It felt like the end of a dynasty. The LA Galaxy have won three of the last four MLS Cups, and been to the title game four times in the last six years. They've won two Supporters' Shields, and finished second twice more in that timespan. They are the standard by which other successful MLS clubs will henceforth be measured.
They've done it in the same conference as the Beckerman/Morales RSL teams, and the Sigi Schmid Sounders. They've done it with David Beckham and without, with Robbie Keane and without.
They've done it for a long time. And about 110 minutes into Sunday's 2-1 MLS Cup win over the New England Revolution, it looked like that time was over, that the last hurdle was too much, and that a younger, hungrier, faster group was going to make the Landon Donovan Show end with an unceremonious thud.
Then the Galaxy found one last gap to exploit, and made one last special play. That's what champions do.
Let's start with the game-winner:
1. Head on a Swivel
Here's why fullback is the most underappreciated position on the field. Chris Tierney - New England's goal-scorer - had to provide both width and penetration in attack; and he had to be smart enough to know when to play square in possession, or to hit field-splitting diagonals; and he had to win his 1-vs-1 duels with Galaxy right midfielder Stefan Ishizaki; and he had to be ready to pinch central in order to cut off balls over the top; and he had to do all that while instantly judging whether the better play was to come inside and cut out the danger or to hold the line for the offside trap.
Tierney was magnificent. Except for once:
There's no one out on that field I feel worse for than Tierney, because this is how he'll remember this MLS Cup. Alan Gordon had done such a good job of finding spots that were bothering the Revs central defenders that Tierney had naturally been sucked inside a bit, trying to make sure he was around to help win second balls and prevent the type of sloppy goal that had cost the Revs multiple times in this postseason.
But the real danger was Keane, 40 yards away and screened by a forest of Revs. Marcelo Sarvas' pass was spectacular, and that was the one last special play that the Galaxy needed to find the edge.
It's a brutal play to lose on. It's also a great reminder of why a forward's movement - Gordon's - is important even when he never touches the ball.
2. Classic 4-2-3-1 vs. 4-4-2 Game
The 4-4-2 will never truly go away, but it's been usurped by variations on the 4-2-3-1 at the highest levels of international play largely because of what we saw in today's game. New England had the lion's share of possession, swamping the central channel with numbers and controlling both the pace of the game and where it's played.
The Revs are usually much more reactive - they're a middling possession team, by the numbers - but clearly felt they had the edge in that part of the field. One smart adjustment Jay Heaps made was to drop Jermaine Jones deeper, almost into the backline at times, in an effort to drag either Sarvas or Juninho up out of the play and expose the Galaxy backline to 1-v-1s.
Sarvas often took the bait (somebody has to - you can't just let Jones ping 40-yard passes all game, or dribble straight up the gut), which left Juninho to do a ton of running and clean-up work. He was nearly perfect at both:
Where the 4-2-3-1 can be problematic is in a lack of attacking options once you get into the danger zone. By dropping Jones deep, that meant Scott Caldwell - a smart but creatively limited player - would push up alongside Lee Nguyen. At the same time, the Galaxy's wide midfielders and fullbacks were generally winning their batttles against their opposites, which meant Nguyen didn't have many wide options, either.
It was ugly, and Nguyen just couldn't quite come up with the special play his team needed:
3. "Cagey" is another word for "Ugly"
The Galaxy varied between "sloppy" and "bad" with the ball. I'd describe the Revs as "nervy" and "over-ambitious." This is what often happens in a Cup final of any sort. We all remember Messi dragging that shot - the one that he's buried 200 times - just wide of Manuel Neuer's post this summer, right?
And it also has to be said that "fear of incipient counterattack" was the little-death that nearly brought both teams to total obliteration. The speed of Jones in particular was a constant shaper of LA's spacing in attack, as they again and again refused to either throw numbers forward or risk the type of audacious passes that could end up going the other way with the ball on JJ's foot. Those were the goals that killed first the Crew and then the Red Bulls, and the Galaxy's decision to prevent the same meant the Galaxy decided not to play like the Galaxy.
On the other side, Robbie Rogers gave Andrew Farrell such a torrid time that the Revs abandoned the right flank for huge swathes of the game, depriving the attack of width and penetration. Tierney eventually got forward on the left, but for the Revs to turn all that possession dominance into goals, there had to be an unlimbering of both sides.
That didn't happen. Donovan and Keane weren't precise - Keane's selfishness once or twice was inexcusable - but they didn't have to be precise to change the game, since the threat of them was enough to stymie New England.
It was cagey, and tactical, and soccer of the sort that only true fans love.
And it was the end of an era. The last time I ever saw Landon Donovan play soccer, he wasn't great. But he was a champion.
