It was a party atmosphere in the MLS All-Stars' locker room Saturday night at Toyota Park, with beers and pizza the reward for a 1-0 victory over Chelsea FC.
Game MVP Dwayne De Rosario scored the only goal of the match as MLS claimed a fourth victory in four All-Star matches against an elite club or national team. The players' emotion was evident as the final whistle blew.
"It's huge," De Rosario said. "A lot of people had doubts and probably thought we were going to go out there and get spanked. We opened people's eyes and showed them what kind of caliber soccer we have in America."
Colorado Rapids goalkeeper Joe Cannon jubilantly pumped his fists as he walked off the field. He played the second half of the game, teaming with D.C. United's Troy Perkins to record the first-ever shutout in an MLS All-Star Game.
In second-half stoppage time, Cannon spread himself to block a point-blank shot from Chelsea defender Ricardo Carvalho to preserve the victory.
"This is a great win for MLS, for us - all the guys - and the shutout, too," Cannon said. "It's a great showing for the league, and I think it's just a natural progression of where this league is going."
The heart of the MLS side was obvious from start to finish.
Houston Dynamo defender Eddie Robinson saved a ball off the goal line after Facundo Erpen inadvertently tapped it through Cannon's legs while tackling striker Salomon Kalou.
Bobby Boswell, beaten once by Shaun Wright-Phillips, chased him down and cleared out his centering attempt. Erpen did the same. Chicago Fire forward Nate Jaqua tracked back all the way to the endline to slide tackle an opponent and prevent another scoring chance.
Robinson said that as much as the game was a test of the overall talent of the league against one of the best clubs in the world, it was an individual test of mettle for the MLS players against some of the top players in the world.
"If you look around at this team, most of the guys on this team are guys that had to work to make names for themselves in this league, a lot of blue-collar guys," he said. "I think it showed defensively."
MLS All-Star head coach Peter Nowak of D.C. United played down the importance of the result in the grand scheme. But he said the players on this All-Star team deserve to revel in their accomplishment.
"You cannot go that far," he said. "For the players, especially, it's very important. We still made a couple of mistakes, but ... we can compete. If the heart is there, and the will and determination and the brain, we can really play good soccer against them, but there's still a lot of work to do ahead of us."
For some MLS observers, the memory of the MLS Select Team's 5-0 whitewashing at the hands of Real Madrid in the Trofeo Santiago Bernabeu last August was still fresh ahead of the Chelsea match.
That match in Spain was played in adverse circumstances; the MLS players took part in Saturday matches for their club teams, then arrived in Madrid after long transatlantic flights early Monday morning, only to play one of the best clubs in the world Tuesday night.
With better conditions against Chelsea, the MLS All-Stars took advantage and beat another of the world's best teams.
"People still bring up that [Real Madrid] game as kind of like a benchmark for the league," said Kansas City Wizards defender Jimmy Conrad, "so [it's nice] to have this game to have a reprieve from that."
Even if it was only an exhibition and Chelsea aren't very deep into their preseason training, Robinson said, the result is likely to impress.
"Most of the world is going to see the score and not see the game, and they're going to say, 'Wow,'" Robinson said. "And that's going to, maybe, create a little more interest in the league. Maybe these guys are not so bad."
Jason Halpin is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
