All of the hype and eyes of the American soccer community will be on MLS Live Saturday night (yes, someone forgot to negotiate this game into NBC or ESPN's deal) as Sporting Kansas City host Real Salt Lake in the Battle of First Place Teams. With both teams playing so well, the hype is justified […]

For the first seventy minutes of yesterday's First Kick match-up between the Galaxy and RSL, the predictions about the amazing 2012 Galaxy season looked like they were more than just hype. Only the crossbar and some timely RSL defending denied the Galaxy a multi-goal lead and the defense looked shaky but solid. When Edson Buddle converted a […]

The greatest time of the year has finally come. After weeks of previewing the teams, we are a day away from the beginning of the MLS season. Looking ahead to 2012, some things have stayed the same (star-powered LA Galaxy, new playoff format again, ESPN games of the week) and some things have changes (new […]

Team: San Jose Earthquakes Coach: Frank Yallop Last Season: 8-12-14, 7th Western Conference, 14th Overall Hashtag: #SJEarthquakes Although it is an overused phrase, this year is a critical year for the San Jose 'Quakes. The team is at a crossroads and this season will show if the newer franchise with the classic name can create a permanent and financially […]

We are nearing the end of our Three Questions series, and I hope you have found it insightful and useful during the offseason. We'll end the series tomorrow and Tuesday with the MLS Cup participants, prior to the 2012 Superdraft. Today in addition to Sporting Kansas City we'll turn our attention to Real Salt Lake, […]

This time last year, the San Jose Earthquakes were riding high. They had upset the New York Red Bulls in the Eastern Conference playoffs and had seen the emergence of Chris Wondolowski as a bona fide goal scorer. Although the team had definite weaknesses and was not at the level of, say, Real Salt Lake, […]

As our long-time readers know, MLS Talk likes to provide serious, well-thought out news analysis mixed with offbeat and laughable soccer-related thoughts. This is the latter type of post. Prior to First Kick 2011, the MLS Talk writers got together to give some predictions for the upcoming season. At the time, we promised we'd resurrect […]

The 2011 MLS Cup will truly be a David v. Goliath affair. In this corner, you have the regular season's best team with the most star power and biggest names who, by the way, will be playing at home. In this corner, you have a team that fought all season for a playoff spot then […]

Yesterday, Vancouver extended Real Salt Lake's losing streak to four games with a 3-0 win at BC Place. However, the talk of the match were two penalties called on RSL, one of which led to a red card for Collen Warner, both for handball. The first led to Real Salt Lake going down to ten […]

The question I wrestled with in my head last night was this: if there were no playoffs or a playoffs with just four teams instead of 10, would this weekend be as exciting? Regardless of how you feel about the playoff format or the playoffs in general, the answer I came up with was YES. […]

Fans who saw the scoreline of September 10th's 3-0 win by DC United over Chivas would assume that DCU would win handily against the Goats at home and, with New York's loss, would move into the driver's seat with their playoff push. But as the excellent fan blog Black and Red United noted, Chivas actually […]

It's catch-up time. In both games in hand and playoff positioning. In the shadow of the CONCACAF Champions League matches six MLS clubs will take the pitch tonight in critical games for playoff positioning. One of the matches is a match-up of heavyweights, while the other two look to be mismatches that could be surprises. […]

The talking point since First Kick has been the same: the Western Conference is vastly superior to the Eastern Conference. For the past six months or so, we've heard about the top teams in the West and their chances of winning the MLS Cup. Recently, with the playoffs looming, the talk has focused on how […]

Going into the MLS regular season and CONCACAF Champions League games last night, American soccer fans knew it was going to be an interesting night. The CCL matches would determine who would advance to the group stage while the three MLS games had major playoff implications. However, even I was unprepared for the intense level […]

Jon Busch was having quite a game. The San Jose keeper had made a few really good saves and the 'Quakes were hanging on against Real Salt Lake. Despite being outplayed, it looked like the home visiting team could grab a point from the match to help their playoff run. Then in the 61st minute […]