You know that you’ve had a special game when you score a spectacular free-kick goal from outside the area… and that’s NOT the goal everyone is talking about.

While Keane’s feat was impressive, we felt that Real Salt Lake’s Joao Plata was more influential in his team’s win. Plata was all over the pitch, scoring once and adding two assists as his Real Salt Lake side continued to enjoy the best record in MLS after a 4-2 win over Portland.

When one of the poster boys of U.S. soccer scores a hat trick, the player-of-the-week vote loses most of its intrigue.

“The assistant referee called the referee over to determine if #29 Zardes had touched the ball with his head before #33 [Villarreal] kicked the ball into the goal,” Penso wrote. “The referee determined that Zardes had not touched the ball, thus not making [Villarreal] offside. The goal was awarded.”

Darel Russell has only been a member of Toronto FC for a few weeks, but he joins an ever-growing list of Reds’ players whose late-game mistakes have cost the team points.

With the MLS season moved up to its earliest start ever, forgive us if we don’t feel 100 per cent totally prepared for First Kick. Judging by the way many MLS teams finished preseason, with tentative matches and still looking at trialists with a week to go before the games count in the standings, a lot of coaches aren’t quite ready for the early start, either.

Unfortunately for Argentine defender Martin Bonjour, the final memory most Whitecaps fans will have of him is this: Looking back towards referee Silviu Petrescu, arms raised in innocence, as the official points to the spot.

And this is where Kinnear got it wrong — he left his best defender on crosses — Canadian Andre Hainault — out of the starting lineup. If you’re willing to yield the wide positions, you need to have your best options out there when it comes to dealing with crosses.

Canadian Silviu Petrescu has been named MLS Referee of the Year.

In fact, anyone who had never seen the Whitecaps before Thursday’s playoff game would have likely said that Matt Watson — a guy who played in NASL last season — must be a Designated Player, not Robson or Miller.