DCU 4, Celtic 0

No green hoops. Celtic came out in all white but for a vertical green and orange stripe down the right side of the front, and instead of Carling, the sponsor was Coors Light. Coors freaking Light. Baby Jeebus in a frosted mug, that's not even beer.

Any prestige, even small prestige, is good for United, and what's good for United is good for MLS. Yes, Celtic was missing starters. Yes, Celtic's play was half-hearted at times (though tell that to Jamil Walker). Yes, DCU wanted the win more. And they won. Convincingly.

Bobby Boswell. I haven't praised him enough. There was one play, midway through the first half, and a Celtic player had been sprung down the right side on a terrific through ball, and Boswell just stoned him. Stood him up, stoned him, took the ball, never looked back. Earlier this year I speculated on which DCU player could they least afford to lose, and I said Brian Carroll. Nothing against Carroll, whose play recently probably gave Nowak good reason to give him the night off, he's been looking tired, but the one indispensible player for United is Boswell. He's that good. And he gets it, soccer-wise, fan-wise.

Shame about the weather, or the threat of weather. I had heard talk of 30, 35K, which would have required a huge walk-up, but DC was gray and thundering from 3:30 in the afternoon on, with storm-warnings issued, and on a Wednesday night, with rush hour traffic, people looked at each other at five o'clock and said, mmm? nya. I don't think they'd have got 35K under any circumstances (that's about what they got for Chelsea, after all), but I bet they lost 3000, 4000 walk-up, which is a shame. It rained until 7:20 and then stopped. The clouds broke. A breeze blew. It was nice. Announced crowd of over 15K.

But the key question of the game: at what minute would the drunken skank in the row in front of us yak on Landru's foot? Landru and I started a pool: I guessed 76th minute, he had 83rd. Not to worry: the drunken chickslapper she was with, sensing that he was in a race between her drooling willingness to put out and her drooling need to vomit, decided to take no chances and hustled her cold-sweat speckled face out at the 72nd. I'm willing to bet (but not to verify) that yak won out, literally, in his lap.

HIGHLIGHTS!
(of the game, not the...)