Winners
The Houston Dynamo's Dwayne DeRosario struck from 17 yards to give the MLS-All-Stars a 1-0 win over Chelsea in the 2006 MLS All-Star Game played before 21,210 fans at the Chicago Fire's Toyota Park on Saturday. It marked the third time the MLS All-Stars faced a foreign club in their annual All-Star Game after wins over Chivas Guadalajara (3-1) in 2003 and Fulham (4-1) in 2005. Also in 2005, the MLS All-Stars traveled to Spain and lost, 5-0, to Real Madrid.
A sellout crowd of 92,650 filled the Los Angeles Coliseum for the Chivas Guadalajara-Barcelona (1-1) game that was part of a doubleheader with the Chivas USA-New England (1-1) clash on Sunday. The previous Coliseum soccer crowd record was set when 91,585 watched Mexico play Argentina in 1999. The previous record crowd for an MLS game doubleheader with an international game was 92,216 for Los Angeles Galaxy-Tampa Bay Mutiny/USA-Mexico in 1996 at the Rose Bowl.
Losers
Broadcaster babble and poor camera work sapped the drama out of the MLS All-Star Game's only goal for the game's TV audience. While the MLS All-Stars had a throw-in deep in Chelsea's half, ESPN gave us a shot from behind the MLS team's goal while play-by-play man Dave O'Brien also ignored the game to joke around with booth guest Alexi Lalas. With O'Brien still chuckling, ESPN cut back to the action just as Dwayne DeRosario unleashed his goal-bound shot.
Fox Soccer Channel didn't provide good enough instant replays of either goal in Barcelona's 1-1 tie with Chivas Guadalajara for a fair assessment of the linesmen's judgments. That didn't stop commentators Max Bretos and Christopher Sullivan from accusing the linesmen of missing offside calls — even though the officials were correct in both cases, as a close look at the original footage of the goals reveals.