America!! Fuck yeah!!! If I get any more excited about the MLS playoffs starting, I’m pretty sure I will get arrested.  In case you didn’t know there is a division within the FBI, actually held in higher priority than both the X-Files and Sector Seven, whose sole responsibility is the containment, derailment, and extermination of the Beautiful Game at any and all levels; a group of Hispanics at a park playing pickup, using their shoes and sweatshirts as goal posts, are on an equal threat level as a gaggle of wanted terrorists playing Egyptian rat screw at an LAX terminal; a live Champions League game on TV during the day is in many ways more dangerous than a Hugo Chavez broadcast; hell, even my AYSO practices back in the day were ordinarily interrupted by SWAT teams with cocked 12-gauge shotguns, helicopters and quads.

It is an agency that identifies itself with a nightmarish and ominously inappropriate acronym: A.S.S.  (Anti Soccer Squad)

 But like all things deemed dangerous, illegal, and detrimental by “The Man”….like marijuana, gambling, and downloading music…footy in America now carries an infectiously rebellious element of cool, which is no surprise to the folks it has been contaminating for decades, but more of a note worthy occasion because of those innocent Americans who are accidentally stumbling upon the monster. Like Johnny Utah, I mean…Neo, finding the Matrix when he wasn’t supposed to....I invite you to follow the White Rabbit and down both the Red and Blue Pill with a small paper cup of warm Sparkletts water.  Things are on the up and up. World-class players are finally playing world -class football with our homegrown studs in our own little league.  When soccer has surpassed Optimus Prime, Megatron, and Dana Scully’s red hair as a significant national threat, then something is going right here.

 The MLS playoffs began as a poor imitation of the other premier American championship systems (NBA, NFL, etc.) where after a league season, a bracket style tournament was created, yielding a singular champion.  The initial naysayers complained that the game and nature of football was not conducive to some kind of NBA style playoff bracket, where in certain situations and scenarios, one game, not an aggregate fixture or a set league table, would deem one side better than another or determine someone a champion.  But what has happened since the league’s birth in 1993, is something both Darwinian and American.  The league has grown. The league has evolved.  In the gracious words of Jeff Goldblum, “Life will find a way…” And it has. The homegrown talents emerging from America’s soccer cauldrons have finally began to provide a foundation and template for marketable entertainment. 

 This coupled with an influx of seasoned and accomplished European and South American professionals, has given the MLS a delightfully uncommon flare. And with a newly appointed Jurgen Klinsmann at the helm of our national side, many young and up and coming American players are licking their chops in the hopes to show well and catch the attention of the former German marksmen.  This general ambition and desire to go extra HAM (refer to Kanye’s Watch the Throne) is one of two key ingredients of the 2011 MLS Cup’s marketability and revamped entertainment value; the other being the likes of world class players coming to our shores to exhibit whatever skill they have left (which sadly, at 30-40 is much more than anyone born here has yet attained) The influx of young talent and the hunger and pride of any player that touches the pitch has begun to make the typically-American bracketed playoff system not only work, but work well. One-game Wild Card fixtures now blend perfectly with the personalities of the teams and sub text and story lines present in each round and match up. Who would’ve thought we would see the day? I feel like Shia LaBeouf felt when his yellow Camaro fucked off and turned into a space age electronic organism that killed things and made Megan Fox like him.  He was surprised, and I guess I am too.

 ESPN’s own Allen Hopkins joined us today to break down the playoff scenarios and story lines in both Conferences.  Sophie and Robert peppered the analyst with questions, desperate for insight into this weeks matchups; From Dallas and the Red Bulls to RSL and Sounders, also searching for insight beyond tactical previews but more importantly which clubs will prove themselves as contenders or burst at the seems as pretenders. The uneven distribution of wins in the Eastern Conference will prove to generate many exciting matches, where the clubs at the bottom of the bracket were granted entry into the playoffs while chomping on their nails and looking over their shoulders.  If Sporting Kansas City, the #1 seed in the East, were in the opposing conference, they might have struggled to make the big dance.  But as a new season unfolds, look for all the teams, especially those who had trouble establishing a winning identity in the regular season, to attempt a comprehensive reinvention of themselves. Robert and Sophie can hardly control themselves in anticipation of the October fireworks. Records and big name players are now reduced to nothing, as ten teams start with a clean slate and a chance to etch their names in MLS history. And consequently, the league maintains its “rebelliously infectious element of cool” not by reveling in its past, but working towards and believing in a brighter future.  A future which may be closer than we all think.

Maybe, just maybe, we will see parades in the streets and die hard MLS fans rejoicing, like the way European ultras celebrate their squads’ wins, before we yet again see Optimus Prime and Bumble Bee causing billions of dollars in damages to downtown Los Angeles, or Agent Scully wrangling UFO’s and Vampires in D.C. The Anti-Soccer Squad may be slightly in over their heads, as I fear no one, citizen of the public or agent for The Man, is ready for what the 2011 MLS Cup will yield. 

Listen to today's show to catch all this domestic coverage and more as we cruise about the galaxy that is world football.  Up, up, and away....


Your friend and teammate,

Luke Van Patten