A Superliga Epic

Let me get this out of the way, since it’s debut last summer, I’ve thought Superliga was one of the most inspired ideas that the Don and his cohorts at MLS HQ have ever had. People can hate on this tourney all they want, but the fact is that in just two years, Superliga has produced the kind of indelible moments — Landon giving the throat slash to the FC Dallas faithful and Goldenballs ripping a free kick into the goal against DC last season and Shalrie Joseph’s header versus Atlante this year, anyone? — that can be lacking in MLS regular season games. Especially those matches played in the searing July and August heat and humidity.

Add tonight’s final, won by New England on penalty kicks 3-2 (6-5), to the list. Played at a scintillating up-n-down pace, the Revs and Dynamo put on a match for the ages, with two of the best keepers in MLS history, New England’s Matt Reis and Houston’s Pat Onstad, each being forced to make stunning saves. Unfortunately for MLS, as great as this game was, it’s unlikely that many of the Mexican and Hispanic fans the league’s trying to court through Superliga tuned in. The more I talk soccer with my Mexican neighbors in Sunset Park and my friend Manuel from the deli near work, the more I get the sense that these folks care about their own league, their national teams, and not at all about the soccer scene in America. Of course, that may change as their kids grow up, and, in the long run, Superliga may be the vehicle to help turn these second generation Latinos and Latinas into MLS fans.

Had Jack Warner not wielded his outsized and undue influence to get the CONCACAF Champions League going, Superliga could’ve easily become the most important tournament in Central and North America. Invite Saprissa and Alajuelense from Costa Rica, Municipal from Guatemala, Marathon and Olimpia from Honduras, maybe a couple other sides, and you have an ass-kicking tournament. Instead, we’re stuck with a tournament where the above teams, along with the Mexican and MLS sides, will have to navigate a minefield of Belizean, Canadian, and Jamaican teams to get to a final that’s actually, well, worthy of being termed that of a Champions League.

Given that the CONCACAF Champions League is a go, tonight’s game could’ve been the last Superliga game ever played. If that turns out to be the case, props to the Revs and Dynamo for making it memorable.