Walking in L.A.

I traveled 2000 miles for a soccer game, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

Actually, the t-shirt is kinda cool. Five bucks in the parking lot, and it's got the MLS Cup logo on the front and the rosters of both teams on the back. Unfortunately, the lineup I came to see, the team that, a week ago, seemed poised to reach a goal no other Major League Soccer team had achieved, three different championships, decided that this was the week to turn from a gilded carriage into a pumpkin, and were summarily smashed.

I'm starting to get enough emotional distance to actually think about the match, to think about how the San Jose Earthquakes usurped the Chicago Fire's claim to the "team of destiny" label this season. The Fire had won nearly every trophy, every award, had won over nearly every pundit, in the leadup to the biggest prize of the season. Did they also win too much complacency in the process?

It's hard to say. At the end of the day, or rather the end of the week, the Fire maybe got outplayed and outcoached when it mattered by a team and a couch that has arguably been as good or better than Chicago's all season. I have a notion that future Canadian National Team coach Frank Yallop noticed that our outside backs pressed up high, which worked wonders against Bobby Convey and Steve Ralston in the early rounds, but maybe not so much when Brian Mullan, Jamil Walker and MLS Cup MVP Landon Donovan elected to sprint in to the resulting space behind them. And Goalkeeper of the Year (one of the very few post-season awards the Fire did not win) Pat Onstad clearly out-thought Fire forward Ante Razov on the penalty kick that would have tied the match at 3 with a half-hour left to play.

The knee-jerk reaction is to say that it was entirely Razov's fault, and the post-game post-mortems have called his attempt "feeble," or "poorly struck." Fans are calling for his head. Longtime detractors are inexplicably claiming that this one match means he'll never play for the national team again. But if Ante missed the goal, they're missing the point much worse. Reading Onstad's post-game comments, as well as hearing Razov's explanation later that night, it would appear that the Canadian keeper knew which direction Razov liked to go, and faked the opposite. With the goalie seemingly out of the picture, the Fire's all-time leading scorer just tapped it the other way for what would have been an easy goal. That is, an easy goal if Onstad had kept going, but the guy has been playing professionally for, what, longer than Freddy Adu has been alive? He can sell a head fake.

I'm a little less inclined to let Ante off the hook for the wide-open cross later in the match, but when you consider the opportunities he created out of very little, including an over-the-shoulder bomb that just missed in the second half, that's a wash. You could see at the end of the match how hard he had tried, how much he wanted to win, and personally, I can live with the drive even if it doesn't always achieve the result.

On our defensive side, I still don't know what happened. Again, at least two of San Jose's goals were excellent execution on their part, but this is the same lineup that blanked opponents three matches in a row. It's possible that we just were lulled into a false sense of security by the likes of Ronald Cerritos and Dario Fabbro, so a team with real skill and real pace took us by surprise. It might have just been that tactical move to get into the corners before we could react, along with the resulting quick zig-zag passes across the top of the penalty box. While I can think about the game now, I still need more time before I can watch the tape.

But hey, it was a beautiful day in Southern California. The Home Depot Center still has that new-stadium smell, and we, as Fire fans, certainly did our part, browbeating stadium management to allow ourselves all the comforts of home, including tailgates, flags, banners, drums (with drumsticks) and streamers. The other events of the weekend were fun enough. L.A. Galaxy goalkeeper Kevin Hartman's hair looks even worse close up and in person, as he and teammate Ryan Suarez dropped in on the Supporters Bash in Hollywood, in what can only be logically described as a promotional appearance. I can't imagine either of them wanting to hang around with us soccer geeks. The timing was also serendipitous, in that the awards gala was at the Kodak Theatre, which happens to be down the street from Michael Jackson's star on the Walk of Fame, and site of exactly the bizarro fan vigil you might expect given the circumstances. Suffice it to say, Jacko had a worse week than the Fire, any way you look at it.

The conventional wisdom of the moment is that the Fire still had an absolutely tremendous season, and showed a lot of fight in the final, even if it wasn't quite enough. That we should be proud. And that's completely correct, of course, but any fan will tell you that success breeds greater expectations, and despite all the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth at last season's perceived overhaul, once we went from ugly duckling to beautiful swan, it's hard not to feel like we ended up getting jilted at the altar and it was all for naught. I have friends who were crushed, but they picked up the team mid-season, so they don't realize the degree to which this team exceeded those initial predictions of a last-place, no-playoffs finish. Then again, they felt the same way about the Cubs' playoff run. So, how can we pin all this on Steve Bartman?