Sunday Soccer

Full details of last night's Galaxy loss are here.

Here's the most important stat for Galaxy fans: The Galaxy remains 12 points behind the Columbus Crew (which lost to D.C. Saturday) in the race for the final MLS playoff berth. The Galaxy has 14 games remaining, the Crew nine.

Meanwhile, the Galaxy are getting all the attention, but Chivas USA are the best team in Carson, beating expansion team Toronto FC Saturday. Clink on the link for more on Chivas USA and other MLS action Saturday, find out what prompted Zinedine Zidane's infamous World Cup final head-butt and more.

Oh, and Chivas USA reserves won, too, 1-3, over Toronto.

Line-ups: Toronto FC Reserves (0-2-2) – GK David Monsalve (Srdjan Djekanovic, 45), D Tyler Hemming, D Marco Reda, D Nana Attakokora-Gyan, D Gabe Gala, M Chris Pozniak, M Christian Nunez (Kayin Jeffers, 78), M Joey Melo, Miguel Canizalez, F David Guzman (Stephen Lumley, 64), F Andrea Lombardo (Ryan Fante, 60)

Chivas USA (4-1-2) – GK Justin Myers, D Desmond Brooks, D Jorge Flores, D Brent Whitfield, D Oscar Garcia, M Rodrigo Lopez (Orlando Perez, 75), M Erasmo Solorzano, M John Cunliffe, M Ramon Nunez (David Arvizu,66) F Anthony Hamilton, F Laurent Merlin

Scoring Summary
CHV – Brent Whitfield 52’
CHV – Anthony Hamilton (Ramon Nunez) 60’
TFC – Miguel Canizalez (Christian Nunez) 66’
CHV – John Cunliffe 78’

Updated 2:45 p.m.

A glance at MLS stories around the country today yielded New England Revolution Coach Steve Nichol complaining to The Boston Globe about MLS teams' travel schedules, a recurring subject of criticism.

The Scot, one of the league's more colorful quotes, was unhappy because the Revs played last night in their seventh game in 21 days.

Of course, the Galaxy, who saw Beckham fly back to England after the game Saturday night are in the same boat, but can't really complain because their schedule was designed around Becks'.

Nichol doesn't have that concern so can happily blast away.

"Los Angeles' schedule is ridiculous," Nichol reportedly said. "The schedule they have doesn't particularly lend itself to success. It is important to allow players to recover from games. It's not like you are playing a game and then sitting on a bus for an hour. You are changing altitudes, time differences, all those things."

Something to keep in mind Thursday night when Beckham and the Galaxy will play Chivas USA; three of the players who could be involved that game (Landon Donovan, Jonathan Bornstein and Beckham) will all have played games in Europe the day before.

Which reminds me: Wednesday is good day to play hooky from work.

Brazil plays Algeria live at 9:30 a.m., U.S. plays Sweden live at 11:30 a.m., while England and Beckham takes on Germany at 2 p.m. All games are on Fox Soccer Channel.

Time to start acting like you're coming down with something.