It took four years but the Chicago Fire finally knocked the New England Revolution out of the MLS playoffs. The Fire comfortable defeated a weakened Revolution 3-0 on Thursday to advance to the conference finals against either the Columbus Crew or the Kansas City Wizards, who will play the second leg of their conference semifinal [. Click to continue reading...

The New England Revolution and Chicago Fire drew 0-0 in the first leg of their Eastern Conference semifinal series on Thursday night at Foxboro Stadium. Chicago now are firm favorites to advance to the Eastern Conference finals with the return leg taking place November 6th in Chicago ( Buy NE at Chicago Tickets). Click to continue reading...

What a wild ride. How is it possible that after all the injuries, all the mistakes, all the questionable decisions, and all the unlucky breaks, I can still go to mlsnet.com right now and see United currently in the playoffs? Pretty strange turn of events. It just seemed so fitting for this season to officially end on a stupid individual mistake that cost us a goal to a team that didn't deserve one. Click to continue reading...

Forbes.com recently released a report that looked at the economic side of MLS and also put a value on each of the Major League Soccer franchises. At a macro level, things are looking up for MLS. Seven of the league's 14 teams play in soccer-specific stadiums, five of which have been built since 2002. Click to continue reading...

That's right. The Revolution is Joe Public's because after that result he basically owns them. It is good to see a role reversal from 200 years ago, if you know what I mean. Although, I'm getting the vibe that you don't know what I mean, and you are unsure if this is still a football blog. I can assure you it is. Click to continue reading...

The Columbus Crew were the only Eastern Conference team to win and by doing so moved to the top of the division and the MLS overall table to round out Week 23 of the Major League season. LA Galaxy 2 New England Revolution 2 Landon Donovan scored a pair of goals for the Los Angeles Galaxy, but [...] Click to continue reading...

Despite knocking on wood as often as possible, I hate to admit that I called this. DC United was consistently crappy early in the year, and was consistently victorious just before the start of Superliga, but at all other times of the season, we've been horribly inconsistent. The team once again failed tonight to string together victories. Click to continue reading...

A look at the scores and match reports from this weekend's games in Major League Soccer. Columbus 2 FC Dallas 1 Jeff Cunningham became the fourth player in MLS history to reach 100 goals when he scored in his first game for FC Dallas, but midfielders Brian Carroll and Brad Evans netted second-half goals to give [. Click to continue reading...

Toronto 1, Colorado 0 Greg Sutton made 10 saves and Chad Barrett scored in the 44th minute to give Toronto FC a 1-0 victory over the Colorado Rapids on Saturday. It was the first road win win for Toronto (7-8-4) in 10 tries this season. The Rapids (6-10-3) missed a last chance to score when Herculez [. Click to continue reading...

So I just watched the Revolution drop a 1 nil lead to the Chicago Fire and lose 2-1. Terrible I know, but more terrible because it had to come on the same night as Taylor Twellman's return. Twellman, in my eyes looked good in his return while netting the only goal for the Revs. When [...] Click to continue reading...

Sir Alex can talk about winning the double this year but New England Revolution coach Steve Nichol is trying to do him one better by winning the triple. The first leg in the triple was the SuperLiga championship which New England won 3-2 last night in a penalty shoot-out with  the Houston Dynamo. Houston had beaten [. Click to continue reading...

The Houston Dynamo cruised to a 3-1 victory over the DC United aided by former United star Bobby Boswell who scored one of the team's three goals.  Ricardo Clark and Stuart Holden also scored for the two-time MLS champions.  Houston now advances to play the second-place finisher from Group B in the semi-finals. Click to continue reading...

I turned on Sky Sports this morning and the lead headline was that the New England Revolutuon had beaten David Beckham and the L.A> Galxy 2-1 in a battle of th etop teams in MLS. I muts admit, I almost fell of my chair when I saws the headline. Here are the game summaries from this [...] Click to continue reading...

This is U.S. Open Cup week in America. The U.S. Open Cup is the America equivalent of the F.A. Cup and this years edition is seeing as many surprises as the F.A. Cup. This week saw three MLS teams get knocked out of the tournament (New York Red Bulls, Houston Dynamo and Chivas USA) while the [...] Click to continue reading...

By winning against Toronto, the New England Revolutuon assured thta they will have the best record in the east at the half way point of the season and that Revolutuoiin coach Steve Nicol will coach the MLS All-Stars against West Ham United FC of the English Premier League on July 24 Dynamo, FC Dallas tie 1-1 Kenny [. Click to continue reading...

Review of this weekends games in majoer league soccer. Can someone at MLS league offices tell me why the Wizards were playing their first home game in two months! Toronto 3, Rapids 1 Rohan Ricketts scored his first two Major League Soccer goals as Toronto FC remained unbeaten at home with a 3-1 victory over the Colorado [. Click to continue reading...

On Friday night the New England Revolution behind first-half goals from Adam Cristman and Steve Ralston beat F.C. Dallas 2-1. Cristman scored his third goal of the season in the fifth minute, sending a diving header into the left corner off Sainey Nyassi's cross from the right wing. Ralston scored his second goal of the season [. Click to continue reading...

  Last night's Revs-United matchup on ESPN2 provided plenty of thrills. It was a standoff between two of the league's best teams last year, both with many new faces on the pitch in 2008.  Here were my thoughts, stream of consciousness style, as I watched the game: Pre-Match: Matt Reis's dome looks extra shiny on the HD while he's warming up. Click to continue reading...

The way this season has gone thus far, I never thought I'd be disappointed in a draw at New England, but I am. For about an hour last night, DC United was dominant offensively. They moved like a well-oiled machine and, if not for Matt Reis standing on his proverbial head, would have scored four [...] Click to continue reading...

Good game. But then again, games between these two rivals usually are.

I think I lost a bit of respect for New England tonight though. It was as if Nicol told a couple chumps like Larentowicz, Cristman, and Smith at half time: "Just throw your bodies around. Hack some dudes! The ref won't call it. Click to continue reading...

The Primer is back after a bit of an absence. We're dropping in just in time for the third DC United match in nine days, a difficult stretch to be sure. Tonight the team travels to face New England, a team that has won three in a row and is 6-1-1 with a +9 goal [...] Click to continue reading...

Another great weekend of Major League Soccer action. It began with a rare San Jose Earthquakes victory and included a 70 yard David Beckham empty net goal. Here are summaries of this weekends games. D.C. United 3, Toronto FC 2 Jaime Moreno scored on a penalty kick and Luciano Emilio had a goal off a rebound as [. Click to continue reading...

 After losing Andy Dorman and Pat Noonan to transfers, Steve Nicol knew he was going to need to rely heavily on Steve Ralston and Taylor Twellman this season. What he did not know was that both would be sidelined for more than a month to start the season, Twellman with knee issues and Ralston with [. Click to continue reading...

ESPN2's coverage of Major League Soccer kicks off tonight, and I couldn't be jollier. I can actually watch the games at home tonight instead of going to the local soccer pub, which is nice, if for no other reason than I can imbibe as freely as I like and not have to call the wife for [...] Click to continue reading...

Well, well. Ever since the 2008 schedule was released, people were marking this game as one of the most anticipated of the new season. It was heralded as a game between giants and almost-beens, a battle between the perennial brides and the consistently underachieving bridesmaids. It looked like it, too, after all was said and done. Click to continue reading...

When DC United started making all their numerous changes this offseason, I had it in my mind that I would NOT pick them to finish in first place, because there were just too many question marks. So I toyed for a while with putting Chicago in first, but then I realized that they had a new inexperienced coach, and Chad Barrett playing forward, so that wouldn't work.

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As promised back in the initial Season Preview Post, I'm back to provide updates on all of the teams since I originally wrote about them for STO. So without further ado (much like MLS, who is also without further Adu, Freddy that is), here's what's been happening... Toronto:Â Seeing as how I just completed this preview a [. Click to continue reading...

New England Revolution 2007 Record:Â 14-8-8 (2nd in East) Coach:Â Â Steve Nicol (7th Year) Key Players:Â Taylor Twellman, Matt Reis, Steve Ralston, Michael Parkhurst Key Pickups:Â Chris Albright (from L.A. Galaxy) Key Losses:Â Pat Noonan (to AAFK), Andy Dorman (to St. Mirren) 2008 Outlook:Â Good It's official. Click to continue reading...

Looks like our acquisition of Gonzalo Martinez is just about official, and that Said Godinez is probably not heading to the nation's capitol. Nothing further yet on Carvallo. But this is developing quite nicely. Assuming we re-sign Vanney, we might see a rotation of three guys at center back again with Martinez, Vanney, and McTavish. Click to continue reading...

The first day of the 2008 MLS Combine will be remembered for two things. It was the day we saw a new generation of MLS coaches get to work and it was a day that set offensive soccer back about 100 years as nervous draft prospects did little to stand out in front of the scores of MLS coaches and management folks in attendance.

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Eddie Johnson is ready to go.

The Kansas City Wizards forward is set to pack his bling and make the move to Europe now that the European transfer window is open. The question is where will he go? Clubs all over England have been linked to the U.S. national team striker. Newcastle showed some interest while Manchester City, Fulham and Middlesbrough are among other teams linked to a bid for Johnson.

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Looks like the Andy Dorman era (if you can even call it that) in New England is finally over. Dorman is off to Scotland to bottom-dwelling St Mirren once his contract runs out to begin the new year next week. According to the club's official site, he will begin an 18-month contract with the club. St [. Click to continue reading...

Only a couple moves to update here on this list. The Harris to Chivas deal and then an another Red Bull retires. I fully expect this to start picking after the New Year. Between now and then as you all know is a little slower than we'd all like. But I can tell you there [...] Click to continue reading...

I cannot adequately review the DC United/New England Revolution match yesterday because I didn't see a moment of it live. I can say, however, that a 4-2 result is more than I predicted we would see, and is huge both in terms of the Supporters' Shield and the Eastern Conference. Chivas, the 2nd hottest team [...] Click to continue reading...

Today we look at last night's DC/Chivas match, and Sunday's DC/Revs match. It's a review and a primer all rolled into one. Don't say I never did anything for you. I was already irritated with the late start time of the match on ESPN2 last night, then The Deuce went and pushed the match back. And [...] Click to continue reading...