Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Monday. Yesterday was a very good day here in New York City, which is blue, capping off a weekend of wild MLS action that included the introduction of video review.
As usual, the weekend included plenty of other good stuff as well, like goals and other things that tend to happen during soccer matches.
Here are a few of those things:
Golazo of the Week
Portland's Diego Valeri, who is good for a stunner every now and then, was at it again on Sunday against the LA Galaxy. Jermaine Jones made the mistake of going all-in on a tackle and completely whiffing, giving Valeri space to do this:
Experts don't recommend giving Diego Valeri that kind of time and space to pick his spot and fire an uncontested shot. What a hit, son.
Double Take of the Week
Just as we knew it would, video review had an immediate impact after being introduced this weekend. The system worked, and things that simply couldn't have been spotted by the human eye were captured under the lens of video review. Unfortunately for the LA Galaxy, that meant that Gyasi Zardes was denied what looked—at first glance—like a goal.
Tough break, Gyasi. Maybe you could have gotten away with that last week!
Tekker of the Week
Ladies and gentlemen, Nick Lima! Take it away, Nick!
Nick Lima, everybody! Freakin'... Goodness gracious.
Build-up of the Week
In case you were wondering, this is very nearly the Platonic ideal of a Team Goal™.
Look at how in sync Haris Medunjanin and Ilsinho are on that play. Medunjanin knew exactly where to continue his run and anticipated that Ilsinho would be able to find him. Ilsinho—for his part—found him. Beautiful stuff.
Heartbreaker of the Week
Every week it's the same darn thing. One team thinks they've got a win locked up, and the other team says, matter-of-factly, "No you do not. You do not have a win locked up."
This week, it was Sporting KC who thought they'd get three points at home, and for the second week in a row, it was Atlanta United who played spoiler. Jacob Peterson, against his former team, came through with the dagger.
He kept it classy with the lack of celebration against his former club, but the SKC faithful definitely felt the pain on that one.
Results from the Weekend
D.C. United 1-1 Toronto FC
Philadelphia Union 3-1 FC Dallas
Montreal Impact 2-1 Orlando City
Minnesota United 0-4 Seattle Sounders
Chicago Fire 4-1 New England
Colorado 2-2 Vancouver
Real Salt Lake 0-0 Houston Dynamo
San Jose 2-1 Columbus Crew
Portland Timbers 3-1 LA Galaxy
NYCFC 3-2 Red Bulls
Sporting KC 1-1 Atlanta United
Playoff Race
Eastern Conference:
Western Conference:
Golden Boot Race
1. David Villa - 17 Goals
2. Nemanja Nikolic - 16 Goals
3. Bradley Wright-Phillips - 13 Goals
