by Ethan Johnson
April 26, 2008

I have nothing nice to say about this game, so I'll keep it short and (bitter)sweet:

New England was missing over half of their starting lineup, including Taylor Twellman. Matt Reis is a decent goalie, and I'm on the record as being partial to decent goalies. FCD was the lone undefeated team in MLS going into this match. The best New England could have hoped for was a draw.

Instead, FCD played what was the most excruciatingly boring match ever. I mean ever. I not only strained to stay awake watching it on TV, but actually nodded off fast-forwarding (!!!) through the game footage to remind myself what I was going to write here. I hate to say "I told you so", but I told you so: There's not a lot of "there" there with FCD this season (so far), and the chickens finally came home to roost. Khano Smith blasted a shot in "from distance" in the 72nd-ish minute and that's all she wrote. Embarrassing. 0-1 NER.

And don't get me started on the stupid dives.

I don't have any illusions that FCD was going to somehow go undefeated all year. I respect teams that earn the win, and considering how awfully both sides were playing, justice would have meant a 0-0 draw. There is no excuse for not equalizing and even going one up on a New England team missing over half of their starting lineup. It's not like NER played out of their minds and reached down to find that intestinal fortitude and buck the odds. No, FCD played soft, scared, and directionless, and paid dearly. This isn't a team that's going anywhere near the MLS Cup Final with that style of play.

I sincerely hope that FCD learns quickly from this travesty and plays something approaching competitive soccer. Otherwise, it's gonna be a long, frustrating season for everyone except the opponents.

Sometime when I'm more in the mood to talk about it, I'll flesh out my "there's no 'there' there" views. I think the game footage from Thursday night contains most of my points in high definition - if you can stay awake to see it.

Onward to San Jose, Saturday May 3. Here's to a much, much, much better result. <EM>

(Much, much more virtual ink has been spilled by me about Major League Soccer. The fledgling but growing MLS article archive may be found here.)