Gordon’s earth-shaking goals earn him MLS POTW honour

In what was a ridiculous weekend of come-from-behind victories and last-gasp winning goals, there were several heroes to choose from when it comes to selecting the MLS Player of the Week.

But it was San Jose Earthquake Alan Gordon, who came off the bench in the 64th minute, then scored his team’s first goal and, eventually, the last-gasp game winner, who got the most votes from the membership of the North American Soccer Reporters.

With the Los Angeles Galaxy leading 2-0, Gordon scored off a header to make it 2-1. Then, San Jose went down to 10 men, killing any chance of a further comeback, right? Wrong. Shea Salinas scored off a scramble in extra time, and then Gordon nodded home a perfect cross from Sam Cronin to give the Earthquakes the improbable 3-2 win.

While they weren’t teammates in Toronto, it is worth mentioning that both Cronin and Gordon are both TFC castoffs.

How The 11 voted: Face it. We all knew Gordon was going to win. Even though the match winner was more about Cronin’s cross than the finish, the occasion was going to be the thing to win the vote for Gordon. The California Clasico match was played at Stanford Stadium, in front of more than 50,000 — it was all about the occasion.

Still, we could only give Gordon our second-place vote. Kei Kamara, who scored the late match-winner for Sporting Kansas City in its 3-2 win over Columbus. Gordon came in as a sub, while Kamara had a more complete game for his team. And while Kamara didn’t do his business in front of 50,000 fans, his efforts ranked higher on the degrees of difficulty than Gordon’s.