Winners:

Coach Steve Sampson's LOS ANGELES GALAXY has reached MLS Cup in much the same fashion that the Galaxy of Coach Sigi Schmid won the 2002 title – thanks to the extraordinary scoring skills of one individual. Schmid's team had Carlos Ruiz, who scored eight goals in the six 2002 postseason games. This time, LANDON DONOVAN has scored four of the Galaxy's five goals in three playoff games and assisted on the fifth. In Saturday's 2-0 win over Colorado in the semifinals, Donovan escaped the blanket coverage of defender Pablo Mastroeni for a split second to slide and poke home Cobi Jones' low pass from the wing. On the second, in the waning minutes, Donovan took the ball at the halfway line, juked past three defenders, and curved a perfect shot past keeper Joe Cannon from 14 yards.

CLINT DEMPSEY pushed the ball over the goal line with his derriere to give NEW ENGLAND a 1-0 win over Chicago in an ugly Eastern Conference final that included 46 fouls and saw the Revs' fail to test Chicago keeper Zach Thornton after the 4th minute goal. MLS Cup 2005 is thus a rematch of the dour 2002 final, in which Los Angeles beat New England, 1-0, on an overtime goal.

In the Netherlands, DaMARCUS BEASLEY scored his second league goal of the season in a 3-0 PSV Eindhoven win over Sparta Rotterdam that keeps PSV in first place.

In Germany, with American Kasey Keller in goal, Borussia M'Gladbach held second-place Hamburg SV to a scoreless tie but slipped to sixth place. Defender Steve Cherundolo returned to the lineup for Hannover, which tied Mainz, 2-2.

In England, Brian McBride made his first league start for Fulham in five weeks and played 77 minutes in a 2-1 win over Manchester City, whose American midfielder Claudio Reyna sat out with an injury, Fulham defender Carlos Bocanegra went the full 90. Keeper Brad Friedel and Blackburn celebrated a 4-1 over Charlton, for which American defender Jonathan Spector went the full 90.

Losers:

In English Premier Reserve League action, Manchester United's American keeper TIM HOWARD conceded a goal from a punt by Wigan keeper Floyd Croll. Man U still won, 2-1, and its forward, Sylvan Ebanks-Blake, who scored both goals, told Man U's Web site: ''It was a freak goal and it was very unexpected but we kept our heads up.'' Defender Jonny Evans said: ''It was one of the flukiest goals I have ever seen. It took a real bounce off the wet turf.''

CHELSEA suffered its first loss of the English Premier League season and saw its 40-game EPL undefeated streak end with 1-0 loss to Manchester United on a Darren Fletcher goal. The loss followed Chelsea's midweek Champions League defeat to Spain's Real Betis. Man U now trails first-place Chelsea by 10 points but has a game in hand.