A trio of nominees, beginning with New England’s
On to the results…
Results in Brief
New York advances 3-2 on aggregate
The weekend began on Saturday with the first Eastern Conference clash between feted Atlantic Cup rivals DC and New York. The Red Bulls entered with the advantage, having won the first leg 2-0 at home, but weighed down by the fact that DC had eliminated them in their previous four playoff encounters. Further buoying DC’s hopes of a comeback, was that the home side had won the last five meetings between the two, including two recent DC wins at home, but just two teams in MLS history had ever overcome a two-goal deficit from the first leg.
A tight opening half hour in which DC looked to press the play, the first real moment of import came in the 33rd minute when a Bradley Wright-Phillips effort appeared the strike the out-stretched hand of Bobby Boswell, but the referee waived play on.
Without Luis Silva, who could not recover from his hamstring strain in time, DC were lacking in their much-relied upon midfield build-up, choosing instead to launch long attacks to little success. They would finally find the much-needed opener in the 37th minute when Fabian Espindola switched the ball out wide left to Taylor Kemp, who hit a perfectly-shaped ball in between the New York centre-backs for Nick DeLeon to get on the end with a header down and past Luis Robles.
Wright-Phillips would be denied an equalizer by a fine save from Bill Hamid five minutes later and United’s late pressure in search of a second goal would come to naught.
That intensity would continue with the restart, Espindola flashing a header wide of the post having gotten goal-side of Jamison Olave, who was otherwise excellent in his return to the Red Bull lineup. But a bit of Thierry Henry magic in the 57th minute would throw a spanner into the hopes of a United comeback. Taking on Sean Franklin down the left before picking out Peguy Luyindula the near-post for a tidy right-footed finish across to the far-side of goal, Henry had initially been found after Dax McCarty begun the attack with a ball up to Wright-Phillips, who in turn found Henry out wide - video replays showed that the ball was nearly allowed to run out of play before the New York captain got in his cross; such thin margins between success and failure.
Stung, but not yet defeated, DC would press more, their hopes further boosted when Roy Miller, a defender not unfamiliar with playoff nightmares, was shown a straight red card in the 78th minute for catching Franklin on the shoulder with a high, pointless boot.
DC continued to search, but New York held firm, seeing out the remaining twelve minutes of regulation time, only for the fourth official’s board to signal they would have to protect against a further five minutes of stoppage time.
Needing to score four to overturn the result – and the weighty away goal – it proved to be a task too far, despite Franklin securing some consolation and a wild finish with his goal in the 91st minute, smashing in a left-footed blast after Steve Birnbaum headed down a ball from wide. Robles got a piece, but could not prevent it trickling over the line.
But it was too little too late and New York would progress past DC by a 3-2 aggregate, despite losing 2-1 on the night. They will host the first leg of the Eastern Conference Final when play resumes, making their first appearance that deep in the post-season since 2008’s run to the Cup; of course, they would have to wait until Sunday to find out who their opponents would be. For DC, an undesirable end to a magical season, becoming the third-straight top seed in the conference to drop out at the first hurdle, while a red card to Espindola after the final whistle means the explosive Argentine will be unavailable for the start of 2015.
New England advances 7-3 on aggregate
Just who would be facing off against New York would be decided in Sunday’s first match with the Revolution hosting the Crew, though, given the 2-4 New England win in Columbus last weekend, it was pretty much already decided.
Riding a three-game winning streak and unbeaten in their last nine, New England not only had a two-goal lead and four away ones in their back-pocket, but had also won their last nine matches at Gillette Stadium. For their part, Columbus had won their last two away games, but faced with the monumental task ahead, the stark reality that they had never even beat New England in six playoff matches did not bode particularly well.
Further limiting their challenge, the Crew would be without the talismanic Federico Higuain, as well as short of the offensive talents of Aaron Schoenfeld and Bernardo Anor, drafting Hector Jimenez, who spent the majority of the season at the left-back, into Higuain’s central role.
Desperate, the Crew would take the game to the Revolution through the opening phases, but were unable to find a breakthrough – Bobby Shuttleworth twice denying Jairo Arrieta in the opening 35 minutes. Charlie Davies would see the Revs best early chance, but Steve Clark was equal to the task.
Any hopes of a dramatic and historic comeback were dashed when Lee Nguyen opened the scoring in the 43rd minute, placing a right-footer from the top of the area in after his late run was picked out by Teal Bunbury, who had swapped flanks with Kelyn Rowe to push up the left and find space to attack the Crew.
Nguyen is in scintillating form, scoring in a sixth-straight match, but when Columbus studied the tape there would be plenty of recriminations: the defense held off and Tony Tchani failing to track the run of the ever-dangerous Nguyen.
Rattled, Columbus nearly conceded a second shortly thereafter, collecting themselves in time to find an injury-time chance, when Shuttleworth again denied Arrieta, pushing his header over the bar. New England could sense the frailty and came out for the second half intent on putting away the series, drawing consecutive saves from Clark, before finally catching Columbus up-field to double their lead on the counter.
Most interestingly, it was captain and centre-back Jose Goncalves who nabbed that goal in the 55th minute, racing up the left to join Davies in the attack, receiving the squared pass and placing a bouncing effort towards the left-side of goal, his left-footer just barely eluding Clark to find the twine.
Columbus’ afternoon went from bad to worse in the 61st minute when Ethan Finlay was harshly shown a straight-red card for catching Shuttleworth in the face with a trailing boot as the two both went for a loose ball in the box. Finlay had every right to attempt to win the challenge and the red card would rightly, though inconsequentially, be rescinded by the Independent Review Panel.
Tchani made amends for his earlier error, netting the lone Columbus goal of the game in the 69th minute, rising up highest over some half-hearted New England defending to direct a header towards the top right corner from a Justin Meram delivery. But Bunbury would reinstate the two-goal lead in the 77th, racing onto a slipped Daigo Kobayashi ball down the left-side of the area to smash high past Clark at the near-post.
Meram would be sent off as well, seeing a second yellow card in the 85th minute, reducing Columbus to nine men and joining Finlay for an early shower; the rest of the team would follow shortly thereafter.
Winning 3-1 on the day and taking the series 7-3 on aggregate, the Revolution storm into the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since 2007, where they will face New York - should be a heck of a series.
LA advances 5-0 on aggregate
The Eastern Conference all decided, the action swapped over the West for what should have been a stunning encounter, the two sides, Los Angeles and Salt Lake, delicately poised after a scoreless draw in the first leg.
LA may have been unbeaten in the last four meetings, seeing out a rope-a-dope performance thanks largely to the heroics of goalkeeper Jaime Penedo, but Salt Lake had it all to play for on the night. Tipping the balance in their direction Salt Lake had not conceded in 403 minutes of play, collecting clean-sheets in their last four matches, while LA had not scored in their last two playoff matches, both against Salt Lake.
But hidden underneath that vulnerable façade was one of the best teams in MLS and a rather explosive attack; particularly at home, where the Galaxy had not lost since opening day, a span of sixteen matches, of note, that loss came to Salt Lake back in March.
That which took over four-hundred minutes to build came crashing down inside of ten, when Los Angeles grabbed the first in the tenth minute through Landon Donovan. Stretching the field wide to open up the Salt Lake defenses, Juninho picked out Stefan Ishizaki, inserted into the starting lineup for that very purpose, wide on the left. He held up play, waiting for reinforcements before squaring to Marcelo Sarvas who dinked a ball over the back-line for the streaking run of AJ DeLaGarza, who in turn found Donovan sneaking in off the back-shoulder of Tony Beltran to redirect the opener in past Nick Rimando.
The Galaxy would add a second ten minutes later, this time scoring through Robbie Keane, who cleverly – and barely – managed to get back onside from an offside position to touch in a squared ball from Donovan after Juninho played him in down the left-side of the area.
Stunned, Salt Lake was battered by an LA attack that came in waves, Donovan whisking a shot over the bar and Rimando being called upon in the 43rd minute to deny Gyasi Zardes with a strong kick-save when the young forward stole in down the left-side of the box.
Having reached half-time down by just two, Salt Lake hoped to regroup and make a contest out of the match, but Los Angeles had different ideas, all but killing off the match with a third in the 54th minute, Donovan again the goal-scorer having beaten Rimando to a long threaded ball from Keane towards the left, rounding the keeper and depositing his second of the night with a left-footer into the open net.
If that lead were not enough, Sarvas added a fourth in the 63rd minute, finishing off another stunning build with a right-footer from the top of the area. Juninho once more initiated the attack playing forward to Zardes, who back-heeled into the path of Robbie Rogers on the left. The full-back cut in-field, playing a ball towards Sarvas that the midfielder left to Keane, who unselfishly played a return ball off the dummy.
The humiliation was complete in the 72nd minute, when Donovan completed his hat-trick – the first in the playoffs of his illustrious career and just the third all-time – thanks to a Keane ball lifted over the back-line, springing Donovan, whose right-footed touch found its way under Rimando for the fifth LA goal of the night.
The Galaxy would advance to the Western Conference Final in good spirits, having equaled their best all-time playoff margin of victory, while simultaneously handing regular-foes Salt Lake their worst ever post-season defeat. A humbling that will cause much consternation in Utah with several months to consider what went wrong.
Seattle advances on away goals after 1-1 aggregate score-line
But LA would have to wait until Monday night to find out who they would be meeting in the next round, as Seattle and Dallas took to the pitch in Seattle.
Both teams entered in solid form, Seattle unbeaten in three and Dallas two. Dallas had not lost to Seattle in the last two meetings, but the Sounders had won the last four at home and had that precious away goal to their advantage.
It was a cautious start, each wary of committing numbers forward, lest they be caught out by the pace of the opposition. Fabian Castillo found the first real chance of the match, working his way in from the right, only to rush his shot, slicing wide of the far post in the ninth minute.
The first of a series of penalty shouts would come a minute later, when Brad Evans went down in a shoulder-to-shoulder battle with Dallas right-back, Moises Hernandez – the referee, the vastly experienced Baldomero Toledo, barely acknowledged the incident. Dallas would have call of their own overlooked in the nineteenth minute, when Zach Scott bit into Castillo, forcing him to the ground, but play continued once more.
The Sounders would press for the remainder of the first half. Marco Pappa’s sneaky quick free-kick caught out Chris Seitz, but Blas Perez in the wall was alert, deflecting the threat away. Chad Marshall would get on the end of a corner kick, directing a header towards goal, but Michel was well-placed on the line to clear away the danger. And a final chance before the half-time whistle fell to Clint Dempsey, linking up with Obafemi Martins to craft a shot, but Seitz was equal to the challenge.
Seattle were dealt a serious blow when Osvaldo Alonso was forced off the pitch with an apparent hamstring strain – a devastating loss if unavailable in two weeks time – and Dempsey saw his penalty shout waived away as he tried to tip-toe his way past a pair of defenders before hitting the deck.
Dallas would regroup and press for that much-needed goal through the final fifteen minutes, a score-less draw would suit Seattle, having nabbed that away goal in Dallas last weekend. One final penalty shout, with Scott this time tripping up Andres Escobar, appeared to interest Toledo, who zoomed towards the infraction, as he usually does before pointing to the spot, only to let play go on – very much uncharacteristic restraint from the veteran and oft-controversial official.
The visitors would throw everything forward, switching to a three-man back-line and piling on forward after forward, but they could not find that elusive goal and Seattle would become the first team to progress via the recently-instated away goals rule and the first Supporters Shield winners to progress in three years, while keeping their hopes of a treble – Supporters Shield, Open Cup, and MLS Cup – alive. Dallas could hold their heads high, putting in a spirited effort, only to run out of time in the end.
CanCon
Tesho Akindele was the lone Canadian – patience – to see the pitch in the latest spell of playoff action, starting a third-consecutive post-season match for FC Dallas in their scoreless draw at Seattle, dropping out on the away goals rule having drawn the first leg 1-1 at home.
From the right-side of the midfield, the Calgary, Alberta-born Akindele was energetic all night, but showed moments of rookie indecision at key times, attempting to find space that would not come, looking for clean shots rather than playing by instinct. A solid defensive look from Seattle did little to help him in his search for a second career playoff goal.
His best chance came early when Blas Perez touched in towards him above the left-post, but Akindele could not get off the shot, attempting to touch past Chad Marshall resulting in a corner kick. He then had space to make a marauding run up the left, but could not corral the pass on the slick surface, instead seeing it roll out for a Seattle throw-in.
He did manage one shot, sending his right-footed effort rising over the bar from the left-corner of the box and once more could not quite get his feet right to turn on a Je-Vaughan Watson ball in from the right, attempting to swivel on a diagonal run late.
A solid first year in MLS under his belt, all that remains for Akindele is the Rookie of the Year decision, as both Harrison Shipp in Chicago and Steve Birnbaum in DC challenge him for the silverware. Fingers crossed and…
Overheard
Juicy comments were at a minimum: teams that had lost were in no mood to make jokes, while winners knew full well that the quest was only beginning.
That said, there were two very decent insights with Omar Gonzalez revealing the extra dimension to the Galaxy’s huge win and Jeff Cassar lauding his tormentors.
Gonzalez: “Just before the game started, we were walking out and he [Donovan] was like, 'I don't want this to be my last game.' I told him it's not going to be. From the opening whistle, he was on, we kept spraying balls to his side, and he was collecting them and making magic happen.”
Can any one stop LA?
Cassar: “We got stretched out and ran across a team that was fantastic. We could never regain control of the ball; there was just too much time and space for LA, and our possession just wasn’t there. We were giving the ball away too often and too early, and it was just setting them off. Against LA, if you’re not good with the ball, they’re going to make you pay. We paid a lot.”
See It Live
It was very nice to see some 1200+ travelling New York supporters make the trip to DC to cheer on their Red Bulls; more of that please.
Plenty of fine saves throughout the four matches: Bill Hamid on Bradley Wright-Phillips; Bobby Shuttleworth on Jairo Arrieta; Steve Clark on Charlie Davies; Nick Rimando on Gyasi Zardes; Michel’s goal-line clearance on Chad Marshall and Chris Seitz comes up huge on Clint Dempsey.
Plus Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready playing a Jimi Hendrix-style national anthem in Seattle was most enjoyable for this former-axeman.
Controversy
A slew of controversial incidents as well:
More than a few penalty shouts including Bobby Boswell’s handball and at least four in Seattle, with Moises Hernandez barging Brad Evans off the ball, Zach Scott upending Fabian Castillo, Clint Dempsey betting blocked out by both Je-Vaughan Watson and Zach Loyd, and Scott again, this time on Andres Escobar.
There was some concern that the
Then there was Roy Miller’s red card, which was a tad harsh, though he would have been off with a yellow anyways. Fabian Espindola probably earned his, though the video offers little by way of analysis, and Ethan Finlay’s red was undeserved – as noted, it was rescinded, but that does little to give Columbus much of a chance at a comeback (not that one was likely at the time).
And what about Charlie Davies flinging himself clumsily into Michael Parkhurst – it could have been a bone-breaker, but Parkhurst got his studs out of the turf just in time.
For those where video was unavailable, check out
Upcoming Fixtures
A week’s hiatus, as the playoffs pause for the FIFA International break, before returning in two weeks’ time for the conference finals on November 23rd when two very interesting series begin.
Sunday: New York-New England; Los Angeles-Seattle.
All video & quotes courtesy of MLSsoccer.com
Each week James takes a look at the league as a whole.
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