I’m Dustin “El Jefe” Christmann, and I am an FC Dallas fanatic from Day One of the Dallas Burn. I’m also a hater. I used to yell mean, hateful things from the stands at the Cotton Bowl and Toyota Stadium, but now, I’m sharing my id with you to help guide you, my fellow FCD fans, in your enjoyment of Major Soccer on TV.
Musical accompaniment
MLS Cup 2025: East #3 Inter Miami vs. West #2 Vancouver Whitecaps (Fox and Apple TV free game, 1:30)
As I look out the window at the Colorado snow while writing this, I have two thoughts at this juncture:
- It’s a good thing they’re playing this game on green grass tomorrow in South Florida.
- Boy, it would suck to have to convince folks to pay to sit outside and be cold and wet while watching anything. Glad that the league isn’t about to try THAT. (Wait, I’m receiving an update…)
But weather concerns aside, this is a perfect game for me. No ambiguities. Last year, not so much. Did I want the Red Bulls to finally win one? Or did I want the Gals to win just because it would be funnier to have the Red Bulls remain in the crab bucket of 1996 teams that haven’t won MLS Cup yet? But Saturday, my choice is crystal-clear:
The Fightin’ Messis must go down and must go down hard.
Now, some of y’all probably have your own reasons why that should be the case. Here are mine:
First, I’m so freakin’ sick of Lionel Messi. Look, he’s great for the league’s visibility, blah blah blah, but I’m just so freakin’ sick of him. I’m tired of turning on an MLS game and seeing him three times per ad break. I’m tired of how the SEO-driven sports media will tie him into everything (“Alan Velasco, who played opposite Lionel Messi in the 2023 League Cup, was sold to Boca Juniors…”). I’m tired of dork-ass losers outside of this league’s fan base acting like he’s the only thing worth watching in MLS. Frankly, I’m glad that LAFC signed Son Heung-Min just to give us a little variety of megastars for those folks to obsess over.
Look, the guy’s the greatest player of our generation. (No, not you, CR7.) I’m glad that he’s here and I’ll miss him when he’s retired. But for now, it is just plain funny to see the guy who’s won every trophy that he could get his hands on encountering quite a bit more resistance in North America.
Second, the whole Inter Miami thing feels like a bit like a con. Now, maybe it’s because they have the misfortune of sharing a market with the Marlins, who spent big on players twice, won the World Series twice, then traded away all their best players 10 minutes after the victory parade twice, but I don’t trust this team. They came into the league as a pretty ordinary MLS team and drawing 10-15,000 a game to Son of Lockhart Stadium, and were pretty forgettable.
Then two things happened in close proximity to one another: Negotiations with Miami for a new stadium in Miami started getting hotter and heavier, and Inter Miami and Lionel Messi started playing footsie with one another. And then, once construction started on the stadium, Messi and Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba were signed and started playing to sellout crowds, almost like a sales pitch for season tickets at the new place. And now that the stadium is going to be complete at the beginning of next season, Busquets and Alba are retiring. Luis Suárez might not be back. Messi just reupped for a couple more seasons, but you know, he might decide that he’s done his part and ride off into the sunset.
All of this stands in stark contrast to other teams who came into the league and were cooking with gas from Day One and have never stopped cooking with gas, like LAFC, the Sounders, Atlanta United, and San Diego FC.
Third, what’s actually hatable about the Whitecaps? I’ve had a little fun with them over the past couple of years, mostly thanks to their former coach. They do things “the right way,” with player development and signings. When they signed a world superstar, they somehow got a guy with gas left in the tank and great leadership skills, and who was bought in from the word “go.” (As opposed to our team, who bought a former league MVP, and well…)
And their fans are generally chill. They certainly don’t have the level of douchebaggery we’ve seen from their neighbors in Seattle and Portland. Maybe it’s because they’re Canadian. Maybe it’s because they’ve been overshadowed for so long by their douchebag neighbors. I wouldn’t mind seeing them experience the joy of something a little more thrilling than yet another Canadian Championship.
But none of those are my biggest reason to want to see Vancouver victorious. You know what that reason is? I don’t want to see this guy get a ring:
Enjoy the bitter taste of defeat, Fafà. You played for the Orange. You should be used to it by now.