There were some playoff matches last week. I don't know if you heard or not. My life in a cave seems to keep me away from these things. Luckily I made it out in time to follow all of the excitement last weekend. So putting memories of past gaffs behind me it's time to switch gears from previous weeks and take a serious look at the playoff picture.
Now, that said, let's move on to playoff matches and some interesting things about them this season. First, Virginia Beach holds serve at home to down Charleston 1-0 on a Roy Lassiter goal. Then the cannons awoke in the Battery attack as Charleston soundly trounced the Mariners on their way to a playoff meeting with Rochester. An own goal from the normally sound Virginia Beach defense and goals by rookie Chris Goos and Josh Henderson would see off the insurgent Mariners. Really, though, there should be some deserved applause for the Mariners who really have done well to put A-League soccer back on the map in that area of Virginia. Hopefully more people will take much more notice in the 2004 season, I'm sure the opposition will.
In the Northeast series Rochester's 10 prove better than Montreal's in their first leg meeting resulting in a 2-1 victory at Frontier Field. Stoian Mladenov proved once again that he and the Rhinos are ready as the leaves begin to think about turning in upstate New York as he punched in a penalty and assisted on the second Rhino goal. That left the initiative squarely on the shoulders of the Impact who just couldn't breakdown the Rhino defense, which seemed content on a 0-0 score line that would send Rochester to the cusp of another A-League final. It's that time of year again and the Rhinos are hanging around with their 55 regular season goals. Some would say a surprisingly leaky defense this year has made them appear to be slightly weaker this season than in others. Yet, I have to remind myself that this is Rochester, this is September, and it's the A-League playoffs.
Minnesota and Milwaukee renewed their border war this weekend although Wave United did so without the services of Dino Delevski who was let go from the team reportedly due to chemistry issues. Those chemistry issues, however, were not related to the periodic table according to my sources. In the end they may have been able to use Dino as Minnesota overcame a deficit from the first leg to win an exciting overtime match on Sunday evening. To folks like me Minnesota seems to be lurking out there waiting in the weeds in their final season at the NSC as they advance to face Seattle.
Seattle and Vancouver resumed their rivalry once again last Friday night live on Fox Sports World bringing their tight, fast-paced soccer to the telly as people hipper than I like to say. Neither squad could break the others resolute defense as they drew 0-0 at Seahawk Stadium so the venue changed to Swangard Stadium in Vancouver. The Whitecaps had to like their chances to score the one or two goals, which would make the difference in the series but an early strike from Seattle's loaner from the San Jose Earthquakes Roger Levesque in the 2nd minute made life extremely uncomfortable for the Whitecaps and their fans. It took a stoppage time goal from Vancouver's Dave Morris to draw things level and take the match into overtime, which then lead to penalties. The marathon match finally ended 6-5 on PKs with Seattle's Rich Cullen guessing correctly to stop the 'Caps Jeff Clarke. The remarkable stat on the series, courtesy of Ron Stickney and Mark Coker's excellent Seattle Pitch, is the shot totals which were 39-14 in favor of the Whitecaps (31-3 in game two!). Seattle's defense withstood the barrage to survive and get a trip to Minnesota for their troubles.
So as we near kickoff for this weekend matches that will decide who plays for the championship I'll try to take a look into the games to see who just might be heading for a coronation. Rochester is hard to pick against, ever, when it comes to the playoffs in the A-League. Then again, the Battery may have finally found a way to peak when it matters and if so Charleston could finally fulfill some of the annual predictions of their contention for a title. On the other side of the ledger there's a Sounders team that feels like it will have a lot to say about who the next champ will be. They'll have to manage more goals than their series against Vancouver produced but judging from the few earlier results this year against Minnesota they should provide for some fireworks. The Thunder will also look to put a few more in the back of the net in this series and have proven that they may have Lady Luck on their side after last week's early OT goal. Charleston and Rochester should shape up to be a clash of titans that could provide few goals and a slew of stellar saves but all will likely hinge on tonight's match at Frontier Field. Minnesota and Seattle should play some fairly exciting and possibly end-to-end soccer with both teams going full tilt to expose the others weaknesses or perceived weaknesses. Either way it's down to the last four teams and I think we'd all be hard pressed to find a better quartet to get to this point this year.
That all brings me to one of the main things that I wanted to mention namely the wide availability of access to almost every minute of playoff match action last weekend and continuing into this weekend. The only exceptions to this being Minnesota and Milwaukee who didn't have some form of television coverage or internet audio. Of course Minnesota will get a little help from the local AM station this weekend and the Sounders should have a webcast available for Sunday' visit to the Midwest. I'm not completely positive but this could mark the first time in several years that we've started to see consistent coverage or at least potential access to such coverage to this stage of A-League action. Hopefully next season Fox Sports World can work out a way to get more complete coverage of the playoffs. Until then, however, enjoy what should be a terrific match between Charleston and Rochester at Frontier Field tonight on Fox Sports World especially if you're sitting in the Three Lions Pub while watching it.
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