The Los Angeles Galaxy will be finishing its season at the Home Depot Center approximately two weeks from now.

The only question now is will they be ending it holding the 2011 MLS Cup trophy. The Galaxy took one more step towards answering that question in the Western Conference Final on Sunday.

One of these two teams will meet Houston at MLS Cup in Carson after the Dynamo, who lost MLS assist leader Brad Davis to a first half injury, beat Sporting Kansas City 2-0 earier this afternoon in the Eastern Conference Final.

It's a cool, but dry evening at Home Depot Center as the Galaxy host this fixture for a third consecutive year.

Photo by David Bernal/ISIphotos.com

By ADAM SERRANO

Robbie Keane seems healthy and ready to contribute for the Los Angeles Galaxy's run to MLS Cup. Now all he needs to do is find the back of the net.

Keane was appearing in just his second match since an adductor strain cost him the last three weeks of the season as well as a number of important matches for club and country.

Real Salt Lake carried a three goal lead into the second leg against the Seattle Sounders and they would need the whole thing before the end of the night. Seattle attacked from the first whistle and kept pressure on RSL until the final whistle. The home team controlled the game and almost all of the possession but were held back by some early injuries.

After the Saturday three-nil loss the game is merely at halftime. Leg two involves odds stacked against Seattle, but there are a few reasons for hope. While the Seattle Sounders will have to change things up tactically, changes are being forced on Real Salt Lake Coach Jason Kreis by injuries to the best center defensive pairing in MLS.

Happy Halloween MLS fans. The past weekend saw the first round of the playoffs provide a number of story lines. After the Wild Card match-ups we were left with an impressive slate of matches and drama delivered. Goals were scored in each match and a few surprises came through in the form of shoving, ball throwing antics.

It really doesn't get much worse than that folks. And, yet, as Seattle Sounders coach Sigi Schmid said in postgame comments, they were lucky they didn't lost 6-0. The Sounders were outplayed every bit as bad as their 3-0 scoreline suggests, and probably even worse than that.

Just going through the stats, there are signs of Real Salt Lake domination everywhere.

Álvaro Saborío scored two for Real Salt Lake, and the Seattle Sounders reacted with frustration to their 3-0 loss in the first leg of the Western Conference Semifinals. RSL dominated from the early minutes, pounding eleven shots at Seattle's geriatric keeper while holding the Flounders to exactly zero shots on target for the duration of the match.

By JOSÉ M. ROMERO

Much was made of Real Salt Lake's regular season-ending six-match winless streak and how it might be a sign that RSL is in trouble heading into the playoffs.

On Saturday night, Real Salt Lake put that notion to rest in emphatic fashion.

By JOSE M. ROMERO

Playoff spot clinched, Real Salt Lake had victory in its grasp in its regular-season finale Saturday night at Rio Tinto Stadium, plus the chance to lock up the No. 3 seed from the MLS Western Conference with no help from other results.

RSL's reward for No.

Amobi Okugo of the Philadelphia Union. Toned, isn't he? Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images North America.

The United States of America is not in Europe. We now know this because when we delivered last week's international break story as a solid excuse for not writing up the MLS results this week, we got shot down.

Seattle's 2-1 win over the New England Revolution earlier today means the Galaxy can't clinch the Supporters Shield tonight, but a win or a draw would eliminate Real Salt Lake from contention for the regular season title.

The Galaxy need five more points from their four remaining games, including this evening's contest, and the title will belong to them no matter what any other team does.

Marco Pappa scored a hat trick starting with a goal in the 9th minute of play. Less than a minute after his first goal, Daniel Paladini provoked Kyle Beckerman into a vicious headbutt that lead to Beckerman receiving a red card. The quick Fire score and Beckerman red card gave the game the same momentum as a red card/penalty kick scenario.

Here is our most recent attempt at the Match Day Quick Reference Card (now powered by Tableau). I'm still working through how to list both last name and number without taking up too much space. I understand that this is our most requested tweak. I have slightly increased the size of the player dots, and changed the team data.

Sporting KC extended their team record unbeaten run to 14 games last night as for once KC came out of the gates fast and took the game to Real Salt Lake immediately. Directly from the kickoff KC was attacking and almost found net as Michael Harrington played a great cross in to Omar Bravo who headed wide of the goal.

By CALEB SONNELAND

Real Salt Lake is back to its winning ways after it ousted a red-hot FC Dallas 2-0 on Saturday thanks to second-half strikes from Andy Williams and Fabian Espindola.

The deadlock was broken almost immediately after halftime when Kevin Hartman couldn't hold onto an Andy Williams free kick when the keeper got behind the ball but couldn't hold onto it as it trickled across the line to earn the hosts a 1-0 lead.

Charlie "Diver" Davies in a familiar pose - spending more time on the ground than his feet - in an April game against the Galaxy (Photo by Getty Images).

MLS announced today that the D.C. United striker was fined $1,000 for "putting the game into disrepute" in the 83rd minute of the contest against Real Salt Lake last weekend with a dive that earned him a penalty kick.

Major League Soccer has fined D.C. United forward Charlie Davies $1,000 for his dive that earned a penalty in the waning minutes of United's 1-1 draw against Real Salt Lake last weekend.

"The MLS Disciplinary Committee ruled that Charlie Davies intentionally deceived the officials and gained an unfair advantage which directly impacted the match," MLS executive vice president Nelson Rodriguez said in a statement released by the league.

En route to Houston today for tomorrow's big semifinal, which for me means a stop at Buc-ee's, a place that has a curious allure considering its really just a very fancy truck stop.

But first, I must spend a few keyboard strokes defending my honor.

A couple of people have thrown proverbial rotten tomatoes my way for some perceived inconsistency of opinion.

I watched quite a bit of soccer over Father's Day weekend and was pleased to see the two teams I follow most closely get results. Sadly however, I'm left with a sour taste in my mouth and very little time to do full reaction posts. Instead, I'll slam a couple together and bind them with the one central theme that dominated the two most important matches (to me, anyway).

There were a lot of things working against the Seattle Sounders on Saturday. Before the match even started, there was Real Salt Lake's roughly 350-minute shutout streak and their 29-match home unbeaten run. Shortly after starting, the Sounders lost Alvaro Fernandez to a muscle strain. The weather, once again, turned bad.

Getty Images

By CALEB SONNELAND

In another week of unlikely goal-scorers, center back Patrick Ianni and midfielder Lamar Neagle got on the score sheet for the travelling Seattle Sounders to deal Real Salt Lake its second home loss in over two years.

Real Salt Lake is a dominating home side, not losing in their last 29 MLS games there. They've ridden the ability to win at Rio Tinto Stadium to solid runs in MLS play and a great performance in the CONCACAF Champions League. This season they have snagged 17 points in only 7 played lead by a strong defense that has only given up 2 goals on the season.

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#1 4/11 66 players remaining
In these updates throughout the season, I'll be keeping track of which MLS players have played every minute of every game in the regular season. That feat has been accomplished only 42 times in 15 seasons. Click here for the complete list.

So the season MLS wanted to stop thuggish play has become the season where talented players get their legs and ankles broken. Last night Javier Morales of Fake Salt Lake joined Dallas's David Ferreira and our own Steve Zakuani on the inactive-for-months list with a broken ankle. The challenge on Morales was cynically issued by a well-beaten Marcos Mondaini, who showed zero interest in going after the ball.

By CALEB SONNELAND

With an injury unfortunately similar to Steve Zakuani's of the Seattle Sounders, Real Salt Lake midfielder Javier Morales suffered what looks to be a season-ending injury in RSL's match against Chivas USA. After a nasty challenge from Marcos Mondaini, Morales immediately went to ground signaling for medical help.