Feeling In The Spirit Of Shockers

Being an outspoken proponent of corporate sponsorship of kits in MLS (which goes entirely against my ordinarily politics oddly enough), I'm probably the last person who should be mentioning this but even I have my limits. Did anyone else notice how ironic it is that a team named Universidad Catolica (which is a cognate and hopefully needs no translation from the Spanish) is sponsored by Cristal champagne?

There are a bunch of Real Salt Lake fans at least who should having some serious objections to that particular matchup of team and sponsor. :)

I have to say that I was actually pretty impressed with the way D.C. United played the Chilean side yesterday. The game honestly looked evenly matched for the majority of play and United seemed to have the upper hand at a lot more points than the 1-1 final scoreline would demonstrate - despite what the South American side's coach is babbling on about.

Certainly I agree that Catolica had a lot of great chances (Nick Rimando came up in a way that made MLS proud) but so did D.C. United. Perhaps Jorge Pellicer missed the fact that his team pretty much let Dema Kovalenko, of all players, get onto their goal from the left wing unimpeded five times in the first half. It's been said many times that the only thing separating MLS from many top tier leagues in the world (which, realistically, the top Chilean league isn't one of) is the finishing ability. Dema demonstrated that pretty well but it still felt to me like he was trying out for a stint in South America. :)

Chances are United are not going to fare well in the return leg in a couple of weeks but they still it's was a good showing. But I again find myself saying, if only New England was representing the United States in all of these competitions.

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A showing of a completely different kind, though it did have a flair for the dramatic, was Wayne Rooney's sending off in Spain in Manchester United's 0-0 draw with Villarreal in the Champions League.

There's a few funny aspects to this story. The first is that it happened in front of Sven Goran Eriksson who had to have a little internal giggle that Alex Ferguson can't control Rooney any better than he can. And the second is how the sending off happened.

Rooney, no stranger to any referee anywhere in the world of course, was given a yellow card for a hard tackle on Villarreal's captain. And, rather than just take it, he decided he was going to have a little bit of fun. Pretending to really agree with the referee's decision he started to applaud the ref.

Not taking the taunting lightly, the referee game him a second yellow for dissent (can someone who's plauditing something, even in jest, really be dissenting the same thing) which automatically sent him off.

Now I know I'm a little hard on Wayne Rooney on this blog but I actually have to give him some credit this time. His red card infraction was one of the most creative displays that I've seen from a player arguing a call in any sport. It's certainly more humorous than his usual three year old style tantrum.

So, were I Wayne Rooney, who might be having a good long spell on the bench for the Red Devils, I would usually use this to my advantage. He can use the time riding the pines to come up with newer and more interesting ways of getting sent off.

It can be like Clint Dempsey's goal celebrations but for red cards. Perhaps instead of swinging an imaginary baseball bat after scoring a goal in RFK, Rooney could pretend to smack the referee across the midsection with a cricket bat at Old Trafford (and if his swing is good enough perhaps Lancashire can give him a trial down the road at their Old Trafford with the free time he'll have).

Goodness knows Rooney can gets enough practice of "red card celebrations" to make him the best in the world. :)

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Arsenal nearly had a similarly shocking result at Highbury, beating FC Thun 2-1 on a last second Dennis Bergkamp goal. Now Villarreal is a much better team than Thun (despite their terrible start in La Liga) and being at home an Arsenal tie would have been a head rolling scenario.

But, see, it's a little unfair since Arsenal had something on their side that Manchester United didn't -- spirit!

Yes, that magical substance that was seemingly limited to high school cheerleaders has found itself into the Gunners' locker room. At least according to Arsene Wenger whose thoughts on the match were as follows:

"We could improve the passing and create more chances, but one positive thing of tonight was that the spirit was good until the last second."

Now, there's spirit and there's spirits and on this occasion, I think Wenger was under the influence of the second to make that quote.

See Sven, see Alex, all you need to pull out games where all seems lost is a little spirit. And, perhaps a little less Wayne Rooney. But he'll take care of that part himself.