A day after the Colorado Rapids won, 1-0, at home over the San Jose Earthquakes, F.C. Dallas thrashed the Galaxy at Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif., to book the club’s first ever appearance in the M.L.S. Cup title game. Colorado and Dallas will meet on Sunday, Nov. 21, in Toronto for the championship.

Alex Gallardo/Associated Press Landon Donovan and the Los Angeles Galaxy were tops in M.L.S. after the 30-game season. Like other teams, they will have to play four more games (two away from home) to win the title.

The Major League Soccer playoff format aims to add urgency to the season’s final series of games leading up to the M.L.S. Cup. But it’s hardly consistent. The first round, a home-and-home two game series, is determined by aggregate goals. This season, for only the 10th time in 30 postseason series, a team trailing after the first leg came back to win on aggregate. The San Jose Earthquakes’ victory over the Red Bulls made them only the second lower seed to engineer such a comeback. The Earthquakes will face the Colorado Rapids in the Eastern Conference (yes, Eastern Conference) final on Saturday in Commerce City, Colo., in what amounts to the league’s semifinal.

Jamie Sabau/Getty Images The Colorado Rapids, above, and FC Dallas, below, won only 12 games each during the regular season, one more than last year’s M.L.S. Cup champion Real Salt Lake.

George Frey/Getty Images

A penalty kick shootout decided last year’s title game, when the Galaxy failed to convert three of their seven spot kicks against Real Salt Lake, which missed only two. If it comes down to the notorious tie-breaker Sunday against F.C. Dallas in the Western Conference final (Dallas is, mind you, the Eastern most team left in the playoffs), Galaxy captain Landon Donovan is measured in his confidence.

Unlike the first round, the conference final will be a single game (another inconsistency) with the winner advancing to M.L.S. Cup in Toronto. According to the playoff rules, if the score is tied after regulation, two 15-minute extra time periods will be played, before resorting to kicks from the penalty spot.

That’s how the Rapids made it this far, edging the Columbus Crew in a shootout after Conor Casey’s strike in the 84th minute against the Columbus Crew on Nov. 6 tied the aggregate score.

“My thought is to score,” he said this week. “The odds are certainly in your favor during a penalty shootout, and we do everything we can to prepare and make sure that we score.”

Donovan skied his shot over the bar in last season’s final, but since then, he’s been almost spot on. Three of Donovan’s seven goals this season came from the penalty spot, including two against Chicago on Aug. 1 (in a losing effort). Donovan scored on three of his four penalty shot attempts in M.L.S. (missing once against Chicago on Sept. 4 when Sean Johnson saved him). And let’s not forget his crucial score against Ghana in the Round of 16 of the World Cup in South Africa, when he expertly kissed the ball off the inside of Richard Kingson’s left post.

EA Sports Landon Donovan, right, the captain of the U.S. national team, sashays onto the cover of the FIFA 11 game.

Confession: I have never played the EA Sports’ FIFA series of video games. I hear my son Jesse is pretty good, but that is what he says. Now, there may be hope for us “mature” players in the new FIFA 11 game from EA Sports that was released on Sept. 28 in the United States, and is now available in 18 languages and 51 countries.

Enter the “Dad Pad,” a kinder, gentler, more simple approach for folks who have played the game (on the field) but might have been intimidated by the game (on the screen).

“For FIFA 11, we have added two-button control on the theory that lots of people are passionate about the game, but intimidated by all the controls — it can be a bit overwhelming if you’re not an active sports gamer,” said Santiago Jaramillo, one of EA Sports’ game producers, in a telephone interview from development headquarters in Vancouver, British Columbia. “A lot of people really want to try the game but feel the barrier to entry is higher so we created a controller configuration where you c an choose classic/alternate or two-button and all you need is the left stick in the controller to pass and shoot. The rest is controlled by AI, which, if you get into position to take a finesse shot, all you have to do is press shot. You don’t have to worry about power or aiming. The AI will determine if it’s a good situation.

“It allows you to get into it and grow up. It opens the door to a new market and new demographic. We call it the Dad Pad. We’ve realized we have to make the game compelling and challenging for the hard core, but easy to pick up for people who don’t want to spend too much time playing.”

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Major League Soccer’s media machine has been operating at full power all week ahead of Friday night’s match between the Red Bulls and Los Angeles Galaxy at the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif. The match will be televised live nationally by ESPN2 at 11 p.m. Eastern.

It is being called “The Game of the Season,” which is just a bit of hyperbole because the season still has a month to go … and then the playoffs. So if a match in late September is your game of the season, what does it say about the rest of the season?

O.K. It is a big game for myriad reasons: Four designated players are expected to be on the field at the same time — Landon Donovan and David Beckham for Los Angeles (after the match Beckham will be off to Trinidad and Tobago as part of a late England offensive in its bid to host the 2018 World Cup); and Juan Pablo Angel and Rafael Marquez for the Red Bulls. Thierry Henry did not make the trip to the West Coast because of an injury to the medial collateral ligament in his right knee. It is the same injury sustained by Dallas goalkeeper Kevin Hartman after his ill-fated encounter with Henry as he celebrated a Red Bulls goal last week in Dallas.

The Galaxy remains the No. 1 team in the overall standings, with 50 points in 25 games to lead the Western Conference. The Red Bulls, with 41 points, are 3 points behind the leaders in the East, Columbus. And while the Red Bulls are on the verge of nailing down a playoff spot after finishing last season as the worst team in the league, the Red Bulls have failed miserably this season against the best clubs in the league.
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JOHANNESBURG – The United States team’s World Cup goal was clear from the beginning: advance out of Group C to the knockout round.

“It would be great to win the group, but the most important thing is to get out of the group,” Clint Dempsey, the U.S. midfielder, said during the first round. “If we don’t get out of the group, that’s a failure.”

The Americans won the group, edging England on goal difference, and will play Ghana today in Rustenburg in the round of 16. So, mission accomplished, right?

“That was our first goal,” Coach Bob Bradley said. “That wasn’t our goal.”

“We feel good about the way we handled the first round, the different challenges and the way we responded along the way,” he added. “When you get to the knockout phase, it’s the opportunity to see how far you can take it.”

In fact, the Americans are emboldened by their success, and spirited by the support they have here and at home. They players are confident that, in a single elimination tournament, they can beat any team in the world on any given day. Saturday against Ghana, the Americans’ motivation isn’t respectability it’s posterity.

“It’s not a failure if we don’t win Saturday,” Landon Donovan said. “But there is such a massive opportunity to do something so much more special.”

Last summer, after the United States defeated Spain the Confederations Cup semifinal, some called it the most important victory in the team’s history. After the win over Algeria, Sunil Gulati, the president of U.S. Soccer, said a new benchmark had been set.

What will it mean if the United States defeats Ghana? What must the Americans do to accomplish that? Predictions?

Gabriel Bouys/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Landon Donovan’s goal against Slovenia may have sealed a whole new American soccer style.

In a game where the tactics and rhythm can make you feel you are watching a ballet choreographed in the logic of a pinball game, the question of style is a tricky thing, a slippery fish of the mind. Still, we know in a knee jerk way that the Spanish have artistry and grace, the Germans have an organized, disciplined attack and the English have a stolid defensive predictability that puts one in the mind of lukewarm tea and rainy Tuesdays.

But when it comes to the Americans, pondering their style is like a Zen koan. It leaves you stammering “ums” and “wells” as the mind races towards nothingness.

Perhaps no longer. When Landon Donovan rifled a shot right at and over the Slovenian keeper — in the soccer equivalent of chicken — I couldn’t help thinking as I played the goal over and over that, well, it seemed like such an American thing to do.
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The Nike “Write the Future” ad directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, the Mexican auteur of the feature films “Amores Perros,” “21 Grams” and “Babel,” is one of the signatures of this World Cup. But despite great reviews, something seems off about it, though I couldn’t quite place what it was. Fortunately my son, Asher Klein, could. He wrote in from Chicago, where he’s attending college, to offer this deconstruction of the Nike spot everyone’s watching:

What is it about that Nike World Cup commercial? So far, not one of its stars has played anything like the beautiful game. Has world football got something going on like the Sports Illustrated cover jinx or the Madden Curse from his series of EA N.F.L. video games?

The three-minute-long epic in question, Nike’s “Write the Future” ad, shows five players in the heat of battle in South Africa imagining how the fans back home will react to their performance. The players are some of soccer’s biggest names: Ivory Coast’s Didier Drogba, Italy’s Fabio Cannavaro, England’s Wayne Rooney, Brazil’s Ronadinho, and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo.

The idea is that these players will put their Nike-made boots to work at the World Cup, and in so doing make a future for themselves (score a goal and you’re immortalized on YouTube, fail to score and you’re trailer trash) and for the Cup-hungry fans watching on TV. Problem is, these players aren’t making headlines, at least not the ones they’d like to make. In fact, they almost seem cursed!

In order of appearance:

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IRENE, South Africa – With the drama and hype of the England game behind them, the Americans must now turn their attention to Slovenia, a similar team to the United States.

Maintaining focus and staving off any potential let down after a hard-fought 1-1 tie will be key, the players said Tuesday, and Coach Bob Bradley has everyone on point.

“As much as we’ve been focused on the England game,” Landon Donovan said, “he and the coaching staff have been very focused on Slovenia and Algeria.”

Coming from behind to tie England was dramatic, but Donovan and his midfield partner Clint Dempsey said the players had greater ambitions.

“We were not popping Champagne,” Donovan said of the reaction in the locker room last Saturday. “Guys were satisfied with the point but nobody was ecstatic.”

The Americans are in a precarious position in Group C: tied for second with England with 1 point, trailing Slovenia, which has 3 points. It will take at least 4 points to qualify for the knockout round and, even then, it could come down to goal differential, the first tie breaker.
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Timothy A. Clary/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Landon Donovan has gotten used to being the center of attention for American soccer.

IRENE, South Africa — At the start of the 2002 World Cup, the soccer world didn’t know quite what to make of Landon Donovan. He was a talented, highly touted 20-year-old attacking player who hadn’t done much of anything.

By the end of the tournament, he had two goals, led the Americans to the quarterfinal and was named the World Cup’s most outstanding young player.

“Being young and not knowing anything can be very positive sometimes,” Donovan said Wednesday, eight years later and three days before his third World Cup begins with a game against England in Rustenburg. “Looking back now at that player, mentally, it’s almost like a completely different person. And there are pluses and minuses to that.”

Donovan, 28, has been the first foot, and face, of American soccer for almost a decade. His hair is a bit thinner now, and the lines of his face a bit sharper than the jubilant young softie who didn’t know quite how to celebrate when his floating cross from the right flank ricocheted off Portugal’s Jorge Costa in the Americans’ 3-2 victory in the first round in South Korea in 2002.
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About this time the players can’t wait to get over to South Africa. It’s not because the biggest sporting event awaits where dreams can be made and players immortalized; it’s just to get away from all the home country media. You can call it what you want: the Send Off Series, the Road to the World Cup, the Nike Don’t Tread on Me Tour. But it all comes down to the same thing: spinning up the hype. A hype laden with the future: expectations, predictions, impatience, anxiety and hope.

And what a better way to come back to the present than by spending some time on a grass field with a ball and a bunch of people playing a game. In South Africa now, the team will be settling into a regular place to stay, a regular training field and a regular routine for the next few weeks. And how nice it is; it’s a job, it’s a profession, but also it’s what you did as a kid. Some good fun away from all the distractions.

It is crucial, however, how the team manages the shift from dealing with attention and popularity in its home country to arriving at a party with much bigger stars in the room. It is crucial to understand your appropriate identity as a team. In the United States’ case Carlos Bocanegra summed it up best after the win against Turkey, saying his team is “a scrappy dirty bunch. It’s not always pretty. But today we figured out a way to pull out a win.” Through all the progress soccer has made in the country — the United States has a legitimate star in Landon Donovan and had a successful 2009 — there has been a tendency to overestimate the team. So Boca’s definition is still the best and here’s why:

First, none of our players would break the starting lineup on any championship contender team. There’s the possibility that a Tim Howard or a Donovan might be part of the squad, but probably not starting. Individually some American players are gaining ground, becoming solid players in European leagues, but not enough to form a solid collective. Second, our ability when favored is weak. Any team claiming they are middle ground or up needs to be able to break down the lower teams. Against a condensed defense with little space to use our speed and flair, the ability to skillfully create chances out of possession is just not good enough.
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Shannon Stapleton/Reuters Manchester United Manager Sir Alex Ferguson said the United States national team’s success is the best measure of soccer’s advancement in America.

Sir Alex Ferguson does not expect the United States to beat England in the teams’ opening game of the World Cup.

“I think they’re going to find it very, very difficult,” Ferguson, the Manchester United manager, said Tuesday. “It’s a hard game to start with because England will be very, very motivated under Capello.”

The United States and England will play June 12 in Rustenberg, South Africa, in the first match of Group C. Fabio Capello, the England manager, and United States Coach Bob Bradley have already faced questions in finding the right combination of talent and fitness. The list of injured Americans is neither long nor severe, but causes some concern. Capello has to worry about the health of the star striker Wayne Rooney and a number of other key players, including Rio Ferdinand and Gareth Barry.  Ferguson didn’t have any information about Rooney, his Manchester United forward, suggesting that a reporter for Sky might know more about Rooney’s injured groin than he would.

England has great depth and world-class talent, which will be familiar to a number of the American  players who make their living in the English Premier League. But Ferguson holds out hope for the Americans: “If they can survive after that, they stand a very, very good chance of qualifying. In fact, I think they will qualify.”

In New York to promote Manchester United’s summer tour of North American, Ferguson and David Gill, the club’s chief executive, fielded questions from reporters in Manhattan for more than half an hour. In July, they’ll return to the United States and Canada with their team to play a series of exhibitions against Major League Soccer teams and feature in the M.L.S. All Star game in Houston on July 28.

Ferguson cited the qualities of American players in the Premier League, especially the goalies, and heaped praise on Clint Dempsey, who scored eight goals in all competitions for Fulham this season, and Landon Donovan, who impressed Ferguson and a number of other observers during a loan spell with Everton.

“They have proved themselves in previous World Cups,” Ferguson said. “With Donovan and Dempsey, they’ve got some experience having been there before. It’s not as if it is new to them. So I don’t think they’ll be overwhelmed by the situation or the atmosphere of the World Cup.”

Ferguson was non-committal when asked who he thinks will go deep in the World Cup, citing the usual suspects: England, Brazil, Spain.

Who is Ferguson rooting for?

“Scotland.”

FLO TV The U.S. national team midfielder Landon Donovan is featured in a campaign promoting FLO TV.

HDTV? Check. High-speed Internet connection? Check.

So, you’re ready for the World Cup, right?

Ah, but you might want to consider the six-hour time difference between South Africa and cities on the East Coast of the United States (you can do the math for other U.S. time zones). That means, for the first round, that games will be starting at 7:30 a.m., 10 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. So, unless you are on vacation, unemployed, work at night, own your own business or are independently wealthy, chances are you will be tethered to your desk with few options other than online match-tracking (or a long, long coffee or lunch break).
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England Coach Fabio Capello announced his preliminary World Cup roster on Tuesday, persuading defender Jamie Carragher to come out of international retirement for the tournament, while other players were selected despite injuries.

Andy Lundberg/Associated Press Landon Donovan, who will be a key player for the United States in South Africa, leads Major League Soccer with six assists.

As the preliminary roster deadline for teams participating in the World Cup nears, a number of managers face uncertainties regarding essential players.

Denmark Coach Morten Olsen, who announced his first cut Monday, included the injured goalkeeper Thomas Sorensen. Spain, the European champion, will rely on striker Fernando Torres, despite a slow recovery from a knee injury, and midfielder Cesc Fabregas, who is recovering from a fractured fibula. Xavi Hernandez, who has a nagging thigh strain, was also included in La Furia Roja’s selection.

The United States Coach Bob Bradley will announce his initial cut for the team that will travel to South Africa at 2 p.m. Tuesday, Eastern time, and it remains to be seen if forward Charlie Davies will be included; if defender Oguchi Onyewu will be fit; and who will play left fullback. ESPNews will carry the announcement live.

“We are obviously still a little unsure as to how our roster will shape up because of some key injuries, but we are all very excited for June to get here and to get started,” Landon Donovan, the American forward, told FIFA.com. “We have had no choice recently but to play some guys in positions that they aren’t used to playing, and I actually think that will help us during the World Cup. It always helps to have players that are comfortable playing in a lot of different positions.”

The players Bradley selects will report to training camp in Princeton, N.J., as early as Saturday. Meanwhile, the Americans’ first opponent must sort out its own personnel conundrums. England Manager Fabio Capello and his assistant Franco Baldini were to spend the day conferring about the team’s 30-man preliminary World Cup roster. But their discussions are likely to be dominated by one player: Wayne Rooney.

Rooney, a forward, limped off the field in the 77th minute of Manchester United’s final game of the season on Sunday, a 4-0 victory over Stoke. He will be examined Monday, but Sir Alex Ferguson was optimistic: “I think he’s aggravated the groin again. I don’t think it’s serious – he’ll be O.K. for England.”

He better be. Much as Rooney’s contributions this season dictated Man United’s fortunes (the striker had 34 goals), his form will determine England’s success in South Africa.

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Year 2 of the Women’s Professional Soccer league began with the opening of preseason training camps last weekend. The regular season opens  April 10.

The league, the successor to the Women’s United Soccer Association, which folded in a sea of red ink after the 2003 season, endured a difficult economy in 2009 and returns to the soccer landscape in a busy year that includes the World Cup in June.

“We think it will be the opposite of getting lost,” W.P.S. Commissioner Tonya Antonucci said in a telephone interview. “I think we’re going to get more attention because the focus is on soccer in this country among hardcore fans. We’re even more jazzed going into this year. We believe it’s going to be more exciting.”

In a way, the league has taken a few steps forward and one back. In the off-season, last season’s regular-season champion, the Los Angeles Sol, folded after the Anschutz Entertainment Group, which ran the club, surrendered its rights to the team when it was unable to find a new owner. That sent the marquee player in W.P.S., the Brazilian striker Marta, into the expansion draft and eventually up the California coast to F.C. Gold Pride in the San Francisco Bay Area.

“You never want to lose a team; the focus was acute for us because it was our first year,” Antonucci said. “We tried hard to find a solution. Los Angeles is a viable market and we could get back to L.A., perhaps as early as 2011.”

Antonucci acknowledged that most of the W.P.S. clubs lost about $2 million each last season, but said Read more…

So far, Landon Donovan’s limited engagement with Everton of the English Premier League has been nothing short of smashing, as they might say on the other side of the pond.

On Thursday, Donovan was named the club’s player of the month for January.

“It’s a privilege to receive the recognition as it comes from the supporters,” Donovan, 28, said on the Everton Web site.

Donovan, the United States national team’s career leading scorer, made his debut for Everton against Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium on Jan. 9 and has been a regular in the lineup of Toffees Manager David Moyes. He has played well and played hard, prompting some reports that Everton will try to extend the terms of his short-term loan from Major League Soccer and the Los Angeles Galaxy.

Although Donovan may be keen to extend his stay in England, it is unlikely that the Galaxy  would agree; it will be without David Beckham, on loan to A.C. Milan, until the middle of the summer. Donovan is also a key player for the national team, which will play a series of four friendly matches leading up to the World Cup in South Africa — where the United States will open play against England on June 12.

Since Donovan has joined his fellow American Tim Howard at Everton, the club has lost only one game in the Premier League. In addition, the Toffees could advance to the Round of 16 in the Europa League if they can forge a win or a tie at Sporting Lisbon in the return match of their home-and-away series next Thursday.

On Feb. 10, Donovan played a pivotal role in Everton’s defeat of first-place Chelsea at Goodison Park and stoked the rivalry with England when his clean encounter with the English international Ashley Cole resulted in Cole’s breaking an ankle.