The preliminary rounds of the inaugural eMLS Cup are in the books and a clear favorite has emerged. With 19 MLS clubs sending professional gamers to Boston to compete in the tournament, Houston’s Kid M3Mito has dominated the competition, the only player to make it through the first round undefeated.
Chivas beat the New York Red Bulls 1-0 on Wednesday in the first leg of the Concacaf Champions League semifinals. The Goats were the only Liga MX team (out of three, Club America didn't play an MLS side because LOL FC Dallas) to beat an MLS side in the quarterfinals, and it appears they still want blood.
Chivas's Isaac Brizuela was awarded the Rocket League Goal of the Game award, which is the award you get if you score the only goal in the game.
Toronto FC continued its impressive run in the Concacaf Champions League, handing Club América a 3-1 defeat at BMO Field on Tuesday. Sebastian Giovinco and Jozy Altidore both scored for the MLS champions, who also got a goal from an unlikely source. There were few positives for Club America vs Toronto, but Andrés Ibargüen gave the Liga MX side an away goal to take back to Estadio Azteca for the second leg on April 10.
So some giant Swede came to America last week and showed everyone how to do the soccer. Needless to say, people went nuts. Zlatan Ibrahimovic made his debut for the LA Galaxy over the weekend and made an immediate impact. Of course he did. The Zlatan debut goals had sports fans of all types absolutely buzzing Saturday afternoon.
A year and a half ago, Zlatan Ibrahimovic told the world that he’d been thinking about a move to North America. “It’s a huge option for me,” said the Manchester United striker. “For the football and everything else. I can see myself conquering the U.S. as I have with Europe. Lots of people stay in one place throughout their career, but I’ve travelled around like Napoleon, and conquered every new country where I’ve sat foot.
We apologize Zlatan. For several moments there – specifically, the first 26 moments of Saturday's LA derby – we doubted you. It really wasn't fair, as you were sitting on the bench, patiently waiting and watching as Carlos Vela netted two amazing goals to put LAFC up and seemingly out of reach.
In the run up to the first-ever "El Tráfico" – tha name fans have given the MLS derby between LA Galaxy and LAFC – the media hype focused on the Galaxy's recent acquisition of Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Certainly Zlatan did little to dissuade the attention, quipping at a press conference that it feels good to be better than the four billion, or so, other footballers in the world.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic arrived in Los Angeles last week and has wasted no time in reaching peak levels of Zlatanocity.
To start, there was the full-page, five-word ad he took out in the LA Times to announce his arrival. Then there was his first training session with the club, during which he had to be dragged away from shooting practice so that he might remain fresh for this Saturday's LA derby.
We thought it might be a dream, one of those real-enough-to-be-real but surreal-enough-to-be-a-dream dreams, but it isn't a dream. We were wide awake the whole time and ZLATAN IS HERE.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic arrived in Los Angeles last night and was greeted by a throng of fans.
He then trained with his new club for the first time.