The last time we saw an FCD/Colorado game at the estadio Mile High, well, it was a dismal affair. We all drove 10+ hours to see a nil-nil draw. Not the exciting kind, either. The boring kind. See, that’s what the non-soccer fan doesn’t understand: a 0-0 tie can be a great display of soccer. Provided of course, that neither team is playing for a 0-0 tie. That night, neither team wanted to win; they both just wanted to get the heck out of Denver.
So did we after that one.
Plus, we all know what happened in the second leg of that series (which, of course, we’re not talking about, so, well, never mind).
On to tonight.
Greg Vanney scored a goal!
Those are words that have never been typed on this website before (I point this out merely for historical purposes).
It was, as they say in soccer columns, a right cracker of a goal. Left-footed, 30 yards out off the free kick. Joe Cannon looked like a statue of Lev Yashin (again for historical purposes, I point out to you that this is the one and only time in the history of the universe that Joe Cannon and Lev Yashin will be compared to each other). And this was in the fifth minute or so. Being the glass-half-empty kind of guy I am, the only thing I find scarier than giving up an early goal is taking an early lead; we almost never hold on to them. Really, I should never even watch these games, except for the last minute or so, just to see the score. There’s no way I can be happy during the game. If we’re ahead, I worry about holding the lead, if we’re behind, I worry about not making a comeback. If we’re tied, of course, I do both.
It’s sad, I know.
But then, a bit before halftime, Roberto Mina scores. It is an astounding goal. Astounding. He picks up the ball at the halfway line, almost to the touchline, and he just starts dribbling. Three defenders hover around him like he’s got some sort of force-field thing going on. They get close, but not too close, giving him about five yards of room in all directions. He just keeps dribbling, looking up once in a while. He winds up to shoot, thinks better and dribbles along some more, now nearly to corner of the 18 yard box. You can almost see the little cartoon-panel-thought-balloon above his head saying “Okay, why not?”? And then he just RIPS the shot. So Joe Cannon, of course, assumes it’s a cross and starts to his right. When he realizes it’s a shot, he starts to reverse direction. If you’ve ever played goalkeeper, you know that doing this only makes you look like you never started moving in the first place. Joe, who was actually in position at this near post, ends up getting beat to the near post, without ever moving his feet.
It was beautiful.
So now, we’re up 2-0 at halftime, and I’m thinking, hey, they got nothin’; we’re home and dry.
I’m such an idiot sometimes.
Because lo and behold, all the sudden it’s like somebody called timeout, and everybody went and got a drink of, well, whatever the opposite of an energy drink is. Red Bull Valium Drink, or something. We become sluggish for some reason. Colorado, on the other hand, started playing a little. Pressure, possession, all that stuff. But still, it wasn’t a big deal. We were handling it. Our defense is so much better this year than last. We were handling it, I tell you.
And then, for some reason, a black cloud descended from the sky and settled squarely over the head of young Clarence Goodson.
Up until the black cloud appeared, Clarence was playing great. Great. He and Vanney had the middle sewed up tighter than a pair of Brooke Shields’s Calvin Kleins (a little 80’s reference for all you 40-somethings). They were well-nigh impenetrable (which, coincidentally, was true of Brooke back in the 80’s as well).
But I digress.
All of a sudden, Clarence traps a ball in the penalty area with his left hand. Now, if you’ve ever played soccer unskillfully, as I have, you’ve no doubt experienced the phenomena of seeing your hand rise to stop the ball without your brain’s consent. Something in your American-born soul sees a ball passing by you and you simply out of pure-bred instinct reach out and touch it with your hand. Then when your teammates look at you with the look of disgust that only a soccer player can muster, all you can do is shrug and say “I don’t know”.
Yeah, that’s what Clarence did. Which in a way was nice, in the same way you kinda deep down like it when Tiger hits a ball in the water; you figure, hey, I can do that! And you feel better about your own severely limited skills.
Fine, though. No biggie. Dario guesses wrong on the PK, and it’s 2-1. It happens. Whatareyagonnado?
Then (and really I can only explain this bad luck by assuming that Clarence desecrated an ancient Indian burial ground recently, or something to that effect) a few minutes later, the poor kid makes an own-goal while trying to clear out a cross. It was like one of those old Pebbles and Bam-Bam cartoons, featuring Bad Luck Schleprock. They boy just couldn’t catch a break.
Okay, well, we’ve scored two of the best goals of the season, then given up two of the worst, in the span of one game. It’s rotten, dumb luck, and that’s all there is to it.
At the end of the day, it’s a point on the road, right? Good result; could have been better, but a road draw is a road draw.
Now, here’s the question: How rattled is the Kid going to be by this horrendous black-cloud-Schleprock-bad-dream-wake-up-in-a-cold-sweat type of game? Hopefully, he’ll just shake it off, and, in a decade or so, will be able to look back at it and laugh. For that matter, he may be able to laugh it off in November, if we lift the cup the way I suspect we will. Regardless, Clarence is playing really well, and here’s to hoping he’ll just shake this night off and forget all about it.
And grow his hair back.
See you all next weekend for the Kansas City Lizards.
