Major League Soccer (Mid)Week 29: Union Move Into Second In East With Win

The pair of goals give Le Toux 10 for the season, eight of which have come in his past seven games. He has also scored in three straight. Le Toux, who had just two goals in his first 26 games, is suddenly getting prominent mention as a MVP contender. He also has eight assists.

As good as Le Toux was, though, all three of the Union’s goals were pretty clearly on defensive breakdowns. Both of Le Toux’s goals came after he was able to get behind Union defenders. On Farfan’s goal, he was able to jump over an attempted tackle, take several uncontested dribbles and fired a shot from about 20 yards out when no United defender stepped up to stop him.

Union starters: MacMath; G. Farfan, Califf, Valdes, Williams; M. Farfan, Carroll, Okugo, Torres; Paunovic, Le Toux. Bench: Harrison, Adu, Mapp, Jack Mack, Nakazawa, Pfeffer, Tait.

United starters: Hamid; Kitchen, White, McDonald, Burch; Najar, Simms, King, da Luz; De Rosario, Wolff (c). Bench: Willis(GK), Brettschneider, Korb, Morsink, Ngwenya, Quaranta, Woolard

I actually like Beckerman as a player, and it’s too bad he lost his cool like this. But the league can not allow this kind of action to go unpunished. A ban of at least two additional games seems fair.

Then, lightning struck. For what seemed like the first time in the game, De Rosario dropped deep to pick up the ball around the half-way line in the 13th minute. Quickly, he turned himself around, spotted Najar running down the right, and played a perfect through ball to Najar through tons of traffic. It hit the Honduran winger perfectly in stride, and he went on to score. De Rosario’s pass was incredible - Xavi-esque, even. Think that’s a hyperbolic statement? Watch it again.

So, that’s the first two goals. Teamwork and movement off the ball, combined with some below-average defending were the key ingredients. The third and fourth goals, though? Unstoppable. Nothing but skill and power from De Rosario. Both his second goal, which came from open play, and his third, a direct free kick, were stunning. They were placed perfectly and hit with power.

Kansas City is now top of the East on 44 points, two clear of second place Houston. Columbus is three points back on 31 points and all three have three matches remaining.

Perhaps the best news on the night for Real Salt Lake was that Javier Morales returned to the lineup for the first time since breaking his ankle in April. Morales entered in the 60th minute to a rousing ovation from the Rio Tinto crowd, and nearly set up a goal on his first touch, when his free kick was headed just wide of goal. Otherwise, it was a pretty uneventful night for Morales, but fortunately the game calmed down somewhat in the second half after a very physical first half. If Morales can regain his match fitness before the playoffs without any setbacks, it should improve RSL’s MLS Cup hopes significantly. In this way, tonight’s loss may not prove particularly damaging to RSL’s aspirations overall.

This season it has felt like nobody wants to win the Eastern Conference. Every time a team get to the top of the conference puts itself in position to run away from the rest of the teams they go into a funk and go sliding right back down the table. The reality is that the teams in the conference are just bad teams so they can’t sustain good form, but being afraid of success (is winning the East even really considered a success anymore?) is more fun.

There are three midweek matches on the slate for Wednesday and Thursday and two of those three will help determine the Eastern Conference’s winner, while another could be the nail in the coffin of the Supporters Shield race. Playoff implications all around!