The last day of play before teams lose players to their national teams for World Cup training camps features mostly interconference games. Only Eastern foes Kansas City and Chicago stay on their side of the divide; by the end of the week, will Western teams have padded their 15-6-6 edge, or will the East have cut into that difference?
The thorny issue of whether players called to World Cup duty will take it easy in their final club games will bear close watching, and whether those not picked with jack it up a notch or three. Ridge Mahoney of Soccer America looks at how internationals fare this week prior to departing for the World Cup.
Robbie Findley didn’t hold back; he tested keeper Pat Onstad in the second minute with a rising blast and connected on a header a minute later as RSL pounded Houston, 3-1, Thursday night. Also to be scrutinized are those players not summoned; but with RSL captain Kyle Beckerman it was hard to tell if disappointment added anything to a typically fierce performance.
No doubt TFC will have its hands full with the Landon Donovan-Edson Buddle farewell game against the Galaxy at Home Depot Center, and might D.C. United feel the lash of rejected Conor Casey’s fury as well? Just what floundering D.C. needs, right? A raging bull at RFK.
In Columbus, Jonathan Bornstein and Sacha Kljestan of Chivas USA go toes-to-toes with Robbie Rogers and Chad Marshall of the Crew, yet could his rejection spur Frankie Hejduk to an especially furious performance? Heath Pearce has to get through a game on turf in Philadelphia as FC Dallas goes for a third win in a row; Pearce’s poised play has been a subtle yet key element for FCD, which has lost only once in seven games.
Kansas City, which hasn’t won in the last three games, takes on Chicago in Roger Espinoza’s last MLS match before he joins up with Honduras.
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