Author Archives: Ridge Mahoney

[MLS PREDICTION] MLS left the Cotton Bowl more than four years ago, yet that’s where New England and FC Dallas play their league match Wednesday as a preliminary to a Mexico-Colombia friendly. As one of the league’s founding members, the Dallas Burn used the Cotton Bowl as its primary home from 1996 to 2002, and again starting in 2004 until Pizza Hut Park opened in early August, 2005. Its large, smooth surface was regarded as among the league’s best to play on. New England was 6-3-1 against Dallas at the Cotton Bowl and won when it last played there, 3-0, in August of 2004.

[CONCACAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE] Seconds away from advancing to the quarterfinals of the regional championship, Columbus instead will have to wait more than three weeks to know its fate. Alexander Robinson headed home a Walter Centeno free kick in the second minute of stoppage time to earn Deportivo Saprissa a 1-1 draw in a Group B match and avoid elimination. A win would have guaranteed the Crew a quarterfinal berth; instead, it must at least tie the Puerto Rico Islanders away Oct. 20 in its final group match.

[CONCACAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE] The tasks for Houston and D.C. United are vastly different though both are playing at home Wednesday night in the group play of the regional championship.While tricky, United’s match against Trinidadian club San Juan Jabloteh (8 p.m., Fox Soccer Channel) is nothing like the Dynamo’s date with Mexican powerhouse Pachuca (10 p.m., FSC, Galavision). The Tuzos are in second place in Group A with nine points, two more than Houston and one less than Arabe Unido of Panama, which took over the group lead by battering Isidro Metapan, 6-0, on Tuesday.

[MLS PLAYOFF RACE] In baseball, a magic number is the sum of games a team needs to win plus the games its foes need to lose for it to clinch a postseason spot. In MLS, the magic number is how many points are needed to get into the playoffs, and as the number of teams has increased, that magic number has inched up as well. A benchmark of 40 points – which would represent a 10-10-10 record in a 30-game season – doesn’t look like it will be quite enough this year.

[MLS PLAYOFF WATCH] Defending champion Columbus secured a playoff spot by beating the Galaxy, 2-0, but the real news came from the other end of the standings. The bottom three teams – New York, FC Dallas, and San Jose – all dented the hopes of teams in the chase by refusing to lose, and in two cases, actually winning. Soccer America’s Ridge Mahoney updates the playoff race …

[MLS] Perhaps the new marketing slogan for MLS should be, “If you sell tickets, TV will come.” Spectacular season-ticket sales in Seattle prompted MLS to open its season at Qwest Field last March on a Thursday night, and the league will return there next spring. Opening day of the 2010 season will set the Sounders — who are averaging 30,739 this season — against the expansion Philadelphia Union, whose own home opener on April 10 – and perhaps several other home games – will be played at Lincoln Financial Field while work is completed on its stadium in Chester, Pa.

[MLS PREDICTIONS] With five weeks of the season to go, no team has clinched a playoff spot. Western Conference leader Houston will sit idle as New England, Kansas City and Chivas USA get a chance to improve their playoff fortunes at home. Maybe this is the week the Galaxy can overtake the idle Dynamo for first place in the Western Conference, but only a win at defending champion Columbus can do the trick, and the Crew has yet to lose at home this season. Also needing results on the road are Real Salt Lake (Dallas), Toronto FC (Chicago), Colorado (Kansas City), and Seattle (New England). For an outline of the playoff race, Ridge Mahoney’s weekend predictions and TV info …

[MLS] The team that had nothing to lose didn’t, and the team that needed to win also didn’t. Five days after a Conor Casey stoppage-time penalty kick resulted in a 1-1 tie between the Quakes and Rapids in California, the same scenario produced the same score in Colorado in front of a sparse crowd (6,234) smaller than the attendance (10,525) in San Jose last Friday night. The Rapids’ playoff quest, after getting only two points against the league’s second worst team in two games, looks a lot more challenging.

[CONCACAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE] The venue changed and the margin narrowed, but again Cruz Azul took the measure of the defending MLS champion. Concacaf Champions League finalist last year, Cruz Azul retained its hold atop Group C in the current competition by beating Columbus, 2-0, on the Crew’s home field.

[MLS PREDICTION] After splitting back-to-back games with Toronto FC earlier this month, Colorado hosts San Jose five days after the teams played a 1-1 tie in Northern California. This is the penultimate home game of the 2009 season for the Rapids; the finale is against New England, so they need this one in the worst way.

[REF WATCH] A former MLS head coach who shall remain nameless once uttered these words in regards to penalty kicks and the amount of time spent discussing them by players, coaches, and journalists: “Every week, in every league and every competition in every part of the world, you’re going to see penalties called and not called. All of us – coaches, players, the media, the fans, everybody – spend way too much time talking about penalties given and not given. They’re almost always critical moments in the game, so it makes sense. But …

[CONCACAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE] Houston set up a monumental clash with Mexican club Pachuca by beating Arabe Unido of Panama, 5-1, in Group A of the regional championship Tuesday. Four different Dynamo players scored, with substitute Stuart Holden netting twice, and Brian Mullan logged two assists as Houston (2-1-1, 7 points) moved into a second-place tie with Arabe Unido (2-1-1). The Dynamo is two points behind leader Pachuca (3-1-0, 9 points), which took over first place by pounding Isidro Metapan of El Salvador, 4-0.

[CONCACAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE] The second phase of the regional championship’s group play gets underway this week, as the teams run through their three opponents for the second time. Houston starts off action for the three MLS participants Tuesday by hosting Panamanian club Arabe Unido at Robertson Stadium (10 p.m. ET), Columbus plays Mexican powerhouse Cruz Azul Wednesday (8 p.m. ET) at Columbus Crew Stadium, and D.C. United faces CD Marathon of Honduras Thursday (8 p.m. ET) at RFK Stadium. All of the games will be televised live on Fox Soccer Channel, and since the MLS teams are playing at home and none are atop their groups, each needs a victory.

[MLS] The league is doing what it can to build its ratings on ESPN2. A scheduled telecast for an Oct. 7 meeting between FC Dallas and San Jose that likely will have no effect on the playoff race has been scrapped; instead, the final game of the season, New England and Columbus on Oct. 25, will be aired at 5 p.m. ET. League and network executives, said league spokesman Will Kuhns, have worked to give league telecasts better lead-in programming as well as showcase the top teams as much as possible.

[MLS PLAYOFF WATCH] The one-two teams in both conferences stayed where they were, with the respective leaders, the Crew and Dynamo, both on top with 43 points. Columbus (11-4-10) rallied for a 2-2 tie away to Chicago (10-6-10) to maintain a three-point lead over the Fire, and Houston (12-8-7) prevailed at home, 3-2, against Real Salt Lake to stay two points ahead of Los Angeles (10-5-11), which beat Toronto, 2-0. Here is our weekly rankings of the wild-card teams chasing the four spots behind the first and second teams in each conference, which qualify automatically for the playoffs.

[MLS PREDICTIONS] Two playoff hopefuls have a chance to move up on Friday when they face league doormats. Colorado, on ESPN2, aims to stay near the top of the playoff wild-card race in San Jose (last in the West). New England, under pressure after two straight losses, hopes to get back in the postseason qualifiers’ pack with a win against overall last-place New York. For all of Soccer America’s predictions, as well as TV viewing information …

COLLEGE: FRIDAY NIGHT …
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