Fare thee well

And so David Beckham's Galaxy exit before the MLS playoffs begin.

The Fire-Galaxy game put an exclamation point on what many were saying all along: the Fire have turned into a great team, whose level of play is not reflected by their 7th place finish. The Galaxy, on the other hand, played just about well enough to sneak into the playoffs. There would have been no injustice had the Galaxy been the 8 seed-- they are no worse than many 8 seeds in years past. The true injustice would have been that they needed to knock off a vastly superior Fire team. The Fire created and created chance upon chance. The Gals were really on their heels.

Of course, as we go into the playoffs, we should also note that the Fire squandered and squandered. Their finishing was profligate to the extreme. While Chad Barrett has had a career year, the 7 goals he scored this year in nearly 2000 minutes do not compare well to his 5 in 800 minutes last year. This year was not the great leap forward expected of him. In the playoffs, I can't help but think that the Fire will be punished for not actually putting the ball in the net against DC United.

But spare a thought for the Galaxy: their end of season run made for great theater. Sure, they benefitted from more than a few lucky bounces and calls. Still, they played more cohesively in the stretch run. Credit Donovan for making everyone remember that he's still a great player. Credit Chris Klein for finally displaying the veteran savvy that Alexi Lalas brought him in for. Credit Joe Cannon for not completely losing his shit after some of the awful defense he saw played in front of him. And the younger players finally started to get it too. This year's Galaxy were a limited team that never got full use of their superstar signing, but they were no punchline.