Some things in life can always be counted on - toast will always land marmalade side down, Pringles tubes will never be big enough to fit a full hand inside and Chris Wondolowski will always score goals in Major League Soccer. After his winner in Sunday’s win over Sporting KC the 33-year-old now has 114 of them to his name.



Seven of those have come this season, making him the division’s top scorer as the San Jose Earthquakes strive towards delivering Dominic Kinnear’s play-off promise. There are more glamorous players in MLS, certainly more illustrious names, but few as consistent as Wondolowski, who over the course of his 12-year professional career has averaged a goal every other outing. Yet for some reason the forward never quite receives the credit he warrants.

Sure, he probably should have scored against Belgium at the World Cup. Sure, he has never quite held down a spot at national team level and never made the switch to Europe, let alone proved himself there, but nonetheless Wondolowski will go down as one of the greatest goalscorers the USA has ever produced. He’s up there with the best of them – Donovan, Brian McBride, Eric Wynalda – and shows scant sign of decline considering the searing start he has made to the 2016 season.

Picture the scene: 20 years from now North American soccer will have changed dramatically. Finally, there will be promotion and relegation in MLS, David Beckham still probably won’t have found a site for his Miami stadium, but a 53-year-old Wondo will still be finding the net, defying those who season after season insist he is finished as a top-tier goalscorer.

Of course, his decline will eventually come, but for the moment he is the frontman – in every sense of the term – to the Quakes’ play-off charge. The Golden State Warriors aren’t the only team in the San Francisco Bay Area with an outstanding talent. Wondo doesn’t possess the innate spark and outstanding talent of Steph Curry, but he is just as dependable, perpetually producing something when his side needs it most. He deserves to be remembered as a true legend of the American game, and revered for what he is rather than what he isn’t. GR

We know now how long LA’s revamped roster will take to click

Real Salt Lake were the last unbeaten team in MLS going into Saturday night’s game in LA. They duly scored two goals on the road to illustrate their qualities. Unfortunately for them, the Galaxy scored five. Rumors of LA being stuck in a transitional mode appear to be greatly exaggerated.

What’s remarkable is that this is a transitional year for the Galaxy, albeit a turbo-charged one — a new look senior roster are still working out how to play together, but possess all the experience and talent to do so quickly. Just how quickly they would do that, rather than whether they would do that, was the principal question about the side coming in to this season. Given the evidence of the last couple of games, and even without the presence of the injured Robbie Keane and the suspended Nigel de Jong, we appear to have an answer.

LA fell behind early on Saturday night, but barely blinked before hitting back with four first-half goals. The pick of them was the sweet first time chip by Gio dos Santos that sand-wedged perfectly over Nick Rimando to make it 4-1 just on half-time. Dos Santos had the typical slow start as a mid-season Designated Player arrival last year, but is growing in influence week-by-week, exploring some of the same dangerous little pockets of space on the edge of the box that Keane has done some of his best work in.

Not that the Galaxy were trying to replicate their formation with Keane, or for that matter, De Jong in the side. Their approach was initially designed to counter RSL’s press by bypassing it completely when possible, and when Gyassi Zardes cancelled out Juan Manuel Martinez’s headed opener, it was from just such a direct approach, but as the game went on, the Galaxy started getting plenty of joy from running at their opponents in familiar swarming fashion.

In particular Emmanuel Boateng tormented Tony Beltran all night down RSL’s right flank. He got a goal for his efforts, but was also at the heart of most of the Galaxy’s best attacking work — let another enticing creative prospect on a team packed with them.

And it’s also a team finding its rhythm in ominous fashion. The frequency of the multiple goals wins is increasing (nine goals in the past two games is not a bad return…), and the sources of those goals make miserable reading for opponents — not just the variety of goal scorers but the variety of ways the goals are scored. If the front men don’t pounce, the secondary runners are mopping up. LA’s new-look stacked roster have found their rhythm. It’s April. GP

The Red Bulls slow start is over, again, sort of

The Red Bulls attack had been doing so many things right without reward early this season (though in fairness their defense had done plenty wrong), that the popular verdict on their bizarrely poor start to defending the Supporters Shield was that it was going to take “a kind bounce” to get their season started.

Looking back on the 3-2 victory over Orlando, in which the Red Bulls fell behind in now familiar fashion to a third minute Cyle Larin goal, the Red Bulls did indeed get a lucky break — though for once it was at the back. Just after the hour mark, Carl Ouimette hauled down Larin as he raced through on goal. It looked like a clear red card, but no foul was given, and seconds later the Red Bulls drew level with a coolly taken Mike Grella goal.

And minutes later, another curling Grella shot looked to be creeping in at the back post when it was touched home at point blank range by Bradley Wright-Phillips. That little touch may be key in reviving the Red Bulls season — nobody had typified the team’s struggles this year more than the Englishman. Before this game the highest scorer in the league over the past two years had not scored this year. By the time he left the field he had two goals in a 3-2 victory that was celebrated by some Red Bulls players as if it were a playoff win.

The second BWP goal was right within his idiom of a smart run and flicked finish from a Lloyd Sam cross, but those sort of chances have been hitting posts, goalkeepers’ legs and hot dog vendors all season, until the apparent confidence brought by his opener.

The audible relief around the stadium when that second Wright-Phillips goal went in was palpable, but for all that the Red Bulls players and coaches had continued to talk a good game during their poor start, such confidence as they gained from a two-goal cushion still looked brittle. And when Ouimette put the ball into his own net in some minor version of poetic justice, in the 84th minute, any sense that the floodgates had finally opened for the Red Bulls attack was mitigated by worries about what might happen in front of their own goal in the remaining moments.

In the end, New York saw out the game, but Jesse Marsch will not be naive enough to think his team’s troubles are over. Dallas visit Red Bull Arena on Friday night — a challenge for a New York side at the top of their game. That’s not where Jesse Marsch’s team are right now, but for now their start to the season looks poor rather than cursed. GP

Toronto FC must target more than just a play-off place this season

There can be little doubt now: Sebastian Giovinco is the best player in Major League Soccer. He is an unparalleled talent as far as the North American game goes, and against the Montreal Impact he performed his Atomic Ant act once again, carrying Toronto FC to a 2-0 road win. Greg Vanney’s side are derided as little more than a one-man team, but when that man is Giovinco it still makes them better than most others in MLS.

Of course, such criticism is perhaps obsolete given Vanney’s recruitment over the winter. TFC finally have some form of defensive basis on which to build, but regardless Giovinco remains a level above. “He continues to do amazing things,” Vanney said after the win at Stade Saputo. “It was a big performance from him. Obviously Sebastian can come up with things that, in my opinion, nobody has come up with in this league. Tonight he was huge in getting that second goal that really helped to solidify things.”

In so many ways Giovinco is the difference for Toronto FC. He was the difference against Montreal and he was the difference between TFC making the play-offs and not last year. This season the BMO Field outfit must have their sights set on more than just a post-season appearance, though. Saturday’s win over the Impact put down a marker for what they should expect of themselves between now and December. It’s important that they see themselves as genuine contenders.

TFC might secretly harbour hopes that Giovinco’s form will dip just a little bit in the coming weeks. A few more performances of such superhuman ilk and Antonio Conte will surely take him to the European Championships, with the playmaker still considered one of Italy’s finest talents. His absence could hit TFC hard.

For now, though, Vanney will reflect on his side’s positive start to the season, with their display against Montreal demonstrative of just how strong they can be. Factor in that TFC have yet to play a game at home this season, and their return of 11 points from seven outings looks even more impressive. Toronto FC are a team very much still fronted, and often sustained, by Giovinco, but a mere play-off place will no longer be enough to satisfy them. GR

What a difference a year makes for New York and Philadelphia

A year and two weeks ago, I interviewed a clearly frustrated Jason Kreis in a corridor at PPL Park. After a solid, if unspectacular start to their debut season, his fledgling New York City team had just suffered their first back-to-back loss against a Philadelphia side that might themselves have kindly been described as “in flux”.

My principal memory of the conversation was Kreis visibly wincing at the mention of Adam Nemec — who would go on to become one of the first casualties of the rolling season post-mortem in New York that would, of course, eventually claim the job of Kreis himself. On the day though, Nemec was just another underperforming player in what was not yet a team in crisis.

Already, in that early season game, both clubs looked as if they were on their way to unremarkable campaigns, and so it eventually proved, though both Kreis and his opposite number in Philadelphia, Jim Curtin, could claim a fair amount of mitigating circumstances, specifically around key team personnel, that were beyond their control.

It felt very different watching the two teams on Saturday — at least for one of them. Curtin’s side, as we have already covered in these reviews, look to have a renewed purpose about them with the front office shake ups and new lines of accountability. Players like Sebastian Le Toux and Chris Pontius look revived, and better than they have done in years, as part of an attack that also features the speed of CJ Sapong and the supporting guile and cool of Tranquillo Barnetta. They were productive, too: Barnetta’s quick thinking made a goal for Pontius, and Sapong improvized a quick backheel deflection for a second off an incisive Le Toux pass. The Union look crisp and sharp. Not yet inspirational, but on Saturday they piled up some more points in their strong start in the East.

And New York? Well, they’re still winless since winning their first game of the season, against a team of strangers in Chicago Fire shirts. It’s possible that this match might have gone differently if David Villa’s snapshot had gone under rather than off the crossbar a minute before Pontius got the opener, but in reality Villa was both New York’s chief goal threat and chief opportunity waster all afternoon.

So now it’s Patrick Vieira’s turn to deal with his first back-to-back losses as a New York City coach. And just like last year his team has a quick turnaround to put it right — a home game against Montreal this Wednesday, followed by another one against Vancouver on Saturday. There’s not exactly a sense of crisis yet, but there are some definite signs of drift he’ll need to address quickly. Perhaps this year’s not so different for New York after all. GP