First to Five

Yesterday, for the fifth time, the New England Revolution found themselves playing for the MLS Cup, and for the fifth time, they found themselves in second place after two hours of soccer. And it hurt.

Why, you may ask, do we care about grown men and women chasing after balls and waving sticks in the air? Why do we find ourselves overly emotionally invested in games that are, after all is said and done, exactly that – games?

Maybe we see something when we watch players gut it out, grit their teeth and get down to work to get the ball moving away from their goal to the other side of the field. Maybe there’s a little bit of magic in watching the soccer ball leave a foot and a puck leave a stick and knowing they’re going to hit the back of the net. Maybe the celebrations and pain and everything else we feel as a result of those hundreds of square meters remind us of the best and worst of the rest of the world out there. And maybe we just like watching a good hockey fight or grown men head butting each other.

One of my favorite movies is Miracle, which is about the 1980 United States Men’s ice hockey team. Besides the fact that the games were played at Lake Placid, a few hundred miles from Ithaca; and Ken Dryden, arguably Cornell’s best goalie ever, was the color commentator at the Olympics; and Mike Eruzione, the captain, was born and raised in New England; it’s about a team that nobody thought could win. But they did. It took months of hard work, but they finally turned into a team that beat the best in the world and went on to claim an Olympic gold medal.

I guess I was hoping for some of that for the Revolution, who now have sole possession of the most number of times losing MLS Cup. I listened to the thirty minutes of extra time on the radio, and they didn't give up or bunker down to make it to penalty kicks. They fought for a goal, left it all out on the field. After following the Revolution through the past five or six years, I thought this might be the year they finally got the cup. They’d been building up a team of college kids from the drafts and local academy products, backed by Revolution veterans and coached by a player who had played in every minute of the Revolution’s previous four MLS Cup losses.

I followed the stories as they started out hot, then lost eight straight games in the summer, then started – and kept – winning up until losing MLS Cup yet again. They didn't have the high budget roster or international signings to match their opponent, but they had a team.

I've been on the other side too. Sometimes we weren't quite the underdogs that the Revolution were, but sometimes we were. I watched Cornell score an overtime goal against Harvard in the last home game of the season, which was also the last game the seniors would play in Lynah. I spent two weekends watching the women’s team become ECAC champions on late goals in four consecutive games. I saw Cornell come from behind to beat Penn State at Madison Square Garden and fight to a win against the nationally ranked University of Denver at Lynah.

Do I wish the Revolution had one of those happy endings? Well, yeah. But they went further than a lot of people thought they could, and they did it with their usual low budget roster (plus one major signing from the USMNT) while playing in a cavernous football stadium in the miserableness known as New England weather. So here’s to you, Revolution. I’ll see you next season.