New England's dismantling of the LA Galaxy highlights a rampant weekend in MLS.
Seemingly out of nowhere, the New England Revolution have become a force to be reckoned with and on Sunday, that irresistible force met with an LA Galaxy side looking to continue the momentum from a 4-0 win over the Sounders last week. The resulting 5-0 thrashing by New England left the Galaxy with four losses in their last six games while the Revs extended their winning streak to three games. Five different players scored for New England, highlighted by a goal and two assists by Federal Way native Kelyn Rowe, who is now tied for the league-lead with five assists. It was the third straight shutout for New England, who have allowed a league-best nine goals while improving to 5-4-4. The Galaxy fell to 6-5-2.
Next week, Seattle will meet the Vancouver Whitecaps FC in Seattle’s second match in the 2013 Cascadia Cup. Like the Sounders, Vancouver will be riding momentum into that match after posting a 2-1 victory over the New York Red Bulls on Saturday, halting a seven-match unbeaten streak for the Red Bulls. Former USL Sounder Jordan Harvey netted an equalizer for Vancouver after they fell behind on an own-goal, then they took advantage of a late red card to New York defender Jamison Olave when Kenny Miller scored the game-winner in the 83rd minute. The Scottish striker now has goals in each of his last three matches, but has missed eight of their last 10 matches due to injury. Vancouver is now seventh in the West at 4-4-4 while New York dropped from the top spot in the East to second at 7-5-4.
Real Salt Lake remained hot by smashing the San Jose Earthquakes 3-0 at Rio Tinto Stadium. Javier Morales and Robbie Findley both had a goal and an assist as RSL opened up a 3-0 lead before halftime, then coasted to the shutout victory to improve to 7-5-3 and second in the West. It was their fourth win in the last six matches for RSL. Meanwhile, San Jose has now lost three of their last four and dropped to 3-6-6.
FC Dallas stayed on top in the West with a 2-2 draw with the Colorado Rapids at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park. All four goals were scored over a 10-minute stretch in the second half as Atiba Harris twice gave Colorado the lead with goals and Blas Perez twice snatched them back up with scores of his own. Both players now lead their respective teams, Perez with five goals and Harris with four. Dallas is now 8-2-4 while Colorado is 5-4-5 and fifth in the West.
Sporting Kansas City continued to skid with just one win in their last five matches with a 2-1 loss to the Montreal Impact. With three straight wins, the Impact jumped to the top of the East at 8-2-2 while SKC dropped to 6-5-4. Claudio Bieler scored his seventh goal of the year for Kansas City, but former Sounders FC midfielder Sanna Nyassi nabbed his first goal of the year and Collen Warner added the game-winner in a 2-1 win for the Impact.
Elsewhere in the East, the Columbus Crew drew 1-1 with Houston on a 69th minute equalizer by Federico Higuain and Toronto FC nearly escaped with a 1-0 victory even while playing down a man for 49 minutes, but Jack McInerney reclaimed the league lead with his 10th goal of the year off a 91st minute equalizer. And finally, Mike Magee already scored in his Chicago Fire debut in an Open Cup win over the Charlotte Eagles and on Sunday he added another in his first MLS match with his new club in a 2-0 win over DC United, who are now winless in their last 11 matches.
