YOU LOSE COUNT after a while.
Andrea Pirlo, David Villa, Robbie Keane, Giovani dos Santos, Ashley Cole. It really is a glittering array of talent.
But the two names that will get all the headlines before, during and after tonight’s Major League Soccer clash between New York City FC and the LA Galaxy are Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard.
They cross swords for the first time since both arriving in the US.
The pair have a complicated history. Despite excelling for Chelsea and Liverpool in their prime and tasting respective Champions League glories, they could never combine properly at international level.
They are two of the finest Premier League players of all time but there seemed an incompatibility when they pulled on an English shirt and played alongside each other in midfield.
Still, Lampard has been talking before the game about how they never anything simmering under the surface.
“It was something that was sort of built up in the media to a huge extent, because we were two players in the prime of our careers and at the top of our games for our clubs”, he told ESPN.
Having a controversial beginning in MLS, Lampard has finally hit his stride this term. At 38, he’s still contributing enormously.
He’s scored nine goals in his last 10 games to push the side – managed by Patrick Vieira – to the top of the Eastern Conference.
In the team’s last game at Yankee Stadium, he grabbed a hat-trick in a 5-1 demolition of Kevin Doyle’s Colorado Rapids.
Gerrard, rather inevitably, continues as an assist king, tabling 11 so far this season. The Galaxy are third in the Western Conference and are well in the play-off race.
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