If Week 2 of the 2008 MLS season taught us anything, it’s to take over-hasty pronouncements of a team’s flight or failure after the first game of the season with a grain of salt, says ESPN’s Steve Davis. There are two glaring cases, in particular: New England, lauded as an instant title favorite following the 3-0 thrashing of Houston on opening day, looked anything but in a shocking 4-0 reversal in Chicago five days later. The second, of course, is the Los Angeles Galaxy’s bounce-back win vs. the San Jose Earthquakes. Denounced as traveling circus with soft center (that is, defense) after Week 1, David Beckham and Landon Donovan silenced the doubters with a thoroughly professional one-two punch performance last Thursday.
Silenced the doubters? Sort of — Davis says it’s too soon to judge either the Revs or the Galaxy one way or another. New England went down to 10 men after just eight minutes against Chicago, while L.A.’s “sound” victory was against an ordinary looking expansion club.
While a lot of talk will be about Beckham and Donovan’s goal-and-assist performances, one of the standout performances came from MLS journeyman Santino Quaranta, who looked “silky smooth and skillful in a D.C. United shirt.” Quaranta scored in United’s 4-1 thrashing of Toronto FC, but … it was, after all, Toronto FC. Will Quaranta finally break through this season? Unlikely, Davis says. Other pleasant surprises have been the performances of Rapids’ trio Bouna Coundoul, Nick LaBrocca and John DiRaimondo.