Playoff fires heating up

Three bold individual performances drove a trio of mammoth road wins as Week 27 added even more accelerant to a playoff-race fire that was already blazing.

All three of the significant road triumphs carried weight -- if perhaps for different reasons.

The Colorado Rapids launched a weekend run on improbable road success by stunning New York at Giants Stadium, where manager Juan Carlos Osorio thought he had the defense properly fortified with three key midsummer additions. (The Red Bulls actually added four players in the summer transfer window; the other was an attacking player.) Still, the Rapids scored five goals for the first time since 2002 and emerged from New Jersey with a mile-marker 5-4 win and an undeniable place as one Major League Soccer's hottest teams.

Who could have forecast that from a team that was absolutely on the skids just one month ago, having lost four of five, stuck to the bottom of the league table?

And who saw the next one coming? Real Salt Lake, having struggled mightily on the road all year, with just one triumph in their first dozen tries away from Rice-Eccles, cracked the league's formerly hottest team, San Jose.

The Earthquakes made themselves into serious playoff pursuers through Darren Huckerby's indomitable attacking and by making little Buck Shaw a fiercely difficult place for the opposition to score goals. So Saturday's 3-2 win by RSL was a stunner for all kinds of reasons.

The weekend's other major road win wasn't as significant in terms of playoff implications, perhaps, but it served as a high-decibel statement -- surely heard all around MLS.

Columbus is already in the playoffs and New England can feel pretty good about its chances, too. So the meeting at rainy Gillette Stadium was never going to say much about postseason fortunes. But the Crew's 1-0 win at New England (5-0 on "aggregate," following a recent meeting of the teams at Crew Stadium) certainly provided notice that the road to MLS Cup 2008 seems to go through Ohio.

Generally speaking, big wins away from home demand big performances from at least one individual. And all three road triumphs had just that.

At Giants Stadium, Conor Casey carried his team with the league's sixth hat trick this year. Casey has struggled to stay healthy in two seasons at Dick's Sporting Goods Park, and his production shows as much. Casey came into Saturday's match with just seven goals in 34 matches since returning stateside in the spring of 2007 following a long stint in Germany.

But against the Red Bulls' suddenly teetering defense, Casey's three strikes included a late game-winner off Mehdi Ballouchy's pinpoint service.

Casey's determined individual performance might have been among the best all year in MLS. He was heavily involved in the Rapids' first goal, as his aggressive challenge on Red Bulls goalkeeper Jon Conway cleared the way for Omar Cummings' relatively easy connection into goal.

Then, Casey's first strike was equal parts skill and will, as he doggedly bounced off Red Bulls defenders to fire past Conway. Later, he helped set up a penalty kick, which he then calmly and assertively buried. Then Casey helped give the Rapids, now undefeated in four games, all three points by getting inside of defender Jeff Parke to athletically push home the late winner. In between, Casey stayed busy as a target man, winning balls with that big bald head all night to help keep the Rapids tied for third in the West, along with Real Salt Lake.

For RSL, it was Yura Movsisyan who rewarded Jason Kreis' continued faith. Movsisyan's two goals in an epic performance helped Real atone for that loss at home last weekend, which suddenly looks a lot less crippling.

Movsisyan was a handful all night for San Jose's back line, one that looked a bit like the rest of the team, a step or two slow after last week's postponement gave the formerly in-form Earthquakes an unexpectedly long layoff. Movsisyan took full advantage, supplying goals from two terrific individual efforts, the first on the back side of a wonderful through ball by Javier Morales. Movsisyan came close on a couple of other occasions, too. That's premium production from a striker who might be in the starting 11 only due to Fabian Espindola's injury.

Plenty of teams could already have lost faith in Movsisyan, who had just eight goals and one lonely assist in 50 MLS appearances prior to Saturday's breakout. Scoring less than once every five matches is not what most managers seek in a game-changing forward. And that's not to mention the young striker's propensity to lower his head and stubbornly plow toward goal once the ball falls to his feet -- a tendency reflected in that flagging assist total.

The road ahead remains tough for RSL, but Movsisyan's big night will certainly help renew confidence. A couple of other individual performances must be mentioned here, too. Morales, fresh off signing a new four-year deal, was on his game, giving the San Jose midfield fits with tidy possession and clever passing. And what can you say about his superbly taken free kick game-winner?

Huckerby's night should be mentioned, as well. His goals were consummate Huckerby, well-taken efforts, both, stemming from those signature runs out of the midfield. His sizzling nine-game totals: six goals and four assists.

In New England, it was a defender making all the noise as U.S. center back Chad Marshall took command. His team is plowing ahead undeterred in the absence of league MVP candidate Guillermo Barros Schelotto; The Crew have collected seven of a possible nine points during Schelotto's injury absence, a period that includes two road matches. That's a job well done.

Marshall was a beast all night, helping to deal with Taylor Twellman and the rest of the Revolution attackers as Columbus blanked the Revs at Gillette, just the third time that's happened all year. Marshall struck powerfully with a 35th-minute header, the first time New England's zone marking off corner kicks has been dented this year.

Even when the Crew went down a man (following Frankie Hejduk's 65th-minute expulsion), Marshall and his gang had matters in hand. By game's end, Crew goalkeeper William Hesmer had needed just two saves to preserve his eighth shutout of the campaign.

TACTICAL CORNER

• Red Bulls manager Juan Carlos Osorio obviously wants his team comfortable playing two different formations. It's the Osorio way; he always arranges his team tactically to exploit the opposition weakness and to add extra protection for opponent strong suits.

For the last four weeks, Osorio has toggled weekly between a 3-5-2 and a 4-4-2. Against Colorado on Saturday, the team lined up with three in the back, with Gabriel Cichero stationed centrally between Diego Jimenez and Jeff Parke. A week before, the four-man back line had been (right to left) Parke, Cichero, Andrew Boyens and Kevin Goldthwaite.

A week before that, it was Parke, Cichero and Goldthwaite in a three-man setup. And so it has gone much of the year for Osorio's men.

• Teams on two coasts, fighting for their playoff lives, have been left with big holes to fill. Just when Alecko Eskandarian seemed to be gaining speed for Chivas USA, strike partner Ante Razov limped off the field with a calf injury.

On the other hand, Claudio Suarez, Alex Zotinca and Jesse Marsch have all returned lately to boost the Red-and-White, who are also working to get Maykel Galindo match-fit for the playoffs.

There's not nearly as much relief for Tom Soehn's D.C. United. With eight matches scheduled for a busy October, the men of RFK might be without their leading scorer. Luciano Emilio left Sunday's loss to Dallas with a hamstring injury. The side will definitely be without Jaime Moreno for the next MLS contest (at home vs. Chivas USA). Moreno received a red card late in Sunday's 3-0 loss to Dallas.

United are winless, with five losses and a tie, in all competitions since claiming the U.S. Open Cup at the beginning of the month. Soehn's side has allowed at least two goals in each of those subsequent contests.

United are 16-19-4 in all competitions this year, including MLS regular season play and matches in the U.S. Open Cup, CONCACAF Champions League, CONCACAF Champions Cup and SuperLiga.