Champions again

With all due respect to the recently crowed "Titletown" of Valdosta, Georgia by ESPN, I would have to say that Boston has the rights to that claim at the moment. As the Celtics are planning their banner raising ceremony for Oct 28th and the BC Eagles plan their banner raising ceremony for Oct 10th, the New England Revolution last night won the second annual SuperLiga championship.

For those of you who don't know, SuperLiga is a mini-league composed of the 4 best Mexican League teams taking on the 4 best Major League Soccer teams. Last year, it was won by Pachuca of the Mexican League. After beating three former Mexican League champs including Pachuca, the Revolution took the title from the Houston Dynamo 2-2, winning 6-5 on penalty kicks.

It was a great game. You rarely see the amount of back and forth action that was on display last night which also featured some great goaltending by both Pat Onstad and Matt Reis. I was unfortunately forced to watch the festivities in Spanish as no local stations decided that the SuperLiga final was worth broadcasting. There was the alternate choice of watching it on-line but the site would not allow a full screen view so I decided not understanding what the announcers were saying was better than damaging my eyes trying to see the action on my computer.

I was talking with Old Man Pike on the phone as overtime started and had just finished telling him how I disliked the full 30 minute overtime format instead of the "golden goal", sudden-death option when the Dynamo scored to take the 2-1 lead. I must admit in this particular instance I was happy the "golden goal" was not the golden rule for the match as Shalrie Joseph was able to head a Steve Ralston set piece into the back of the net in the 102nd minute. Sadly this great game had to be decided by penalty kicks but the win was still special as the Revolution were able to avenge their losses in the previous two MLS Cup finals and take one from Houston.

The Revs are now the reigning SuperLiga & US Cup champions (with a chance to defend that title as they face DC United on August 12th in the semi-finals of the 2008 US Cup). Combining that with the other local teams and that is a awful lot of hardware in one year for one city. I have a lot of respect for Valdosta and what Valdosta State has been able to do but Boston today is the true Titletown, USA.