5 Things We Learned from MLS Week of September 19-21

With only a handful of Major League Soccer matches left in the 2014 regular season, the playoff races throughout the league are coming down to the wire.

This weekend, Bradley Wright-Phillips continued his goal-scoring ways, Luis Silva hit a stunner and the Portland Timbers took a huge step towards a Western Conference playoff berth.

Read about all that and more in this week's edition of 5 Things We Learned from MLS.

Your Weekly Eastern Conference Chaos Update

In the East, where seven teams have been competing for three playoff berths for most of the second half of the season, everything is still up for grabs.

The New York Red Bulls picked up three points in a 4-1 win over Seattle, while the Philadelphia Union and Conor Casey missed a number of chances to beat the Houston Dynamo and instead settled for a 0-0 tie.

D.C. United and the Chicago Fire battled to a 3-3 draw that saw the Fire tie their own league record for draws in a single season with 16. One might have expected a defensive battle in a match that showcased two of the best young American goalkeepers in Sean Johnson and Bill Hamid, but that didn't prove to be the case. The game also featured a Goal of the Year candidate in Luis Silva's second-half free kick.

Columbus picked up a 1-0 win over the New England Revolution (on a nice free-kick strike from Federico Higuain) that probably won't hurt the Revs, but did help the Crew pick up a two-point lead on the Union in the race for fifth.

Finally, Toronto FC picked up a 3-0 win over Chivas USA.

As it stands, the Revs are in third place with 42 points, New York is in fourth with 41 and the Crew are in fifth with 40. The Union and Toronto are right behind with 38 and 37 points, respectively.

At this point, the Dynamo, with 33 points, and the Fire, with 31, are probably—finally—out of the playoff race.

The Timbers Picked Up a Huge Win in the West

Things in the West are much more settled than in the East, but there is still a raging battle between the Vancouver Whitecaps and the Portland Timbers for fifth place—and the final playoff spot.

On Saturday, the two went head-to-head with the Timbers picking up a big 3-0 win at home. Diego Valeri opened the scoring on a gorgeous full-volleyed strike in the first half and assisted on the first of two second-half tallies by Fanendo Adi to wrap up the win.

The Timbers now hold a two-point lead over the Whitecaps with five games left to play.

Take a Bow, Bradley Wright-Phillips

On Saturday, Bradley Wright-Phillips' hat trick helped lead the New York Red Bulls to an important 4-1 win over the Seattle Sounders.

But beyond a vital three points in the Eastern Conference playoff race, Wright-Phillips also helped himself in his chase to break MLS' single-season goal-scoring record.

His hat trick put him at 24 goals for the season, just three shy of the 27 goals scored by Roy Lassiter in 1996, which was matched by Chris Wondolowski in 2012.

Wright-Phillips has five games left to break the record.

So, Joe Nasco?

Things certainly haven't gone according to plan for the Colorado Rapids this season and it must be especially frustrating for head coach Pablo Mastroeni considering that his team has some of the best young talent in the league—including five players who are routinely in conversations about the next generation of United States men's national team players.

However, that frustration seems to have turned to desperation in Mastroeni's move to replace regular goalkeeper Clint Irwin with 30-year-old journeyman Joe Nasco.

Mastroeni has stated that he believes Irwin's confidence has been shot from allowing so many goals this season—something hard to put on Irwin considering the loss of Drew Moor to an ACL tear and the long-term absence of Shane O'Neill due to a knee strain.

Two weeks ago, Nasco earned the fastest red card in league history against the LA Galaxy and, after serving his one-game suspension, was given the start this Friday against Real Salt Lake.

Nasco didn't fare much better this time around, conceding five goals. Of the five, Nasco bobbled two right into the path of RSL attackers and turned a third goal into his own net.

MLS Unveils a New Logo

Bebeto Matthews/Associated Press

This week, MLS unveiled its new logo (a full breakdown of it here) and fan reaction was mixed, at best.

Many pointed to the new logo's apparent asymmetry, undefined border and bland design as flaws.

One interesting feature is that the logo will look different on each MLS jersey, changing its colors to match those of each team.

Oddly enough, shortly after the unveiling, MLS tweeted out some fan versions of the new logo, many of which looked markedly better than the one MLS created.

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