drop.If the magic number formula were to be translated into something comprehensible in the race for this year's MLS Supporters' Shield, the number would be two.For Real Salt Lake, their scoreless draw with the New York Red Bulls makes the Galaxy's magic number two. For FC Dallas, their 2-2 draw with the Colorado Rapids makes their elimination number one, as it would take just a single point gained by Los Angeles or a single point dropped by the Hoops to eliminate them from the race.To make things a bit simpler, a win by the Galaxy over the Rapids or a draw for LA combined with RSL drawing against Dallas on October 16 will clinch the Supporters' Shield.“We are ...

Seattle Sounders Reach MLS Playoffs with 2-1 Triumph in Kansas City

How many times do you have a chance for two gala celebrations the same week? This is the delightful circumstance in which the Seattle Sounders found themselves Saturday night in Kansas City following a tough and exciting 2-1 triumph over the host Wizards.  This was the identical score by which the team’s initial celebratory triumph was achieved Tuesday night in Seattle.On Tuesday evening the Sounders came from behind on two Sanna Nyassi goals to defeat the visiting Columbus Crew in the finals of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Tournament.  Gambian star midfielder Nyassi had notched his first MLS goal in a 3-2 win over Toronto last Saturday.It had taken two years for Nyassi to notch his first MLS goal last week.  Now he is on a virtual tear with the two scores against Columbus Tuesday followed by his team’s first goal Saturday after the teams went into halftime scoreless.The fates were smiling on the Sounders for Nyassi to be available for action Saturday.  He had earlier been called into action by the Gambia National Team.  Eager to help his team in Seattle’s successful defense of the U.S. Open Cup title it won last season, he missed a an important preparation ...

New York Red Bulls: Designated Trio Combines for One Shot on Goal

Harrison, NJ—Playing possibly their worst home game of the season, the New York Red Bulls tied the defending MLS Champions Real Salt Lake to a scoreless draw. In a match where a win would have extended their Eastern Conference lead to four points, the Red Bulls had to settle for a two point lead over second place Columbus Crew. An audience of 20,829 witnessed the home team physically bullied by the MLS version of the "Bad Boys." The duo of Andy Williams and Alvaro Saborio established their thuggish tendencies as they pushed and bumped the Red Bulls players around. To the Red Bulls credit, they weren't intimidated. Despite taking more shots and corner kicks than Real, the Red Bulls failed to find the net as they only mustered two shots on goal against the defending champs. Today was a game where the Red Bulls clearly missed Dane Richards who was away on international duty for Jamaica. In a game where the Red Bulls needed their designated players to produce goals, the trio of Juan Pablo Angel, Thierry Henry, and Rafa Marquez combined for one shot on goal. Second in the league in scoring, Juan Pablo possibly had his worst performance of the season. Despite ...

Will Mike Fucito Drama Mark This Seattle Sounders-KC Wizards Match?

Turn back the clock to April 17 at the Xbox Pitch of Qwest Field. The Seattle Sounders, seeking an important home win to help set seasonal momentum, received a disappointment when a Brad Evans' goal was disallowed for offsides in a scoreless tie with the Kansas City Wizards.   Never mind what Mike Fucito was thinking. He had the opportunity to score a game winner. The Harvard University second year player who had been the Ivy League’s leading scorer his senior season had been inserted by Coach Sigi Schmid late in the action and gained a grand opportunity late in the injury time period.The same Brad Evans whose earlier goal had been disallowed tossed in a pass to Fucito, who then produced one of the magic moments in the Sounders’ two season history.  Fucito drilled the game’s only score into the net in the 92nd minute.The celebration was launched as Evans and then other teammates congratulated Fucito on the first goal of his MLS career. It was especially memorable in that only a tiny handful of players ever notched game winners in overtime for their first ever goals in MLS play.Kansas City battled to the end and almost tied the match ...