Down a goal with less than a half hour remaining in their 2007 campaign, the Houston Dynamo rallied behind the relentless play of Dwayne De Rosario to defeat the New England Revolution, 2-1, at RFK Stadium in Washington DC on Saturday (11/18) and capture the team's fourth MLS Cup title in seven years. De Rosario, 29, set up teammate Joseph Ngwenya, just in front of the opposition goal in the 62d minute. Ngwenya took two point blank shots on keeper Matt Reis, the second slipping past for the equalizer. Moments later, the Canadian born De Rosario scored the winning goal himself, heading home a cross from about 12 yards out in the 74th minute. "I would normally volley it," De Rosario said, commenting on the goal after the match, "but I decided to head it in and luckily it went in."

Just as AEG and the LA Galaxy's Beckham gambit seemed to have pulled a fast fade--5 matches, 1 goal, no playoffs, no cup--the MLS club got even "sexier" by announcing Ruud Gullit as new head coach. Gullit will be introduced tomorrow (Fri., Nov. 9) as the replacement for Frank Yallop, who left at the end of this season to take the reins of the expansion San Jose franchise which begins league play next year. Gullit, 45, had been rumored as one of two finalists last week, along with former German national coach, Jürgen Klinsmann. Klinsmann is a resident of Newport Beach, California, not far from Los Angeles. His name seems to be added to the list every time a high-profile coaching job comes up lately; earlier this year he was reportedly on the short list to coach the US Men's National Team through the next World Cup, but such a deal did not materialize.

In October, as so often happens in the USA, the world of women's soccer easily out-shone that of the men. In that month, the US women's team made it all the way to the semi-finals of the FIFA Women's World Cup in China, but having got there were summarily dismissed by Brazil and their emergent national team. Indeed, the USA bowed out to Marta and company, 0-4, the budding superstar punctuating the victory with what had to be the classiest World Cup goal scored since Denis Bergkamp's YouTube classic against Argentina at France 1998. The "early" exit for the US women seems very much to have disappointed the national federation and--though the Olympic tournament is less than a year away--a coaching change has already been announced.

ChivasUSA, the Los Angeles-based "franchise" of Mexico's oldest football club--CD Guadalajara--has become the fourth MLS team to qualify for the league playoffs which begin October 25. Chivas qualified on the strength of a 2:1 victory Saturday over Kansas City Wizards at the Home Depot Center in LA. The Red and White join DC United, New England Revolution, and holders Houston Dynamo as those clubs qualified for the playoffs. The clumination of the playoffs is the single-match MLS Cup to be contested on Nov. 18 in Washington, DC. With the addition of Chivas, just four playoff spots remain. Thus far, none of the clubs making midseason acquisitions of former World Cup superstars has qualified to vie for the 2007 MLS championship.

ChivasUSA, the Los Angeles-based "franchise" of Mexico's oldest football club--CD Guadalajara--has become the fourth MLS team to qualify for the league playoffs which begin October 25. Chivas qualified on the strength of a 2:1 victory Saturday over Kansas City Wizards at the Home Depot Center in LA. The Red and White join DC United, New England Revolution, and holders Houston Dynamo as those clubs qualified for the playoffs. The clumination of the playoffs is the single-match MLS Cup to be contested on Nov. 18 in Washington, DC. With the addition of Chivas, just four playoff spots remain. Thus far, none of the clubs making midseason acquisitions of former World Cup superstars has qualified to vie for the 2007 MLS championship.

The USA weathered a strong first half from a feisty England side Saturday night to advance, 3:0, to the semifinals of the 2007 Women's World Cup in China. England, looking much sharper than their competition, held a hard-won scoreless tie at the halftime and appeared to have the US squad back on their heels and playing "not to lose". "Tonight I would have liked to see us start better than we did," said US head man, Greg Ryan, when asked why his team seemed outplayed in the first half of such an important match. "Maybe it's just that we are a young team [with] so many new players," he concluded.

The 5th go-round for FIFA's Women's World Cup is just underway in China and some things are different while others seem true to past form. To this point only the USA (China 1991, USA 1999), Norway (Sweden 1995) and Germany (USA 2003) have won the title and, truth to tell, each competition has pretty much boiled down to a battle between those same three big powers to sort out a winner. To this point the rest of the world has lagged pretty far behind in developing the women's game and the national teams of "the rest of the world" have served as little more than cannon-fodder for the three big guns when it has come time to crown a World Cup champ

The finals are now set for the 2007 US Open Cup soccer tournament and the winner will once again be an MLS team. FC Dallas and the New England Revolution each advanced with semifinal victories Sept. 4 over USL Division I clubs. The two finalists will meet on FC Dallas' home field, Pizza Hut Park in Frisco, Texas, on October 3. The Cup--officially, the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup--is the oldest professional soccer championship in North America, having been contested since 1914. The Open Cup, as the name implies, is intended to be a single-elimination for all US soccer clubs recognized as competitive by the US Soccer Federation including the MLS, and the several professional divisions of the USL.

The Beckhams--David and Victoria--have been in Los Angeles for barely two months, but their individual careers may never be the same. Mr. Beckham was injured this week as his Galaxy of the MLS fell in the first-ever SuperLiga final to Mexican club Pachuca. The SuperLiga features midweek, inter-league play between the top clubs in MLS and Mexican football. Beckham's injury--a knee ligament sprain--basically spells an end to his play for the regular MLS season and may see him miss two Euro 2008 qualifiers for England as well. In all honesty, the Bendy One does not seem happy in Los Angeles or MLS and this reporter would not be very surprised to see him end his career in red at Old Trafford one day very soon. He seems to have been born Cockney Red and so perhaps that's as it should be. It's likely that even the earlier transfer to Madrid was a mistake as well.

The conventional wisdom is that despite the general disjunction between US sports fans and all things "soccer-philic", we at least take nationalistic pride in the great successes of our world-dominating women's national program. Don't tell that to star US striker Abby Wambach. Despite a no. 1 FIFA ranking and having achieved the semi-finals in the last World Cup only to be ousted by eventual champs Germany--now ranked 2d--the golden-clad US women's team departed this week for the World Cup finals in China with barely a whisper. Why? "It's the 'Mia factor'," Wambach told reporters two days before she helped her side to a warm-up win over Finland, 4-0, at the Home Depot Center in Los Angeles.