For much of the season, Chris Wondolowski has been shadowed by the specter of Roy Lassiter, whose 27-goal campaign in the inaugural 1996 MLS season has occasionally been threatened but never matched.

At some point in the next few weeks, an Eastern Conference coach -- the one whose team is destined to finish sixth and thus miss the playoffs -- will lament the playoff format by which the top five in each conference advance.

Sporting Kansas City, Chicago and Los Angeles are all surging into the final month of the regular season and in both conferences the competition to reach MLS Cup looks extremely intense.

"Managing the game" is one of those modern soccer expressions that many equate with "stalling for time" or "parking the bus," and it's usually the teams unable to do it well end up paying the price.

The must-see game of the weekend pairs the top two teams in the Western Conference, San Jose and Seattle, which have already staged three intense, memorable games this season.

On the same night, the MLS conference leaders showed precisely why they are on top.

Perusing all the statistical categories by which one can evaluate players, it strikes me that the most specialized position -- goalkeepers -- is being underserved.

A surge of pursuers hasn't been able to close ground on the Quakes, which hold a five-point lead in the overall standings as well as the No. 1 ranking.

Barring a miraculous surge by Montreal, six teams are vying for the five Eastern Conference playoffs spots. Late-season arrivals in Columbus, New York and Chicago have altered the landscape heading into the final month and a half.

In praising U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann as lavishly for his lineup changes for the second game against Jamaica as he'd been criticized for choices in game one, not many of those commenting focused on a common element of the two games.

We're now 13 months and 18 games into the Jurgen Klinsmann era. And the hopeful notion that a charismatic World Cup-winning striker could get more out of the U.S. national team than his predecessors managed is fading fast.

The USA breathes much easier now after beating Jamaica, 1-0, thanks to Herculez Gomez's free kick in the 55th minute Tuesday in Columbus, Ohio.

Torsten Frings, one of those older former internationals who seem to be flocking to MLS these days, is out for the season.

Though he watched the Jamaica-USA game from the BeIN Sport studios in Miami, former international defender Marcelo Balboa saw perhaps more than he wanted to.

I'd like to say my favorite memory of Columbus Crew Stadium comes from one of the many memorable games that have been played there since it opened in May 1999.