But, in the one-goal loss, like so many of the Whitecaps other losses that season, a silly mistake undoes 90 minutes of work.

Well, how did Toronto FC respond? Houston Dynamo keeper Tally Hall is one of the best young keepers in the game, but this was maybe the easiest clean sheet of his young career.Hall didn’t have to stop a shot as Houston won 2-0.

Unless the trade that sent left back Jordan Harvey to Vancouver on Thursday isn’t the first of many dominoes to fall for either the Whitecaps or Philadelphia Union (or both), this deal makes no sense.

For several hundred youth soccer players in Pierrefonds, Wednesday night marked the long-anticipated return of the Montreal Impact, who have made the local suburb an annual stop on its public practice tour schedule.

It’s OK if, until late Wednesday night, you had forgotten that Jeff Cunningham still played in MLS.After spending most of the first half of the season riding the pine, arguably the greatest villain in the history of the league is now tied with Jaime Moreno atop the MLS all-time scoring list. His 133rd career goal, his first for the Crew since he returned to the club in the off-season, gave Columbus a 1-0 victory over the Vancouver Whitecaps at Empire Field.

After pulling off back-to-back wins over Vancouver Whitecaps and a third straight Nutrilite Canadian Championship last week, Toronto unraveled on Wednesday night in a 5-0 loss to New York at Red Bull Arena.

Last season, there were 58 draws in MLS play. In 2011 — at just the halfway mark of the season, we are now at a whopping 64 draws.With six of this past week’s nine games ending up in draws — including both matches played as part of a July 4 doubleheader broadcast on ESPN2 — 2011 continues to show parity in MLS like we have never seen before.

Joel Lindpere shone the brightest out of the New York Red Bulls’ star-studded lineup this past weekend.His two-goal effort helped earned the Red Bulls a 2-2 draw with the San Jose Earthquakes Saturday in front of more than 41,000 fans at Stanford Stadium — and it also earned him the MLS Player of the Week nod.

At the start of the NASL season, you’d have predicted that any 2011 match between the Carolina RailHawks and the Montreal Impact would be a top-of-table clash.Only the RailHawks have kept their part of the bargain. When surveying the Impact’s 2-0 road loss to Carolina Sunday, you would be excused for assuming that the RailHawks were preparing to jump to MLS next season while Montreal was, well,just a bad team.

Now that Toronto FC has the Canadian title, it will host Nicaraguan reps Real Esteli in the first leg of the CONCACAF Champions League preliminary stage on July 27, the exact same time that the MLS All-Stars will take on Manchester United at Red Bull Arena.Hmm. A game that means something in an international competition or an exhibition match? Well, that’s a no-brainer, right?