MLS Cup
Former LA Galaxy icon David Beckham announced his retirement on Thursday, letting the world know that he's hanging it up for good after his current team, France Ligue 1 champs Paris Saint-Germain, completes its season next weekend.
Beckham played against Real Salt Lake eight times in his 5 1/2 years with LA (and once against RSL while with Real Madrid), registering two goals and four assists in all competions against the Claret-and-Cobalt. The English midfielder played all 120 minutes for LA in RSL's MLS Cup 2009 win and was classy enough to come into the RSL locker room afterwards to congratulate the Claret-and-Cobalt on its shootout victory.
While we're a little bit late, we were able to unearth the video of Beckham congratulating RSL. Give it a watch above.
RSL goalkeeper Nick Rimando earned his 100th career regular season shutout on Sunday at San Jose.
Here are a few of the best saves Nick's made during his RSL career. Some of these stops are truly incredible - I got the chills re-watching them.
For the second year in a row, the LA Galaxy will take on the Houston Dynamo in MLS Cup.
LA and Houston won their respective Conference Finals on Sunday, with both teams hanging on to big first leg leads to advance to Cup on Dec. 1 at the Home Depot Center. Both sides won 4-2 on aggregate, with Houston tying DC 1-1 at RFK Stadium in the afternoon before LA lost 2-1 to knockout Seattle – which, of course, bounced RSL in the Western Conference Semifinals – in the evening.
Interestingly, LA’s win over Sounders FC marks the first time that the team that knocked RSL out of the playoffs won’t compete in MLS Cup. The three previous teams that had eliminated the Claret-and-Cobalt from the postseason – New York in 2008, Dallas in 2010 and LA last year – all went on to qualify for Cup, with LA winning the whole thing last season.
MLS Cup will kickoff at 2:30 p.m. MT on Saturday, Dec. 1 at the Home Depot Center. The match will be broadcast live on ESPN, TeleFutura, TSN and RDS.