In case you were lucky enough to have been having an organ transplant last night and had to miss the All Star game – we're all jealous – here's what you missed:
The thing is this:
You can't have it both ways, people.
You can't go around scoffing at the whole deal, pointing out that it means nothing at all to anyone and then, after MLS gets its' ass handed to it by a bunch of peachfuzz-cheeked kids – one wag called it "ManU vs. OutmannedU" – run around today wailing and gnashing your teeth over the gross humiliation of it all.
Either it matters or it doesn't. Pick one.
Now we all know that Cohiba Don loves to talk about how MLS is "gaining the respect of the world" as a legitimate league or some such rubbish.
Well, I don't know about that; it seems to me that what the rest of the world is actually saying is a combination of snark ("retirement league") and snobbery ("the Americans still suck at this game").
The point though is this:
Who the hell cares?
What a bunch of European bloggers and semi-professional alcoholics say about our little league matters not one whit to me.
Oh sure, it's nice to read the kind of mouth noise that Sir Alex has been offering up this week, – ie. MLS is making progress, MLS is better than people think, MLS is really neato-keen, etc. – but until we find some evidence that SAF subscribes to Direct Kick so that he can fill his empty summers with MLS soccer I'm going to assume that it's just a matter of politeness.
When you're a guest someplace, simple manners dictate that you don't tell your host what a gawdawful dump he lives in.
The simple fact is that, contrary to a lot of opinion on BS and elsewhere, most serious American MLS fans know damned good and well what MLS is and what it isn't.
My biggest complaint with the forgotten-but-not-gone Steven Cohen wasn't that he was a big fat arrogant jackwad Eurosnob dumbass.
I mean yeah, he's all of those things in spades but the thing that really ground my gears was when he'd go into his "MLS fans all think this is the greatest league in the world" mode.
Well no, actually, I know of – quite literally – NO ONE who thinks that, Steven. In fact, I believe no less a personage than the legendary Mike Segroves challenged him on the BigSoccer front page to find one single person over the age of 6 who had ever expressed that view.
As far as I know, he's still waiting. Then again Steven was pretty busy at the time, what with screwing up the best soccer media gig in America by being a classless jerk, so maybe it slipped his mind.
Be that as it may, we all know that in soccer, most of the time things aren't as clear cut as they seem.
Are the Puerto Rico Islanders head-and-shoulders better than the Galaxy? Of course they aren't, and Manchester Uniteds' kiddie corps isn't head and shoulders better than the best 11 players in MLS.
The fact that we've nevertheless got to live with the result as a black stain on our personal honor isn't that big a deal since, frankly, our honor wasn't all that bright and shiny to begin with.
MLS is what it is and will continue to be exactly that for some time to come.
There will be high points where we can beat our chests a bit, and there will be low points, like last night, where we're forced to eat a heaping plate full of french fried crow ala mode.
It wasn't much fun, but it didn't change a thing, cost us a dime or set us back ten years.