Every transfer window comes to an end and that end is usually a tremendous, over-analyzed, mess of boring idiocy. There's reporters stretching guesses and rumors into a hostage situation worthy of live coverage, Harry Redknapp giving interviews through his car window like he's struggling to order a Whopper at the Burger King drive-thru, roving bands of street urchins loitering outside stadiums and, above all, mass confusion over player movements that often don't even happen.

By Joel Greenwaldt
Baltimore Blast (5-1) vs. Missouri Comets (5-3)
Game Time: 12/9/2011 7:35PM
http://www.misllivesoccer.com/
What needs to go right for the Blast:

• Stop the recent skid at home: Dating back to the last season's MISL Championship Game, the Baltimore Blast have lost their last two games at home.

Sorry I went AWOL on everyone (which I'm guessing is about 5 readers at this point in the offseason ;)) for a few days, stomach flu sucks. A couple of interesting news items came out this week.

• Colorado declined the options on Miguel Comminges, Danny Earls, Steven Emory, and Michael Holody.

Holody's 3 years of service means he's eligible to be selected by other MLS teams in next week's re-entry drafts.

The playoffs and MLS Cup final are being completely revamped in 2012.

Instead of rotating the MLS Cup between different cities, starting in 2012, the MLS Cup final will be played at the home venue of the participating team with a higher regular-season point total. No more neutral fields, which is something that the MLS has done since 1996.

Since the league's inception, Major League Soccer has been trying to find the right playoff format, right meaning one that gave some meaning to the regular season while creating increased fan interest during the post-season. The latest iteration came yesterday, when the MLS Board of Governors approved four major changes in the league playoff format: Top five teams in each conference, no wild-card slots.

Changes were bound to happen when Major League Soccer added a 19th club for the 2012 season. With an odd number of teams and a desire to reduce some of the travel for some clubs, the balanced schedule was going to go out the window for a while and changes were going to have to be made to the format.

MLS has come out today with the schedule and playoff format for the 2012 season, and already the Twitterverse has blown up about it. As expected, gone is the balanced schedule of playing each team home and away. Back is the conference heavy schedule designed to cut down on travel for most teams (save Houston who is still separated from Dallas and will now play their closest rival only once next year).

Houston Dynamo fans will be a bit disappointed when they wake up this morning to discover that Brad Davis was not named the 2011 MLS MVP, but that disappointment will be tempered a bit since Dwayne De Rosario, once an important member of the Dynamo, is this season's MVP. In fact, the last time De Rosario won the MVP, in 2007, he was a member of the back-to-back MLS Cup winning Dynamo.

Cue up the Nellie McKay, I'm almost out of here.

I love doing interviews with Seattle writers. They're all so naive and when they think they're asking hard questions, they're lobbing softballs. So you know, it's all good in the land of My Little Pony Sing Along Blogs. Anyway, I talked to Joshua Mayers and a bunch of other jackals yesterday, hopefully for the last time in a while so I can forget about what transpired this year.

Gary Smith, who led the Colorado Rapids to an improbable championship in 2010, was shown the door on Monday.

The coach, who had agreed to a new contract, and the team announced a parting of the ways on Monday afternoon. The departure came the same day that Rapids players cleared out their lockers following a 4-0 aggregate loss to Kansas City in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Photo by David Bernal/ISIphotos.com

By Sunday's end, the MLS playoff field will be narrowed down to two clubs.

No wild card teams remain in the postseason picture after the overall top seed Los Angeles Galaxy disposed of the New York Red Bulls Thursday night.

The Red Bulls misinterpret the phrase, "Show some fight, boys." Felled by an air punch after the final whistle, Rafael Marquez pulled off an Academy Award-worthy performance, while Stephen Keel (hand on face) boringly falls from an actual punch.

The L.A. Galaxy takes to the pitch Thursday night at home (11 p.

Photo by Brad Smith/ISIphotos.com

By THOMAS FLOYD

The first legs of the conference semifinals over the weekend created four very unenviable hills to climb.

The Los Angeles Galaxy, the Houston Dynamo and Sporting Kansas City all head home to protect leads while Real Salt Lake, the only winning team taking to the road, has the comfort of a three-goal cushion.

Well it's November and that means Halloween is behind us. Still, October was a fantastic month in MLS that offered us a fantastic finale to the league where matches truly mattered and we saw Wild-Card matches where the fates of teams were decided. In less than a month we will have a new champion and with that a new off season.

Teams that can't score don't make it far in the postseason, and the Colorado Rapids are a team that can't score.

The latest evidence came Sunday evening as the Rapids fell 2-0 to Sporting Kansas City in the first leg of the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Colorado, which edged the Columbus Crew 1-0 in the wild card match on Thursday, couldn't generate legitimate threats as Sporting spent the evening shoving them around the field.

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.

The defending MLS Cup champion Colorado Rapids take on Sporting Kansas City today in Eastern Conference semifinal action, and while the Rapids are reigning champs, Sporting KC comes in as the favorites in a series that kicks off tonight (7:30pm, Fox Soccer Channel).

The Rapids find themselves in the Eastern Conference bracket for the second straight year, but face a very tough opponent in the semifinals as Sporting KC has been one of the strongest teams in the league in the second half of the season.

The Los Angeles Galaxy will begin their chase for the 2011 MLS Cup title today against a New York Red Bulls squad intent on shaking up the playoff field wih an upset of the Supporters Shield winners (3pm, ESPN2).

Today's Western Conference semifinal first leg brings us to frigid Red Bull Arena, where some surprising snow covered the area on Saturday.

By ADAM SERRANO

The Los Angeles Galaxy have succeeded in every goal that they've set out for themselves this season thus far. Supporters' Shield? Check. Advancing to the quarterfinals of the CONCACAF Champions League? Check.

On Sunday against the New York Red Bulls, the Galaxy begin their assault on the last item of their list, an MLS Cup title.

Photo by Howard C. Smith/ISIphotos.com

By AVI CREDITOR

The New York Red Bulls began the season playing as advertised, producing a high-octane style of play, outpossessing teams and using their cavalcade of international stars to try and overpower the opposition.

After a stellar 2010 campaign, Omar Cummings has had a season to forget. On Thursday night, however, he reminded everyone just how deadly he can be.

Cummings was alone in the penalty area when his roommate, Kosuke Kimura, passed to him in the waning moments of the first half. Kimura, who made regular forays into the attack, saw Cummings just after receiving a pass from Brian Mullan.

I had to tend to a drunk, crying man last night. Baseball does strange things to people. So MLS' first wild card round is in the books, and it was every bit as randomized and arbitrary as we thought. FCD's impressive 34-game bandage job was torn asunder in the span of 98 minutes (yes, eight minutes of stoppage time) by the 10th-best team in MLS.

The Colorado Rapids flew under the radar last season en route to capturing their first MLS Cup championship.

Despite holding that distinction, the Rapids find themselves in a similar position in 2011. The defending champions are again quietly still very much alive after defeating the Columbus Crew in Thursday night's wild card match to advance into the Eastern Conference bracket.

Happy Friday to you. The week of MLS action saw two wild card matches which dictated the terms of the playoffs. We have now determined two new match ups with worthwhile storylines.
The Two Big Clubs: Thanks to a mid-week victory over FC Dallas, the New York Red Bulls have booked their ticket to a showdown with the regular season champs.

The Colorado Rapids' hopes of defending its MLS title are still alive, and the club can thank Omar Cummings for that.

Cummings scored his first goal in nearly three months to help lift the Rapids to a 1-0 win over the Columbus Crew in a wild card playoff match at Dick's Sporting Goods Park on Thursday night.

@

Columbus Crew @ Colorado Rapids

So one team finishes their season and one team goes on to play Sporting KC. I got off to a bad start on the playoff predictions last night with the NY win, but I'm sure the Rapids are going to put me up to .500. I have to go with the Rapids because I'll be able to watch the game because I happen to be close enough to Colorado that I get Altitude Sports and Entertainment on my satellite!

When I went to watch the Columbus vs Colorado Wild Card Play In, which MLS kindly streamed for free on their website, I noticed a tab that read "Score Predictor" Check it out; you'll be glad you did. This Castrol Score predictor analyzes (or at least claims to analyze) every minute of play from the past 35-someodd weeks, and gives a prediction of who's favored in each match.

New York and LA will have to deal with two cross country trips now. (Getty Images)

After last night's 2-0 win over FC Dallas, the New York Red Bulls did what some thought would happen set up a big time, blockbuster clash between them and the Los Angeles Galaxy in the playoffs. For the second time in league history the two big clubs meet when it matters most.

By AVI CREDITOR

The Los Angeles Galaxy won the Supporters' Shield, amassing the most points over the course of the MLS season, thus earning any and all advantages heading into the postseason.

Their reward: two cross-country trips in a four-day span for a two-legged tie against the only team in the league that can go head-to-head in a bare-knuckles payroll battle.

The Colorado Rapids kick off defense of the 2010 MLS Cup tonight in conditions reminiscent of the night the team won the title in Toronto in November.

It will be chilly in Dick's Sporting Goods Park for the 8 p.m. battle with the Columbus Crew. But there will be plenty of heat on the field for the Rapids.

Mehdi's Moment of Brilliance Eclipses Brek Shea: Hold the Phone! (Photo by Dan Dickinson)Here's a head-scratcher: by defeating FC Dallas 2-0 last night in a Wild Card playoff in Frisco (my full match report on Once a Metro can be found here), the Red Bulls have arguably ensured themselves of a more "successful" season than they enjoyed in 2010.

FC Dallas 0, New York Red Bulls 2
The New York Red Bulls and Dallas FC squared off in Pizza Hut Park for the first Wild Card game of the post season in front of 10,017 fans. FC Dallas came out strong against NY and bossed much of the first half and NY was left with working the counter-attack.

The New York Red Bulls may have eked into the playoffs, but they're in a position to shake up the postseason picture in a big way after their latest performance.

Joel Lindpere finished a cross from substitute Mehdi Ballouchy in the 61st minute, and Thierry Henry scored an insurance goal in the final seconds of stoppage time to lift the Red Bulls to a 2-0 victory over FC Dallas in a single-elimination wild card match Wednesday night.

The road to the 2011 MLS Cup Final begins tonight, with the New York Red Bulls taking on FC Dallas at Pizza Hut Park in Major League Soccer's first wild card match (Fox Soccer Channel, 9pm).

FC Dallas enters the match as the highest-seeded wild card team, but a 2-5 finish to the regular season has Schellas Hyndman's club looking vulnerable against a New York Red Bulls side that finished the season strongly.

I wanted to toss out my predictions for the playoffs (insert obligatory Jim Mora reference here). Also, I'd like to see what other people think and what their predictions are. Since I pretty much don't follow any other teams except for the Fire, I don't know a whole lot about these teams outside of the basics, so a lot of my predictions are based off intuition.

The first two games of the MLS postseason are set for Wednesday and Thursday night, with the new wild card format meaning that for two teams it's win and advance, and for two others it's lose and go home.

New York and Dallas open the MLS playoffs Wednesday night at Pizza Hut Park in a meeting of two teams that had serious title aspirations entering the season.

Shana, Kirsten, and Amanda start this week's show with a preview of the MLS wild card and playoff games, and some Houston v. Philly trash talk for good measure. Amanda has a funny feeling about Seattle, and once again, you may not want to listen if you support DC or NY. Sorry! In the second segment, they discuss World Cup rights moving to Fox from 2015 on, what that could mean for the WNT and youth national teams, and shudder at the prospect of Eric Wynalda trying to plug The X-Factor.

Colorado's journey into the 2011 playoff starts at Dick's Sporting Goods Park at 8 Thursday night against the same foe the team edged on a successful run to the 2010 MLS Cup.

The Columbus Crew meet the Rapids in a one-shot wild card match the night after FC Dallas and the New York Red Bulls tangle in the other wild card match.

RBNY gets the job done at home against Philly at home to punch a playoff ticket. The SR boys preview New York's Wild Card match at FC Dallas with Dan R of MetroFanatic.com and Brian Lewis of the NY Post. Five matches to the MLS Cup! CSRN MEDIA PLAYER

On a crisp Monday morning at Montclair State University, the New York Red Bulls held their training session, knowing that their opponent in the wild card playoff match would be FC Dallas. For a good thirty minutes the Red Bulls ...
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