Real Salt Lake, Crew enjoy a surreal weekend
SPORTS EXTRA / SOCCER
Surprising results occur as D.C. United suffers its first four-goal loss since 2004 to Real and Columbus blows a 3-1 lead before prevailing, 4-3, over Chivas USA.
Three weeks into the Major League Soccer season and already one thing is clear: This will not be an ordinary year.
Winning one week and losing the next seems to be the fashion, and only two teams, the Chicago Fire and FC Dallas, remain unbeaten.
Amid a weekend of strange results, none was more surprising, perhaps, than four-time MLS champion D.C. United's 4-0 loss at Real Salt Lake, which enjoyed its biggest victory margin and handed D.C. its first four-goal loss since 2004.
"I would never have predicted a 4-0 score line against D.C. United," admitted Real Salt Lake Coach Jason Kreis. But D.C. United Coach Tom Soehn rested his money players, including playmaker Marcelo Gallardo.
Even more strange was Chivas USA's see-saw encounter with the Columbus Crew. The game ended with the Crew winning, 4-3, but only after allowing a 3-1 advantage to vanish.
"I don't know if my heart can take all of them like this," said Crew Coach Sigi Schmid. "Everybody should be made to watch this on TV and then say soccer is not exciting."
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Galaxy Coach Ruud Gullit refused to point the finger at his defense for Sunday's 3-2 loss to Toronto FC, preferring to blame his attack for blowing scoring opportunities that could have put the game away early.
Chivas USA Coach Preki was far less hesitant in lambasting his back line.
"Defensively, all night I thought we were shaky," Preki said. "We had all kinds of errors in the back. When you go on the road and score three goals, you should come away with something. Tonight we found a way to lose points."
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Unless the Columbus front office gets its act together, there pretty soon might not be a need for a Columbus front office.
With MLS intent on expanding its footprint, and with teams such as Toronto FC selling out every game and Seattle Sounders FC having 14,000 season ticket deposits a year before it plays its first match, the league has other options.
One of them would be to relocate the Crew. Despite having its own stadium, a quotable coach in Schmid, a halfway decent collection of players and a lock on a small market that doesn't have much else going for it on the professional level, Columbus still is unable to sell out its 20,145-seat stadium.
The Crew, claimed an average of 15,230 in 2007, its 12th season in town, but had a record-low turnout of 6,733 for its victory over Chivas. The bad weather was only partly to blame.
