Oh, Canada
What a week for the Great White North.
As the eyes of the soccer world turn to Canada with the start of the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup, Canada's three MLS teams decided to get in on the excitement by winning away from home. Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver all secured three points on the road against high-quality teams. TFC took down D.C. United in Washington, Montreal downed Crew SC in Ohio and Vancouver beat the champion Galaxy at the StubHub Center.
The natural place to start is with Toronto's 2-1 win over United. The match proved again, that until further notice, Sebastian Giovinco is the best player in Major League Soccer. TFC's little big man dominated proceedings at RFK Stadium, scoring two Goal of the Week-level tallies to give his team the win. Toronto took three points off the East's first-place team on the road and did it without Michael Bradley, who was away on international duty with the United States. After so much consternation on Lake Ontario, TFC is suddenly sitting in third place in the East, with the second-best points-per-game in the conference.
In Columbus, Montreal utilized their dangerous counter-attacking game to down Columbus 2-1 at MAPFRE Stadium. A bit of confusion at the back for Crew SC allowed Maxim Tissot to open the scoring before Andres Romero finished a two-man break to ice the game in the 79th minute. The Impact win means they now have four victories in their last five matches -- several of them against top teams -- making them the hottest team in the league. Quietly, Frank Klopas' team is slowly climbing up the Eastern Conference standings while still holding several games in hand on everyone in front of them. The win in Columbus shows the Impact can get it done on the road as well as at home. That's two wins in four days for Montreal, after they beat Vancouver on Wednesday night.
And how about Vancouver? Fresh off the loss in Montreal, the Whitecaps traveled down the coast to take on the Galaxy in Los Angeles, where they used their own blazing counter to take down Robbie Keane & Co. 1-0 on a goal from Kekuta Manneh. A turnover in midfield turned into a blistering shot past Jaime Penedo in the blink of an eye as Vancouver again showed off their unique collection of young, speedy talent. On the other end, the Whitecaps stifled a Galaxy attack that still lacked bite, even with Keane making his first start since April. Vancouver, thanks to Seattle's loss in Kansas City, pulled themselves back into a tie for first in the West.
http://www.espnfc.com/major-league-socc ... -standings