Week 24 Spotlight

Week 24 is beyond us now... or is it Week 23? Each team has played 23 games but the league called it Week 24.

Regardless, seven games remain for each team in the league and every week from now on, whether it's been counted correctly or not, gains in significance. Last week, for instance, we saw some great performances from some great players trying to will their teams into the playoffs.

G: Jon Busch
D: Chad Marshall
D: Bakary Soumare
D: Mike Petke
M: Arturo Alvarez
M: Stephen King
M: Guillermo Barros Schelotto
M: Darren Huckerby
F: Nate Jaqua
F: Yura Movsisyan
F: Ante Razov

Top coach: Preki. Missing key players and key backups, Chivas USA traveled to Toronto FC and somehow pieced together another come-from-behind victory.

Top player: Guillermo Barros Schelotto. Give him the MVP already.

Top goal: I guess what happens during international weekends is that a lot of the quality of the league is gone and consequently you don't get spectacular goals. So the goal of the week is Darren Huckerby's against DC United as it was probably the most important goal scored this week.

Top save: It didn't mean much but FC Dallas' Dario Sala had a stellar reaction save early against Colorado on Thursday.

Best game: I'm partial to the San Jose-DC match. I had it on my laptop as the Galaxy-RSL game played out before me live. I figure, if I went to those lengths to watch the game (or at least snippets of it) it must have been a good matchup.

LOWLIGHTS

For the last time (until mid-October) I'll pile on MLS for their scheduling. Key players in key games were absent and teams had to shuffle massively to fill out their lineups. MLS lessens the quality of its league for the sake of playing games and doesn't even care. Shame.

New York's Diego Jimenez is apparently a defender. So we've heard. On Saturday, though, he played the role of Chicago playmaker as he set up Stephen King on the game's only goal.

Andrea did well to recount Fabian Espindola's tale. Poor guy. When you see something like that (and for those late to the party, Espindola broke his leg celebrating a goal that was eventually called back), you likely think 'Ha. Serves him right' or something. But when you have to stand in front of him and see how dejected he looked and see the tears in his eyes, well, you can't help but feel bad for the guy. Unfortunately for him - and this is why he was probably crying - it's got to be one of the most embarrassing moments of the season.