It’s Only Halftime

Last Saturday, RSL played Seattle in the first leg of the 2011 MLS Playoffs. It was a crisp evening (and by that, I mean, I was pretty dang cold) and the air was crackling with excitement. They’ve made the playoffs for the last 3 years, so you’d think at this point that we’d be sort of used to it, but not yet. The 2009 playoffs, which won RSL the championship, happened because of a series of fluke accidental games, but last year was all our talent. After a lot of bad luck this year (so many people getting injured, including Javier Morales’ broken ankle, and a lot of call-ups to the national teams) we ended up doing pretty well, and got into the playoffs in the third spot. But there’s still some work to be done.

Now back to last Saturday. The game was at 8, hence the chilliness. We got off to a good start, and scored before halftime, so thank goodness for that. The team seems to do better when they lead going into a half. After an exciting second half (in which 2 of our defenders got injured, and had to be substituted out) we ended the game with us winning 3-0. It was awesome – the screaming we all did was so loud.

But right now, its just halftime. We play at Seattle tonight, to finish the first round of playoffs. This round is based on aggregate goals – meaning, the end result is decided by who had the most goals when you add the 2 games together. So getting a 3-goal lead last week was the best thing we could do. If we win tonight, awesome! If we tie, that’s good. If we lose 2-0, or 3-1, that’s ok, too, because we’ll still have the most amount of points. I’m going to root for a victory, but I’ll settle for a tie.

Go RSL!