Alan Gordon celebrates a rare day as “Plan A”

The last time the Galaxy failed to score in successive games was in May 2012, during the strange somnambulant period they went through after winning the 2011 MLS Cup.

And coming into Sunday night’s home game against Seattle Sounders, the champion Galaxy were coming off two straight defeats without scoring and looking at best indifferent in the early season running.

So in many ways the visit of Seattle, the team who along with LA have been the best regular season performers since 2009, could not have been timed worse – particularly with Robbie Keane missing, and their attacking hopes mainly resting on the rather less subtle charms of Alan “Snowshoes” Gordon, in his 200th MLS appearance.

And as the Sounders, themselves missing Clint Dempsey, but boasting the in-form Obafemi Martins, spent the opening 20 minutes forcing LA keeper Jaime Penedo into save after acrobatic save, it looked very much as if the hosts were in danger of falling to their first home defeat to the Sounders in 10 games.

Lamar Neagle in particular must have been left wondering what he had to do to score against Penedo, as the LA shot stopper, while at the other end Seattle’s midfield and defense seemed well set up to cope with the somewhat rudimentary threat of Gordon the target man.

Rudimentary, but effective, that is. Just after another Penedo full-stretch parry, Gordon opened the scoring with a point-blank header. It was perhaps a fitting way for Gordon to celebrate his unlikely run to 200 appearances. He is not a man to replicate the close quarters subtlety of Keane, but as an outlet when the Galaxy need to force something, he is nothing if not forceful.

In truth neither side looked at their incisive best, as what was billed as a marquee game drifted for long stretches in the late afternoon sun, with occasional surges of excitement for another save by the impressive Penedo. It was perhaps telling that one of the biggest cheers of the second-half came when the visiting David Beckham was shown on the big screen.

Gordon had once welcomed Beckham to LA by holding on to his handshake a beat too long in the Englishman’s inaugural visit to his new locker room and asking, “And you are…?” It was a typical moment of irreverence from a proud journeyman who was here before the start of the designated player era and who against the odds has managed to survive and even thrive in the interim.

And in game 200, he won a game between the best two teams of that era. There’ll doubtless be higher profile games between these two teams later in the year, but Gordon deserved his moment. GP

Orlando City good for their win but the Portland Timbers are a hot mess

Orlando City have already shown they’re capable of producing a few exemplary moments in order to grind out a fortuitous result on the road – see their 2-2 comeback draw against the Montreal Impact last month. In fact, the expansion club have yet to lose on the trot.

Here too Adrian Heath’s team did what they needed to produce a 0-2 win against a Portland Timbers team that is slouching towards May (though luck and some, erm, “bold” refereeing helped things along), and in doing so revealed a few bright spots. Brek Shea in particular looks like he’s owning that left-back position, working out the skilful balance between attack and defense. Kevin Molino, despite some hesitancy here and there, was influential in the final third and produced a smart assist for Cyle Larin with a nice cross in the 30th minute. And Larin, the soon-to-be 20 year old Canadian Generation Adidas wunderkind who chested in the winner, may or may not have seen it coming but made it look intentional and was otherwise worthy of a start with a few good chances. Though Orlando were hardly dominant, they were good for the win.

For Portland though this was a hot mess. Hot in the sense that despite their 1-2-3 record, they are still clearly a threat where it counts. Darlington Nagbe looked dangerous on the counter, Fanendo Adi managed six shots and was able to move well in front of goal, and Dairon Asprilla looked to have scored the equalizer in the 72nd minute until Donovan Ricketts made an incredible diving save. Nothing resulted in a Timbers goal, though, and the idea that all will be well when Diego Valeri comes back is starting to sound like something out of Waiting for Godot (or Guffman).

But Portland were also a mess. Diego Chara somehow only received a yellow for tackling the last man Kevin Molino on the centre circle in the 45th minute as he was about to receive a gorgeous through pass. Then Timbers keeper Adam Kwarasey made the interesting decision to swat the legs of Carlos Rivas in the 85th minute with a point still very much in the offing for his club. Kwarasey appeared to have atoned with a world class save from Kaká from the spot, and yet Kevin Stott ordered a retake when Chara, for some reason, encroached on the area. If ever there was a mascot for 2015 Portland, it isn’t Timber Joey, but rather their morose, scarf-draped coach Caleb Porter looking on from the sidelines. RW

Dallas’s defense turns to tissue paper

A week after starring in a Regency drama over a discarded tissue opposite Portland’s Caleb Porter, Dallas coach Oscar Pareja found himself welcoming 19th-century villain Pablo Mastroeni and his unfeasibly waxed mustache to Toyota Stadium.

Pareja must be wishing he’d stayed in the era when his team routinely won games (which going on recent seasons’ evidence we’ll call simply “March”), after his former team’s young players ended a record-equaling winless streak in emphatic fashion by blowing away Dallas in front of their own fans.

As we noted last week, time seemed to be running out for Colorado’s kids to come good on their promise as they equalled a decade-old league winless streak record held by Rocky Mountain rivals Real Salt Lake, while still waiting to score their first goal of the season. And with Dallas th hosts after their blip against Portland, most neutrals would have been putting money on the Rapids holding that winless record outright after Friday’s nationally televised game.

Instead, after waiting over 600 minutes for a goal, Colorado went ahead with their first of the season after just two minutes, and by the time the final whistle had blown, they’d added three more, with substitute Dillon Serna capping the display with a peach of a goal late on.

It was as emphatic as it was unexpected, and in one fell swoop transformed the complexion of Colorado’s start – having kept Dallas out at the other end, the Rapids can now point to having conceded (and lost) in only one of their five games so far, and to have denied the speed and movement of a formidable looking Dallas offense in completing the latest instalment.

It would have been no disgrace to concede to this Dallas attack, but having built a defensive platform Mastroeni must have at least hoped for a goal for his team to build on from this game. To score four, unanswered, is a quantum leap for his side, and you have to wonder what effect that can now have on the Rapids’ season, and indeed that of Dallas.

Of course seemingly aberrant results can happen at any time in parity-obsessed MLS, but the flip side of that is that there are few easy games for confidence-starved teams to break streaks such as those Colorado have been on (it’s perhaps telling that their last win was against Chivas USA towards the end of that team’s doomed tenure in MLS). To do so against the coach who’d walked out on them must have been an additional pleasure for the Colorado players.

That same coach, Pareja, won plaudits last year for the way he retooled his team after what could have been the devastating loss of Mauro Diaz early in the campaign. Compared to that challenge, lifting his team after two consecutive defeats shouldn’t be beyond Pareja, but this has been a week that’s had him reaching for the tissues. GP

The Union reinvent the late show

Why not book the Guardian MLS writing team for your next motivational speaking gig? Not only did we inspire Colorado’s kids to grow up this week, but we took Philadelphia from late game “incompetence” last time out to inspiration this weekend, as the team won their first game of the season through an injury time winner against New York City FC.

Fair’s fair and credit may partly be due to the Union themselves, and in particular coach Jim Curtin and his decision to act decisively in dropping expensive goalkeeper Rais Mbolhi this week. Mbolhi had arrived last year being hailed as a coup of a signing by Union CEO Nick Sakiewicz, who had made much of Mbolhi’s appearances at the World Cup, and rather less mention of what’s been a checkered club career.

Since arriving, Mbolhi has made a number of high-profile errors, including another awkward one in last week’s loss to Sporting KC, and this week Curtin had seen enough – telling the keeper to basically go home and clear his head with an indefinite timetable for his return. And as Mbolhi took the first flight to France, Curtin turned to local goalkeeper and Union supporter John McCarthy, who had been playing for Rochester Rhinos as Mbolhi appeared in Brazil, to take his place.

In the event it wasn’t a complete fairy tale rise for McCarthy, who had to pick the ball out of the net in a strained second-half period for Philadelphia that saw David Villa walk an equalizer into the net, and New York City threaten to roll over their opponents. But a couple of late saves and an otherwise solid enough performance, combined with Vincent Nogueira poking home an injury-time winner at the other end, did mean that McCarthy got to walk off the field with a big hug from Curtin, and in front of home fans celebrating their first win of 2015.

It was an important win for Curtin, after the gut punch of Sporting’s two injury-time goals last week, and one that added some extra spice to the return game between the two sides at Yankee Stadium this Thursday night.

Certainly it shifted the emphasis of the questions asked of Jason Kreis post-game, as he lamented the late lapse in concentration that saw a long ball being allowed to bounce in the build up to Philly’s winner, but mainly expressed concern at yet another slow start from his team in a second consecutive loss.

It’s clearly a preoccupying issue for the emerging New York City team. Visitors to the locker room after the match were greeted by the sight of the pre-game whiteboard emblazoned with the question, “Can we get out to a really aggressive, committed, confident start today?”

They didn’t, and the second half flurry that brought the equalizer was not typical of their performance. Maybe they should book the very reasonable Guardian motivational team before Thursday night … GP

Montreal Impact show signs of life

It’s tempting to compare the Montreal Impact – both Concacaf Champions League finalists and the last-place team in the Eastern Conference following a 3-0 loss to the Houston Dynamo - to other sides which famously excelled in the cups whilst bumbling in the league. Wigan in 2013, able to defeat Manchester City to win the FA Cup but not to stay in the Premier League. Liverpool in 2005, winners of the European Cup and fifth-place finishers in the English top flight, the first to force Uefa to change the rules over Champions League qualifying.

Yet the comparisons don’t quite stand up under scrutiny. Despite advancing over two legs in both the CCL quarters and semis against Mexican side Pachuca and Costa Rica’s Alajuelense respectively, in all four matches Frank Klopas’ counterattacking Impact only managed a single, bona fide win: a 2-0 win at the Olympic Stadium in their home semi-final. In fact, that game stands as their only victory in all eight of their eight competitive matches in 2015. The Montreal Impact, despite a historic opportunity to become the first MLS and Canadian team to win the Concacaf Champions League, are nevertheless decidedly mediocre both midweek and weekends.

For now, perhaps. Despite conceding three goals to the Dynamo, Montreal were, at least for one or two spells, unmistakably dominant. Andres Romero looked sharp on the ball,­ Dilly Duka was menacing in the early going, Jack McInerney displayed brief glimpses of his old self … Montreal finished the game having outshot, out-passed and out-possessed Owen Coyle’s Dynamo.

Houston might say with confidence that letting Montreal have the ball was all part of the plan (Impact defender Laurent Ciman told the press after the match he would have preferred to concede the ball and win than play beautifully and lose). Having conceded in the 15th minute of play, the Impact had no choice in the final stages but to push up and risk a drubbing, which they did courtesy of Ricardo Clark’s nifty run in the box (72nd minute) and the rookie substitute Rob Lovejoy’s wonderful hit (80th). And yet at least the elements of a team perhaps substantially better than the one which finished last overall in 2014 are there. We will get a better picture when the Impact fly to the Azteca for the first leg of the CCL final against America on 22 April. RW