Make that four games without a victory for Real Salt Lake and nine for the Seattle Sounders.
Both Western Conference teams' winless streaks were extended on Wednesday night, as they played
to a scoreless draw in front of a soldout crowd at Rio Tinto Stadium.
There may have been no goals in the match, but there was some controversy after a second-half
finish from Alvaro Saborio was whistled back for offside.
Philadelphia Union goalkeeper Faryd Mondragon has been one of the keys to the second-year club's
considerable improvement in 2011, but he won't be in the nets as the Union begin a crucial
stretch
Mondragon will be sidelined for between two to four weeks with a fractured finger suffered
during the Union's 2-1 loss to Real Salt Lake on Saturday.
The MLS playoff picture is taking a different shape than expected.
Let's flash back to around the midway point of the season. Back then the Galaxy were running away
with the league, almost ten points ahead of the rest of the pack (although they were already
slowing down).
A hard-fought battle at BBVA Compass Stadium looked destined to end in a draw, but a
questionable penalty kick paved the way for Brian Ching to deliver a winner and score his first
goal at the Houston Dynamo's new stadium.
A penalty call against Philadelphia's Gabriel Farfan in the 81st minute for a collision with
Ching set up a decisive spot kick for Ching, who calmly converted to help give the Dynamo a 2-1
victory on Saturday night.
I'm off to Kansas City this morning to see the nation's newest way-cool soccer stadium, and to
see if the United States can shake the funk and move on into Gold Cup elimination play. There's a
media tour of the stadium at 2:30, followed conveniently by a U.S. press conference, the U.S.
practice and then mixed zone availability.
We're finally putting the closing number on week 10. A few changes here and there in this week's
rankings. First up is LA taking over the top spot again. With RSL's ho-hum of a draw down in Dallas
it felt like a proper time to place LA back on top.
The middle got mixed up again here with a couple results this week.
T3-1S www.fasthighlights.com by fasthighlights-2012
A fantastic Brad Friedel save, a quick throw to jump start a blistering counterattack as Luka
Modric finds a galloping Gareth Bale down the left and the wingback cuts back to Rafael Van Der
Vaart following up. The Dutchman sends the ball flying past Michael Vorm.
Tottenham new-boy Rafael Van der Vaart has admitted that he is feeling
'despondent' after finding himself continually on the fringes of the Holland national team under
Bert van Marwijk.
Van der Vaart was left on the bench for Holland's Euro 2012 qualifier with San Marino on Friday,
and was seen to cover his mouth as he trudged off the pitch in a funk after being substituted
during the 64th minute of their game with Finland last night.
FUNK SAYS SORRY FOR CUP STUFFING.SCARBOROUGH Athletic manager Rudy Funk apologised to the
fans after last night's dismal 5-1 North Riding Cup defeat at the hands of Guisborough
Town.Funk's heavily altered side were comfortably second best on the night, but the Borop
chief did manage to grab a positive or two.
Boss Rudy Funk decided to give some fringe players a run out in this game, and although it is a
fairly minor competition, I could not believe the 5-1 scoreline. Boro were 4-1 down at half time, and fell even further behind on the hour as Town's David
Onion's added his team's 5th goal.
Nice article from the local paper giving boss Rudy Funk's opinions on the Retford v
Boro match. SCARBOROUGH Athletic boss Rudy Funk was delighted with his side's
last-gasp point on the road at NCEL Premier title challengers Retford United.He said: " I'm
delighted, but it is nothing more than we deserved .
The elements were not in the Chicago Fire's favor.
They had three suspended starters. They were playing on the road. They were playing down a goal
heading into stoppage time. And anything less than a win would have officially spelled the end to
Chicago's small, but lingering, playoff hopes.
The Chicago Fire garnered a signature win when they absolutely needed it. And most importantly for
Chicago, the team now finds itself in a realistic position to catch a playoff spot with only four
regular-season matches remaining.
The Fire won for the fifth time in their past six matches and were led by midfielder Marco Pappa's
hat trick en route to a 3-0 victory against Real Salt Lake at Rio Tinto Stadium in front of 20,762
at Sandy, Utah.
The San Jose Earthquakes have climbed out of their early-season funk and are starting to
resemble the team that made a run to the MLS conference finals last year.
Tuesday night's loss in the U.S. Open Cup to the Chicago Fire notwithstanding, the Earthquakes
are in the midst of playing their best soccer of the season.
Hello there, no one in particular. It's been a while.
I'm in this hammerlock. See, I've written about the Chicago Fire Soccer Club in this space a
couple of times now, and each time, my increased scrutiny has been followed by a pronounced
funk.
In the week leading up to the D. C. United home opener, I asked our members: "what is the one thing
they were looking for from D.C. United this year? Whether it was an improvement, setting a goal, a
question answered, whatever... But they had to just name one thing, here is what they had to
say...
D.C. United has made a number of moves already before the New Year to help the Black-and-Red pull
out of their funk, including the addition of Pat Onstad to the coaching staff. Photo: Andy
Mead/YCJImages
A game between Man United and Arsenal is always a big one. The years of rivalry, the quality of
the two teams, the fact that sooner or later someone needs to kick Patrice Evra right in his
swollen balls, the reasons are pretty much endless.
Today's FA Cup 6th round clash probably has more significance than both teams would like.
It took a proper game of football to snap Los Angeles out of its funk.
Columbus traveled to Los Angeles for the much-anticipated clash on Saturday night without the
trepidation most teams feel when they face the Galaxy. The Crew did not aspire to stack numbers
behind the ball and tempt the Galaxy to break them down.
When the Colorado Rapids come to CenturyLink Field for Saturday night's NBC SportsNet match they
will be trying to break their own funk. They have two wins and six losses on the road. Their big
home/away split is fairly typical for a Denver based sports team, and the Seattle Sounders will get
to take advantage of that.
Behind the Axe looks at the aftermath of the loss in Montreal and my thoughts about what the
Timbers need to do in order to get out of this funk. While I still have optimism about what they
can accomplish this season, it's important that this team remain focused and together. That's the
only way they will break out of this slump.
With the 4 game losing streak finally broken the Portland Timbers can now look to earning their
first away win of the year. Getting that away win is always a big step and Portland didn't get that
last year until late over halfway through the first season. If they can get it earlier then last
year it will be a big step in recovering from the early funk they were in.
Neymar oh Neymar,você esqueceu o seu ...
concealer?!! (did you forget your concealer?) Oh never mind all that
make-up, tomorrow is the World Club Cup final between Santos and Barcelona. With
all that hype surrounding Neymar in recent days (oh come on, you guys are late to
the party!
The script stays the same, with Liverpool failing to convert the chances they manage to create,
except that for once, it wasn't Kenny Dalglish's side dominating the match. Swansea spent large
spells of the match on the front foot, taking it to a Liverpool side that failed to put much of
anything together prior to the dying minutes.
With the San Jose Earthquakes being shut out four times in their last five league games, they
needed somebody to step up to snap the team out of its recent funk. As it turns out, that player
was rookie goalkeeper David Bingham.
Bingham scored from more than 90 yards, with his long kick bouncing over West Brom's
California-born goalkeeper Boaz Myhill to open the scoring in the third minute of San Jose's 2-1
victory in a club friendly Tuesday night.
Rangers midfielder Maurice Edu is confident that he can rediscover his form after admitting that he
has been in "a bit of a funk" of late. Edu, 25, has been struggling to make an impact for Walter
Smith's SPL title favourites recently but the USA international insists he still has plenty of
belief in his own ability and is sure he can prove his worth before the end of the season.
First off ... don't forget that UConn is poised to set a new winning streak record tonight at
7PM ET on ESPN. Will you be there? (Doris ... I'd remind you, too ... but I didn't think you'd
be interested ...)
Check out Geno's comments about the record ... and men's/women's sports ... you GO, Geno!
All of Spain is wondering what's up with Cristiano Ronaldo. C-Ron hasn't scored for Real Madrid
for almost two months, and seems detached from his team-mates and generally out of sorts. Missing
Wayne Rooney already, Ron?
