Fire get Open Cup date
On June 18th, the Fire will host either the Pittsburgh Riverhounds or RWB Adria in the fourth round of the US Open Cup. The game will be played at Toyota Park, with kickoff slated for 7:30 p.m. Tickets for the game will go on sale May 28th, which is the same day that Pittsburgh and RWB Adria play each other. Personally, I'm rooting for RWB Adria to advance because that would awesome to see the local club go against the city's top team.
DC United 2, Houston Dynamo 0
DC United continues to impress and moved into second place with a win over Houston. Our favorite, Chris Rolfe, opened the scoring in the 29th minute when he received a pass from Fabian Espindola which left Rolfe one-on-one with David Horst. Rolfe's cutback spun Horst around, and he finished back-post for the lead. Houston was without Brad Davis and Boniek Garcia who are both away on World Cup duty and Ricardo Clark who is injured, while DC was short Eddie Johnson due to suspension (as you'll read below).
In the 64th minute, the two forwards reversed it, with Rolfe finding Espindola again matched up against Horst. Espindola was able to create space from Horst just like Rolfe and finished the game off for DC United. The win leaves United in second in the East, on 18 points - two more than they managed in the entire 2013 season.
LA Galaxy 2, FC Dallas 1
The Galaxy (3-3-3) rode strong performances from Robbie Keane (of course) and Gyasi Zardes (surprisingly) to hold off the visitors in Wednesday's late-night matchup. Keane opened the scoring with an upper-90 blast from 20 yards, then set up Zardes for a headed goal. Dallas rookie Tesho Akindele tightened the game up 20 minutes from time with his first senior goal, but Los Angeles held on to climb out of the basement in the west.
Johnson, Powell suspended
Eddie Johnson was fined and suspended for his reckless challenge on Troy Perkins and Timber defender Alvas Powell also received a one game suspension for his challenge on Crew defender Chad Barson.
Robinho linked with Orlando City
As Orlando City nears MLS, rumors are bound to happen. This one includes Brazilian Robinho. The report says that talks have begun. His AC Milan teammate Kaka has also been linked with Orlando City. With AC Milan needing to shed salary to revamp this roster, this move isn't crazy. Robinho would also probably do very well in MLS.
Gulati talks 2026 World Cup
USSF President Sunil Gulati said that the U.S. would be open to bidding on the 2026 World Cup only if FIFA changed some of the bidding rules and increased transparency. I can't blame him. Why bid for something that will go to a bribery-backed bid and know that you will lose? It's not worth the time or money.
Homegrown map
The Philadelphia Union SB Nation site, Brotherly Game did an absolutely awesome map of MLS teams and their homegrown player maps. They show what region each team has a claim to. A few things that stick out to me is that there is a lot of uncovered land around us, Sporting KC has St. Louis (so I guess that would stop us from taking from USL St. Louis) and I'm glad we are the only team in the city. There are several teams that have regions that bump up against one another. This piece is definitely worth a look.