MLS week 1 - First Kick 2011.

Week 1 on the MLS. Lots of expectations created during the pre-season. 2 expansions teams which create the Northwestern rivalry between Seattle, Portland and Vancouver and also starts the Canadian rivalry against Toronto waiting the Montreal Impact in 2012. New designated players coming in like Omar Bravo (Kansas City), Eric Hassli (Vancouver). The last year in contract for Beckham, the first full season for Henry and Marquez.

The first kick started with LA Galaxy vs Seattle Sounders. Another sold out in Qwest field, 36.000 fans, never forget Premier league average attendance is 34,700.

Beckham with a new fresh air, very dangerous on free kicks and always delivering good passes. Donovan had a world class breakaway which ended in the post, but nothing else for the US star. Juninho an all around midfield who covers a lot of space and also has a dangerous long distance shot. Disappointing the debut from Chad Barret, Birchall, Dunivant, I really expected more from this guys, their presence make the Galaxy roster very uneven talent wise.

Seattle, they offer a very attractive football. But they don't give the expected results. It seems very unfair. I'm sure the Nkufo loss right before the game might have affected in the results, since they had to depend in O'Brian White, a slow skill-less guy who frustrated offensively Toronto fans last year.

I really had high expectations in watching Uruguayan international Matias Fernandez as starter after the departure of Nyassi to Colorado, but the charrua could not complete 63 minutes on the field and even he knew the substitution was deserved.

On the other side, I was very happy seeing Friberg on the first half, showing lots of determination and skills and for moments showed like the ideal partner for Alonso who still shows signs to be the best defensive mid in MLS.

Galaxy won 1 - 0 with a long distance goal from Juninho. Seattle insisted specially with Montero but Josh Saunders stopped every shot on goal.

A whole new season just started! Lets follow it together!



  

Beckham inspired - Galaxy in the MLS west finals

Galaxy dominated the Sounders for 80 min and was enough, Donovan's team started the match with a great attitude in winning the home game from the beginning. This, undoubtedly, was the key of LA success last night.

The great defense continued, Gonzales was beaten only once and it was the Zakuani goal at the end of the game. Kovalenko destroyed all the game in front of him and David Beckham played one of his best games in MLS.

I remember newspapers writing all kind of comments about Beckham when he just signed in 2007, half of the opinions were negative stating David was not Ronaldinho and the spice boy won't draw the attention of the fans in the game itself only off the field.

Of course David's style is not to outplay by dribbling his opponents, it is more different than that. Tonight we could see what MLS was signing in 2007. An inspired man that can run the pitch the 90 minutes both in defense and offense (has anyone seen Ronaldinho doing that?) and just giving the right passes all game long. This is what we enjoyed specially in the 1st half with all the dangerous crosses that, with a better placed forward, could have ended in 4 or 5 goals in 25min and every cross he did created high emotions expressed in excitement screams and therefore a great ambiance.

We hope David continue as inspired as last night and watch a great match against Ferreira's team, FC Dallas.

And that is the story, without New York, Real Salt Lake and Columbus, the big favorite now in the playoffs is the LA Galaxy which raises big expectations to the MLS Cup in Toronto on Nov 21st.

Will LA keep defensive pace? Sounders vs Galaxy - 2nd Leg.

What an expectation for tonight's game! How about all the excitement we have seen in the other 3 playoffs games? Amazing how, in all cases, we had to wait until minute 90 plus aggregate (or penalty kicks) to have a little rest. Well, Seattle and Los Angeles should promise even more tonight at 9:00 PM ET.

I think Seattle plays the most exciting football lately, maybe because all the inspiration they have with 30,000 or more excited fans in every game at Qwest Field. They even showed it in the 1st leg game last week, but Galaxy played remarkable defense when it was all inspiration from Ricketts passing by Omar Gonzalez to Kovalenko. Even with this great defense Sounders tried all the way attempting offensive squares and making long passes to the speedy Nyassi and Zakuani and really showed it. That is why I think Seattle is going to keep trying tonight and the Galaxy had to show an outstanding defensive performance once again to stop them.

On the Galaxy side we saw David Beckham included in most of the plays but they were lacking of a guy that could strike it in the net although the highlight reel self created by Edson Buddle saved LA that night. Juninho needs to win the battle against Alonso in order to contribute to the offense and Donovan would have to show more in attack specially if Sounders manage to score early.

The Home Depot Center also will play an important role tonight, this famous player number 12 that every team needs might pace the great green offense down and be vital to push the Galaxy to the West Finals against Dallas.