by Ethan Johnson
November 2, 2007

Here it is: No tomorrow, playoff aspirations on the line, Dallas up 1-0 in aggregate scoring, Houston looking to defend their "home" turf and try for a repeat MLS Cup victory - the season for both teams comes down to this. Let's get right to YOUR investigative bullet points:

• Reminder: The semifinals are a "home and away" series. Part 1 was played in Frisco, and part 2 was played in Houston. The winner is determined by aggregate scoring. So if Team A wins the first game 3-1, Team B has to score 3 goals to win the series. Despite the annoyance factor that there isn't an outright elimination after one game, this allows both cities to see their team in the playoffs.
• Another reminder: FC Dallas and the Houston Dynamo really don't like each other. This is not an act; do not adjust your set.
• I sent 16 bottles of Shiner Bock down on the FCD Faithful bus trip. I have a trip of my own coming up to Chicago, so a Houston road trip was not in the cards. Figure the free beer would be appreciated in absentia. Hope hope. It had to have done more good than aging un-gracefully in our fridge. (Note: This is why Texans tend to put BYOB on their party invitations.)
• Houston seemed to drive the ball right in to FCDs net within the first two minutes, but were denied by an offside call. Such moments did not aid and abet my blood pressure.
• FCD and Houston hate each other, but it's fair to say that the lightning rod for that hatred for Houston is Carlos Ruiz. Ruiz drawing the foul, Ruiz drawing the yellow card, Ruiz punching in an early goal. And here's what else doesn't serve to advance the plot: Ruiz jumps over the railing to make a big show in front of the Houston supporters' groups, to the chagrin of, well, nearly everyone. Including the head referee. These are not the kind of seeds to be planting early in the game, if ever.
• FCD up 1-0 at the half. (2-0 aggregate.) Hope starts to gleam faintly on the horizon. Is this FCDs year to advance to the next round?
• Arturo Alvarez lands a straight red card mere moments into the 2nd half for slights real or imagined. Officially, he was carded for what looked like a knee to the groin, but the camera angle was lousy and that's a pretty low groin, from what I could tell. Intense game, lots of fouls and cards, but playing a man down against Houston? Why bother re-taking the field for the second half?
• Houston assaults a short-handed FCD. Guess how this story ends.
• Dario Sala got the nod in goal (again), which seemed deserved after his round 1 performance. He was knocked out with a knee injury, causing FCD to blow a sub early into the first half on a GK swap. The up side, in my opinion, was that Ray Burse in goal was going to dispel a lot of what-ifs depending on how the game ended. Although not really, because with binary GKs, one can always play one off of the other. "Sala/Ray would have made that save." (Pick your fave, repeat until clubbed.)
• FCDs front office declared that the theme of the 2007 MLS Playoffs (for them) was "Mission 360": 4 games, 90 minutes. Someone should have told FCD that the "360" was spread out over 4 games, not the first 2. 10 minutes of stoppage in regulation.
• Houston tied things up (1-2, 2-2 aggregate) and sent this caper into extended time.
• FCD was down a player for pretty much the entire second half, begging comparisons to the 2007 Women's World Cup when USA went down a player against Brazil. Love USA/FCD or hate 'em, in either case you can kiss whatever their pre-tournament ranking was goodbye and hope your team pulls out a miraculous win against incredibly enormous odds. Being up 2-0 aggregate is hot stuff when you're at full strength, but being down a player and racked with injuries doesn't help the cause. Neither does blowing a sub on a GK swap early in the festivities.
• Houston blasts in 2 goals during extended time to send FCD on a long bus ride home, 2-3/2-4 aggregate. GOOOO Chivas USA! At least if Chivas meets Houston, there is a high probability that Houston's fair-weather faithful will have tears in their beer next weekend. Hope hope.
• And the above is not a typo. I say again, boldly yet correctly that Houston fans are THE most fair-weathered of the lot. Say what you will about FCD (and people will), but FCD fans cheer all 90+ minutes, and not ONLY when FCD is up a goal. The first time I heard stadium-wide chanting/cheering in this game was when Houston went up a goal. Suddenly it was OK to voice support for the team. Sad.
• It's a long off-season for FCD. Calls are flooding the fan forum for [name here] to be fired, deported, traded, cut, sent to re-education camp, etc. Some would-be fans are talking about dropping support entirely for the team. I'm new to all of this, but I take a dim view on fair-weather fandom. See ya, bye.
• FCD got reamed by certain people (I am loathe to name-drop, but this person and I have been going our 15 rounds privately) for having visible football lines on the field during last week's game. Catastrophe! Oh noes! Someone paid millions of dollars to help finance the stadium and they actually used it for stuff when FCD wasn't. Horrors! So, uh, FCD gets a full apology now when Houston (who plays at a college football stadium) had the place decked out in full University of Houston/Conference USA regalia, right? I mean, it's only fair, right? Or will there be some artful dodge about something something sellout crowd something. Well, I hope a game that was indeed "no tomorrow" (as oppposed to "yes, tomorrow" last week) that involved at least 2 charter buses and countless other fans driving in from all over managed to pack the house. (I would have expected the same had the venue order been reversed for this series.) Not that it lent much in the way of playoff atmosphere, at least not until Houston managed to go up a goal. Whew, glad that's out of my system.
• Final thought: FCD went 2-6-2 over the course of their final 10 regular season games. I've got a thing about controlling one's playoff destiny. Sure, FCD front-loaded their wins and pretty much guaranteed "a spot" in the playoff lineup, but driving a flaming chassis over the finish line doesn't exactly boost one's confidence in FCDs chances to go to and win the Big One. Just a thought. A bitter, bitter, thought.

Thus ends FCDs 2007 campaign. Thanks for hanging in with me! And yes, I'll be back, camera in hand for the 2008 season. I will "cover" the remainder of the MLS playoffs (starting next week) and the Cup on November 18. Cool thanks! <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.)