Ink

Today's blog is a quick-cap. We're officially at full capacity in the busy department (since I'm a company man, please pick up a copy of Ink's Bar Guide this Wednesday -- if only because I'm designing the whole thing AND it led to one of my first all-nighters since college). But we found time to enjoy a little soccer action on Saturday. This is My Life in the Cauldron.

A good journalist and responsible blogger would've worked his ass off taking the pulse of the Wizards fans this past Saturday before and after their highly entertaining 3-2 revenge victory over FC Dallas.

I'm neither of those things.*

*Though, to be fair, I spent the afternoon in a high school auditorium watching Tool drummer Danny Carey perform. It was, um, is their a stronger word than phenomenal? Pheno-mazing? Yeah, it was that.

Instead of trying to ascertain the mood of the fans about the new stadium designs (new renderings were dropped by OnGoal at a season ticket holder event I was at Wednesday*, find pics at the excellent The Back Post) or making some kind of grand analogy about my experience watching the beautiful game with KC's most passionate soccer fans (I'm outta cake analogies, sadly), I just kinda sat, sung my voice hoarse and watched a damned fine soccer game. If you're looking for a game recap, scope the here.

*Most important thing from this event? If the Wizards would've stayed attached to the Three Trails site, the new stadium wouldn't be built until 2013 because they couldn't get the retail in place. The Legends site means new stadium in 2011. The earlier the better, IMHSAO.

Christopher MacQuarrie couldn't have scripted the game any better. (Ok, he may have had Jimmy Conrad play the entire game with a limp only to reveal in the 90th minute that he was fine all along. Or would he have used Lance Watson in the Keyser Soze role?)

Anyway, here was the basic outline: A desire for revenge before the game (after the 6-goal massacre, the Wizards had everything to avenge), in-game drama (after taking a 1-0 lead early, the Wiz gave up the next 2 goals), mistakes made by key players who later atoned for them in the best way possible (Conrad made mistakes that lead to both FCD goals, then scored the game-winning goal), new stars (Kei Kamara is going to be good for the Wizards plus Zoltan got an assist on his first touch of the game), a smarmy bad-guy with slick-backed hair (Dallas goalkeeper Dario Sala, who I believe is a fan of Dapper Dan) and a former child star in villainous turn (did you know Dax McCarty was the kid from "Problem Child"?).

About revenge

I could almost hear former coach Curt Onalfo before the game started sitting in his living room watching this game.

What they're saying

From FC Dallas blog 3rd Degree:

Winning is a culture; I don’t care what sport it is. Teams that expect to win don’t allow the types of comebacks this club has given up all season long. Winning teams also do not dance around and rub it in the faces of opposing teams when they are on top. As much as I realize some of the less intelligent- and decent- fans might enjoy that sort of thing, there is a fact no one can deny- winning teams “look” like they’ve been there before. And winning teams take care of business. When teams with a culture of winning get ahead, they go for the jugular; the instinct to kill off the match is strong. They do not, as a rule, allow a down team to come back. Defenses stiffen, effort increases.

Read the rest of what is really an excellent and knowledgeable match recap here.

The playoff picture

The Wiz are 8-11-6 (30 points from 25 games), which puts them 7 points off the playoff pace. It's crowded though. Pretty much only New York and San Jose are out of the picture. The Wiz trail Colorado (37 points from 25 games), Chivas USA (37/24), D.C. United (36/26), Toronto FC (34/26), New England (34/24) and Real Salt Lake (34/26). FC Dallas is also barely alive with 27 points from 25 games.

What does that all mean? With 15 points sitting there for us to take, we likely need every one of them*. My completely unscientific but educated guess would be that it will take 42 points (four wins) to make our case for the playoffs. I would say 40, but since Colorado and Chivas are likely to win at least one more game and reach that number, we need to win more than they do.

* The words difficult and laborious come to mind. Their schedule: Colorado, @Houston, @Chivas USA, Seattle and D.C. United. All except DC are playoff teams.

Stray observations

--When Zoltan was brought on for Davy Arnaud, Vermes organized the team in a 4-3-3 (kind of) with Wolff, Zoltan and Kamara across the top with Graham Zusi, Santiago Hirsig and Claudio Lopez in support. (At times this was a 3-4-3 with Michael Harrington joining the midfield.) Wanna know something? It worked. It allowed the Wizards to win back the midfield and control the ball.

-- As usual, Mike at downthebyline.com has all of the relevant stats and figures. Read it here.

-- I really have only one more thing to add: I think I'm really, really going to love Kei Kamara. I want him in the starting lineup this weekend against Colorado. If only because I want to see him do this:

Or this: