The Columbus Crew looked primed for a blowout loss after falling behind 2-0 to Toluca in CONCACAF Champions League action, but the MLS power climbed off the mat and sent yet another Mexican team away from Crew Stadium without a win.

Missing several key players due to injury and suspension, the Crew didn't look to have the weapons to recover from the early two-goal deficit, but Steven Lenhart stepped up and scored two goals to help Columbus salvage a 2-2 tie in the first-leg of their quarterfinal series.

For most Major League Soccer fans who have followed the closely for the past few years, the following sentence may not make much sense, and may leave many wondering if April Fool's came early this year, only it has not.

Herculez Gomez cannot stop scoring goals.

The former Kansas City Wizards forward/midfielder has scored six goals in his past seven matches for Mexican first division side Puebla since joining the club on a free transfer in January.

It was a Soccer Marathon for South Florida Soccer fans. A few of the Ultras / Sam's Army Miami Brigade started off their day as early as 8 am at Fritz & Franz in Coral Gables. South Korea beat Greece 2-0, Argentina beat Nigeria 1-0 and the main event had USA take on England. Expectations were high to see what the USA could do.

Steve Cherundolo was unable to prevent Hannover from falling to another loss while Matt Taylor and Frankfurt suffered another blowout.

WV Hooligan found the TV schedule for the big show. Looks like the games will generally be on at 4 a.m., 6:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. Pacific time (eek!).
Both ESPN and ABC have a huge blowout planned for the broadcast. They've already signed Martin Tyler and hinted to 3-D coverage. Games will all be covered live and on site -- unlike last time, where some games were broadcast from the studio.

Earlier today I mentioned the D.C. supporters who went to Philly this past weekend and it has been pointed out to me that I did not mention the locals. So without further adieu here are a few scenes from the S.O.B.'s pre-game throwdown at McFadden's, complete with facepainters and even a mayor or two.

Even at 49, Dennis Rodman continues to party hard. After returning to Florida from a gig as a dis-jockey in the island of St. Tropez, Rodman had a brush with death when the car he was riding in flipped over on the highway. Rodman and another passenger were unhurt, however the driver went to the hospital with a head laceration.

No. 19 Ohio State remain unbeaten in their Big 10 campaign with a 2-1 victory over No. 11 Michigan State. A second-half winner by Austin McAnena capped a dream week for the Buckeyes after drawing top-ranked Akron on Wednesday. The Spartans saw their six-game winning streak snapped but remain at .

Cotdamn Chris Pontius. Why ya gotta go out all shirtless with your abs all ripped up to f*** and making the rest of fat guys look worse than we already do? Do you just go play pickup games like that, with your whatever-those-side-muscles-are-called just hanging out for the ladies and homsexualists?

Good things, as they say, come to those who wait.

I sat watching Sky Sports on 1st January expecting a flurry of new players to change hands within moments, and here we are some three weeks later with a 35-year-old prodigal-ish son having returned but not much else. This transfer window thus far has been a poker game, with few people yet prepared to declare their cards.

If you are anyone on the Hull City roster, you are familiar with a Wayne Rooney that would score all four goals by himself in a blowout United win at Old Trafford. On the other hand, if you are anyone who represents the Sky Blue half of Manchester, you saw a different Wayne Rooney; this version of Wazza showed his clinical finishing ability under some of the most nerve-wrecking circumstances.

By AVI CREDITOR

With all the non-league soccer games involving Premier League players that have happened this week, I preach one thing. Wait.

Nothing's worse than using up your transfers on players who won't play. Injuries, whether minor or major, are a part of the game, and unfortunately they occur in friendlies.

The Columbus Crew looked primed for a blowout loss after falling behind 2-0 to Toluca in CONCACAF Champions League action, but the MLS power climbed off the mat and sent yet another Mexican team away from Crew Stadium without a win.

Missing several key players due to injury and suspension, the Crew didn't look to have the weapons to recover from the early two-goal deficit, but Steven Lenhart stepped up and scored two goals to help Columbus salvage a 2-2 tie in the first-leg of their quarterfinal series.

Dynamo start the pre-season with a 6-0 blowout of HBU today at Carl Lewis. Details on the Soccer y Futbol blog.Pay attention to the next to last paragraph ... JdeJO reports that the Dynamo will bring in 3 midfielders this week including one with a brief stint in the EPL.Also, Stuie was not on the bench again today for Bolton.

No one likes to get blown out in a game. It is embarrassing. However it can be much easier to get over this type of loss compared to a hard-fought and perhaps unlucky 2-1 loss. A blow-out loss is easier to forget.

Photo by Michael Janosz/ISIphotos.com

The Los Angeles Galaxy's 4-0 thrashing of the Seattle Sounders was arguably the best team performance of the season in MLS, but one player stood out for pulling the strings on the blowout.

Landon Donovan.

The reigning MLS MVP is no stranger to dominating matches, but his one-goal, three-assist effort on Saturday was especially impressive as he tore apart the Sounders in front of their own fans.

The New York Red Bulls put their unbeaten home record on the line tonight when they take on the struggling Seattle Sounders.

Seattle come in off a 4-0 drubbing against Los Angeles that dropped the Sounders to last place in the Western Conference. They face the same New York team that beat them at Qwest Field earlier in the season.

The New York Red Bulls put their unbeaten home record on the line tonight when they take on the struggling Seattle Sounders.

Seattle come in off a 4-0 drubbing against Los Angeles that dropped the Sounders to last place in the Western Conference. They face the same New York team that beat them at Qwest Field earlier in the season.

Photo by John Todd/ISIphotos.com

By FRANCO PANIZO

As far as resumes go, there aren't many better on the U.S. national team than DaMarcus Beasley's. Two World Cup appearances, 90 national team caps and UEFA Champions League experience over the course of a decade is the kind of career most players could only dream of having.

This 9-month experiment in community involvement has finally hit the final turn, with only the stretch awaiting.
This whole project has been a lot of fun, and I'm thankful for everyone who has participated, whether it was for one day, most of them, or all of them. Had all that not happened, it would have been a rather silly looking series with just me picking the games week after week.

The Confederations Cup Final against Brazil was a blowout in some regards. For example, Brazil attempted 608 passes and completed 479 (a 79% rate). The United States attempted only 337 and completed 198 (59%). As a result, the U.S. team ran over 3.1 miles more than the victorious Brazilians.

Tuesday, June 15th, 19:30 GMT, Ellis Park

Everyone in Group G expects to have a guaranteed three points against the lowest ranked team in the tournament, North Korea, and Brazil gets a shot at them first. Perhaps more important for the teams in this group will be a chance to pad their goal difference statistic, something Brazil knows a lot about.

Day 5

I won't forget the day I saw Freddy Adu play the one of the greatest games anyone has ever played in a United States jersey.

I was finishing up college at Long Beach State and needed one more class over the summer to get the required credits for my degree. Unfortunately, on this particular day, my class (Media Law) was at the same time as the United States' second game of the 2007 Under-20 World Cup against Poland.

Are we closing in the long-discussed defender transfer?:

The big news of the day is that according to Laurent Koscielny's agent, the Lorient defender wants to move to Arsenal, negotiations are ongoing between Arsenal and Lorient, and the two sides are not that far away from reaching an agreement.

Group A: Mexico's 2-0 victory over France today has made Group A almost come into focus. At the moment, at least one of Uruguay and Mexico will go on to the next stage,. France and the hosts, South Africa, are not yet mathematically eliminated, but will need a favorable result from the Uruguay-Mexico match.

THE BIG PICTURE

On paper this should be an attacking blowout of epic Iberian proportions, but one of these teams isn't following the narrative. Portugal, for all their attacking wingers and quality in midfield, have been transformed into a staunch defensive outfit save for North Korea and go into the game with zero goals conceded in the tournament and two goals conceded over the last year.

Saturday, July 3rd, 19:30 GMT, Ellis Park

Most people are tabbing this as the "potential blowout warning" of the quarter-finals. Paraguay has been playing well, but Spain is ranked second in the world for a reason. Paraguay will have to put together a more than stellar performance, coupled with a below par Spain performance, in order to have a shot at the upset.

Michael Parkhurst played the duration in Nordsjaelland's central defense on Sunday afternoon as the Wild Tigers started their season out in style with a blowout win over Silkeborg.

Goal differential is a statistic commonly found on every soccer league table. It's easy to look at it and see that some teams may be better or worse than their record indicates. The same goes for other sports; you'd expect a team with more points scored than allowed to have a winning record and vice versa.

New York TV sta­tion, Fox 5, recently con­ducted a inter­view with Thierry Henry, and what was the first question from host Rosanna Scotto, "You just won the World Cup correct?"
Do you have your soccer ball for the new season?
This has to be one of the worst soc­cer inter­views you'll prob­a­bly ever witness.

Topic one - I'm officially going to start the Edson Buddle Single Season Goalscoring Record Watch. You read how Bill feels about Valderrama's assist record? That's how I feel about Roy Lassiter's goalscoring record.
"But, Dan, there's no statistical shenanigans involved at all. Roy really scored those goals.

Brian Ching and the Dynamo looked a bit like their old self on Saturday. (Getty Images)

In seven games this weekend we saw 25 goals. Just like that the goals came from no where it seemed. Some were goal of the year material (see Brian Ching's second goal), some were total gifts and others were just run of the mill goals that got the job done.

Portland Timbers
(9-7-8, 35pts)
VS
Crystal Palace Baltimore
(6-12-6, 24pts)
Sunday August 28th
6pm @ PGE Park
TV on FSN
Radio on 95.5 The Game
Online Live @ PortlandTimbers.com
A team at the bottom of the league standings is coming to PGE Park to play the Timbers.

Portland celebrates at "home plate" during their blowout win over Baltimore
The Portland Timbers made a statement and got a taste of redemption tonight. In front of 15,418 at PGE Park, the Timbers (10-7-8, 38pts) put a beating on Baltimore from start to finish - a bottom-dwelling USSF team that had gotten the best of them twice already this season.

Last season's Bundesliga superstar Arjen Robben of Bayern Munich is expected to miss this entire season due to a significant hamstring injury that was suffered this summer during the World Cup. Robben tweaked his hamstring on a hotdog move during a blowout friendly heading into the World Cup, but the star midfielder/forward was able to shake off the injury and finished the tournament strong playing regular minutes and aiding his side to the final match.

I went 7/10 in Gameweek 1's Quiniela and would have done better if Madrid hadn't fallen flat in Mallorca. This week has a few interesting matchups as the domestic season resumes.

It has been a slow start to the Spanish season with the Interlull taking place immediately after the first round of games.

We've had a lot of time this week to think back on the history between the Galaxy and the Red Bulls/Metrostars. What are some of my favorite rivalry moments? Let's take a look back.
September 23, 2010. I learn that there is a rivalry between the Galaxy and the Red Bulls.
Um, I don't know if the MetroBulls even register as Galaxy rivals, or vice versa.

Four days after recording their statistically biggest win ever, Philadelphia Union suffered their worst loss ever with a 4-1 defeat Wednesday to the Colorado Rapids.

Colorado's Omar Cummings scored twice in the first 15 minutes, and two second half goals sealed the game and the Union's playoff hopes.

It is time! The pressure and promise of the MLS Cup is upon us and the matchups of our much aligned playoff system are nothing short of amazing.

I can easily see each of the 1st round matchups going down to the final minutes and perhaps even a shoot-out to determine the winner.

Could this be in San Jose soon?

Michael Bradley netted for Borussia Monchengladbach in their blowout win over reeling Cologne while Hannover held on for the win in Mainz despite Steve Cherundolo's sending off.