“You get punished in this league for a mistake and we certainly did,” Brovsky declared. “It’s not one guy on the team, it’s the collective 11. We lost it ourselves. We beat ourselves. It’s something we can learn from and we’re not going to do it again.”

But, while Emory made the mistake, his coach was the one who put his team in jeopardy. Call it a rookie mistake, but coach Ryan Nelsen has to put his hand up, as well.

We tallied up our votes, and came up with our list of how the teams will finish, who will win MLS Cup and who will be the league’s MVP. No need to play the season, now. We have it all figured out.

When making trades, what is often lost in the business of the sports are the human stories behind the scenes that media and fans often never hear about. When a player is traded, there can be hostility towards the old club because a pre-existing situation (i.e. Dwayne De Rosario’s contract situation) or simply because they were traded and, as a result, felt unwanted. However, there are those rare instances where a player is thankful and happy to have been traded and still keep in touch with his former manager as a result.

Now, the key words are “tackle” and “attempt,” as it looked like, while late, Hassli actually made minimal contact with Zemanski. But, that could only be determined after looking at a couple of slow-motion replays. Salazar didn’t have that luxury, and should not be judged by them. In real time, Hassli came in very late, very fast, and looked to come through the player.

hose looking for a sign of where Toronto FC is headed in the post-Dwayne De Rosario era will need to wait a little longer. TFC's 1-1 draw with Chivas USA on Saturday afternoon was inconclusive both on the scoreboard and on the lineup sheet, given the rather thrown-together nature of the Reds' lineup. Less than a day after De Rosario was traded to New York, the two players TFC received in return (midfielder Tony Tchani and defender Danleigh Borman) were already in the starting XI. The two former Red Bulls didn't arrive in Toronto until midnight last evening and Tchani admitted to being weary. "I found out [about the trade] yesterday at four o'clock," Tchani said. "After training I heard rumors but I wasn't sure. They let me know after training that I had been traded to TFC and that they wanted me to come here today.

Toronto FC has made a deal to try and get some more goals in the lineup. The Reds sent midfielder Nick LaBrocca, who they acquired in 2010 from the Colorado Rapids, to Chivas USA for American striker Alan Gordon.

In a game filled with trialists, some old problems haunted Toronto FC. Despite twice taking the lead, TFC lost 3-2 to the Houston Dynamo Thursday in their opening match of the preseason Walt Disney World Pro Soccer Classic in Orlando, Fla.

The referees are on strike in Scotland. They have had it. They’ve had it with the criticisms of coaches and players. They’re tired of being made the scapegoats whenever a close decision goes against a fiery manager with an axe to grind. Good for them. They’ve gone on strike, leaving the Scottish FA scrambling to find refs for this week’s matches. Polish and Portuguese refs who the SFA thought it had secured to officiate this weekend’s games have gone back home. Scotland did find enough foreign refs to keep the Premier League going, so fans could be treated another weekly instalment of Rangers, Celtic and Everybody Else.

It is troubling that the only evidence the committee will have to work with comes from four shambolic years of TFC mismanagement. It’s like having to decide on new rules of the road based on the actions of one chronic drunk driver.