FRISCO, Texas — Kenny Cooper scored on a penalty kick in the 77th minute to lift FC Dallas into a 1-1 tie with the Portland Timbers on Wednesday night.
The draw extended the unbeaten streaks for two hottest clubs in MLS to eight games apiece.
Cooper’s second goal of the season came after Portland’s Andrew Jean-Baptiste was shown a yellow card for pulling down Blas Perez inside the penalty area a minute earlier. Cooper then stepped to the dot and slotted a low shot just inside the left post.
Raul Fernandez made three saves for Dallas, which owns the league’s best record and is now 6-0-2 in its last eight. Dallas also remains unbeaten at home (5-0-1), outscoring the opposition 10-3.
Cooper nearly gave Dallas the victory in the 86th, but Portland goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts got his hand on Cooper’s blast from the edge of the box, deflecting it just over the crossbar.
Diego Chara scored and Donovan Ricketts made four saves for the Timbers, who are now 3-0-5 in their last eight matches. It was Portland’s first point earned in Dallas, having lost on its previous three visits by a combined 10-1 margin.
Chara’s first goal of the season snapped a scoreless tie in the 70th, coming off a nice setup from Rodney Wallace, who had just entered the match seven minutes earlier. Wallace worked his way around Dallas’ Je-Vaughan Watson and chipped a pass across the box to Chara for a one-timer past Fernandez inside the right post.
The Portland goal came just minutes after Dallas narrowly missed on two outstanding opportunities. In the 67th, Ricketts made a nice save on Cooper’s point-blank header off a cross from Fabian Castillo before Perez received a similar cross from Michel a minute later only to watch his header from 10 yards out bounce off the left goalpost.
Dallas controlled the ball for much of the first 15 minutes, with Cooper generating the game’s first prime scoring chance, drilling a shot from just outside the penalty area in the 16th that just curled wide of the left goalpost.
The Timbers counter-attacked less than a minute later, but a nice sliding save by Fernandez denied Diego Valeri’s point-blank shot off a nice cross from Kalif Alhassan.
Fernandez came up big again in the 19th, managing to get enough of his right hand on Frederic Piquionne’s breakaway shot from 10 yards out to have it squarely hit the right post.
After withstanding sustained pressure from Portland, Dallas nearly scored when Castillo raced into the penalty area from the left wing and fired a left-footed shot that Ricketts knocked aside with his arm.
Ricketts kept the match scoreless with a diving save five minutes into the second half when Castillo’s lead pass sprung Perez in on a breakaway, knocking aside Perez’s 20-yard blast.
FC Dallas star midfielder David Ferreira, the 2010 MLS MVP, left the contest in the 54th minute after having to limp off the field with an apparent right leg injury twice within a four-minute span.
Dallas also played without Jackson, who received a red card in Dallas’ 2-2 draw at Vancouver on April 27 and served his one-game suspension.
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KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Djimi Traore scored late in stoppage time and the Seattle Sounders stunned Sporting Kansas City 1-0 on Wednesday night.
The teams had played a defensive-minded game most of the night, but Seattle finally got an opportunity when Zach Scott threw the ball in with about four minutes gone in stoppage time.
The ball was deflected toward the net, and Sporting KC defender Aurelien Collin whiffed trying to clear it, allowing Traore to slam it into the back of the net for the game’s only goal.
The goal allowed Seattle to improve to 6-0-1 in their last seven meetings.
It also spoiled the return of Sporting KC’s Kei Kamara, who rejoined his MLS club as a second-half substitute after spending the first half of the season on loan to Norwich City.
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WASHINGTON — Will Bruin continued his dominance over D.C. United on Wednesday night, scoring two goals and assisting on two others to lead the Houston Dynamo to a 4-0 victory.
Bruin, who now has four goals this season, has scored nine times in nine career appearances against United. He notched the first multi-goal game of his career with a hat trick in a 4-1 win over United in Houston on April 29, 2011.
"I guess it’s just a confidence thing," Bruin said with a smile. "I should be playing like that against every team."
Giles Barnes and Andrew Driver also scored as the Dynamo (6-2-2) won their second straight road game in a rematch of last season’s Eastern Conference finals.
D.C. United (1-7-1) was shut out for the fourth time in five games and has lost six straight for only the second time in club history (2006-07). United’s home losing streak stands at four since its 17-game home unbeaten streak ended against Columbus on March 23.
After Brad Davis won an aerial challenge at midfield in the early going, Boniek Garcia found a streaking Bruin. Bruin was able to sidestep a lunging Dejan Jakovic before eventually chipping United goalie Bill Hamid with a deft right footed touch in the 16th minute for a 1-0 lead.
"That’s one thing we knew that if we could get on them early their heads would go down and maybe they wouldn’t have as much fight," Bruin said about the importance of an early goal against a struggling side.
Houston doubled its lead 12 minutes later thanks to some help from United and with Bruin again being the focal point.
After receiving a back pass from Jakovic, Hamid’s clearance attempt barely made its way outside the six-yard box and fell right to the feet of Bruin. From there, Bruin looked up and slid a pass to his left, allowing Barnes to send the ball into the back of the net.
Barnes would leave the game in the 36th minute with a right hamstring injury. The forward was replaced by former US international Brian Ching.
United’s best two chances came off the same play midway through the second half. After a well-placed corner kick, Dwayne DeRosario looked close to scoring twice in the 63rd, but both times Dynamo defender Kofi Sarkodie cleared the ball off the Houston line.
United is off to its worst start since 2010 when it opened 1-8. That was also the season in which current head coach and former player Ben Olsen took over for an ineffective Curt Onalfo.
"Is my job on the line?" Olen said. "It better be. I’m the leader of this team, but I have faith in what I’m doing, and I’ll continue to go about my work."
With United pressing for most of the second half, Houston was able to counter with success as Bruin added his second goal of the game in the 78th and then again in the 88th when Driver easily tapped in a Bruin pass for his third goal of the season.
After scoring a career-best 12 goals last season, Bruin had been stuck on just two through eight appearances this season
"It was just a matter of time," he said. "I knew I had been playing well and contributing in the offence and just not getting goals."
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FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Substitute Olmes Garcia scored in the 89th minute and Real Salt Lake rallied for a 2-1 win over the New England Revolution on Wednesday night.
Devon Sandoval tied the score for Salt Lake (5-4-2) in the 77th minute at Gillette Stadium, scoring on a rebound after Revolution goalkeeper Bobby Shuttleworth stopped a shot by Sebastian Velasquez.
Ryan Guy opened the scoring for the Revolution (2-4-3) in the 51st minute, sending a volley into the lower corner from the top of the box off a cross from Kelyn Rowe.
New England had a chance to equalize when RSL defender Carlos Salcedo gave up a penalty kick and was ejected in stoppage time, but Saer Sene hit the penalty weakly and Nick Rimando made the save with a dive to his right.
The win kept Salt Lake unbeaten against the Revolution in their last six matches, a span that dates to 2009. Salt Lake jumped to second in the West with the victory, while the Revolution remained in seventh in the East.
