Notes and gripes:

Could John Harkes possibly employ more words to less effect than he does now on the DC telecast? After Greg Vanney cleaned Freddy Adu out a little roughly from behind, Harksie indulged us in a typical 10 second stream-of-consciousness tangent that somewhere, somehow, may pass for "commentary" - but to the rest of us just sounds stupid and pointless. It went a little something like this; "well, that's Vanney, with all his experience, playing in Europe, in France for a few years, and he was with the LA Galaxy before that, and then he came back here to MLS to play for Dallas." Well thank you, John, for the nonlinear career capsule, but w.t.f.? Combine him with the guy who yelps "It's in the net! It's in the net!" - still the clear winner for most shockingly awful trademark goal call around - and you have a broadcast team that gives me a migraine. These guys could make Brazil '70 vs. Team Cloned-Ronaldinho an unwatchable drag.

Don't look now, but Ben Olsen has struck again in his insidious one-man plot to sabotage the 2006 US World Cup effort by making the team. Yep - following that weak dribbler against Jamaica that my seven year old cousin would have palmed away imperiously, the former American Taliban-alike cued another one off the end of the bat and through the infield for a seeing-eye base-goal tonight. Nedved and Essien are now furiously saying novenas for him to complete the hat trick in the second half and nip that last spot in the US midfield.

That Freddy Adu - besides being kinda fast, and having a nice stepover or two, is having a blinder tonight. As in, I think he's crossing with his eyes closed or something. Nightmare.

Nice strike by Ronnie O'Brien to tie things up, certainly aided by Troy Perkins going after it with all the alacrity of a slapstick fat man chasing a bunch of papers around in a stiff wind.