Playing For The Ty

I almost feel bad. It's the first MLS Cup in years without Ty Keogh in the broadcast booth, and there's finally a real, honest-to-goodness controversial goal that he could have gone on and on about throughout the entire game. Normally, he had to stretch to make pretty much every goal somehow controversial, whether it looked like the attacker could have maybe been a millimeter offside, or what have you.

And who says irony isn't dead? Or is that just another Alanis-esque coinkydink?

While it wasn't a sure thing, I figured it was pretty much over once Kansas City start resorting to nothing but lobs into the penalty area. While one or two of them actually bounced, most of them were cleared out quickly and effectively, mostly by Ryan Nelsen, but even Mike Petke did a good job there.

Which brings us to perhaps Peter Nowak's greatest achievement as a coach in MLS, at least once you get past that whole Freddy thing. He somehow turned Petke into a quality defender, moving him from my perennial list of massively overrated American soccer players. Taylor Twellman and Danny Califf will have to find some new company, especially with Eddie Johnson also leaving them in the dust lately.