Thoughts on MLS Cup

2009-11-23 22:23:00

Well, Real Sigi's out of the hospital, and we couldn't get enough waivers for the guest posters to come in, so we're back at it. Sort of.

So, I guess I'm supposed to have a reaction to the MLS Cup Final. If you'll notice, I conveniently didn't have a WPS final followup, either. Rest assured, I won't outclass that omission too much with this post.

I'm not one for lionizing players when I don't think it should be done, so I'm not going to. Real Salt Lake was a team with real weaknesses, but it was a team that was ultimately better than its record. Hell, its main weakness was playing on the road, and it sure as hell addressed that issue in the playoffs. They're not the embarrassment New York was last year, and as such I think they can be regarded as worthy of the cup.

How are they going to do next year? Depending on personnel changes, better. I don't think they'll have to sneak into the playoffs like they did this year. But the west is much harder to predict than the east will be, so I'm not going to say much more than that at the moment.

RSL was the younger team, and that youth showed as the game went on (and in the taking control of the game way, not the seize up and panic way). It would have been nice to end things in relegation, but you take what you can get. As for legacy, this team will always struggle with the fact that it snuck into the playoffs and had more losses than wins. Unfair? Maybe. MLS has now had 4 champions like RSL, and all are somewhat maligned.

From a parity perspective, Sunday's game was great. It showed that spending 5 times as much as your opponent doesn't guarantee victory, and we've now had back to back MLS Cup wins by the two smallest media markets in MLS. While Garber will be having nightmares of this portion of his life for a while, I firmly believe that every team in the league having not only a chance to win the trophy, but actual hardware to go with that chance, will benefit MLS in the long run. And damn, the RSL fans showed their love.

As for LA, here's hoping that team breaks up. I'm absolutely done with David Beckham. He really looked awful on Sunday, and yeah he was hurt, but he was the embodiment of everything Dan Loney has been saying all year. Landon Donovan - wow, what a nightmare. My gut tells me he'll stay, but after a choke like that and his recent personal issues it's hard not to imagine him wanting to get far, far away from MLS for a while.

I think this LA team reached its apex, and Arena needs to start over. They were fortunate to get past Houston, and were never really the class of the league. There are finally some pieces to build around, but I think there will be significant roster turnover.

As for me, I was hoping for Crew-Dynamo or Sounders-Crew. The former pairing is the best two teams in the league, the latter should be obvious. In the end this game was like most MLS Cups - not that great a game, but the Cup did get awarded to someone.

If this post sounds laconic and not at all like the MLS Cup hype that's permeated USA soccer culture for the last week, well, it's intended to be. I'm pissed that my own team didn't make it, and barring that, I'm pissed that the Crew and Dynamo choked on their own vomit in earlier rounds. Not everything can be perfect and rosy, and this final certainly wasn't for me. Maybe it was getting ill - maybe the other things. At any rate, talk to me again after the holiday. We'll see how I feel then.

-FS

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