Shame on the Revolution, Shame on MLS
Well, another MLS Cup Semifinal round has come and gone for the Crew, and the Black and Gold return home empty again. This is an old story for Crew fans, who have been to three different MLS Cup Semifinal series and have come up short each time. So why is it that this one hurts just a tad more than the infamous DC United series of the late 1990s?
Perhaps it's because this time we were the better team on the field.
Warning - for those of you who rankle at the columns of a certain Paul Gardner, you may want to avert your eyes from this column because it's going to be full of opinions about what is "good" soccer and what is "crap" soccer. You have been warned.
Throughout the first two games, I had all sorts of folks telling me that there was a conspiracy against the Crew - that MLS wanted the Revs to win to ensure a home-field team being in the final. And honestly, I have no problem with that. MLS is a struggling league and a high ticket sales count for the Championship game would certainly be a wonderful thing, revenue-wise. The league management can want as much as they can get... As long as that's as far as it goes.
However... there were at least FOUR separate occurrences of fouls in the New England box that should have resulted in penalty kicks, two in the second game and two in the third. I watched Carlos Llamosa stand in front of Dante Washington and hold him away from getting to a ball, with referee Kevin Stott standing there watching. I saw time-wasting, faked injuries, pissing and moaning around, and never once did I see an actual call made to yellow card the Revs for their actions in these games.
This is why MLS fans hate the referees so much. They have no concept of controlling a game to make the teams actually play soccer. All these tactics are the kind of stuff that over-competitive kids' travel team coaches pull to win in tournaments (to the detriment of their players development). And any referee worth his salt should see this and make the appropriate calls and keep the game moving. Get the stretchers out on the field and get the "injured" players off. Card players who consistently waste time getting the ball into play on free kicks and throw-ins. Card players for dissent when they pick up the ball on an opponent's free kick and walk off with it. This is NOT soccer... this is acting and unsportsmanlike.
There's nothing wrong with playing to slow the tempo of a game down. It makes for boring soccer, that's for sure, but it's legal and sportsmanlike. Lots of passing through the back, perhaps some probing forward to keep the other team honest and spread out, that's fine. A defensive game like the Kansas City Wizards played in the 2000 MLS Cup game against the Chicago Fire was actually fairly entertaining... the talented and quick KC defenders were simply well-organized and collapsed on the ball well. But it was tactically sound and never once relied on cheap histrionics and piddly time-wasting to get the job done.
The difference here, though, between the 2000 Wizards and the 2002 Revolution? Talent. The Revs have nearly NONE on their team. I'll admit, you can't deny Taylor Twellman is a goal scorer extraordinaire, and Adin Brown had a wonderful series (until the Crew found the back of the net too late in Game 3). But that's pretty much where it ends. The rest of the Revs team was a crying, cheap-shot, holding, clutching, cheap-tackling, and unsportsmanlike bunch of babies.
Normally when it comes to the finals, I cheer for whatever team knocked the Crew out of the playoffs. I like to think that it took the top team to take down the Crew. But this year, I'll be cheering for the L.A. Galaxy. Because the Revs won the MLS Semifinals not by playing soccer, but by doing everything they could to avoid playing quality ball against a quality attacking team.
