A Slightly Less than Dynamo MLS Cup Final

By: Bob | November 13th, 2006

Much to the chagrin of the some of my soccer purists friends who preach about a single table without playoffs (I hear ya brothers and sisters), I’ve actually enjoyed this year’s version of the MLS playoffs. The matches have been tightly contested, the quality of play largely decent and the atmosphere at the stadiums after the early round games has been pretty good. All of this had me somewhat excited to sit down and watch the Houston Dynamo and New England Revolution slug it out in the MLS Cup Final in Dallas on Sunday.

Alas, my expectations exceeded the reality of what went down. True to the playoffs form this year and true to what you often see in finals matches around the world, the match was played with a conservative nature that the US hasn’t seen since last week’s elections. The Revolution are coached by the former Liverpool great Steve Nicol, a man who has never seen a nil-nil draw he hasn’t liked. Houston offered a bit more promise in the attack, but at times it appeared like their players were more concerned with growing their playoff beards (cool in hockey, kinda weird in soccer) than they were in putting the ball in the goal.

The game headed to extra time with hardly a whimper and hardly a coherent sentence uttered by the ABC commentators. Just when the network was promoting one of its upcoming shows, the MLS scoring machine that is Taylor Twellman hit pay dirt for the Revolution and it looked like New England would win its first MLS Cup in three tries.

But before ABC could show another promo for another show you and I will never watch, The Hawaiian Assassin, Brian Ching, leveled the score and sent the orange-clad Houstonites in the stands into a frenzy. After 120 minutes – approximately 90 seconds of which were action packed – the final headed to penalties with nary a head butt in sight.

Houston proceeded to win the spot kick contest, earning the franchise its third oversized trophy. The Revolution came up short again, earning it the not very coveted label of best franchise to never win an MLS Cup.

In the end, it was an unsatisfying conclusion to an unsatisfying game, something that even soccer purists would agree happens in the Beautiful Game from time to time, playoffs or no playoffs.