Goalkeeper of the year and MLS fair play award were just awarded and my predictions for both of them were right on.
Brad Guzan from Chivas USA took the Goalkeeper of the year award. Micheal Parkhurst and his 4 fouls all year won the MLS fair play award.
Congrats to both of them, and I guess to me too for getting those right. Okay – maybe not to me until all of my picks have been proven right. yeah right…..
The finalists for the 2007 player awards have been announced. Here they are along with my choices for the winners.
Panasonic Goalkeeper of the Year Finalists
Brad Guzan – Chivas USA
Pat Onstad – Houston Dynamo
Matt Reis – New England Revolution
I don’t think many people give Matt Reis much of a chance of winning this one. I go with Brad Guzan. Onstad has been there before and is doing what he has done with a defending championship team. Guzan led a young team to the western conference title.
Fair Play Finalists – Individual
Cobi Jones – LA Galaxy
Michael Parkhurst – New England Revolution
Eddie Pope – Real Salt Lake
I have no idea who to give this one to, but I bet Carlos Ruiz will never appear on this list. I guess I go with Parkhurst. Sure he got carded against the Red Bulls, but they said he had only committed 4 fouls all year long. That is just crazy.
MLS Comeback Player of the Year Finalists
Frankie Hejduk – Columbus Crew
Eddie Johnson – Kansas City Wizards
Pat Noonan – New England Revolution
This one seems like an easy choice. Congrats to Frankie and Pat, but Eddie Johnson has to win this one. He has to.
Visa Defender of the Year Finalists
Michael Parkhurst – New England Revolution
Eddie Robinson – Houston Dynamo
Claudio Suarez – Chivas USA
This is tough one to pick as well, but I think I’ll choose Eddie Robinson. No specific reason…
Gatorade Rookie of the Year Finalists
Adam Cristman – New England Revolution
Maurice Edu – Toronto FC
Dane Richards – New York Red Bulls
Dane Richards gets this one because he played for a team that wasn’t in last place. He played for a team that didn’t set records for most consecutive scoreless minutes. Maybe thats not a good reason, but they might be close and it is good enough for me right now.
MLS Coach of the Year Finalists
Dominic Kinnear – Houston Dynamo
Preki – Chivas USA
Tom Soehn – D.C. United
Preki. But as a Wizards fan I’d probably pick Preki for any award any time over anyone.
Honda MLS Most Valuable Player Finalists & Newcomer of the Year
Juan Pablo Angel – New York Red Bulls
Cuauhtemoc Blanco – Chicago Fire
Luciano Emilio – D.C. United
Same players for both of these awards. I suppose they’ll give 2 of them an award, but if you are the MVP and also happen to be a newcomer wouldn’t you deserve to win both awards? Maybe they will award the MVP and then exclude that player from the newcomer award. That is what I will do. I give the MVP to Juan Pablo Angel and the newcomer award to Luciano Emilio. Why not Emilio for the MVP, because I think a great player is more valuable to a crappy team than a team that is already full of good players. DC United is not lacking anything. The NY Red Bulls are not the strongest lineup in the league. Blanco just didn’t play enough weeks to warrant the award over the other 2 guys. Had Blanco been here just as long he might have taken the MVP.
I skipped the referee of the year because I would have no idea who to pick on that one, but the nominees are Brian Hall, Jair Marrufo and Alex Prus.
What do you think, are my picks way off or have I nailed them all?
As the top ~61% of the teams in MLS have just finished the first legs of the first round of the playoffs the LA Galaxy have a match scheduled against Hollywood United a week from today.
The first I heard about this I thought it was The Onion-ish style news. Hollywood United – sounds like a joke. Well apparently there is such a thing and they are going to play the LA Galaxy in a charity match. All proceeds from the match will be given to the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army to help the California wild fire victims.
This Hollywood United team is made up of some celebrities and some past soccer players and coaches. Check out the official website of Hollywood United and also the Wikipedia page about them.
A couple of days ago I wrote about the possibility of Philadelphia becoming the home to an MLS expansion team within the next 3 years. Rob GZ pointed out how much of a stupid ass I am for saying that and not saying that St. Louis will have a new team in 2 years.
So I ask, what is the next 3 years going to see in terms of MLS expansion. We know San Jose next year. Is Seattle in 2009 a done deal? What about 2010. Give me your predictions in the comments. We’ll come back in 3 years and see who is right and find out if I really am a stupid ass.
This is what I see happening:
2008 – San Jose
2009 – Seattle
2010 – Philadelphia
What do you think?
Just as the Fire and DC United have kicked off this 2007 playoffs I found this interesting article from a Chicago sports writer. Kinda funny and I felt kinda the same when I was thinking about who was going to win this series. Not at all that anyone cares who I pick, just that I had a hard time. I don’t think DC is going to be able to do it.
Fire for the win.
Kansascity.com’s sports section has a bit of a preview of the playoffs along with their predictions. They have picked the Wizards to take a 4-3 victory this weekend over Chivas USA. I thought I was the only one that was going to pick the 5th place team from the east to beat the west champions.
The more interesting thing about this is that they have 2 players to watch for each team. For each team the goalkeeper is one of the players to watch.
The best part is that they have Dario Sala listed as a player to watch. ESPN watches Beckham when he’s on the bench, so why shouldn’t Kansascity.com watch Sala when he’s on the bench? Ray Burse Jr. has been the starting keeper for FC Dallas lately. I don’t know if Sala is scheduled to start or not, but I could think of several guys that should probably be on the players to watch list before Sala. What the hell?
I read this evening on the Sports Card Forum that Upper Deck is going to be producing a 100 card set representing the 2007 MLS season. Sounds cool but why only 100 cards in the set. Assuming each and every team had only 11 players that ever played, 13 teams in the leage, works out to be 143 starters when each team plays a game.
So how does the challenge work?
I’ll start with the guy that this probably wouldn’t happened without – Eddie Johnson, just kidding it’ll be David Beckham. There, we have 2 already. Go.
ps – I did some searching and found that Upper Deck has already published MLS card sets in 2004 and 2005. Not sure about any other years…..
2008 – San Jose
2009 – Seattle
2010 – Philadelphia?
Some people think it will be Philly and aparently there are some plans to raise money for a 20,000 seat soccer stadium that will have some other uses other than just soccer.
I guess if I had to bet on who would get the team in 2010 I’d have to put my money on Philly. I’ll just be hoping that sometime before I’m retirement age I can see a Minnesota MLS team.
Well the Galaxy run came to an end and the Wizards didn’t drop out of the playoffs on their last game day like expected. Here is a look at the upcoming playoff schedule. I’m glad to see they are still going to have Thursday nite games on ESPN2! All times CST.
Thurday, October 25
D.C. United @ Chicago Fire – 7:30 p.m. [ESPN2]
Saturday, October 27
New England Revolution @ New York Red Bulls – 6:30 p.m. [FSC, FSE]
Houston Dynamo @FC Dallas @ 7:00 p.m. [DK, HDNet, MLSLIVE.tv]
Chivas USA @ Kansas City Wizards – 7:00 p.m. [DK, MLSLIVE.tv]
Thursday, November 1
Chicago Fire @ D.C. United – 6:30 p.m. [ESPN2]
FC Dallas @ Houston Dynamo – 7:30 p.m. [DK, MLSLIVE.tv]
Saturday, November 3
New York Red Bulls @ New England Revolution – 6:30 p.m. [FSC, FSE]
Kansas City Wizards @ Chivas USA – 9:30 p.m. [DK, HDNet, MLSLIVE.tv]
And below are my predictions for the semi-finals:
Chicago Fire vs. New England Revolution
and
Houston Dynamo vs. Kansas City Wizards
You might thing my picks of Chicago and Kansas City are crazy, let me explain. 1. Preki. 2. Blanco. Thats it, I just have a feeling.
Well we’ve heard it before, but when Ives Galarcep writes about something, people take notice. Now he is talking about the possibility of Thierry Henry coming to MLS and playing for the New York Red Bulls.
There was a ton of doubt that Beckham would make the move to MLS but those turned out to be a little more than just rumors. Will Henry really end up in New York or anywhere in MLS? What do you think? When will it happen?
