MLS – The Cup is getting closer and closer

By Stephen Lars

After an excellent regular season full of strong emotions and great plays from most of the teams, a new chapter in the MLS playoffs history is starting with the qualification of the best eight teams in the league, which will perform a hard competition for the title.

On this new qualification round, the New England Revolution will be measuring themselves against one of their biggest rivals, the Chicago Fire, which is been trained by their new coach Denis Hamlett. This game will be the opening of the playoffs and it will be a display of energy and enthusiasm by the two teams, emotions that will probably be seen in the second game of this two teams as well.

On the other hand, the New York Red Bulls which have been coached by Juan Carlos Osoria after Bruce Arena’s resignation and are coming from a terrible loss 5-2 against the Chicago Fire in the regular season, will be trying to leave the bad times behind them aiming to win the valuable title they haven’t been able to win for the last ten years. But in order to achieve this challenge, they will have first to face and defeat the two times league champion Houston Dynamo (2006 and 2007), team that is coming from a great regular season with 51 points ahead.

One of the biggest surprises for this MLS season has been the Real Salt Lake first ever appearance in the playoffs. The Utah team has managed to get at this point of the championship after overcoming all the difficult times they had in the previous seasons and thanks to the great performance and dedication of Coach Jason Kreis, who took over the challenge of giving his players a very hard training to improve their physical and mental condition. The Jamaican midfielder Andy Williams was one of the players that took advantage of this training and has become one of the best players in the team and a great role model to the rookies.

Another team privileged with the qualification to the playoffs was Columbus Crew, which won their spot after defeating D.C. United in a match in which both team struggled for ball control. But at the end, it was Columbus Crew the one that took the dominion of the field and with the only goal in the game, scored by Brad Evans at the 77’, the Columbus finished the regular season with a total of 39 points.

The Kansas City Wizards finished the season with a good position in the table and a great record of 7-0-3 in the last home games. The team owes their good performance to their coach Curt Onalfo, who dedicated himself completely to bring up a team that came from a very bad half of the season but managed to overcome the bad run and started winning.

On the other hand, Chivas USA reached the playoffs for the third time after a 1-1 draw against the Houston Dynamo in a game that started with problems in the midfield, when the Dynamo made several scoring attempts without luck. After this dangerous plays, the Chivas took the control of the game and at the end of the game they managed to tie the game.

Chivas USA is a relatively new team, which began in 2004 and since their very start has had ups and downs in their player's level since they have been using rookie almost all the time. As the seasons have passed by and after suffering several players and coaches’ changes, the Chivas USA has managed to improve and increase their game and it has been proven with this year’s qualification to the playoffs and the 2006 and 2007 appearances in the quarterfinals, finishing the regular season in the first and third place respectively during those seasons.

About the Author
Stephen Lars has been a prominent writer on daily MLS games, sports news and the sportsbook industry for many exceptional sport web sites. You may reprint this article in its full content, please note no modifications to it are accepted.