Earlier this week, I put out a rooting guide for the games involving Western conference competition. Not much went according to plan during Colorado's week off -- they are back in action next weekend with Sporting Kansas City hosting them -- but we're still so far out of the games being truly 'must-win' that there's not really much reason to panic.

Here's how the games went compared to our rooting guide:

Match What We Wanted The Result 8/21 - Chivas USA vs. FC Dallas Chivas win 3-1 Dallas win, but we expected that. In other news, Chivas have got to be the only team in MLS that gets significantly worse when they go up a man at home. 8/21 - Portland Timbers vs. Real Salt Lake Draw 3-3 Draw. Another case where a team at home gave up a late goal after going up a man! Though RSL losing would have been fun, a draw was the best result to keep the guys at the top of the table from overlapping Colorado too much. 8/24 - FC Dallas vs. San Jose Earthquakes Draw (Depended on earlier DAL vs. CHV result)

2-2 Draw. Draws are always a good result for teams below Colorado in the table. 8/24 - Vancouver Whitecaps vs. LA Galaxy Caps win

1-0 LA win. A rash of bad results for Vancouver isn't a bad thing necessarily, though. 8/24 - Real Salt Lake vs. Columbus Crew Crew win

4-0 RSL win. I don't think anyone was actually expecting Columbus to get much out of this. 8/25 - Chivas USA vs. New York Red Bulls Chivas win (Cause it's funny)

3-2 Chivas win. Hey, I got one right! 8/25 - Portland Timbers vs. Seattle Sounders Timbers win

1-0 Seattle win. Though, Portland continuing to stumble provides some wobble room as Seattle continues to come up in the table so this one really could have gone either way after the RSL draw. You may expect to see Portland and Vancouver getting turned into the ones we're rooting against as the weeks go along.

Current Rooting Guide Results: 3-4

I'll be doing the rooting guide and rooting guide recap every week until the Rapids either clinch a spot or are eliminated, so stay tuned! To close this out, how about a panic meter using the only scale we know?

SCOTT PALGUTA PLAYOFF PANIC METER STATUS: One head, no need to panic yet.



