The result now leaves TFC with 23 points with five games left to play. With Houston’s win over Philadelphia Saturday night, the Reds are officially (as in, mathematically) eliminated from playoff contention. If somehow lightning struck five times in a row, and the Reds won their last five, they’d get to 38 points. The Philadelphia Union, which held fifth place at the time of this article, have 39 points.

It is rare, very rare, that the MLS Player of the Week comes from a team that didn’t get even a single point out of its game(s).

"It was very important for us to come back like that," midfielder Jeremy Hall said. "It was a game we should've gotten three points out of….We're at home in front of our fans and we wanted a good showing."

But, the realist will have to admit that the Impact gave way too many gifts to the offensively charged Red Bulls. And, a team that makes as many glaring errors as the Impact can have no qualm about taking zero points from match.

Love him or hate him, Dwayne De Rosario is big news again. Less than three months after Toronto FC traded the attacking midfielder and former face of the franchise to the New York Red Bulls, he has been sent to D.C. United.

It’s become obligatory for every sports journalist to provide season previews for the league he or she covers. It’s automatic, and a great space killer! In that vein, The 11 presents its “waited until the last possible second before the regular season” season preview! Why the wait? Because it’s hard to figure out the East. The West? Wow, a lot of power and depth there. As for the East? Last season, New York and Columbus and six other mediocre to bad to awful clubs were in the conference. New York and Columbus left them all in the dust.

Playing with 10 men for the game’s final 53 minutes, Toronto FC managed a 2-2 tie with D.C. United Saturday evening at Blackbaud Stadium. The stalemate, on the third and final game day of the 2011 Carolina Challenge Cup, secured United’s second consecutive tournament title.

The shop window featured a heck of a lot of high-priced talent. The Vancouver Whitecaps weren’t buying.

Here are some of the interesting possibilities out there for Vancouver and Portland in Wednesday’s expansion draft. Here are five names that really jumped out on the lists of unprotected players released Monday.

As the Colorado Rapids gathered on a platform placed at the centre of BMO Field, jumping up and down, surrounded by sky-blue confetti, holding the MLS Cup aloft, FC Dallas midfielder Dax McCarty stood on the field, staring at the celebration. The rest of his FC Dallas teammates, losers of a 2-1 decision after extra time in Toronto, had left the field. But McCarty stood and stared at the Rapids’ celebration. Wondering what could have been. Wondering what would have happened if a ball off the foot of Colorado sub Macoumba Kandji hadn’t taken a strange deflection off defender FC Dallas George John in the 108th minute and looped past the goal line. What could have happened in penalty kicks had John’s last-gasp effort at redemption, from point blank range, not been stopped by the outstretched hand of Rapids’ keeper Matt Pickens.