DCU 4-1 RSL

I was going to let BFF handle it, but I forgot he's more into the taste of his own navel than into reportage, plus he says things worthy of more lengthy comment than I should burden his space with. I fucking hate lazy reporting. Especially on a game without DC-area television coverage (I'm sure that footy blogfriends were all watching the remarkably mendacious RSL feed from their secret lairs in other states).

I attended with Databoy, so I was set for a trying experience, because I'm just fucking Eeyore that way. That doesn't mean I was wrong, but I was able to hoist the little fucker down one row, into a space from which he could see better, babysat by a 232 friend who shares my actual first name. This put D-boy right behind a greasy, diseased, mostly naked chick who actually turned around to talk to him because, as best I could tell, she shared his middle-school sense of humor (I saw it out of the corner of my eye, but I was game-focused and I'm relying on reports from BFF and D-boy himself on these details). I'm pretty sure it was the highlight of his life so far.

I shouldn't pound on the kid. I shudder to think what my Spank Bank must've looked like when I was thirteen.

You're welcome, honey.

I am able to take in stride without bitching the notion that we must listen to the National Anthem before a sporting event. I spent my pre-formative years as an Army brat; years and knowledge and bitterness about civil reality have not erased the instinct to dismount and stand to when I hear the call to colors. That doesn't mean I have to like everyone who sings the song, and there is no shortage of anthem singers who can't sing a lick, can't pronounce the words ("pair-oo-lus"; really? Just die.) or don't know what they mean, can't pick a key, can't resist introducing their own rhythms and rondos, have to move their hands up and down the scale as they sing, and can neither decide on a pace nor get the simple notion that you don't drag out the fucking National Anthem into a four-minute performance. Anything over a minute is evidence of capital self-absorption.

Our favorite, as BFF notes, is Stu Knazik. BFF captured a wonderful and felicitous double image of Stu superimposed over team shots of RSL and DCU during last night's anthem, while he was busy disrespecting the colors (which I hasten to emphasize that he doesn't usually do, though he's not nearly as diamond-shitting about it as I am). We were talking with Seatnine (he has no other name, though I'd probably trust him with my rent check) about the need for a commemorative shirt. Here's my offer:

Stu has a magnificent baritone voice, a perfect sense of self and place and pace, and can sing both "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "Blame Oh Calcutta Canada," which is sad but necessary. He can pronounce all the words. He picks a key. He comes in close to a minute (as BFF pointed out last night in a fit of impatience that posed the relatively rare suggestion that he might benefit from a little Ritalin from time to time, as might we all, Stu did slow it down a tad in the last phrase, just this once). He is the perfect anthem singer.

We love Stu.

I did not, by the way, manipulate the image of Stu other than to crop it from something else. That is actually Stu's head floating on the decolletage of assorted young women. Go Stu.¹

See? You don't get that kind of fact-based reporting from the other networks. You see why I have to take time from a busy Sunday to blog this shite? Instead of puking it into BFF's comments?

There was a game? Oh, right. Yeah, uhm, that was fucking awesome, if completely unanticipated. DeRosario is a fucking monster when the spirit moves; he can, in fact, carry a team on his back, given a modicum of surrounding competency, provided last night mostly by Andy Najar, with nontrivial added value from Stephen King. BFF was fond of the header and couldn't stop chanting that it was the goal of the year (another and very different bout of logorrhea caused me to punch his arm, which I probably hadn't done in 35 fucking years; in my defense, he mouth-shat some obsessive-compulsive prediction about Kitchen writhing on the ground, and lo and behold, not four minutes later, Kitchen and Hamid collided at full speed. I know you can't help yourself, but really, wasn't breaking Pontius' leg enough, BFF?). On reflection, I liked Najar's breakaway goal best, especially considering how many times Najar foot-choked later in the game as he felt pressure to keep up with DeRosario. Fuck if I know why.

DeRosario's free-kick goal was pretty, but in an ordinary way. Nicky Rimando--the only RSL denizen who isn't a punkass bitch--misplayed it, horribly and inexplicably. It was the fourth goal, and I suspect Nick was pretty fucking shellshocked by then. None of the others could truly be said to be Rimando's fault.

Usual MLS refereeing bitch: What a fucking moron. I call shenanigans, I point to corruption in the system. That fucker spent the entire second half letting RSL paste DCU players into oblivion, while calling foul on every bit of irrelevant contact on DCU. The capper was Saborio's goal, on which Saborio was clearly offside. I mean, clearly, no fucking question about it. Not even fucking close. On the RSL feed, which provided the MLS highlights (there was no local broadcast), the announcers ignored it ("The flag stays down," and "The referee says he's onside!"--oh, well, that must be determinative, huh? Fuckwits.). Available replays provided no help, because the RSL production crew has no idea how to set up in RFK, and it's not like MLS was going to let us see the full development of the play. But when the ball is two feet off the server's foot and Saborio is eight to ten feet behind the defensive line? And the assistant ref has been masturbating 20 yards upfield? Yeah. I've seen our goals called back by similarly malpositioned ARs on razor-thin margins, and I have to tolerate Hamid getting dooked out of a clean sheet by that horseshit because MLS thinks the fucking Salt Lake TV market matters? Suck it, MLS, you clown-ass punks.

The conversation: BFF captured a postgame midfield conversation between the aging but beloved Clyde Simms and Saint Benny. He speculates that it related to Clyde's gradual and sad breakdown. I think the relationship is more indirect. From the hand gestures, I'd speculate that they were talking about one of two things: the goal that spoiled Hamid's clean sheet, or the difference between how the team held this lead and how they didn't hold the lead on Wednesday night. I was (and am) actually inclined toward the latter, based entirely on the gesturing (which was not all that emphatic, and which is the only clue we have, other than the fact of the conversation--which was, as BFF points out, really unusual).

Maybe I'm being too hopeful; I hope that Benny and Clyde recognize the difference here, that the team kept attacking and didn't drop into backpassing and timewasting until about the 76th minute, that they kept up pressure throughout, and that Marc Fucking Burch started at left back, in addition to the more obvious note of King in the middle and Da Luz at left mid. I'm sick of Burch getting no cred. Yeah, he's slow. Yeah, he orbits the ball before he kicks it. Here's something Marc Burch hasn't done: get cut by the fucking Fire, the worst fucking team in the Eastern Conference. Raise your hand if you've done that. Yes? You, Daniel Woolard?

Is my hope too steep? I dunno. We riffed a little, after the lead grew to 4-0, on whether it would be worse for the club to choke the lead (thus inspiring us to abandon all hope) or to hold on to it (thus propelling our hopes  into a shoe-vomiting festivus against Phunions, motherfucking cocksucking shitbird douchatory Fire, the KC Cheese Wiz, and probably even fucking Portland, Zombie Troy Perkins rising from the ashes in RFK, stealing Barra Troy's voodoo hat, cleansheeting us out of the fucking point we'll need to claw into the playoffs).

Inconclusive. Outlook cloudy. Ask again later.

¹Yes. Yes, Goth, it is pretty fucking remarkable, isn't it?