What. A. Game.
The Denver, Colorado community received their money’s worth, because it was a nail biter until the finish, between the MLS All Stars and the Tottenham Hotspurs of the English Premier League.
To get started, every year, around the middle of the season, the MLS creates a somewhat version of an international friendly, and shows the skills of the best players who play for the MLS. The fans voted for part of the line ups and who the captain of the team would be, this year it was first year MLS’er Ricardo Kaka, from Orlando City Soccer Club.
The game started out with amazing tempo from both sides, with the MLS All Stars attacking the Spurs’ defense right off the bat. Yet after the energy seemed to settle in the arena, the MLS All Stars started to make a couple bad decisions and passes, and began to give the momentum and possession to the Spurs.
Harry Kane had his first shot at on open goal, when a shot was deflected from a MLS defender and landed at the feet of Kane, after a one touch and shot attempt, it was blocked by Nick Rimando. Tottenham would eventually have another good look, yet the play was to be called offside.
Tottenham continued to play the possession game, keeping the ball generously on the MLS side of the field, until a hand ball is called on the Tottenham Spurs in the box. Kaka as team captain was awarded the penalty kick, and drilled it in the bottom left corner of the net, creating the first lead of the game, and also receiving his first MLS All Star goal.
Minutes later, on a counter attack from an amazing save from Nick Rimando off of a Harry Kane shot, the ball was played across the field, passed over the 18-yard box. Kaka with the tap of his foot; plays it into the center of the penalty area and allows David Villa to create a 2-0 lead. The momentum seemed be placed back into the hands of the MLS All Stars.
The Spurs regained possession and gave it their all to get a point on the scoreboard, and things started to look up for Tottenham. After Zardes misled a pass across the field, it was picked up by Harry Kane and with a rocket to the top left corner of the net; the score was cut in half. This led to more trouble for MLS after the half, seeing the possession percentage drop tremendously.
Although Tottenham had multiple other chances at tying, and possibly winning the game against the MLS All Stars, they came up short against the home team. Tottenham dominated the game throughout every statistic, leading in possession percentage (TOT-68% MLS 32%), shots on goal (TOT-6 MLS-3), and overall shots (TOT-14 MLS-8).
While Tottenham excelled in every statistic, they unfortunately did not have as many saves nor as many goals as the MLS All Stars.
Once the game ended, Ricardo Kaka was named as the game’s MVP, with 1 goal and 1 assist. With the MLS All Stars having recent success in earlier All Star games against Bayern Munich and Chelsea, who would you like to see next years’ MLS All Stars play against?
With the expanding growth of the MLS in America and in other European countries, I would love to see either a FC Barcelona or a Real Madrid team come play against the team.