For Real

Soccer is by no means America’s pastime that title goes hand in hand with baseball and has probably gone over to football these days.  That aside, did you see the MLS final on Sunday.  I watched an MLS game for the first time this past weekend and it was electrifying.  I have a very basic knowledge of the game, I only played it as a child, but it was as good a finish to a sporting event as I have ever seen.  A shootout in the championship game that’s unbelievable, you can’t script stuff like that.  Not to mention the fact that the upstart underdogs from Utah went home with the MLS Cup.

The question that I pose to you as a reader is did you watch it?  I only caught the game for two reasons, one I live in Utah and there was quite a bit of buzz for the possibility of a professional sports championship in the state of Utah, a first, even if it is in soccer.  Secondly, I caught the game because I just happened to be watching ESPN at the time and they were doing the introductions.  I had prior engagements that night to be somewhere at nine o’clock, but at 9:30, I was glued to my television as the two teams went back and forth in that penalty kick shootout.  When Robbie Russell hit the game winner I was on the phone with a friend screaming and yelling about how they’d won.  It was an amazing game I couldn’t believe it.

It got me thinking, could you imagine if an NBA Finals came down to a game of one on one pick-up style to 21.  Let’s say that after two overtime sessions the Lakers and Cavs were tied and the NBA decided to play a game of 21 the following day to determine the NBA Finals winner.  Can you imagine the hype for a matchup between Kobe Bryant and Lebron James, it would be unmatched in the history of sport, now I know it’ll never happen in basketball.  The thing is it did happen in soccer this past Sunday and it made me sure of one thing I will be in attendance for many a Real Salt Lake game this next season and I might be a year late, but let’s cross our fingers and hope that I get to see another shootout in the MLS Cup.

Written by: Jesse Kunz

The halfmanhalfdog team