The Last Thing in Pandora's Box Is Also One of the World's Ills

There's something about crashing out of this tournament in particular that puts me in a more philosophical frame of mind. So I'm scrapping the debrief from the agenda (unless someone is really itching for it.) If you need something along those lines, go ahead and read the Bog Man's gamer. Your must-read is actually us, for once, as Oscar them all down for convenient use. For reference, I am Numbers 3,6, and 10. Also, my apologies to everyone for the lack of an audio feed via DCUnited.Com. We had asked the team about it, were told it would happen, and then it didn't happen. It's possible it was just technical difficulties or something, and maybe we'll know more later. Okay, there's the standard news stuff.

Here's the thing about cup events. The losses are profound, terminal, striking. You may try and say live-and-learn, but there's no game next week, or month, to apply the lessons to. Cup events bring out the emotions in a way that league games simply do not.

If I can draw an analogy, the match last night was like being in the final months of a doomed relationship, provided the emotional impacts are compressed into 90 minutes. Nick Hornsby, by the way, has ruined this kind of writing for most of us, simply because he did it so well in Fever Pitch. But that ultimately was a fulfilling story, this was the opposite. I knew we couldn't play for a 0-0 draw, yet Tom Soehn and the team made a judgment that not surrendering a goal to Chivas was infinitely more important than putting pressure on Chivas. I knew this, I had the warning signs, and yet I still chose to believe. It's like knowing that the woman you are dating was a lesbian for three years before you dated her, but somehow convincing yourself that it didn't matter. And I clung to that belief, denying more own analysis and instincts and observations, even as Chivas continued to apply pressure and out players tired and found themselves straddling the ball, unsure how to untangle themselves and ultimately surrendering. I didn't want to believe my own thoughts, or facts, I wanted to believe that somehow it would be all right.

Part of me understood that for at least 100 minutes of this 180 minute encounter, Chivas had done more to earn advancement. But I didn't want to care about that either. Even after Chivas scored, I clung to the idea that somehow, despite the situation, we could come through. Soccer can do that, you know that teams get goals counter to the run of play, and you start looking for it, even expecting it, demanding it from a game that says "Sure, it can happen, but you'd be a fool to rely upon it." At this time, all your friends know the relationship is doomed, but you still think that there might be one last second moment where it will all be reversed and you can celebrate and laugh and say "So much for you, logic and analysis!" I wanted, needed, United to equalize, even in an event that I told myself I didn't care about. And it's true when I wrote that, intellectually there was nothing for me in this tournament. Even emotionally, until the starting whistle at RFK a week ago, I was fully invested in the Supporter's Shield and MLS Cup runs. But Copa Sudamericana was a pretty girl that turned my head around, and lust sometimes overwhelms. And even after it became apparent it would end badly, hope is a treacherous force.