On Hope
Dear Trixie,
Hey kiddo. So... it's been a while. Well, it's been a few whiles and handful of a time's and, by my watch, we're a hair passed an age. Tuning in for games that began around 3am Dublin time and then coming home to rehearsals/performances occupying a lot of my free time made it difficult to write. And then it became more difficult as the mountain of time in which I hadn't written grew. At this point we're in the second leg of a two game aggregate and I just decided to say, "Damn it all," and write.
So that's what I'm trying to do now.
I'm going to start with soccer as it's easier. Like I said, we're in the second leg of two game aggregate series. I know this is your first playoff experience, so please bear with me. In a two game aggregate series you play one game at home and one game away. The score from both of those games is totaled and this determines who advances to the next round. It's pretty common in soccer tournaments as a means to negate home field advantage and the wear of travel on players. Additionally, MLS uses a sort of tie-breaker means called "weighted away goals." Which means a goal scored on the road is worth more than a goal scored at home. It's not easy to wrap your head around.
Let's work through an example. Say, you and I are on a team playing a two game aggregate series with weighted away goals. In the first leg, we play away and win 1-0. In the second leg, we play at home and lose 1-2. Even though the aggregate score is 2-2, the other team would advance instead of us because they scored more goals while playing away. My buddy Rob once explained it as an away gaol being worth 1.1 or 1.01 goals, if that's helpful to you.
Ok, so that's two game aggregates with weighted away goals.
In our series, the first leg ended in a dismal 0-0 draw. MLS has the higher seeded team host the second leg and that's today. Could I have waited longer to write? Probably not.
But soccer. What's this means for the Sounders, I pretend I hear you ask. Great question, Trix. Basically, we have to win to advance. If we win today, we advance to conference final (the two game aggregate series with weighted away goals before the cup final). If we lose, our season is over. (Hence, I could not have waited longer.) If we tie with any scoreline greater than 0-0 (e.g. 1-1, 2-2, 3-3, etc.), Vancouver will have score more away goals and will advance. If we are 0-0 at the end of 90, we will play two 15 minute periods of overtime in which away goals are no longer weighted (hooray!). If we are still tied, regardless of the number of goals scored, we move on to penalty kicks.
So. What to do? The simple answer is pull ourselves up by our cleat straps and win. There's really no use in fretting about weighted away goals or the fact we had just 1 shot on target last Sunday or how long it's been since you've written your faux-niece. We can spend all day complaining about the unbalanced schedule or injury concerns or how late the games come on when you're in Europe. There's really nothing else but to go out there and give it your damnedest and hope it all works out in the end.
So long as you've done that, you have nothing to be ashamed of. I apologize again for the delay in my writing. Hope you can forgive me and hope we'll be watching the Sounders play November 21st for the first leg of the Western Conference Finals.
Yours in Hope,
Uncle Nick
