This is awesome news, not because they’re Arabs but because they have money. These are people who wipe their ass with the kind of money Barcelona would pay for an Henry transfer. All this weight put on English ownership is overrated, it doesn’t matter who your owner is anymore. We live in the world of capitalization and globalization so it doesn’t matter where your boss is from as long as he can pay the bills. And we all know Arabs can pay bills. Since they can’t buy their country a decent squad (I mean, how many citizenships can you dole out?) they’ve decided to do it internationally and we all should be thankful to that.

All this depressing talk of “we can’t buy players this year because we built a stadium” goes out the window and we can give Arsene Wenger a good-sized transfer budget, something where he can negotiate more then just backup goalies and Julio Baptista. The best part about having Arabs as owners is they don’t know anything about football so there’s a decent chance that they’re smart enough not to meddle with club affairs and player decisions, and would likely give the manager free reigns to produce results.

Arabs also don’t like rebuilding programs and neither do most supporters. Even though we’re in the middle of a youth movement there’s a decent chance that we’ll make a purchase or two to win now as opposed to wait for success as financial returns tend to be a top priority for businessmen. So if Sheikh Al Whoever wants to buy Arsenal I wouldn’t mind and if anything, would welcome the move as it’ll pump in the money we need. What has having an English owner bought us recently that we should be skeptical of foreign ownership? I remember Wenger praising Arsenal for being an English owned club right after Man Utd got bought out by AIG. I thought he was being a bit too nostalgic and perhaps even stuck in the traditional aspect of things and unnecessarily gave weight to club ownership.

Man Utd and Chelsea have won the last three titles and does anybody care about their owners.  No. It’s about time Arsenal saw some of that foreign oil money, it’s been long overdue. We’re already an international squad in many respects, how many English players do we have? Walcott, Hoyte and…….yeah, not exactly any more notables out there. Our sponsor is foreign, our players are foreign, our manager is foreign, our superstar is foreign so why shouldn’t our owner be foreign. I’m not sure what having a local owner buys you except that maybe the guy might be a genuine fan of the team but does that really matter? I don’t care if Sheikh Al Tycoon prefers the sport of ______ instead of football, as long as he’s paying attention to the financial needs of the club and sees a big enough profit to add another 60 Hummers to his entourage, who cares what he’s like.

Update: 2 for 4 on Game 4 calls - overall 10/13 = 77%
Update: 4 for 5 on Game 3 calls.
Update: 4 for 4 on Game 2 calls.

Watching Game 1 of the NBA finals brought back memories when the NBA was so predictable that Proline actually complied with NBA’s request of taking games off their betting slips. This is back when the Bulls were dominating and picking the winners was about as easy as playing the spread. You pretty much had to be a hockey fan to get things wrong. It didn’t even matter that you had to pick at least three games to see your money again - it was that easy! But it wasn’t just the Bulls that were a sure bet, Miami, Utah, Seattle and even New York were all winners on any given night. If you had the balls to actually place a bet down on a Heat/Knicks game you even might’ve had some excitement coming your way.

So last night as I watched Lebron harmlessly attack the rim while three defenders waited for him and the Cavs pondered how to possibly deal with the length of NBA’s official thug and the quickness of Tony Parker (Daniel Gibson has seen nothing of the sort) while still worrying about The Big Bore, something clicked in my right brain. That’s when it occurred to me that this might be the easiest NBA Final to predict and thus, make some money on. Now if the Pistons had made the finals things would be a lot different because even though the Cavs topped them, much to the delight of San Antonio, the Pistons were a far tougher matchup. Something about having four power forwards and a revenge mission that might’ve caused Greg Popovich some headaches. I like the Cavs, they’re nice people but if Arenas and Butler would’ve been healthy, they might not have made it out of the first round alive. Next up were the Nets who were coming out of a long series against the Raptors and thats when Vince Carter went back to being Rex Chapman. The Pistons series was legit.  The Pistons’ sum is greater than their parts and the Cavs exposed them in individual matchups to earn a berth in the NBA Finals.

But make no mistake, Cleveland is the sacrificial lamb here and there is simply no way they can get an away win in this series. No matter how much NBA.com will try to hype this series up, it is a foregone conclusion and the only thing left in question is whether it’ll be over in 4 or 5 games. So without further ado I present some picks that might do me proud, they’re all taken from BetUS Sportsbook. I’ll come back after the games and gloat. Post-game comments are in red.

Game 2:

• Moneyline: Too obvious. Correct.
• 1st Half Spread: San Antonio laying of 4. The Spurs got off to a slow start on Thursday, it won’t happen again. Even if this number was around 8, I’d still take it. This is too easy. Spurs were up by 15.
• Game Spread: San Antonio laying 7. 5. Losing by 7 probably means it was a close game, something this won’t be. Even after San Antonio played piss poor for the first half, they still managed to blow them out. Expect the same here. The only game Cleveland has a chance of keeping close is Game 3 and thats only because San Antonio might want another million-dollar gate at home. Spurs won by 11 and it was a blowout.
• Total Points: 177. This might be a tough one to call but I’ll say ‘over’ because odds are Lebron might show up for at least a couple quarters pushing the scoreline for Cleveland over 85. San Antonio will probably score more than 100 so thats that. 195 total points scored.

Don’t thank me, thank Lebron’s 48 point explosion in Game 5.

Game 3:

This is going to be much tougher. The Cavs are back at home after being pummelled in San Antonio. Will home court matter or will the size/skill/experience/talent/composure of San Antonio overcome Lebron for a third straight time. The picks are from BetUS Sporstbook, they have tons of bets, I’m just picking a few.

• Moneyline: The Spurs again, Cleveland is reeling and the more I think about it, it’s Game 4 that Cleveland might win and not Game 3. Spurs win, Cavs kept it close but you knew the outcome of this game from the second quarter on.
• 1st Quarter: Spurs laying 0.5. Cleveland will come out with enough energy to probably win the 1st quarter based on pure crowd enthusiasm and the energy in the building. It always happens. You could also play the ‘over’ on Cleveland scoring 22 points in the quarter. Spurs’ experience helps them eek out a three point win.
• 1st Half: Even. Spurs will recover in the second but I think Cleveland will do just enough to maybe take a lead or tie into halftime. This is a tough call and I almost don’t want to make it. OK, I was skeptical about this one and screwed up here but not a lot really, Spurs were up by only 2 a halftime.
• Game Spread: Spurs laying 1.5. I don’t believe in one point games because of FT shooting at the end of NBA games. This will be close like Game 5 versus the Pistons but Lebron won’t get the leeway he got in Detroit. Take the Spurs. In close games you usually give the edge to the home team but the Spurs have too much experience here.
• Total Points: 178.5. I predict a 92-86 result which means I am forced to take the under, just barely. Didn’t get the final score I wanted but still won the bet, a low scoring affair.

Note on gambling: Consider this, the fact that I was right on all four calls for Game probably means that I’m wrong for about half the calls in Game 3. I just realized how much I would hate doing this for a living unlike this guy, maybe you should listen to him.

Game 4:

This is a game of statistics and my recent successes make me fearful that I am due to fail. But here goes anyways. Once again, the bets are from BetUS. Cleveland must have some pride, somewhere deep down in their chests a voice must be yelling, screaming WE DON’T WANT TO GET SWEPT. OH GOD, PLEASE DON’T LET US GET SWEPT. It is this voice that I’m counting on to pull off Game 4 for Cleveland. The only doubt I have is that the players might have given up and will play lazy and not even try to pull this one off just to avoid going to boring San Antonio again. If they were playing LA they might be motivated but since its San Antonio, motivation might be a question mark. Cleveland’s already lost this series and the players know it as well as the coaches and fans, its a question of a little pride and I’m betting on them having it. Simple as that.

• Game Spread: Spurs laying 3. Take Cleveland, the potential humiliation of getting swept will be the motivator. Cleveland lost by only one so although my pick of Cleveland winning the game was off, they still win the bet.
• 1st Quarter: Spurs laying 1. Cleveland will win the first quarter. Bet your house on this one. Same reasons as before: crowd, energy etc. Cleveland wins the first quarter 20-19.
• San Antonio 2nd Quarter: After a slow start, they’ll rack up more than 22 points in the second. By now Tony Parker would’ve warmed up. San Antonio won the quarter but scored only 20.
• Total Points: 175.5. I’m going to be really bold and say ‘over’. After the deplorable Game 3 I bet both teams want to stretch their legs and run up and down the court. Only 165 points scored :(

OK, so the Spurs screwed me by not scoring enough in the second but overall I’m still winning money. So if a guy like me who has no experience laying money down can get close to 80% correct against the spread, a professional gambler who follows the NBA point spreads all season probably made a fortune of this one.

Thank God the finals are over.

Juan Pablo Angel, that old Aston Villa foe has crossed the pond and has begun harassing the MLS. We were the victims tonight, the first goal was sheer class and the keeper a spectator. It was like his feet were stuck in cement which had been drying for a week. The second goal not so much, mostly attribute that one to bad defending and not knowing where your man is on the pitch. The ball went through three FC defenders straight to Angel who had no business scoring from there. After dominating the game for long stretches and even hanging on to a lead for 45 minutes I think we deserved better. Maybe if Buddle hadn’t been foolishly caught offside late, we’d have a great chance to equalize, but oh well, shit happens.

Look at the bright spots, Edu and Cunningham are keepers. If Edu just learns to not fire his shot 25ft too high he could be a force to be reckoned with. He’s got a fine knack for finding space in midfield but too often you’ll find him either firing it off from too far out or giving the ball up too early for a hopeful cross, but he’s still young and with us for a long time. The most important part is that he’s getting better with each game, something that can’t be said for Andy Boyens - more on him later. Jeff Cunningham is a great player to watch, he knows exactly what he’s going to do and goes about doing it in a smart way. He was distributing perfect passes for his midfielders to make runs but they were either not expecting it or were too late. I’d like to see him just shoot the ball more without getting all fancy but the guy obviously knows what he’s doing, the man now has 94 MLS goals.

Andy Boyens’ best game for Toronto FC was Game 1 against Chivas, from then on its been downhill. He was making so many mistakes that its surprising none of them lead to a goal. From weak downward headers to overrunning attackers, he did it all. At times even clearing the ball was an issue and its not because he doesn’t have the talent, he just loses focus and starts doing dumb shit. We need to sure up that central defense position because we’re getting exposed in that area and are forced to commit a lot of fouls to make-up for shoddy defending.

The man of the match for Toronto FC was Ronnie O’Brien. He shall not rest until he has made something out of nothing. The best part of the night for him was when he anticipated that the defender was going to head the ball backwards and read it perfectly, the ball came to him and his volley came within a couple of feet of tying the game. He is our creator down the right side, if him, Cunningham and Edu form a triangle on the right side and feed off of each other, we can score a lot of goals.

The fans need to calm down, I know we’re all enthusiastic and into this but throwing toilet paper when the players are taking corners is embarrassing. Same goes for the beer throwing after Angel was celebrating, the celebration was nothing excessive and if anything, pretty toned down and definitely didn’t deserve the reaction it got from the fans. Instead of getting pissed off at Angel for scoring, we should be more concerned with the three defenders who were watching the ball sail past them and onto his feet. Even the New York TV guys were praising the fans all throughout the game and then stuff like this happens and all the negativity comes out. There’s literally no point in doing this.

So, Toronto FC loses but plays well enough to deserve points, and if it weren’t for some Angel, we would’ve had all three.

PS: I hate to say this but I don’t even remember what Eskandarian looks like.

Here’s the second part of my rundown of Webware’s “best web apps“. Check out the first installment if you haven’t already. Here are the offenders:

Windows Live Hotmail: In other words, Hotmail. All the power to the guy who invented Hotmail and blew open the doors to internet communication, its just too bad Microsoft has since ruined Hotmail by first a) not improving it for the first five years after acquiring it and b) by handing the renovation project over to a bunch of monkeys who insist on making it look more like Windows, only slower. Just like anything else webby, Microsoft was late in pumping out a proper email platform and when it finally did, it forgot to copy Gmail properly. Instead it took the approach of copying Gmail and at the same time keeping components of the already crappy Hotmail intact. Bad move. I don’t want to right click to select multiple messages, we do that with checkboxes on the web. The Spam filtering is still brutal and the emails that you actually want to receive end up in the Junk folder (something that has NEVER happened to me with Gmail) or you’re forced to click pointless buttons like “Show Content” and “Mark as Safe” even for emails sent by your Mom. The interface shifts more often than Alberto Gonzales and 20% of the screen is taken up by an ad.  The concept of tags still hasn’t caught on and you’re forced into segregating content into folders.  If you have any integrity you should stop using Hotmail.

Windows Live Messenger: In other words, MSN. I still have a copy of 4.1 on my machine, see that’s where the product stopped being chatting software and turned into a slow and bloated commercial about other Microsoft services. Throw in links to date.com, some trashy horoscope sites, an MSN Today popup that should never have seen the light of day and you end up with Windows Live Messenger - the crappiest chatting software in the world. It must’ve been a slow year for Webware to select this piece of trash in their top 500. The problem with this thing is that it doesn’t know who its catering to so it tries to please everyone: huge emoticons, whiteboards, limits on how much an be typed, multiple contact groups, bulky user interface, games, celebrity gossip, all send mixes messages to someone who’s just trying to tell his wife to pick up some bread when coming back from work. Death to Messenger.

Flickr: OK, you have to understand that unless you have a pro account Flickr is about as useless as an appendix. Here are some of the restrictions: only three albums allowed, 100MB upload per month and here’s the kicker: You can only display 200 images at any given point! The last restriction pretty much encapsulates the first two rendering the entire product worthless for anyone who takes say 10 pictures a month. So much for the “Flickr loves you” slogan, a more appropriate one would be “Buy the pro account!”. Sure there’s some nice stuff, RSS feeds and of the sort but if you’re going to spend your money, don’t give it to Yahoo, they’re rich enough. Try SmugMug which is vastly superior and run by people who genuinely care about your user experience (use vz6dRtcdUp91g as the coupon code to help a brother out). If you’re too cheap to spend money on photography storage, PhotoBucket is still better than Flickr. They don’t have a great uploader but thanks to the people at Flock, that’s been taken care of.

MyPunchBowl: Again with the modal boxes. Go there, sign up, and try to add an event, then tell me what you think of the site. The love affair with Lightbox continues as it seems every alternate form is using it regardless of whether the usage is justified. Maybe its something about the screen dimming after you click on a button that gets developers and marketing folks all wet in the pants, either way it’s getting to the point where usability is being sacrificed for the sake of using a gimmick. Also, since when did it become so cumbersome to click “Edit” and then start typing that people have resorted to making multiple text boxes and textareas disabled only to bring them to life after an unintuitive click, thereby wasting away any sort of tacit knowledge the user might’ve had. Where and when did this design principle pop out? A site that is dead simple in the functionality it offers is made to look like a 70 year old whore in 5 inch heels.

Wink: This sight is a little scary. It’s a people search that searches social networks such as MySpace, Bebo, LinkedIn and Friendster to suck any information about the unfortunate soul whose name was typed. Apparently the privacy agreements you sign on some of these sites allow third party apps to search their databases, pull up personal info including photographs and display it to ANYONE, something that might not be apparent at first glance. Remember the times when it was cool to use an image for a button? Well that practice is still acceptable as long as the result is somewhat pleasing to the eye. Don’t tell that to the designers at Wink, they love to use buttons with gradients that bring you all the way back to 1998 making you wonder where the colored scrollbars which would make the experience complete are. The app doesn’t search Facebook so its pretty much pointless.

I was checking Webware’s finalists for something called the “best web apps” of the year and the first thing you notice is that almost every site on there is named like a pet that you might’ve once owned which later turned into roadkill. Some of the gems to be found include Zillow, Zoho, Bebeo, Meetro, Yoono, Ning, Geni, and the list continues. Curiosity got the better of me and I started on a journey of trying out some of the “best web apps” and trying to figure out how they can help me make my life complete or at least give me a better way to waste my time. So here’s what I thought of them:

MyBlogLog: This is what you call a regurgitated idea that’s been wrapped around an interface so ugly that it makes MySpace look like modern art. Here’s how it works: they beg you to link a JavaScript file in your code and then proceed to collect stats off of it, something Web Side Story did from the beginning of time and something which is replicated by AWStats to near perfection. If you’ve got a WordPress blog or anything other than Blogger, don’t bother with this crap. Oh yeah, as soon as you sign up some guy named “Eric” automatically becomes your “friend” and introduces himself as one of the owners of this operation. Funnily enough, judging by his last login date, he himself hasn’t logged in to this misadventure in over four days. But I encourage everyone to sign up and look at the “Edit Profile” page and tell me if you’ve ever seen a form so ugly and hideous.

Tangler: It doesn’t even matter what this site does. Its blatant rape of Ajax is so apparent that you just want to disable JavaScript for kicks and see how it reacts. Here’s a sign of bad design: you clicked on a main menu option and a “loading..” sign pops up while it fetches a static submenu. WTF? The site is generally agonizingly slow and I don’t really know who to blame for it, maybe its their adoption of the Yahoo API instead of Google Analytics thats pushing it down the toilet in terms of speed. The idea of the site (not a bad one) is to have all your discussions in one place, the execution however lacks the simplicity required, no, demanded by such a venture.

Venyo: This site lets you build and ruin reputations and calls itself the “web 2.0 trust provider”. You’re supposed to build a “trust index” until people stop thinking you’re a pedophile and finally allow you to comment on their blogs. People on this site have their trust settings such that you can see their first name, their last name, a close-up picture but NOT their username. This is how they justify their existence: “The lack of trust has always been an issue on the Internet and it will not get better with the emergence of new collaborative services particular to Web 2.0.” Building trust on this site means jack squat, hire 100 people in India, pay them a dollar each and you can run for president.

Squidoo: What do you call a blog without calling it a blog? A lens. As you strive and suffer your way towards becoming a “Lensmaster” you’ll realize that if you have to wait five seconds for a piece of content to load through Ajax and stare at the words “drumroll please” for the entire duration, it’s probably wiser to just load a new page. Much less aggravating. The site is trying to persuade its audience that its something different, cool and better, but in the end you’ll find out that is nothing but a slow, badly designed and introverted blogging software that wishes it was a wiki.

Platial: Another site which misuses Lightbox. By now I’ve lost count and am beginning to second guess a personal decision to allow Lightbox in an app that I’m currently working on. Make a map of your life! Doesn’t that sound exciting? For most of the blokes that means to work and back but Platial.com is counting on the world traveler amongst us to make it a success. But there’s only so much you can do when you’re relying entirely on Google Maps to do all the work for you; this idea sounds great in theory but practically speaking, it doesn’t work. The process of “adding places” to your map is not intuitive and the Ajaxy features such as searching for places isn’t thought out. Note to Platial: Only popup modal boxes when the user somewhat expects them! Wayfaring.com is much better but it doesn’t matter because Google just pwn3d both with MyMaps.

Yelp: Here’s an idea that isn’t half bad: Bitch about all the bad food you’ve ever eaten. How eager was I when I hit the Sign Up button only to have the door slammed in my face as my Canadian postal code was rejected. Maybe another time, another place.

Here’s Part 2.

Henry needs Arsenal as much as they need him

I’m sick of this, every website I go to has Henry ditching Arsenal to go to some other club which is supposedly at the top of European football and is just that one elusive striker away from going undefeated in their league and on their way to some sort of triple crown. I can’t believe the balls of clubs like Barcelona, AC Milan and Real Madrid for openly declaring interest in a player who is committed in writing for four years at a club which although hasn’t won any silverware over the last two seasons, is still one of the top clubs in Europe. So when Samuel Eto’o openly calls out for an Henry partnership I can’t help but feel that he thinks Barcelona is closer to winning Europe than Arsenal is, last time I checked Arsenal and Barcelona were knocked out at the exact same stage in the Champions League. If it weren’t for an offside goal and an undeserved red-card it would be Arsenal holding the European title instead of trying to hang on to their star player.

The general feeling in the air is that Arsenal don’t deserve Henry and that he’s wasting his time in London instead of racking up cups at some other club. This thinking is not only naive and stupid but also an insult to Arsenal who are made to look as if though they’re in a complete rebuilding phase instead of competing for titles. A fourth place team in the Premier League can take on any opposition in Spain, Italy or Germany and have the money behind them. If Henry does leave Arsenal for a club in another country, he won’t be leaving Arsenal because Arsenal are a struggling team, he would be leaving because he wants to play in an easier league where you don’t have to be that good to win it all. Whether he or anybody else consciously knows this is another story.

I can’t understand why those Spanish clubs feel they have a natural right to signing a Spanish player who plays in England, most recently Fabregas and earlier the ever homesick Jose Antonio Reyes. Instead of just buying talent which has been developed elsewhere they should try building a system from the ground up and see how far it gets them. Unfortunately in today’s football the power of money has started to make-up whatever a club lacks in organization, player development and coaching. Chelsea and Real Madrid are prime examples of this trend while Arsenal lie on the opposite end of the spectrum, something that isn’t nearly as respected and talked about.

There isn’t an Arsenal fan that would like to see Henry be sold and if there is they’re having way too much faith in Adebayor and whoever we get instead of Reyes. Hold on, I still believe that even if Henry leaves we’re still going to be in the top four in the Premiership barring any length injuries (like RVP), it’s just that we won’t have a chance of winning the league or Europe, because to achieve something of that magnitude you have to have a player who can singlehandedly win you games where the rest of the squad is struggling. Henry is that type of player and it is for that reason that I want him to stay. Maybe in a few years, Fabregas/RVP can be those types of players but right now they’re not ready and we need to buy some time.

TH14 has a great point about building teams around younger players:

“Winning is very difficult, you don’t just arrive there. I was not, and am still not, a finished product, but I certainly wasn’t a finished product at 20.”

You can’t argue with the man there because he’s obviously referring to players like Fabregas, Denilson and Diaby who might be good right now but won’t find out if they’re great till much later on. Here’s a man who’s used to playing with the likes of Patrick Vieira and Dennis Bergkamp and is now expecting to produce the same results playing alongside Cesc Fabregas and Emmanuel Adebayor. I can see why he might want out, he’s not getting any younger and the team isn’t going to go undefeated for a season overnight. But what he should take into account is that Arsenal had an injury and suspension plagued season and still managed to easily finish in fourth place while doing the double over Manchester United and had leads against Chelsea only to let them steal a point.

If Henry thinks switching to Spain will guarantee him a Champions League title he’s mistaken. He has as good a chance at winning the Champions League with Arsenal as he has with AC Milan, Real Madrid, Barcelona or what-have-you. So Thierry, lets stop being delusional and accept the challenge of playing for Arsenal and winning it for the club, the manager and the fans that made you what you are today.

As we grab three more points I’m getting used to us dominating games and scoring just enough goals while missing chances that go begging. Jeff Cunningham’s a fun player to watch but if he doesn’t finish a few of those chances he’ll go from fun to frustrating in zero time, especially if we drop points because of some of the goals he’s missed. It’s hard to focus on the negatives when you’re winning but it needs to be pointed out. This also marked the return of Conor Casey who looks much better as a Rapid than a Toronto FC player, Casey got to throw his weight around and play a part in the Colorado goal which brought them right back in the game after Boyens screwed up defensively to give the goal he scored right back.

Marvell “Sol Campbell” Wynne’s run down the right followed by an inside-turn setup the Danny Dichio goal, the big forward just needed to get any part of his body on the ball to nudge it in and that he did. The funny part happened after the goal when Wynne thought he had done enough of the work in the goal to start the celebration in his own little corner but Dichio started one of his own leaving Wynne no choice but to join in. Another completely pointless fact that just had to be mentioned.

TFC plays a pretty loose and forward-thinking game, the midfielders are looking to attack, Dichio’s forever looking to setup Cunningham and O’Brien/Welsh are trying to make crosses and runs any time they can, even the backs are making side runs. It’s fun to watch and if you encounter a team like the Rapids who seemed to be hard-pressed to dig in defensively, it makes for great offensive football. After Boyens made it 2-0 I was about to call it game-set-match but the goal they got back breathed some life into them. Never thought I’d say this but I miss Greg Sutton (away on Gold Cup duty). After Hercules Gomez (what a name!) schooled Boyens and scorched Srdjan Djekanovic by making him look like car crash on a powerful near-side drive, Colorado looked like they grew tenfolds in confidence. Lucky for us they simply didn’t possess the speed needed to threaten a Toronto FC defense that has gotten much, much better since the opening few games.

The game saw the first action for Gabe Gala who is 17 years old and doesn’t look a day older. Don’t really know what to say about him except except that he’s 17 years old. Looks like the lanky, athletic type who might have some skill. Oh, did I mention he’s 17 years old? So 17 year old Gabe Gala helped us win a corner as soon as he entered the game and I immediately signed up as a fan of 17 year old Gabe Gala who’s going to be the Theo Walcott of Toronto FC. I can’t get past the fact that he’s 17 years old. 17. 17. 17. 17. 17. 17.

The ref in this game was awesome, he didn’t believe in calling fouls even when they happened right in front of his eyes in broad daylight. Cunningham was brought down, no, mugged just outside the area before halftime and the ref was RIGHT THERE. He just shook his head. The calls were bad both ways, our midfield got away with a few tackles and so did theirs. I give the game-ball to our defense for suffocating any chances the Rapids might’ve had by playing excellent denial defense, covering the wide areas and not allowing any cutbacks that always seem to lead to goals. I could talk about the red card and other stuff but a win is a win, and savouring it is an art.