While his teammates were chasing each other, spraying champagne and beer all around the Houston Dynamo locker room, Richard Mulrooney sat on the floor, holding onto the MLS Cup trophy and saving a bottle of bubbly for later.
Before he'd get soaked from the celebratory shower, the veteran holding midfielder whose 2007 odyssey started in Dallas, included a short stint in Toronto and ended with an MLS Cup title in Houston, was going to soak in the atmosphere.
"I never thought I'd experience it again," Mulrooney said. "Since we're going through the emotion of it right now, I'm going to make the most of it. You don't know what the next day holds and right now we're the champions and I get to celebrate with the guys that got us here, my family and I wouldn't want to be anyplace else."
As jubilant as Dynamo players were to become the second team in MLS history to repeat as champions, some, like Mulrooney and Brad Davis, became introspective.
"Every year gets better and better," Davis said. "You get older and older and you realize how difficult it is to win an MLS Cup. It took me three years in this league before I even made the playoffs."
And for a second year in a row, Houston did so by rallying from a 1-0 deficit against the New England Revolution.
"That's what we talked about at halftime -- it's the same situation we were in last year," Davis said. "This team has been down a lot. This isn't the first time we've been down and come back and won a game."
No, Dynamo just needed to look back at the Western Conference Semifinal Series a few weeks ago as an example.
"It was like that against Dallas. We just knew if we could get one, the rest would come," Pat Onstad said. "After our performance in the first half, I thought if we could get one in the second half, we can get rolling again."
That one came from the foot of Joseph Ngwenya, who arrived in Houston in an early-season trade for Alejandro Moreno, after Houston made a tactical change and went with a 3-5-2 formation.
MLS Cup MVP Dwayne De Rosario sent in a cross from the left side to an open Ngwenya, who initially mis-hit his strike. But the native of Zimbabwe stuck the second effort past Matt Reis to tie the game at 1-1 just past the hour mark.
Thirteen minutes after leveling the score, Houston took the lead for good when De Rosario powered a header off a Brad Davis cross past Reis from the penalty spot.
"When Joseph scored, it just showed our determination," De Rosario said. "And then Brad played a perfect ball to my head and the rest is history."
What makes Dynamo's accomplishment even more impressive is that they did it without two of their better players as Brian Ching sat out with a muscle injury in his left calf and Ricardo Clark was serving a nine-game suspension for kicking Carlos Ruiz in a game Sept. 30.
"This team is incredible," said a soaked Brian Mullan. "I'd take this team one goal down, two goals down over any team in this league."
With there are factors in MLS that seem to promote parity -- salary caps, the playoff structure -- Dynamo players are aware of how hard it is to repeat as champions.
"Honestly, you have no idea," Davis said. "It is unbelievably hard. There's so many teams that are matched up so well. It's just the character of this team. We take every game and do what we need to do to come out and get three points and that's what we did again today."
Said Craig Waibel: "It's near impossible, that's why it's only done twice and one of the times was when the league was quite young. I'm not taking anything away, that D.C. team was phenomenal, arguably one of the best."
Now the same can be said about Houston Dynamo.
"Every year you win it gets sweeter and sweeter because you never know if you're going to get to come back," Waibel said. "To repeat is unbelievable. I can't even put it into words because it hasn't been done in so long. To repeat is something I'll never, ever forget."
Dylan Butler is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
