Caught in Possession

First, a bit of self-promotional housekeeping: DC United 2008 autopsy part I, and part II.

In the course of putting together the MLSnet pieces linked above, known as the season in review package (SIRP, heh, that sounds funny -- let's run with it), I spent hours sifting through the quotes, records and results of United's '08 campaign. All too often, my SIRP work made for depressing reading, and to paraphrase The Great Dave Lifton, it made me wonder why we all didn't see this coming sooner. Too little depth, too much inconsistency, too many instances of p*ss-poor defending, too much responsibility piled on too many MLS newcomers.

But in retrospect, what strikes me more than anything else is the cruelty of expectations.

A brief aside: I served in the Peace Corps from 2001-2003, and having departed the United States just a few weeks before 9/11, I returned to a homeland that was profoundly different in many ways. My first stateside stop was Atlanta, where my childhood friend Josh was kind enough to host me for a few days. He even scored us tickets to a baseball game at Turner Field, to see the Braves host the Cubs in Game 5 of the 2003 National League Division Series.

As a lifelong Cubbies fan just back from the developing world, I was thrilled at the chance to watch my team in one of its (relatively) rare playoff appearances, and even more excited to witness starting pitcher (and fellow Texan) Kerry Wood vanquish the mighty Braves and clinch the series for Chicago. But what really struck me was the ATL home crowd, or lack thereof. The place was barely filled, and many in attendance were Cubs fans for whom it was cheaper and easier to buy a plane ticket to Atlanta and buy tickets down there than participate in the frenzied hunt for precious (and pricey) seats at Wrigley Field back in Chitown.

Long-suffering Cubs fans rarely miss a chance to revel in postseason play. But the cumulative effect of the Braves' decade-plus of success was a snobbish complacency among their supporters -- something along the lines of, 'of course we're going to the playoffs again this year...wake me up when we get to the World Series...again.'

I am not suggesting that DC United fans are this way -- far from it. Most of them vividly remember 2000-2003 and what it's like to support a poor team, and I find them to be among the most loyal partisans in US sports. But there's something similar in the attitude taken by the DC front office over the past year or so.

After several years of being MLS' 'nearly men,' United wanted to be the BEST EVER sooooo badly, and took aggressive steps to become so...and like Icarus flying too close to the sun, the gods used their favorite humbling tool to maximum effect.

So as you peruse the SIRP, remember: things can always get better...and they can always get worse, too.

Then watch MLS Cup on Sunday, when the two longest-suffering fan bases in Major League Soccer finally get their day in the sun.