MLS just completed its 26th week of play with a few surprises. Here's a brief run-down of the matches: Red Bull New York 1-3 Columbus Crew For the Crew going without Guillermo Barros Schelotto against a hot Red Bull team, this score line is somewhat unexpected. Pat Noonan took the Argentine's spot and assisted on the third goal of the match. Juan Pablo Angel opened scoring with a brilliant free kick in the 21st. In the 41st, Frankie Hejduk scored his first goal of the season and just his 11th in 161 career MLS matches. Hejduk chipped Jon Conway who was inexplicably out of the RBNY goal. Robbie Rogers have the Crew the lead in the 46th with a terrific run in from the left and a great curling shot inside the far post, which was exactly the sort of play that we should have seen during the Olympics from him. Eddie Gaven hit his second goal of the season in the 85th to seal the victory for the league's top team. Toronto FC 0-2 Kansas City Wizards Wizards' keeper Kevin Hartman didn't make a save for his shutout as Toronto FC didn't even get a shot on goal. I know Maurice Edu was TFC's best player, but I didn't know it was this bad without him for TFC as the Wizards simply are not a good team. Jack Jewsbury converted a penalty kick in the 63rd to open the scoring and Kevin Souter scored a looping deflection off a Josh Wolff cross in the 79th. Chivas USA 1-0 Real Salt Lake Forward/asshat Alecko Eskandarian scored the goal for Chivas on a ridiculous play by RSL. The ball was sent in from just past midfield and RSL defender Nat Borchers was a step or two ahead of Esky. Borchers didn't see keeper Nick Rimando coming out of the goal and chested the ball down. Rimando wasn't paying attention to the ball, despite running out at it and reached out and grabbed Borchers' arm, dragging him to the ground. The ball rolled on and Eskandarian scored the easy goal. New England Revolution 1-1 Colorado Rapids New England's poor form continued as what should have been a necessary three points turned into a disappointing draw. Colin Clark opened scoring for Colorado in the 42nd. Kenny Mansally scored in the 50th to even the scoring. The goal was Mansally's first since May 11 as he missed a lot of time for an ankle injury. DC United 2-5 Los Angeles Galaxy This one started roughly as expected as DCU opened the scoring in the 2nd minute when Devin McTavish scored his first of the season. Landon Donovan scored in the 23rd and the 35th before completing his hat trick in second half stoppage time. Alan Gordon and Peter Vagenas also scored for the Gals. Donovan assisted Vagenas' goal bringing him to 18 goals and 8 assists on the season. FC Dallas 4-1 Chicago Fire Fire keeper Jon Busch made just one save on five shots, while FCD keeper Dario Sala mad five. Jeff Cunningham scored twice and assisted on a third. Cunningham got his first in the second. FCD put in two in the last two minutes of the first half with Aaron Pitchkolan and Bruno Guarda scoring in the 43rd and 45th respectively. Cunningham scored again the 61st to make it four for FCD. Brian McBride scored his second of the season in second half stoppage time. San Jose Earthquakes at Houston Dynamo was postponed due to damage from Hurricane Ike. Most teams have five matches left on the season. Columbus sits high atop the Eastern Conference with 47 points, while the Revolution have 42 and are also likely into the playoffs. Chicago sit third, three points ahead of RBNY. In the West, Houston sits up top with 39 points and a commanding six point lead on Chivas USA. Chivas has 33 points, which is very significant as only the top two teams in the West are guaranteed a playoff spot. Competing with Chivas for the second spot are Colorado and Salt Lake with 31. Don't count out the Galaxy or San Jose as both have 29 points and could make it into competition with Chivas. As the playoff format goes, the top two from each conference make the playoffs and then the best six of the remaining 10 join them. At the moment, those two teams would be DC United (33 points) and Kansas City (32 points). Don't count KC and DC out of the Eastern Conference, but the two clubs must be feeling good about their current standing.
