Under the Crossbar: An RSL blog

Buck Shaw Stadium. It's a hell of a place, although striking four of those words might be a bit more accurate: It's hell. Should that be capitalized? It's a creaking, rickety aluminum hell. Any type of liquid on those bleachers and you're likely to slip, perhaps to an uncertain fate; stand on the seats and you could well teeter over when your neighbor leans forward.

But, really, it's not that much of a hell. Two goals speaks to that fact. Two unanswered goals, moreover.

They seem almost like a distant memory, those players, that campaign — that team, almost. The group that impressed and, at times, depressed, sometimes in equal measure, is broken apart.

I deliberately avoided posting something here about the match. Why? I don't know. Pain, or something like that. Not physical pain (unless you ate my chili, in which case, my condolences — but I told you it was spicy) but that pain of "It's over, isn't it?"

Was that the calm before the storm that just passed? It's a bit windy today. Calm? Who needs calm. I don't need calm. There's a match tonight. It's important.

Calm?

Somehow, I haven't written anything here about Friday's match yet. We all knew exactly how it went, and to be honest, that might have been the best bet for how it was going to go forward. Nil-nil? I'm not surprised.

I'm also not surprised that we put the weight of the clean sheet largely on Nick Rimando, who bailed us out on more than a few occasions. For most of the match, we were excellent defensively, but our ranks got breached a few too many times for comfort. Then again, it does make for a fantastic highlight reel.

Well, well! The playoffs are finally here! How exciting this must be for everyone. It's exciting for me, I know.

Let's get things rolling, shall we? We'll start with some links.

With another month of regular season action having come and gone, it's time to name my player of the month. It's a bit of a tough one, because honestly, we just weren't quite good enough through October — we only scored two goals, and both of those came against LA Galaxy at the beginning of the month.

Well, that wraps up the regular season. A goalless draw to end it all — it's almost fitting, isn't it? Anyhow, parting is such sweet sorrow and all that, but we're only saying goodbye to the regular season in order to see its evolved form: the playoffs.

That's really the one we want to win, so while I wish we'd won the Supporters Shield, I'm not too stressed about it. (On another note, how pandering is the "Supporters Shield"? Is the implication that only supporters care about it?) We've got bigger things to worry about, anyway.

It's been a long week, hasn't it? And my long I mean excruciatingly, unendingly, frustratingly long. Although to be fair, I don't really remember Monday, and Wednesday was mostly just an extension of Tuesday's post-match feeling. Oh, what a feeling.

Editor's note: Once again, Kreg Asay is back with a Power Rankings overview. RSL is firmly in third place at the end of the season, while a draw against Seattle has confined us to fourth for the week ... behind Seattle. Funny how that happens, isn't it?

Power Ranking Averages for week 30.