The Aztexan

FC Dallas saw their last flicker of hope for postseason play vanish Saturday night with a 3-1 loss to Real Salt Lake. RSL got their first win in the beautiful new Rio Tinto Stadium, and Dallas got served a heaping helping of offense, with a side of red cards.

Dallas will play their last game this Sunday, taking on fellow playoff non-contenders LA Galaxy. Pretty meaningless-looking game, though there may be a little Golden Boot excitement, if Kenny Cooper (#2, with 18 goals) can net a goal or two, and Dallas' defense can keep Landon Donovan (#1, with 19 goals) under wraps.

Ives has an interesting summary of the four teams that are now out of playoff contention: Toronto, San Jose, Dallas & LA.

And Buzz Carrick, of the Dallas fan blog 3rd Degree, has a joint game review covering both the loss to Real Salt Lake and the 2nd leg of the Rio Grande Plate against Tigres last week (Dallas won the game, but lost the series on PKs). Buzz has lots to say about the games, and some strong ideas about where some of the blame lies for this less-than-stellar 2008 season.

But of special interest to Austin fans are his words about Aztex alumnus Jamie Watson:

Jamie Watson was terrific at forward in the Tigres game and the previous reserve game, far outplaying Oduro. Watson was dangerous, created chaos, made intelligent runs, combined well checking back to midfield, scored goals, played defense, and drove the opposition crazy. It’s why he was on the travel squad and it’s why he got into the RSL game [subbed in for Cooper in the 80th minute]. He even scored on a header off a corner against Tigres. Don’t undersell in the Freddy Adu hype that Watson used to do all the dirty work for Freddy.

Labels: alumni, MLS