When I decided to do this series of postmortems it didn’t really occur to me that I’d be writing about the Kansas City Wizards so early in the game. You see, I have great confidence in the MetroStars to choke when the choking time comes. That choking time was earlier today against Chivas USA. I thought the Goats were gonna win that one, and that today I’d be writing about everyone’s favorite debacle instead of Kansas City.

About Kansas City? Have I got something pithy to say about them? Nope.

See, I don’t understand the Wizards. This is basically the same team that went to the MLS Cup last year. This is the team that came within a whisker of the Supporters Shield. And where it isn’t the same team they have - for the most part - upgraded.

So what happened? Is it that old clap-trap about standing still while everyone else got better? Naw. Was last year a fluke? Nope. Were they just unlucky? Don’t buy that either. Was it their move to the stronger Eastern conference? I don’t think so. Was it the loss of Matt Taylor. No, Taylor’s departure isn’t really what you’d properly call a loss.

What was it? I don’t have an answer.

The failure of the Wizards to make the 2005 playoffs just doesn’t make sense to me. They should have been a legitimate contender. Without a clear “on the field” answer I am left to wonder if the Sword of Damocles hanging over the club’s head ever since Lamar Hunt announced his decision to sell the team wasn’t the real cause of this season’s undoing.

Some things are not captured on television. In those last minutes of the match, just before the definitive second strike was struck, it began quietly to rain.

Chivas USA has been stamped upon so many times. This was their chance to put a stamp on the season. They didn’t even need to win; a draw would end the year for the MetroStars. And into the last minute of the match the possibility remained.

It was an impressive game, not because it was well played (it wasn’t) but because it mattered. It certainly mattered to the Wizards and all their fans back in Kansas City. It mattered to the MetroStars - at least in principle, at least in the second half - and it mattered to Chivas USA. Go out with a bang, get out of last place, and - most of all - make a statement that Chivas too would have to be reckoned with. And because it mattered to all of them, it mattered to all the other MLS fans too. This was a game with real stakes and substantial meaning.

Of those stakes the MetroStars won and Kansas City lost. But for Chivas USA the meaning washed away in the rain.