First Kick wrap-up

And it's the 100th post here at Who Ate All the Cupcakes?! Hooray!

You can go back through last night's posts of sometimes brilliant, sometimes drunken commentary of the opening night of MLS. I'll try to sum up my thoughts here.

Colorado might be better than everyone expected. Sure, DC looked mostly like crap. That doesn't discount the fact that the Rapids are MUCH improved this year. If Gomez can help take some of the pressure off the right side and Terry Cooke (and he sure did yesterday), and Pablo and Becks Lite can hold down the middle of the field, Colorado will be tough to deal with all season. Their defense is much improved, and Nico and Roberto Brown form a pretty dependable striking tandem. Keep an eye on Colorado.

I'm not going to throw out the solid play of DC through the Champions' Cup based on one MLS match. They looked flat, tired, and cold yesterday. All to be somewhat expected. I thought Casal was pretty crappy in general, but he had a nice cross on the Emilio goal. He plays without much fear, which is nice to see. Let's see how he adjusts to this level, it's a step up from the Fulham reserves.

RSL should've won their match, they dominated the majority of the play. Rimando made two mistakes that cost them. I do really like the fluidity of the front six for Salt Lake, if they keep that up, they'll give teams problems all year. Cunningham is still a beast.

Dallas was the lesser team on the field, but found a way to escape with a point. That's what good teams do. We'll see if we can officially call FCD a "good" team as the season goes on, but that was a pretty decent start. I'm still not sold on the formation trickery though.

The less said about Columbus-NY the better, if you ask me. I guess you can lump me in the "Reyna haters" that Ives is always talking about, but I just didn't see that much out of him last night. Supposedly, the collision with Dane Richards took a lot out of him in the second half. If it was that bad, he shouldn't have been on the field. He was invisible in the second half, and when I did see him, he was just giving the ball away or passing backwards in the 93rd minute. I guess Columbus had the better of the play, but Waterreus was up to the task each time.

Chicago did what they had to do against New England. I still can't believe Logan Pause of all people gave them the win. Mappy looked dangerous most of the night. New England is really off their game without Deuce (and for a short time, Joseph and Franchino). They just looked like they were over their heads. When Noonan is fully fit, that will help, but I think they still need something.

Toronto put Chivas under a lot of pressure in the first half, and was the better team in my opinion. However, the Razov goal seemed to take the wind out of their sails and Chivas took over from there. Again, that's what a good team does. If Guzan keeps playing like he did in the first half, we won't see much of Mr. Burpo this year, and Chivas will be a handful in the West.