There was soccer in the air as I stepped out of the car and walked across the street to Rice-Eccles Stadium to watch RSL take on the team from Dallas. RSL began the game on fire, with a Nelson Akwari shot saved in the first minute, only to be rebounded and shot off the top crossbar by Mehdi Ballouchy on a wide open net. Things from there continued at a regular pace, with RSL controlling most of the game. Then, in the 19th minute, Kenny Cooper broke free on a ball from Carlos Ruiz, and slotted it past Rimando into the bottom corner of the net to open scoring. This made RSL simply crave a goal, and soon enough, ten minutes later, in the 29th minute, when Chris Klein played a nice ball to Jeff Cunningham into the box, a Dallas defender slipped and Cunningham slotted it past goalkeeper Shaka Hislop to even the score at ones. The scored stayed like this through halftime and into the second half until in the 50th minute when RSL took a quick corner from Mehdi Ballouchy. After passing the ball around, Jason Kreis took a poweful shot from about twenty yards, but Hislop made a great save. Luckily for RSL, Jeff Cunningham was there, and he took the "no-angle" shot wide open to score his second of the afternoon. Things continued just like this going into stoppage time, and us RSL fans were excited, as we believed that we were about to get our first season-opener win in history. Four minutes of stoppage time were allotted. (Kreis got injured and was down for 2-3 minutes in about the 80th minute) For those of us in the stadium, that turned out to be one too many. In the 94+ minute, miscommunication between RSL GK Nick Rimando and RSL DF Jack Stewart caused Rimando to charge on a ball he shouldn't have. He punched it, but went behind him, where Dallas FW Carlos Ruiz put a small header on the ball to even the game at twos and essentially ensure a tie. What a heartbreaker! We left the stadium feeling like we had lost the game. As the Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City) quoted Rimando, "We won the game for 93 1/2 minutes."
RSL Game Report:
Real Salt Lake : FC Dallas 2 : 2 (1 : 1)
Goal Summary
Real Salt Lake
Cunningham (Klein) - 29'
Cunningham (Unassisted) - 51'
FC Dallas
Cooper (Ruiz) - 19'
Ruiz (Goodson) - 90+'
Card Summary
Real Salt Lake
Yellow - Talley (9')
Yellow - Kreis (68')
FC Dallas
Yellow - Goodson (28')
Yellow - Moor (82')
Around the MLS:
(1-0-0/3/2 West) COL 2 : 1 DC (0-1-0/0/T5 East)
(0-0-1/1/T2 East) CLB 0 : 0 NY (0-0-1/1/T2 East)
(1-0-0/3/1 East) CHI 1 : 0 NE (0-1-0/0/T5 East)
(1-0-0/3/1 West) CHV 2 : 0 TOR (0-1-0/0/7 East)
(0-0-1/1/T5 West) HOU 0 : 0 LA (0-0-1/1/T5 West)
Didn't Play: Kansas City (0-0-0/0/4 East)
My Fantasy Team Update:
What a wonderful week! Picking Cunningham as my captain (double points) sure paid off, as he was the week's top goal scorer. That came out to be 98 points! I was excited when I heard that Columbus posted a 0-0 draw with New York, until I heard that my GK Bill Gaudette of Columbus didn't start! No clean sheet bonus! Oh well. The only other notable achievers are DFs Kelly Gray (HOU), Craig Waibel (HOU), and Marvell Wynne (NY) with 19 pts apiece for their minutes plus their teams' clean sheets. This good week put me ahead of my cousin in our two-man league. I'm ranked 1238 overall with 189 pts, top scores in all fantasy going to "Thistle & Lissell" and "orange_juice" with 327 pts apiece.
GK Bill Gaudette (CLB) : 0 Points
DF Kevin Goldthwaite (HOU) : 0 Points
DF Craig Waibel (HOU) : 19 Points (9 pts Playing Time, 10 pts Clean Sheet)
DF Marvell Wynne (NY) : 19 Points (9 pts Playing Time, 10 pts Clean Sheet)
DF Kelly Gray (HOU) : 19 Points (9 pts Playing Time, 10 pts Clean Sheet)
MF Quavas Kirk (LA) : 0 Points
MF Mehdi Ballouchy (RSL) : 7 Points (7 pts Playing Time)
MF Richard Mulrooney (TOR) : 9 Points (9 pts Playing Time)
MF Freddy Adu (RSL) : 9 Points (9 pts Playing Time)
(C) FW Jeff Cunningham (RSL) : 98 Points (20 pts Goal, 20 pts Goal, 9 pts Playing Time, x2 Captainage)
FW Alecko Eskandarian (TOR) : 9 Points (9 pts Playing Time)
League Scoreboard
rslnerd: 189 pts, #1238 overall
Jeppson United FC: 136 pts, #4335 overall
Play MLS Fantasy Soccer!
Next Week's Fantasy Team:
GK Zach Thornton (COL)
DF Kevin Goldthwaite (HOU)
DF Craig Waibel (HOU)
DF Marvell Wynne (NY)
DF Kelly Gray (HOU)
MF Quavas Kirk (LA)
MF Mehdi Ballouchy (RSL)
MF Freddy Adu (RSL)
MF Seth Stammler (NY)
(C) FW Jeff Cunningham (RSL)
FW Pat Noonan (NE)
My Pick 'Em (Game Prediction) Update:
Scoring Procedure:
- Predict correct result (win/loss/draw) of a game: 1 pt
- Incorrect result: -1 pt
- One "folly" may be used each week for an automatic 0 pt game.
- One game may be labeled as "money" for automatic double points.
- For each team's score you predict correctly, 1 pt, but only if result is correct.
My personal competition with my cousin is going pretty well for me so far. Missing the money game of DC-COL lost me two points, though the same thing happened to Jeppson Utd. FC, so that kept us even. Predicting CLB to defeat NY 2-0 lost JUFC a point, and my choosing of it as folly put me a point ahead. We both predicted RSL wins, so another point is deducted. I predicted a CHI-NE draw, while he chose NE to win, but CHI won, so another point is lost by each side. We both chose CHV over expansion side TOR correctly, me 4-0, him 2-1, he got CHV's score right, and I got TOR's score right for two pts apiece. Tonight's LA-HOU game made broke the small margin. He chose a 2-0 LA win, while I chose a 0-0 tie. 0-0 was indeed the final score. -1 for him, 3 for me. I would publish my picks for next week, but he's reading this blog, so I can't.
After 1 week:
rslnerd: 1 point
Jeppson United FC: -4 points
Playoff Picture:
Top Two East : Chicago, Columbus/New York
Top Two West : Chivas USA/Colorado
Four "Wild Card" : Columbus/New York, Dallas, Salt Lake, Houston/Los Angeles
MLS Performance Factors:
1. Chivas USA - 3002002
2. Colorado - 3001002
3. Chicago - 3001001
4. Dallas - 1000002
4. Salt Lake - 1000002
6. New York - 1000000
6. Columbus - 1000000
6. Houston - 1000000
6. Los Angeles - 1000000
11. DC United - (-999)
12. New England - (-1000)
13. Toronto - (-2000)
MLS Goal Leaders:
Jeff Cunningham (RSL) - 2
Sacha Kljestan (CHV) - 1
Carlos Ruiz (DAL) - 1
Roberto Brown (COL) - 1
Kenny Cooper (DAL) - 1
Luciano Emilio (DC) - 1
Herculez Gomez (COL) - 1
Logan Pause (CHI) - 1
Ante Razov (CHV) - 1
Top 10 MLS Point Leaders:
Jeff Cunningham (RSL) - 4
Sacha Kljestan (CHV) - 3
Carlos Ruiz (DAL) - 3
Roberto Brown (COL) - 2
Kenny Cooper (DAL) - 2
Luciano Emilio (DC) - 2
Herculez Gomez (COL) - 2
Logan Pause (CHI) - 2
Ante Razov (CHV) - 2
Terry Cooke (COL) - 2
Next for RSL:
vs. Columbus, 4/14/07, Rice-Eccles Stadium, Salt Lake City UT, 4:00 PM MST
Columbus put in a valiant effort against New York on Saturday, but came away with just a scoreless draw. They look to defeat a talented RSL team at their strong home site, where they drew more fans for the game against Dallas than any other game in the MLS that day.
Next Week's Games:
4/12
DAL @ LA
4/14
CLB @ RSL
KC @ DC
TOR @ NE
CHV @ HOU
4/15
DAL @ NY
CHI @ COL (First time COL GK Zach Thornton faces his old team... Gonna be interesting)
RSL Schedule:
4/7 vs. Dallas T 2-2 (0-0-1/1/T3 West)
4/14 vs. Columbus
4/21 @ Chivas USA
4/30 vs. Colorado
5/5 vs. New York
5/10 @ Colorado
5/20 @ Dallas
5/27 @ Chicago
6/2 @ New England
6/14 vs. Dallas
6/17 @ Los Angeles
6/23 vs. DC United
7/4 vs. Toronto
7/7 @ Columbus
7/14 @ Kansas City
7/28 vs. New England
8/4 vs. Houston
8/18 vs. Chicago
8/26 @ Chivas USA
8/29 vs. Kansas City
9/1 @ Los Angeles
9/8 @ Houston
9/15 @ Toronto
9/19 vs. Los Angeles
9/22 vs. Colorado
9/26 @ D.C. United
9/29 @ New York
10/6 vs. Chivas USA
10/13 vs. Houston
10/20 @ Colorado
Major League Soccer
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