Major League Soccer announced the league's Best XI yesterday, as voted for by media, players, coaches and GMs. Here's what they came up with: GOALKEEPER (1): Zach Thornton (Chivas USA) DEFENDERS (3): Geoff Cameron (Houston Dynamo), Wilman Conde (Chicago Fire), Chad Marshall (Columbus Crew) MIDFIELDERS (5): Dwayne De Rosario (Toronto FC), Landon Donovan (Los Angeles Galaxy), [. Click to continue reading...

Freddie Ljungberg and Osvaldo Alonso were huge additions to Seattle and to MLS this year. (Getty Images)

Everyone knew going into the 2009 season that the new kids on the block would make a splash. Just the kind of splash the league needed in some folks eyes. The Seattle Sounders FC came into the year not as a typical expansion club.

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Add another award for Zach Thornton on the season. Today the league named Thornton it's Comeback Player of the Year. At the same time the league also announced Fredy Montero as the Newcomer of the Year.

Montero was one of the league leaders in goals scored this year. His 12 goals on the season blew away any other newcomer in that category.

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photo courtesy Joshua Trujillo/seattlepi.com

What was Pat Onstad thinking? How could he lose his cool so suddenly in the most important game in the Dynamo's season? A dangerous cross came through the penalty area, just out of his reach, and continued over the byline. Sure, replays show Fredy Montero obstructing the goalkeeper, but not in any way dangerously.

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Houston and Seattle played a classic match last night on national television. The unsporting Freddy Montero was unable to hand the physical pounding Dom Kinnear and the Houston defenders had in store for the much hyped, but little regarded (at least in Colombia) forward. Montero's solution: whine and go to ground easily.

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Fredy Montero leads the charge for the expansion Sounders. (Getty Images)

The playoffs are finally here and tonight they kickoff with a bang up in the Pacific Northwest as the Houston Dynamo travel to Qwest Field to face the Seattle Sounders FC in a big first leg western conference semi-final series.

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The season is over and, after a wild weekend, we have our playoff teams. The first round of playoffs looks like this:

West

LA Galaxy vs Chivas USA

Houston Dynamo vs Seattle Sounders

East

Columbus Crew vs Real Salt Lake

New England Revolution vs Chicago Fire

Before we start previewing this first round of the playoffs, let's spend a moment looking back at how we got here:

For the last month, the MLS essentially had a single table, and it was great!

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That line is from Sigi Schmid, but I think it relates to so many of us after this first season. I know it personally feels that way. Last night, with all of the pomp, with the win, it was one of my favorite days of my young life that didn't involve family (yes, [...] Click to continue reading...

Sample size that is. In soccer statistics this shows up in several ways. 1 there are so few significant events that the correlation and accuracy of the statistics will never be where they are for baseball, or really any of the American sports. It will ever only be close with correlations in the [. Click to continue reading...

I'm still as certain as ever that while Sigi has been employing the Arrow formation with a defensive midfielder and a box-to-box man the offensive woes of the team are such that finding a way to get five offensive players on the pitch rather than the 4.5 to 6.5 ratio that exists now is vital. [...] Click to continue reading...

In all the drama around the USL mess (NuRock v the TOA - sounds WWE) much of the speculation is about how and sometimes why MLS is involved. Let's address the why first. Major League Soccer and Soccer United Marketing control 99% of all revenue generating soccer in the country. From the [...] Click to continue reading...

While the day seems to be lost on everyone's Twitter feeds being down, I figured it was a good time to get back in the award discussion once again here. Instead of waiting for putting this in the evening links and thoughts I figured I would break this discussion off into it's own post for the day.

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The suspension of Josh Wicks came down as fairly hefty (5 Open Cup games, play in don't count). Considering what the USSF determined were his total offenses it seems fair. He was violent when he stomped on Fredy Montero, berated an official and honestly I won't miss him in next year's tourney. I will [. Click to continue reading...

GBS misses a PK Gaven hits the post Marshall saves a certain goal Sure Alonso nearly scored as well (Or Montero could have slid that in after). But the fact is that the Crew had more opportunities and did not capitalize. Their moments of strength were stronger, and this was a match where luck, Tyrone Marshall [. Click to continue reading...

Just as the playoff race gets hot, the goals of the week get hotter. Something about a playoff race that makes the goals just a little bit better if you ask me.

Order of goals: Jamie Moreno, Ramon Sanchez, Ryan Johnson, Sacha Kljestan, Juan Pablo Angel, Dwayne De Rosario, Chad Barret, Brian McBride, Jeff Cunningham, Eddie Gaven, Fredy Montero, and Shalrie Joseph.

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GBS is returning to MVP form, that is dangerous for everyone else. (Getty Images)

A full weekend is upon us here as we head into the final month of the season. Once again we have a weekend that has a lot of playoff implications from top to bottom. Can the spoilers like KC and San Jose step up and bring down some clubs gunning for the playoffs?

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Many will like to look at this match and say the Sounders played better than Chivas and so deserved to win. I'm a results focused guy though, they tend to actually wind up in the standings and the trophies. Teams either earn results or they don't. In this case Zach Thorton earned the results. He [. Click to continue reading...

Seattle needs another big game out of Fredy Montero this weekend. (Getty Images)

There's not too many more weekends left in the 2009 regular season. Week 27 is a full one as we gear towards the playoffs in a few weeks. With so many clubs still in contention the action this weekend should promise to be very good.

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Good evening folks. It's been a rather slow day around the soccer world but there has been plenty of talk on one subject that has been pretty hot since late August, the possibility of a MLS-2. But more on that in a bit. And I have a link about SuperLiga below that is definitely worth a read.

I wanted to kickoff tonight's thoughts/links with another look at the season awards.

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Loads of goals this week in MLS. Some were good and others were so-so. Throw in a few PKs and it was a busy weekend in MLS.

There are plenty of goals this week, especially since we had a 6-3 game and a 3-2 game.

Order of video: Frankie Hejduk, Maicon Santos, Dave van den Burgh, Jeff Cunningham, A.

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Sure, it feels like we've all been here before, maybe because of that great US Open Cup Win! But it is not Groundhog Day. This is a league match against an opponent that is ahead of the Sounders on the current table and are now pacing for 5th and 45 points. A win would also [...] Click to continue reading...

Random notes from the world of soccer in Colorado:

TIGER TOURNAMENT: The Colorado College women's soccer team hosts the University of Denver, Kansas and Texas Christian on Friday and Sunday. CC faces TCU at 4 p.m. Friday and Kansas at 2:30 p.m. Sunday. The Pioneers meet the Jayhawks at 1:30 Friday and Texas Christian at noon Sunday.

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DC United proudly display the word "tradition" on their back collars. There isn't another MLS club that could do so. They have earned it. There was an idea that they carry 12 trophies means that they deserve the 13th and that expansion franchises will never deserve respect propagated on the net, somewhat [. Click to continue reading...

¡La Noche de Copa... Campeones! SIMMS 89´                           MONTERO 67´ WICKS-Tarjeta Roja 69´               [...] Click to continue reading...

See, here's the thing with being dirty. If you are going to try to get away with something you shouldn't --armed robbery, sexual congress with Paris Hilton, booting a Colombian in the chest, whatever your nefarious act of choice is-- you have to keep in mind that in the digital age there are cameras everywhere and that someone is going to see you do it. Click to continue reading...

No clean sheet and dirty temperament No goalkeeper likes to concede a goal, but most take a more philosophical view of the situation than DC United's Josh Wicks. The keeper was not best pleased at conceding the opening goal in the US Open Cup final against Seattle Sounders. As the ball nestled in the back of the [. Click to continue reading...

We've had a full day of interesting news with the UEFA Champions League draw, the US Men's National team roster announcement that took four hours to do, and random news here and there. Time now to close down the day with some links and thoughts on what's going on.

I wanted to get into some MVP race discussion.

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Let's test something this week. Sounders FC has a recent (last 5) form of 0-4-1 (0/8) and Houston has a 2-2-1 (7/7) form in the same stretch of league play. Recent form would make you think that Houston is a mid-table team and Sounders a bottom of the barrel expansion club. Recent form would be [... Click to continue reading...

Fredy Montero leads Seattle tonight against New England. (Getty Images)

As mentioned yesterday, this week is loaded with MLS action. Tonight we get another primetime clash on ESPN2 as the Seattle Sounders FC host the New England Revolution.

This is a big match for both sides, New England is looking to prove to the rest of the eastern conference and the league for the matter that they are a playoff worthy club.

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It definitely was an interesting week in Major League Soccer. Out of all the results this weekend, all but one were a 2-0 scoreline. Because of that we went ahead and put all the goals into one package for the goals of the week. The best in my opinion is still Eddie Gavin's goal.

Order: Chris Rolfe, Mike Banner, Steve Zakuani, Fredy Montero, Maykel Galindo, Eduardo Lillingston, Chad Marshall, Eddie Gavin, Dwayne de Rosario, and O'Brien White

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Earlier we opened up the pregame analysis with a look at the defensive five in Bruce Arena's current 4-1-3-2 system. Those five have been quite effective defensively, limiting their opposition to the second fewest shots and second best goals against average in the league. But this match is a marquee crusher because of the Galaxy [. Click to continue reading...

Montero and Hurtado look to be staying put as a part of MLS for a little while longer.
According to Jose Romero at the Seattle Times (click here for his interpretation of the Enlajugada.com article with the original translated by Google here), Deportivo Cali has sold the remaining portion of Fredy Montero's rights to MLS. Click to continue reading...

Now this is interesting. In one of the most epic games of "telephone" this blog is likely to see, Jose Romero's Sounders FC Blog is reporting that Colombian site Enlajugada is saying that Fredy Montero is no longer on loan and is now MLS property and TOR is now passing the savings on to you. Click to continue reading...

Some good news perhaps this morning for Seattle Sounder FC fans. Reports out of Columbia say Deportivo Cali president Rodrigo Otoya came to the U.S. with VP Cesar Caicedo where they negotiated the transfer of Cali's portion of Montero's rights to Major League Soccer.

From what we already know, Montero wants to be in Europe and Cali nearly sold his rights to Europe this summer.

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Colorado Rapids forward Conor Casey was voted Major League Soccer's player of the week for week 21 of the 2009 season.

Casey scored three first-half goals on Saturday in the Rapids' 4-0 victory against Chivas USA. It was Casey's second hat trick of the season, and this marks the third time this season Casey has received the MLS weekly honor.

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