Say this for Major League Soccer: the league managed to stay interesting all the way up until Sunday’s final game.
Major League Soccer Final Week Review: Galaxy Keep It Interesting, Crew’s William Hesmer Injured
The MLS regular season went out on a high note with plenty of memorable moments in the final week
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Although the Galaxy ultimately won the Supporters’ Shield — something we’ve been expecting them to do since about Week 5 — they needed to come from behind in order to do it.
Even the game that was supposed to be essentially meaningless, featured a significant turn of events. In the midst of cruising to their first victory in seven matches, the Columbus Crew suffered a significant blow to their already slim MLS Cup hopes when goalkeeper William Hesmer collided with Philadelphia Union defender Danny Califf in the 85th minute. Hesmer was removed from the game, forcing the Crew to play midfielder Eddie Gaven in goal. It was eventually learned that Hesmer had fractured his shoulder and will miss the playoffs.
The Crew will now face the Colorado Rapids and their dynamic duo of Conor Casey and Omar Cummings with a goalkeeper who did not make a single regular-season appearance this season and has a career save percentage of .617, a total that would have been one of the worst in MLS this season.
On the plus side, Andy Gruenebaum was solid in non-MLS action this year. He made six appearances in CONCACAF Champions League and registered three shutouts and made four appearances in U.S. Open Cup where he went 3-1. Easily the best team he faced in any of those competitions was Mexico’s Santos Laguna, but they never unleashed their full fire power. Cristian Benitez didn’t play in either game and Daniel Luduena only played one half. Gruenenbaum did have to face Luduena and Jose Cardenas for the final 20 minutes of the Crew’s shutout of Santos, but he never had to face a sustained attack quite on the scale of Cummings-Casey.
Combined, the Rapids forwards have 25 goals this season, 17 of those coming in the team’s past 11 games.
Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s take one final look at the week that was.
If the Boot Fits
Edson Buddle started the season with nine goals in the Galaxy's first six matches and seemed to be an absolute lock for the Golden Boot. Even though he missed five matches while being called into U.S. National team duty, he maintained a solid strike rate that saw him score 17 goals in 25 matches. He even put together a solid end-of-season push, scoring three goals in his final four matches.
None of that was enough to hold off the Earthquakes' one-man show, Chris Wondolowski. The six-year MLS veteran never went more than three matches without a score, and finished with a closing kick for the ages. In Wondolowski's final four matches, he scored six goals to give him 18 for the season. Wondolowski twice scored more goals in a game (three) than he had in any previous season (two). This from a player who entered this year with just 11 MLS starts under his belt.
Wondolowski’s tallies accounted for 53 percent of the Earthquakes’ total, the first time a MLS player has scored at least 50 percent of his team’s goals since Carlos Ruiz scored 24 of the Galaxy’s 44 goals in 2002.
Tricks Are For Wiz
As out-of-the-blue as Wondolowski's scoring output may have been, at least he was a player with whom MLS followers were familiar. The same could not be said for the Wizards' Birahim Diop, who probably became the most unlikely player to ever score a hat trick in MLS.
Diop scored three goals against Quakes on Saturday, giving him five for the season in just 497 minutes. As The Daily Wiz pointed out, that gives Diop the best goals per 90 minutes rate of any MLS player with at least three goals. Diop hadn’t played in MLS since 2002 and had spent the last seven seasons in such places as Colombia and Maldova.
They Are Legend
This weekend saw two of the greatest players in MLS history hang up their boots. Both of them went out in style.
DC United's Jaime Moreno was up first, saying farewell to his fans of 15 seasons by retaking the all-time MLS goals scored lead. The goal allowed him to retire with a one-goal lead over Jeff Cunningham, who had just caught Moreno on Oct. 3 but has gone scoreless since.
Martin Shatzer of Black and Red United sums up the feeling in the stadium best.
This was a magical night for Jaime Moreno and D.C. United. I doubt many of the 18,071 in attendance at RFK Stadium will even be able to remember that their team lost.
Not to be outdone, Brian McBride capped a career that saw him star in MLS, put together several solid seasons in the EPL and then return to MLS to play for his hometown team by scoring the opening goal in the Fire's 4-1 victory.
McBride’s back-heeled score gives him 80 for his MLS career and 145 in his professional career (including stints in the A-League and in Germany).
Just to keep it interesting
Real Salt Lake has had their way with the Rapids recently. Not only have RSL eliminated the Rapids from playoff on the final day of the last two seasons, but they had won the Rocky Mountain Cup for three years running.
With RSL needing a result to keep their quest for the Supporters’ Shield alive, the Rapids seemed ready to exact some revenge on their biggest rivals. As the game rolled toward stoppage time, the Rapids held a 2-0 lead.
That quickly changed. Goalkeeper Matt Pickens got caught getting cute with the ball and RSL striker Alvaro Saborio was able to deflect the ball toward the goal. The ball ricocheted off the crossbar as Pickens crashed into the back of the net, leaving Saborio with a tap in. Five minutes later, RSL was given a penalty when Jamison Olave was wrestled to the ground on a free kick. Saborio then calmly buried the penalty to salvage the point.
Dave Clark of Sounder at Heart has a fun illustration (using We Ain’t Got No History’s Graham’s Win Expectancy Chart) that shows how improbable this turn of events was.
Goal of the Week
There were some significant goals this week, but in terms of pure buildup and finish, I don't think any of them beat Geoff Cameron's goal against the Sounders. This video doesn't really do it justice because it misses the early part of Cameron's run, but even this abbreviated version is a beautiful thing to see.
Player of the Week
When you score a hat trick, even if your team has already been eliminated, you deserve to be recognized. Diop came almost literally out of nowhere to make a name for himself this year and it will be interesting to see how the 31-year-old does going forward.
Save of the Week
I’ve been pretty hard on the Crew, deservedly so. Their season has just crumbled and without the services of Hesmer, it seems unlikely to get any better. But they won today and deserve to feel good about it. Eddie Gaven may not have a future in goal, but he looked fine on this save.
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