Are. You. Kidding. Me?

Some games you win. Some games you lose. Some games you lose when you should have won, and visa versa. And some games, like today's game between us and Chivas, are games when you should hide in an ally and lie in wait. And when the other team walks by, you knock it out with chroloform, throw it in the trunk of your car, drive it into the mountains, and leave it where nobody will ever, ever find it. And instead you walk right on by, only to have them take your seat on the bus later that afternoon.

I mean, how did we not win by 5 clear goals. I can only imagine the stupid blog post Keller's going to put up. "I was awesome (ed. - YOU HAD NOTHING TO DO!!!) and our strikers blah blah blah."

You know, the day started out dumb. I woke up early in Manhattan Beach and took the private jet to Seattle. Except now Roth and me and Drew Carey are plane-pooling to the damn games (they wanted to do it every day to practice, but I told them hell no, I'd rather stay at my brother's house). So I get to the airport at like 5:00am, and Carey's late. Finally he gets there, and he's got the damn Open Cup trophy. You all saw this:



But what you didn't see is that Carey's apparently been sleeping with the damn thing for the last week. So, I kid you not, it's all tarnished and crusty, it smells like beer, and Carey looks like a total slob. And we get on the plane, and I'm sitting three rows away, with headphones on, but oh, no, that doesn't stop Drew. It's 6 in the morning, I'm trying to go over game plans, and he's telling me about how he's taking the Open Cup to every bar in LA and taunting Galaxy fans with it when he finds them. I'm like, isn't that dangerous? And he's like, nah, it's cool, I've got body guards, so it's fine. I'm like, you let your body guards kick the shit out of the people you taunt? And he's like, yeah. And I'm like, you're a total douchebag. Yeah, isn't it great? he says. We're Open Cup champions!

So that's how the day started. And it's an early game, so none of the players, I mean none of them are really with it. Ljungberg comes in looking like he rolled out of bed, and Montero came right from his stylist. Fucking Tyrone Marshall comes in wearing a wig of dreadlocks. And Keller's still got his vampire cape.

So I walk on the field and they're playing James Brown, I'm like are you kidding me? Fuck this. I'm angry, fuming at this point.

And then the game starts. And you know how in baseball movies it gets all quiet and you can't hear the crowd, and everything is in slow motion? Well it gets like that, and we're out there flubbing chances, Chivas is thugging their way around the pitch, and Zak Thornton starts to look like a superstar.

Jon Busch is one thing, but Thornton? No. No. His career ended years ago, and nobody told him. He's the guy with the red stapler. And he was hurt this week! Everyone's raving about that first stop, but do you honestly think he was going for that ball? Luck. Pure luck. He made himself big (ed - joke omitted) and the ball happened to bounce off.

All the rest? Poor finishing. Abysmal finishing. Watch the highlights. Every chance they have burbles harmlessly out, and Keller's there. Our chances? Thornton's at our mercy and we send it into the stands, or choke, or are offside, or botch it, or whatever.

And then Classy Preki's side pulls this:



Everyone's like, oh, he didn't mean it, Montero made a meal, but how in the hell do you play soccer for a living and go in with a boot that high? I mean, sure, it's everyone's fantasy to do this to Montero, so from that point of view I guess Saragosa goes off a happy man. Still, did he really think that was going to be ok?

And then we pepper the goal, don't score, the fans boo, and I'm left talking about how they bunkered and there's cellophane on the fucking HOME GOAL POSTS.

This one hurts. It really does. Maybe it's karma for coming away with two wins in the District, but damn if we didn't need three points from this game. We could have gotten them and life *still* wouldn't have been easy. Now we're really sweating.

I don't know. Playoffs? I don't know. It's days like this that just . . . you know, you've found what you love in life, and you work. You work hard. And you think you're good. You know you're the best. And you prepare your team as best you can. And then they come out, play as hard as they can, get chances, flub them, and you're hanging by a string. So you wonder if this is what you're supposed to be doing after all, and you think about that girl you dated when you were younger, your first long term relationship, and it didn't work out, you know it wasn't meant to, but you wonder what she's up to. And you google her and she's got a great family, career, kids that are successful, the whole bit, and there's a little part back in your brain that wonders, for all the good you do, for all the family you have and love, for all the cold metal trophies you win, if you didn't just fuck it all up for yourself back when you had a chance to do good. That's what days like today do to you.

I don't know. That's what sleep is for - it all goes away and tomorrow's another day.