TORONTO -- A big night at BMO Field on Thursday provided the rowdy Canadian supporters with lots of great soccer.
Strangely, it looked less like an All-Star event than just a good, skillful match.
MLS manager Steve Nicol augmented the voters' selections with players that provided balance. Nicol and his All-Star selections seem pretty serious about protecting this streak of All-Star wins against foreign opposition -- five and counting.
The latest was a 3-2 win against West Ham United inside Exposition Park, in the shadow of downtown Toronto. If the night was a bit short on All-Star panache, it was certainly chock-full of effective, efficient and clinical soccer.
"We said we were going to take it seriously and we wanted to win the game, and we did that," MLS celebrity midfielder David Beckham said. "We played together as a team and we won as a team."
The MLS side "worked," realistically, better than could be expected, considering that these assemblies are generally pieced together with ill-fitting parts (read: too many offensive engines, not enough defensive diggers). And consider that the All-Stars had just one true practice together.
Still, it all pieced together nicely on a beautiful evening in Ontario. Never mind that for 20 minutes or so, it looked a lot more like a cautious playoff match than any kind of an All-Star free-for-all.
NEWS • Blanco plays the hero for MLS
• All-Stars demonstrate strength of MLS
• Stars gush over All-Star experience
• All-Star nod No. 9 fine for Mastroeni
• All-Star notebook: Long day's end
• Hammers pleased with performance
• Blanco leads MLS past West Ham
• Garber's State of the League address
• All-Stars aim to defeat West Ham
• All-Star first for MLS luminaries
• De Rosario shines in spotlight
• West Ham visits land of opportunity
• MLS announces All-Star First XI
• MLS All-Stars to face West Ham
ANALYSIS • Davis: All-Star Game earns high marks
• Davis: All-Star matchups
• A look at West Ham United roster
PRESS RELEASES
• MLS All-Stars defeat West Ham United
• MLS seeks two expansion teams by 2011
• MLS finalizes '08 All-Star roster
• West Ham to face MLS All-Stars
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SIGHTS & SOUNDS
Highlights: MLS 3, WHU 2: 350K Postgame press conference: 350K Awards presentation: 350K David Beckham postgame: 350K Dwayne De Rosario's penalty kick: 350K Dean Ashton's double: 350K Cuauhtemoc Blanco's bender: 350K Christian Gomez's goal: 350K MLS-West Ham Preview: 350K
All-Star Highlights, part 1: Photos All-Star Highlights, part 2: Photos 2008 All-Star First XI: Photos
"We got the flair going once we got scored on," MLS captain Jimmy Conrad said.
Cuauhtemoc Blanco, playing as a second striker behind Kenny Cooper, and Christian Gomez ran the offense in Nicol's 4-4-2. Juan Toja protected the left side with plenty of hustle and bustle, and David Beckham took care of playing the direct balls when opportunity arose.
Toja and Jonathan Bornstein combined occasionally on the left, while it was tougher for Frankie Hejduk to get forward to combine with Beckham on the right.
The midfield worked so well in large part because of Nicol's selection of Toja. While few could argue that Toja has been the same dynamic presence in his sophomore season that he was in 2007, Nicol knew the floppy-haired Colombian would provide the requisite midfield balance. With playmakers such as Gomez, Blanco and Beckham doing their offensive thing, in their own ways, the MLS manager knew he needed one more midfielder who would chase and harass a bit more.
Shalrie Joseph, the ever-present holding force, can't do it all.
Up front, Cooper effectively stood as a target player, with Blanco moving around behind him as second striker. Or, that was the plan. That was perhaps the one flaw in Nicol's blueprint. Blanco didn't always work as the second striker because -- as he likes to do in MLS contests -- he retreated too far into the midfield to gather up possession.
That had a lot to do with the game's crisp-but-cautious start. Not much happened for either side for about 20 minutes. Gomez and Cooper combined to provide the only showy "All-Star" moment to that point; FC Dallas' young striker spun from close range and nearly turned Gomez's cheeky little chipped pass into a spectacular All-Star-worthy goal.
The Hammers' attackers only occasionally troubled the MLS back four. MLS center backs Pablo Mastroeni and Jimmy Conrad could generally deal with Carlton Cole when the big West Ham striker had the ball at his feet. But Cole won almost every aerial duel with Conrad, like the one that led to Dean Ashton's sure strike in the 26th minute to open the scoring.
West Ham's outside attackers, Julien Faubert on the right and Matthew Etherington on the left, did too much defending to make themselves overly useful going forward.
It all left MLS goalkeeper Matt Reis with very little to do before the break -- excepting the one time Ashton got loose and left the Revolution veteran with no chance.
Gomez seemed to tire a bit after the break, and West Ham was finding more room in the gap between the MLS back four and midfield. Dwayne De Rosario's entrance changed that, and fast.
"DeRo," who loves the All-Star contest and keeps showing us all how much, immediately put a little more pep in the MLS step upon his 59th-minute entrance. He added back the flair that left when Blanco was withdrawn at halftime.
Most importantly, he helped the MLS regain the initiative. De Rosario bounced around midfield, finding Juan Pablo Angel, combining with Landon Donovan or feeding the always attack-minded Bornstein along the left.
In the 69th minute De Rosario forced West Ham right back and captain Lucas Neill into a dangerous challenge, and then converted the spot kick for the game-winner. It was De Rosario's second in an All-Star contest, having also nailed the match-winner two years ago against Chelsea.
And last year, he combined with Ricardo Clark in the center of the park on All-Star night, as the pair troubled Celtic with its pace and athleticism.
De Rosario could flit about so freely because Joseph was doing what he always does: bossing the midfield, expertly screening the defense and handling the work of about one and a half men.
Meanwhile, with the exception of some late space made available to West Ham once Nicol emptied the bench to get everyone into the contest, the organization remained remarkably tidy under the circumstances.
"That kind of falls on Pablo, Shalrie and myself to make sure we were staying organized," Conrad said, "to make sure we're not getting out of control, to make sure guys aren't just bombing forward for the sake of bombing forward. We just wanted to pick our spots, and we did a better job of that once West Ham was tired."
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Davis: All-Star matchups
