The game was D.C. United -- four-time MLS champions and current first-place team in the league's eastern conference -- against the lowly Los Angeles Galaxy, led by American soccer golden boy Landon Donovan.
Long story short, with the help of some spotty officiating and a pretty lethargic effort from United, the Galaxy walked away with a 5-2 victory.
You know how in soccer matches, the crowd is always chanting a lot and beating drums and so forth? Well, I was sitting in the section that does all that stuff. The energy was infectious. It's been a long time since I was a part of such a profane, drunken, devoted fan base, especially in D.C., where people tend to take a quieter, more intellectual approach to being a fan (not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that) and most of our teams tend to, you know, suck. So this Black Hole was quite inspiring.
Not quite as intimidating as Raider fans, but still pretty good.
Anyway, the upshot of all this is that I now dislike Landon Donovan. He scored two goals in the game, but that's not why I dislike him. At the beginning of the game, some Black Hole members made up a delightful chant by which they called him not the Player of the Year, but the year's biggest part of a female anatomy that also begins with P. Which he heard, by the way, responding with a head shake. Later in the match, when he scored, he made a point of runnning over -- but not too close -- to our section to taunt us. Then at the very end, with the second half in stoppage time, he scored a meaningless garbage goal to pad his own stats and rub salt in the wound. That time, he didn't come anywhere near our section. I don't think he wanted to hear what some of those guys had to say. On an international stage like, oh, say, The World Freaking Cup, Landon lays eggs. But in garbage time of a game his opponents didn't really care much about, he's unstoppable. Hats off, Landon. You are the Alex Rodriguez, the J.J. Redick, of American soccer.
Fuck you, Landon!
But overall, the match was a lot of fun. Too bad United lost, but I'm pretty confident that they -- and I -- will be back.
Hyperlinks:
- United Has No Defense At Home [Washington Post]
- Donovan out of this world in Galaxy's 5-2 win over D. C. United [USA Today]
- After Lackluster World Cup, Donovan's Focus Is Galaxy [Washington Post]
Technorati tags: soccer, MLS, sports, D.C. United, Landon Donovan
3 comments:
hahah. those photos are great.
Going in, I had no idea Donovan was so hard to root for. I was quickly disavowed of that notion.
I don't think there was anyone else on the field besides LD who was in this past World Cup, but did see Freddy Adu and Kobi Jones, who respectively I believe are future and past team members.
There were a few other National team members- Chris Albright and Ben Olsen - but they didn't play that much in the World Cup.
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