The Daily - Fri, sept 16

Hey everybody, welcome to another edition of The Daily. It's Friday, September 16th here with Simon Borg. I'm Nick Firchau. Simon, lets take a look at some of the biggest games this weekend in MLS. Starting with a good one on Friday on Fox Soccer. The Portland Timbers at home against the New England Revolution. 11pm eastern. The news for this one, Ryan Cochoran of the New England Revolution, and a Portland native, saying without a doubt. Portland is the best fans in MLS. Those fans are going to get a chance to shine in the national TV spotlight again. We'll see if Portland can reward those fans with a playoff birth. John Spencer, the manager, saying they need 10 points to secure a spot in the post season. It starts tonight. One of 3 home games they have remaining. We know how important home games are for Portland. They need to take advantage. New England, no pushovers. They've had a series of good results. They're coming off a 2-0 win over Dallas. If you're following along on TV, you can also log in for a live chat here on mlssoccer.com It starts at 11pm eastern. Lets move on to Saturday's games. A big one. East, West matchup. FC Dallas at home against the New York Red Bulls. That one is at 8:30pm eastern on matchday live. we know the Red Bulls Hans Baca saying they need 3 wins to get into the post season. Are they going to get it against FC Dallas? This is where the drum continues this weekend. New York with a very tough assignment. They need 3 points, but their lineup is a mess. They have 2 fullbacks out, and now they're talking about Tim Ream being questionable for this game. A lot of drama, but New York has to get the win in Dallas. For FC Dallas, they're going to miss Brek SHea and Marvin Chavez. We'll see what Heiman can do with that group. He's done so well mixing and matching all season long. Big game on the eastern conference. Philadelphia at home against the Columbus Crew 7:30pm eastern on saturday night on matchday live. 2 teams that have struggled lately. The union winless in their last 8 in league play. The Columbus Crew coming off 2 big time losses. Who has the edge in this one? You gotta take Philadelphia being at home, Philadelphia's manager Peter Novak saying all they really need is a win to get going. They have a mental block right now, but this could be a huge swing in either way for Philadelphia. A huge win and they're shooting for the East title. A loss, and they could really be in that muck of teams battling for the wild card. A big one on the west cost, the Seattle Sounders at home against DC United. 9pm eastern on Matchday Live. The Sounders have played so well lately up until that loss against RSL last week. DC United, they've been on the west coast all week after that big win over Chivas USA. What happens at Sentry Link Field? It's going to be interesting to see DC, coming off a 3-0 win off the Chivas. They're one of the better road teams in MLS. Their points totalled 3rd best in the league. Can they do it again? Their counterattacking style. We'll see if Seattle has a letdown after that Champions League victory. One last game we want to take a look at, and it's a good one. Reals Salt Lake at home against Sporting Kansas City. That's at 9pm eastern on Matchday Live. We know all about RSL. They seem to have their swagger back. Their defense is in form. They're going to face an ***-kicking KC team that is perhaps the best offense in the league. Who has the edge in Rio Tinto? Nick, everyone focusing on the battle between the Sporting attack versus the Reals defense. Everyone is overlooking the fact that Reals attack is not too shabby. You have Luis Gil in the midfield role and Fabian Espindola has been in great form as of late. I think that we should keep an eye on those two in this game. Both of these teams made some last minute roster additions on Thursday. The roster deadline freeze fell down on the league on Thursday. The biggest trade is Deason Robinson going from Toronto FC out to the LA Galaxy for Kyle Davies. Kyle and Robinson reunited out there in LA from their old Chicago Fire days. Just a couple of other pickups from around the league. In Orlando City, some good talent coming up from the minors. The champs of the OLC players, 3 of their players join the MLS ranks. 2 on loan. I think the bigger name here, Max Griffin joining the San Jose Earthquakes. They need the forward help assistance for Kris Guandeloski up top. For the rest of all the roster freeze deadline pickups, you can log onto mlssoccer.com You can also find the 24 under 24 series, which rolls on exclusively on the site. We're going to see numbers 6-9 on friday. What was the biggest name from Thursday? We got a lot of fan feedback. Who was the biggest surprise? I would say the biggest surprise was Camilo of the Vancouver White Caps. Quietly, he's put on a pretty impressive season, wowed fans with his creativity, put on some spectacular goals along the way. He really ranked higher than I think many expected. We also want to mention the latest edition of Extratime Radio is up. That came out on Thursday. We spoke to Charlie Davies of DC United. Charlie is always very candid. We spoke about DC United and his show, and how he visited a sport psychologist to sort of get out of his funk this summer. You can find that on iTunes and BuzzSprout. For all the latest headlines in MLS, log onto mlssoccer.com