MLS All Stars 3–2 West Ham United: Post Match Thoughts

Hav­ing attended a few too many of these MLS All Star games in the past I’ve learned not to par­tic­u­larly care about the match. But last night’s game was prob­a­bly the most enter­tain­ing All Star game since the MLS began play­ing top for­eign clubs in 2003. Hav­ing attended the 2006 match against Chelsea which clearly was a match of a pre sea­son Eng­lish top flight team ver­sus a bunch of play­ers who had never played together, last night was a pleas­ant sur­prise. The most stun­ning thing was the chem­istry between the MLS mid­field, led by Shal­rie Joseph who much like his role for New Eng­land set up the MLS attack, was con­fi­dent on the ball, and as always broke up oppo­si­tion attacks before they got to the back line.

The MLS back­line was sus­pect. Given the cur­rent state of the US National Team should this sur­prise us? Sure Dean Ash­ton and Carl­ton Cole would be hands down the two best attack­ing play­ers in MLS, but still that is no excuse con­sid­er­ing in the past the MLS All Stars have held in check the likes of Didier Drogba in this match. Con­sider all four start­ing defend­ers last night were Amer­i­can, while all five start­ing mid­field­ers were for­eign­ers. In addi­tion, this is the third con­sec­u­tive all star game where no Amer­i­can player scored a goal. For an Amer­i­can league, that’s not a good sign.

Dwayne DeRosario’s per­for­mance a night after the deba­cle at RFK Sta­dium (a deba­cle I stayed up to the bit­ter end to watch) is fur­ther proof of why many feel he is the great­est player ever in the his­tory of MLS. Along with names Marco Etchev­erry, Jaime Moreno, Lan­don Dono­van, Car­los Valder­rama, Steve Ral­ston, Tay­lor Twell­man and Shal­rie Joseph, DeRosario cer­tainly belongs.

Chris­t­ian Gomez looked less com­fort­able play­ing in a strange role thanks to all the tal­ent in the MLS mid­field. But he stepped up when had to and got a bril­liant goal. Juan Toja who was likely play­ing his last game in MLS was also out­stand­ing, show­ing not only good tech­nique but an under­stand of posi­tion­ing and never out of ideas in the final third. What is amaz­ing is Toja has shown none of this dur­ing the trou­bled cur­rent FC Dal­las cam­paign. David Beck­ham was out­stand­ing no doubt as was Cua­hate­moc Blanco who in a classy ges­ture allowed Beck­ham to take every free kick while they were both in the match.

I tend to agree with my Amer­i­can Soc­cer Show co-host Dave Den­holm that these All Star games are a waste of time. But last night’s game seemed like a bet­ter event, sim­ply because it was being played in Toronto.
Nonethe­less, con­ced­ing two goals against a mid­table EPL side even if both goals were com­pletely against the run of play (and one a total fluke) isn’t a great sign. It again points to the fact that under the salary cap, MLS teams are spend­ing far more money on mid­field­ers and attack­ing play­ers than defend­ers and that in addi­tion the cur­rent pool of Amer­i­can play­ers in MLS is weak. It will be even weaker of Lan­don Dono­van moves abroad some­thing he is now pub­li­cally dis­cussing and Pablo Mas­troeni moves to Serie A, some­thing that seems likely to hap­pen in the near future. As MLS con­tin­ues to depend on for­eign play­ers to prop up the league, more and more Amer­i­cans are likely to go abroad to seek decent pay and a foot­balling chal­lenge. This may not be all bad or it could be dis­as­trous for both the league and the national team. Only time will tell on this front.