My Aftermath: I'll See You on the Dark Side of the Moon

Okay, I've had a day to reflect on Life, the Universe, and Everything. The last few months have been a wild ride- the State of Texas cancelled funding for the job I've held for the past more than 5 years and my agency decided, in its infinite wisdom, to give me an entry level position for the same salary. Though I've had an outside job to jump to for months, I've had to wait it out  until I have 5 years of vested retirement.

Which will be a week from Thanksgiving. Thus, a time of changes and the waaaaiting has been the hardest part.  

In this context and other aspects of my personal life, making it to the Finals has been surreal- like viewing life from above, in Dream Time. Did I smoke too much in my past life, you ask? Of course I did. And in the words of an infamous ex-New Mexico Governor, "I didn’t exhale either."

Moving on, my gut reaction to Sunday's Final was…

Oh

Well.

A few thoughts:

Remember the 2009 Western Final? Of course you do. Especially Martek, who is now squirming in his seat, shouting about conspiracy theories, power outages, and a mysterious called back goal. All we need to complete the picture is an alleged sighting of the X Files' Smoking Man. For me, the real story was how lost we looked after Mullan went off for Ashe. It got even worse in extra time,  when ERob subbed for a spent Davis. Suddenly, we were out of ideas. Holden couldn't generate anything- we lost possession after possession. This marked the end of a Championship run. But we missed the curtain call and this became the anti-matter segue to 2010 and the subsequent Fall.

Presently, we have a much better Brad Davis, we still haven't gotten anyone to run our engine, a la De Ro in the Championship years.

All of which became very apparent Sunday night. If ever we needed to be at least occasionally threatening, it was at the Home Depot Center. Yet without Davis- nada, zip, naw-thing.

You might blame Dom, but I won't. Kinnear played the hand he was dealt, the only one he had. Yes, I initially thought Clark should have started in place of Taylor, with Ashe moving back. In hindsight of Clark's invisibility (Thanks, Martek!) at a time when we really needed him, Dom made the right call. Back to the hand you're dealt, analogy. Dom was in esssence playing with his cards face up. Bruce Arena didn't have to call Mensa or Madame Cleo to predict Dom's strategy as the menu was limited to few options.

At lunch on Friday, Martek asked me for predictions. Both of us went the 'Homer' fan route, venturing a Dynamo upset. My take was there was a 10-20% chance we could absorb the attack, score on a counter, and go to PK's drawn 1-1. We would then shock everyone further by burying our chances with Tally becoming epic in goal. Granted, we were playing a better team, so on a majority of days, we'd lose. I was hoping it would be an extra special day, a day to make Paul Gardner (oh great defender of Harkes) lose the rag- going postal about negative football. Dunno bout you, Paul, wanting Dom to go all Roberto Matteo in an entertaining loss. A Cup Match isn't about sexy football, it's about playing for the best chance for a win. And we did. It just wasn't that 10-20% day.

In retrospect, Donovan as Cup MVP seemed miscast. I thought Gonzales should get the award, hands down. Lando had a good game, but Omar snuffed us completely out.

There was a point where Moffat had the ball and was fairly open, at the top of the box. Instead of shooting, he passed. Which led to nothing. Next season, I'd like to see some set plays designed to clear space, freeing Adam up to shoot more.

Ian Darke and John Harkes were gushing over Becks like a thirteen year old boy who had  just touched his first female breast. They were awful, especially Harkes. I'm not even sure 'Captain for Life' was there for the whole game. Surely Darke was hitting the replay button of Harkes' first 15 minutes of commentary. Weird that ESPN would can him after the game, rather than before (after the stupid the Wall comment made during the Seattle game). I guess Harkes' hideousness broke through even the most adamant denial. Lovecraft was right, there are some horrors that are simply indescribable.

Cue up Ginge's excellent piece on the post-Harkes Twitter explosion.         

I think Golden Balls most notable contribution was the open field tackle on Costly. BFD…

The Dynamo had a good team effort on the defensive side of the ball. Our shortcomings were starkly apparent. Here's to hoping we won’t sit pat as we did after losing Holden and Clark  post 2009. We need a CAM and a consistent goal scorer. I know, ad infinatum, naseum. Kinda like reading a transcript of a John Harkes gamecast. Yeesh!

Going into the game, I felt guilty about my negativity earlier in the season. Martek gave me a pep talk. "No, no, no. We were exactly right. That's where the Dynamo were then. That was then, this is now. We're looking at a completely different team." 

Indeedy, we are. Houston has had spinal realignment- Camargo, Moffat, and Cameron moving to centerback, a move all of us had been begging for two years.

The future's so bright I'll have to wear… wait, what was that about Cruz being unprotected? And what do you think about Herculez Gomez potentially being available?