Close your Eyes, Kick Out With a Backheel, and Think to Yourself “There’s No Place Like Goal”

So being on the east coast for west coast games must not be fun at all, though I’m sure scheduling matches for MLS isn’t exactly the most enjoyable job in the world either. But that’s a post for another time.

Sporting Kansas City got two monkeys off their back at once:

First, they won their first road game since April 17th, a road winless streak extending for twelve games.

Second, they got their first away win in San Jose since August of 2000. 16 years. That... well, that’s got to be close to an MLS record, honestly. Quite impressive.

And perhaps most importantly, SKC’s odds of a playoff birth increased from roughly 66% to about 90%, if you believe SportsClubStats (I tend to).

Both goals were excellent, though I feel the San Jose Earthquakes could have done more on Dom Dwyer’s excellent header. But how about that back heel, eh? I was impressed.

At any rate, a great result, Benny Feilhaber looked excellent, Tim Melia came up with three big saves, and Dom Dwyer has three goals and an assist in his last three games. Not too shabby.

All that said, let’s go to the numbers.

So Mr. Ellis with man of the match numbers for scoring the game winning goal while holding San Jose to just one goal despite sixteen shots on goal. Sporting, on the other hand, converted two of their six chances. Let’s hope the trend continues moving forward.

From a playoff purists stand point, a win by the LA Galaxy over the Seattle Sounders tonight would be a slight benefit to us, keeping Seattle a bit further behind us. In practice, a draw is probably just as good as it gives us a chance to catch up to LA without benefiting Seattle all that much. A Sounder’s win wouldn’t be awesome (though they rarely are anyway).