What a great game. Convey was incredible, and the young striker for NYRB looks very promising. The goalies couldn't really do anything tonight. All the goals that were scored were pretty much unstoppable.

Convey's second should have saved, imo (great turn, though). But, yea, really high quality match. gogogo Bobby Convey

NYRB die die die

MLS cup is gonna be SJ vs Dallas ..... who the **** wants to pay $150/seat for that?

I was looking forward to going to the final but now i'm going to wait to see who makes it and will prolly bitch out if it's a boring matchup.

Your best hope from the east is probably Colorado. They can score goals in bunches and are fun to watch.

Columbus has more team prestige, but TFC and Crew don't exactly get along.

San Jose has a lot of good players but no one that would really draw a crowd.

Well, probably only the second most disappointing end to a season! Good season as a whole coming off of terribadness, but shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

Atleast Aguedelo looks awesome. Nearly as fast as Dane but makes better runs and actually has good touch. stupid that he played FIFTEEN MINUTES during the regular season. I didn't think Marquez played that bad from what I saw but i havn't watched a replay yet - he makes some lazy passes sometimes, but he covers so much ground, and his long balls are best on the team.

Bouna made some really good saves, and RB blew a ton of chances at the end there too, the game could have ended like 5-3, pretty exciting/heartbreaking.

Convey Parties Like It's 2006

This post was supposed to be about the NY/SJ series, but one player took the last game over to the point that I have to concentrate on him and him alone.

Remember when Bobby Convey was a young phenom? He came up with DC United after being the second youngest player ever drafted. He impressed so much that Tottenham tried to by him for $3m, but his work permit was denied because of too few appearances with the national team. Instead he went to Reading for the highest transfer fee they've ever paid.

It wasn't all fun and games though. He slowly fell out of favor with the national team (rumors are because of a poor attitude) and reached a mutual agreement with Reading to leave the club in 2009. Even his first season back in MLS wasn't too great.

However, he has completely turned it around this year. He's been huge for San Jose, playing great in the midfield and sliding back to play left back when their defense was ravaged by injuries. He's set up goals all over the place, delivered beautiful set pieces, and been a huge reason for the Earthquakes improvement this season.

All of this was on display last night as San Jose went into Harrison and beat New York Red Bulls 3-1 to come back and win the first-round playoff series.

First, he scored on a brilliant shot to the upper left corner off a cross that sat in the box.

Then he turned rookie of the year candidate Tim Ream like a Lazy Susan and netted another with a blast over Bouna Coundoul.

After New York scored to get level on aggregate Convey took over again, playing an inch-perfect ball from 40 yards out over the defense to Golden Boot winner Chris Wondolowski whose header to the upper right corner was absolutely unstoppable.

If Convey's resurgence this season isn't enough to get him called back in to the national team, I don't know what Bradley can be looking for. I know that left back isn't his preferred position, but we're super weak there and he would bring an attacking quality from the back line that we're seriously missing right now.

It's been great to see him turn his career around at 27, and there's still plenty of time left for him to continue to dazzle.

i'm still pretty meh on Convey for national team. guess i wouldn't hate a call up, but i don't see him being the answer for us anywhere. he did own last night though.

Aguedelo tho, i'm excited for him to get some chances on the national team. turns 18 in a few weeks, and has 12 goals in 16 games for U-17's and 3 in 7 for U-20's. seems like way more potential than Buddle/Gomez/Findley at 2nd striker

Convey playing LB pushes Pearce and Bornstein to the bench, and lets Boca play center with Goodson (or Gooch if he ever gets back on form). I think that a big upgrade.

I'm very high on Agudelo. Would love to see him get called in for one of these friendlies soon, but if not I'm hoping he gets called in to the U-20 matches (Colombia and Mexico) happening in late November just north of Atlanta. He's one of the people I really want to see along with Salgado, Boss, McInerney, McMath, Gil, and Tristan Bowen

That may be true, but I think that having fullbacks that can actually defend international-level wingers/outside mids is way more important for the U.S. than attacking quality. Putting him at LB may be sufficient for early CONCACAF qualifying rounds, though certainly not after that. For that reason alone, such experiments would be a waste of Bradley's time.

I really shouldn't be happy at all given the debacle at DCU this season but between Andy Najar winning ROY (whether he actually deserved it or not) and more Metrostars playoff fail, it's been a great week.

Two games today

4pm - Telefutura
Colorado Rapids @ Columbus Crew

10pm - FSC
FC Dallas @ Real Salt Lake

Each visiting team is coming in with a 1 goal advantage, and the two home teams have near identical odds on Bodog: http://sports.bodog.com/sports-betti...er-usa-mls.jsp

I would give RSL a significantly better chance of going through than Columbus. Yeah, Javi Morales is suspended after picking up two yellows (so is Atiba Harris for Dallas), but they beat LA Galaxy in the MLS Cup final last year with Morales only playing a handful of minutes before getting injured. They have the depth to survive that loss and, more importantly, have a defense that just locks down at home (surrendering only 7 goals in 15 games).

Columbus looked really good against Colorado for the first 5 and last 10 minutes of the game last week. Colorado should've done better than to only win 1-0. Now we have to see if the Crew can come out and play 90 minutes like that in an effort to save their postseason lives.

My predictions: RSL wins 2-0 (Saborio/Olave), Colorado beats Columbus 2-1 (Cummings/Casey, Garey)

Also, MP, what's the feeling among Toronto fans about signing on Klinsmann as a special consultant?

Dios Mio, Columbus is pinning their ears back right now.

Columbus up 2-0 now(2-1 in total aggregate). Pretty physical game, I won't be surprised if someone gets sent off.

My bad luck may have worn off Colorado! Casey scores in the 84th minute to make it 2-1 (2-2).

Super entertaining game (better than that 7-10 Alabama/LSU snoozer I'm flicking back and forth with).

Unrelated, but all my "oooohs" and "aaahs" during Spanish broadcasts are probably stereotypically Mexican enough to be offensive. I have no idea how this happens.

Free soccer!

So it ends on penalties. Here's the play-by-play

COL: Conor Casey - BL, guess BL, goal
CLB: Guillermo Barros Schelotto - BL, guess BR, goal
COL: Mac Kandji - BR, guess BR, goal off a terrible save blunder
CLB: Jason Garey - TR, guess BL, goal
COL: Jeff Larentowicz - BL, guess BL, goal
CLB: Eddie Gaven - BR, gues BL, goal
COL: Claudio Lopez - TL, guess BR, goal
CLB: Eric Brunner - TR, guess BL, goal
COL: Julien Baudet - TL, guess BR, goal
CLB: Brian Carroll - BAGGIO'D!!!!!!!!

LET'S GO FCD!!!!!!!

YEAHHHHHH!!! DAXXXX!!!!!!!

1-0 FCD!!!(3-1 aggregate)

Dallas has had some beautiful counter-attacks so far this game.

Also, look at how good they are with Brek in!

Pretty awesome that Robbie Findley can start in the World Cup and rides the pine in a first round MLS playoff game.

Also, I'm officially the greatest jinxer in MLS history.

LA and Seattle fans, I am accepting bribes to endorse your opponents!

OH HAI DER FINDLEY

Blow another open opportunity

Hmmmm, don't like subbing out Cunningham for Luna there. He was still playing super well and was threatening the RSL backline.

Probably won't matter with Hartman going all Revis Island in goal though.

No Robbie Findley fail!?!?

80th minute. 1-1 (2-3)

Game on!

FC Dallas holds on for the 1-1 (3-2) win. Congrats harper!

Great game, great crowd, great series.

George John and Kevin Hartman are Gods.

tytyty!

John's the **** and without Hartman we're fuked.