Up-and-comers shine on opening weekend

It's almost as if the biggest of the MLS biggies conspired to magnanimously step aside and bequeath a few diligent understudies a little place in the sun, if only for a while.

Brian Kersey/WireImage

The Fire's Matt Pickens pulled off the save of the week.

Before long, the 12th Major League Soccer season will be swallowed up by the substantial shadows of global bright lights David Beckham and Cuauhtemoc Blanco, who will make high-profile landings on MLS stages near you this summer.

They'll be dominating the league headlines soon enough -- like, the moment they began putting on soccer socks in these parts.

So it's nice to see some up-and-comers grab the attention and flaunt it while they can.

The recipients of the initial 2007 accolades were, in most cases, the young men we've been hearing about for so long. These fellows' names have been synonymous with "huge potential" for two or three years or more.

The first weekend of Major League Soccer's most glamorous season belonged largely to impressionable Americans such as Justin Mapp, Ned Grabavoy, Eddie Gaven and Sacha Kljestan.

Hey, who pronounced it "Up-and-Comers Weekend" in MLS and forgot to tell everybody?

Chicago attacker Justin Mapp led the brigade of breakouts. His pinpoint cross from the right was delivered into the tiniest of openings, as it met Logan Pause's well-timed run and careened into goal for the only strike in a 1-0 Fire triumph in wintry Chicago.

Mapp did more than provide the telling assist as his team smote the injury-sacked Revolution. He was showing up all over the field, taking on New England defenders with a steely verve and whipping in crosses that kept Steve Nicol's men under pressure in the back.

It was the kind of menacing performance that we saw from Mapp at the end of last year. Of course, MLS fans had seen as much off and on since 2003, when a gangly 18-year-old made his first MLS start. But his highs and lows were often painfully erratic.

Now the 22-year-old Mississippi native appears to be riding the swagger of last year's late surge and the recent national team call-ups. If Landon Donovan is the future in the middle of the park for the United States, Mapp is the man on the wings, or so it now seems.

New England defenders surely would agree.

Columbus' Ned Grabavoy wasn't quite as destructive against Red Bull New York, but he certainly had a nice match in the 0-0 draw in frigid Columbus. And that's significant, if only for the central midfield opposition. Staring down Grabavoy, 23, on Saturday were Claudio Reyna and Dema Kovalenko. Squeezing passes by the heady Reyna or dribbling around the intimidating Red Bull enforcement arm (Kovalenko) isn't easy.

But there was Grabavoy doing so, spraying the ball to Gaven on one side or Joseph Ngwenya on the other. The end result may sound like a listless draw, but the Crew showed more attacking punch than the group that managed only 30 goals in 32 contests last year.

Columbus' movement and passing through the midfield were generally sharp and precise, especially in the second half, and they generally ran through Grabavoy.

When he wasn't pulling the strings, Gaven was. Red Bulls left back Todd Dunivant is known as a defender who likes to get forward. Only on Saturday, during intermittent snow at Crew Stadium, Dunivant generally had too much trouble containing Gaven to think much about getting forward.

Same on the other side for talented Red Bulls outside back Marvell Wynne, who will have better matches in the attack. Saturday he needed to deal with Ngwenya, yet another who has shown glimpses of something special here and there. By the second half, the Ngwenya-Wynne battle along their side was some of the best viewing of the afternoon.

Columbus' inability to produce a goal was down to Andy Herron and Jason Garey's lack of initiative up front, not because Sigi Schmid's young midfield wasn't supplying the opportunity. That, and because Red Bulls goalkeeper Ronald Waterreus was busy showing everybody why Bruce Arena made his acquisition a priority. Waterreus did have one early bobble but atoned with world-class saves on Gaven and Ngwenya in the second half.

In the week's high-profile match, shown live on ABC, young U.S. central midfielder Kyle Beckerman helped christen Dick's Sporting Goods Park by setting the pace in Colorado's midfield during the Rapids' 2-1 victory over D.C. United. Beckerman, just 24, but already with seven seasons of MLS experience, has developed a nice two-way game and his shooting from distance will continue to bother teams in 2007.

Sacha Kljestan was similarly effective in the center of the park for Chivas USA. The Goats' second-year man produced a goal and an assist in a 2-0 win over league debutantes Toronto FC.

Kenny Cooper, who recently earned his first two U.S. national team caps, kept FC Dallas in a game that Real Salt Lake should have won. Cooper's first-half strike was a good one, but not great, and was helped by Nick Rimando's pedestrian goalkeeping.

The Real Salt Lake 'keeper was slightly out of position, then couldn't do more than get a hand on Cooper's low shot, which trickled into goal from there. Rimando was even worse later, charging brazenly into traffic in the fourth minute of stoppage time only to see a hopeful, probing ball bound behind him and eventually into goal for the equalizer.

That's bad news for Rimando, for big Chris Seitz is in the next class of up-and-comers. He was Real Salt Lake's first pick in January's draft, and quite a high selection (No. 4 overall) for a goalkeeper. Don't be surprised if RSL manager John Ellinger, who certainly noticed all the breakout performances from the young Americans, decides to kick-start the process of introducing the next crop of rising stars and turns soon to his own emerging standout.

Steve Davis is a Dallas-based freelance writer who covers MLS for ESPNsoccernet. He can be reached at BigTexSoccer@yahoo.com.