Oh dear.
The 2010 MLS Cup final has been set. Mr. Beckham and Mr. Henry will be watching from their beach homes while sipping alcoholic beverages (I'm guessing red wine for Henry and, oh I don't know, a Fuzzy Navel for Becks). Meanwhile in Toronto, the TFC front office is likely mainlining heroin.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
FC freakin' Dallas versus the Colorado flippin' Rapids? Is this a joke? How are we going to sell this pile of (censor). Marvell Wynne versus Jeff Cunningham? The See-if-on-of-these-guys-can-win-there-is-hope Bowl? I quit. Is the CFL hiring? Argoooooooos.
Yeah, not what they would have been dreaming of when the game was awarded, but that's MLS. If the Rapids win, it will be the first time they ever have scored more goals than their opponents at BMO Field. Think about that for a minute.
To the true MLS geek there is some interest. It's a match-up of two 96er teams that have never won. If you like to poke fun at New York in sports it will mean that the Red Bulls are one step closer to being the final original team to win something. Dallas does have a US Open Cup title, and that's nice, but ask Seattle fans when the USOC parade is. It's their first time even in the MLS Cup final. Colorado does have one trip to The Big Game, but that was against DC United back when DC United argued it was a MLS Superteam. So, a new winner. That's fun.
David Ferreira is likely the best player in the league right now (he got my MVP vote). In any other league that would be what you would market around. However, this is MLS and this is Toronto. Outside of the dialed in, no one knows who Ferreira is. He's just another interchangeable player that wears the Washington Generals strips when TFC plays (for the purpose of this analogy assume the Generals are slightly better than the LA Lakers) at BMO. Four years in and the amount of exposure Toronto sports fans get to non-TFC MLS results remains pathetic.
Outside of an illegal stream you could not watch the Eastern final. The Western final was on Gol TV, a station very few people get. I can't say that I watched all the highlight shows, but I do know that the Eastern final was not reported on Sportscentre or Sportsnet Connected during the time that I did watch. Outside of the big names that everyone knows there is next to know understanding or appreciation for the typical MLS player in Toronto. This is a TFC town, not a MLS town.
Selling this game just got a lot harder. And since both Dallas and Colorado struggle to get fans out to their own stadium let alone on a plane with their passport in hand, there will be even more seats to sell.
The current weather forecast? Rain and +1C at kickoff. And that's at the airport, not on the lakeshore.
Dress warm.