Jeff Cunningham definitely made his presence felt in his first visit back to Rice-Eccles Stadium since an early May trade sent him to Toronto FC.

After being greeted with mostly cheers during the starting line-up introductions, the former Real Salt Lake striker scored his sixth goal of the season in the 19th minute to give Toronto a temporary 1-0 lead. He's now scored as many goals with Toronto this season as he did with RSL in the season's first seven games.

Things really got interesting shortly before halftime when Cunningham and RSL starting midfielder Andy Williams got into a shoving match at midfield — a particular oddity since they were good friends when they were teammates.

It all started when Atiba Harris blatantly fouled Cunningham in the middle of the pitch. The foul spun Cunningham out of control, and it appeared he wasn't sure who actually fouled him because he immediately ran in the direction of Williams and Carey Talley and started shoving.

Williams seemed to take the most offense to the incident and started shoving back.

Cunningham was shown a yellow card for his tirade, but that wasn't the end of it. A few minutes later, Williams and Cunningham shoved each other again as they crossed paths heading into the locker room for halftime.

The cheers Cunningham heard early in the match turned to boos when he returned to the field in the second half. Any potential future drama ended quickly, however, when in the 49th minute Cunningham was replaced by Andy Welsh after suffering an apparent groin injury.

BEST BEHAVIOR: Alecko Eskandarian and Mehdi Ballouchy played a little more cautious than normal Wednesday, each knowing the league would reward them for their good behavior.

Both entered the Fourth of July match with four yellow cards this season, and the league automatically suspends a player for one match after receiving five yellow cards. The league does, however, have a "good behavior incentive," and Eskandarian and Ballouchy each took advantage.

The league stipulates that once a player receives his fourth yellow card of the season, if he remains card free over his team's next three matches, one of those yellow cards is wiped from the slate.

Wednesday's match against Toronto was Eskandarian's third straight without a yellow card, effectively reducing his yellow cards to three.

As for Ballouchy, the match against Toronto was the first of what he hopes is three straight matches without a yellow card.