Shocker in Foxboro!

The midweek action hasn't been much hotter than this. Although the Revolution is the tops in the East, they have struggled to stay there. On the 20th they barely squeaked by the Fire with a win in Chicago of 1-0, the Wednesday prior to that they lost 4-3 to Colorado allowing 3 goals in the last 11 minutes of play. The East has not been the division of powerhouses so far this year, but the Revs seem to be trying to change that. Throughout the season they have continued to tweak their lineup and add new talent. One interesting addition to note is the acquisition of defender Joe Franchino from LA to make room for the addition of Luis Hernandez. Franchino played the entire match against his old team, one week after his transfer, and helped to hold the Galaxy to a shutout.

In other midweek action, Chicago beat Dallas by a score of 4-3 and tookover a 1 point lead in the Central division. Chicago maintained a shot advantage over Dallas even though they played much of the match a player down. Chicago nows has 19 points to Tampa Bay's 18 points.

I wouldn't be too concerned about Tampa Bay gathering very many points this weekend. Kansas City comes ot town this week, but as LA showed us, the mighty can always fall. TB is undefeated this season at home, but they haven't faced KC there yet. KC is rolling on strong. They most recently beat San Jose at KC and prior to that DC. On the other hand, TB is coming off an overtime loss to the Metrostars in NY.

Meanwhile, the Metrostars will be hosting the new leader, the Chicago Fire, and looking for another upset. The Metros will be without their German defender, Lothar Matthaus, who is out on Euro 2000 duties. They hav beefed up their midfield and the re-addition of Tab Ramos has given them a lot of options in the middle. The Fire on the other hand are looking strong and expecting the return of Hristo Stoitchkov to an already potent offense. The Fire defender, Lubos Kubic is out with a MCL strain, but look for the Fire to still look strong on defense.

After their loss to Chicago, the Dallas Burn look to head into DC to restart their winning ways (never thought I'd say that about DC). DC is looking to build some consistency. They have played matches in which they have looked very strong, like their 5-2 win in Colorado, and have had others that have been less than steller. DC will look to add their new forward, Pete Marino, who had been waived by Tampa Bay. The hope is to get a another DC forward to score other than Jaime Moreno. Dallas will see the return of Ariel Graziani, who is back from a three game suspension. It will be interesting to see which of the returning forwards will be more rusty.

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