A specter is haunting Major League Soccer – the specter of Canadianism.

Last week, along with everyone else, I learned the disturbing rumors were true. The Canadian National Team Toronto FC will join Major League Soccer next season. I don’t want to incite any unnecessary panic (I assure you the panic I intend to incite is completely necessary), but I am deeply concerned about this latest Canadian incursion into American culture.

As everyone well knows, the Canadian menace has been infiltrating our fair and innocent country for decades. First they came for the entertainment industry. William Shatner and Monty Hall seemed innocent enough, but they were only the beginning. Then it was Paul Anka, Rich Little and Alex Trebeck. By the time Howie Mandel and Bryan Adams came on the scene it was already too late.

And how little we took notice of the steady march of Canada’s Arctic imperialism. Just witness the bitter dispute over Hans Island. Once they take that island and the rest of the Arctic they will head for Europe. And then falling like dominoes it’ll be Africa, Antarctica, South America, Central America and then … That’s right: Hans Island and then Texas.

It’s starting to make sense now, isn’t it? If only we Americans had resisted Canada as valiantly as the brave warriors of the Hans Island Liberation Front then perhaps this dire situation could have been averted.

But no, we thought we were insulated from the Canuckian scourge. And I’m sorry to say the denial was doubly deep among American soccer fans. “They don’t play soccer up there in those few acres of snow. Hockey’s their game and they can have the NHL for all we care.” That’s what we said. We were wrong.

The signs were there. The ubiquitous presence of the Canadian production “Fox Sport World Report” on America’s Soccer Channel. Frank Yallop in San Jose along with Pat Onstad and Dwayne DeRosario. Geoff Aunger. Mark Watson. They were vanguard troops sent to infiltrate American soccer, that most vital and strategic sector of American society. We should have acted. But we didn’t.

Today we find Onstad, De Rosario and Adrian Serioux, the latest Canadian apparatchik to infiltrate American soccer, down there in Houston - in Texas - just waiting for those dominoes to fall.

And now to learn our leaders in New York are in league with the Canadians, that they’re willing collaborators in the evil Maple Leaf agenda? It’s all so very troubling.

If we fail to act now soon every soccer specific stadium in the United States will become a Canadian foothold. That’s when the Canadian plot would take its most sinister turn. In an attempt to introduce a foreign substance into our precious bodily fluids Budweiser would be replaced by Molson. That’s the way your hardcore Canadian works.

Believe me when I tell you Toronto FC is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Canadian plot we have ever had to face. I can no longer sit back and allow Canadian infiltration, Canadian indoctrination, Canadian subversion and the international Canadian conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

Every single time Real Salt Lake scored a goal I erupted in a fit of hysterical laughter. I find it quite pleasurable to see the Galaxy lose. I admit that. But in between goals I also found myself wondering whether the score - Real Salt Lake 3, Landon Free Galaxy 0 - really was the best result for both teams.

See, I’ve come to believe for both the Galaxy and RSL that it’s in their long term interest to lose games, and to lose them badly. Los Angeles, who have lost their last three games by an aggregate score of 8-0, has been doing an admirable job of securing its interest. I’d like to think that Alexi Lalas knew the Galaxy’s interest before last weekend, but I’m absolutely positive he knows it now. Steve Sampson has to go.

Just because you know what has to happen doesn’t always mean you can or want to make it happen. For any number of reasons, but particularly for lack of a suitable alternative, Lalas and Company may (indeed probably) feel right now is not the time to send Sampson on his merry way. Perhaps I buy into those Klinsmann coaching the Galaxy rumblings a bit too much, but you’ve gotta admit something about it rings very true. Point is, I think Sampson’s going to hang on to his job until after the World Cup.

But there’s a real danger in deferring the inevitable: the coach who needs to be fired might start winning. That’s a bad thing. Crew fans understand what I’m talking about. Back in October I wrote the following about the Crew’s 2005 season:

We all woke up on May 15, 2004 and read in the morning press that today was a day of reckoning for Greg Andrulis. Win that afternoon or face the axe. In retrospect Columbus probably should have thrown the match. Instead they won and delayed the inevitable for over a year. Yes, the inevitable.

There was not a single bit of difference between the Greg Andrulis whose team missed the playoffs in 2003 and went winless in its first five games of 2004, and the Greg Andrulis whose team beat New England on that unfortunate Saturday. Not one bit of difference.

I don’t know if John Ellinger would have been fired or not had Real Salt Lake failed to win against the Los Angeles Galaxy. I have my doubts, and I strongly suspect Ellinger’s job security is considerably more secure than it ought to be. But the basic fact of the matter is that he should have been fired a long time ago. The win against Los Angeles changed absolutely nothing in that regard.

There is no difference between the John Ellinger whose team went 18 games without a win and the John Ellinger whose team had a very good day against a depleted and effete Los Angeles Galaxy.

Eighteen. If you’re a Real Salt Lake fan you know what that number means.

Another game and you’re in ‘99 Metros territory. And you know as well I that nothing is going to change so long as Ellinger is in charge. If this continues much longer there will be no dispute about it: Ellinger’s Real Salt Lake will be the worst performing team in Major League Soccer history.

Now there’s a certain dignity in supporting a lousy team. But let’s be clear: that dignity is conferred only retrospectively. It’s only later, when you’re actually winning games, that you can look over at those newly arrived bandwagon bums and know that you are better than them because you were there during the darkest of days.

That dignity does not exist during the dark days themselves. The dark days are miserable days, they are days of fomenting anger, an anger whose primary object will always rightfully be the negligence and incompetence of the team’s management. And let me assure you Real Salt Lake fans if your team has gone eighteen games without a win and your coach hasn’t been fired, then the management of your team has been negligent and incompetent.

Supporting a team as poorly managed as Real Salt Lake is undoubtedly a miserable endeavor. But some people cannot cope with misery. Such people foster within themselves a sort of cognitive dissonance that helps them deal with the situation. They refuse to cast judgment, they refuse to place blame. The team, they say, “tried” really hard every week and “the coach is not the problem.” In fact, when pressed these people will deny there is a problem. And if you say there is a problem, if you blame the coach, if you criticize the tactics (or lack thereof), they will admonish you for not supporting the team. (Yes, this type of person occurs frequently today in the political world as well.)

These are the happy-go-lucky idiots who support the team “win or lose,” “no matter what.” They have conned themselves into believing that everything is going well, that everything is going according to plan. Those people are insufferable. They’re the soccer fan equivalent of that wretch in high school who was so confused that he laughed and smiled whenever he was picked on and beat up. He couldn’t admit his dire social situation and he couldn’t admit that something was very, very wrong. So he pretended it was all a lark and constructed his own explanatory reality in which things weren’t at all as bad as they truly were. In fact, to him things were just splendid. Such dissociation from the genuine reality of the situation is therapeutic to be sure. It is also pathetic.

There is another way. When you’re a good team that goes bad (as DC United did a few years back) then it’s harder for the fans to stomach the downturn and I suspect they react visibly and vocally more quickly. But Real Salt Lake is a young team. It’s a team that has never experienced genuine success on the field. I can’t be certain, but I suspect that’s why there remains to this day a lack of visible protest and criticism in the stands. It’s time that changed. Real Salt Lake fans need to stand up and say, as the old line goes, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

Now there are a lot of ways to do this – banners, chanting, booing, walking out en masse to name a few. But I think my favorite, and the one that always seem to make it onto TV and into the newspapers is hiring an airplane to tow a “fire the coach” banner over the stadium while the game is in progress. I would like to say that the DC United supporters on BigSoccer.com were the first people in Major League Soccer to use this tactic, but apparently Eric Wynalda was the first when back in MLS’s early days he hired a “small plane that towed a banner encouraging the team to fire [coach Laurie] Calloway.” I will say, however, to the best of my knowledge those DC United supporters were the first fans to take such action.

After 9/11 there were some rumors that flying a banner over a stadium was no longer legal. There is a grain of truth to this rumor, but that grain is not applicable to most Major League Soccer situations. It’s only illegal to fly a banner over a stadium during a game if there are more than 30,000 in attendance. Since this is very, very rarely the case in Major League Soccer, planes towing “fire the coach” banners remain a viable tactic for disgruntled soccer fans.

Of course, when hiring an airplane you also have to choose your game carefully. The DC United fans chose an ESPN2 game (Real Salt Lake’s only ESPN2 game this year is on May 27). But I’m personally not sure that ESPN2 games are the best choice. Seems to me those games are more or less scripted and they’re not that likely to give much attention to any airborne stunt. In DC United’s case the plane was shown on TV, but there was very little discussion about it. A case could be made for preferring a locally broadcast game.

So that’s the choice. You can gleefully stick your head in the proverbial sand or you can take a vocal and visible stand. (Hey, that rhymes!) And there’s nothing more visible than aerial advertising to convey your “fire the coach” message.

And if that doesn’t work? Well, don’t let them tell you ninjas are never the answer.

There’s a new trophy to be won in Texas: an 18th-century mountain howitzer.

The Hoops and Dynamo will play four games this year - the first of the Texas rivalry - and the home team for each game this season will maintain the cannon and be able to fire it as it wishes. At the end of the 2006 season, the team that has won the season series will keep the cannon for all of the 2007 season, with the trophy then only changing hands after each season.

In true MLS style (oh, no, not again) they’re holding a (rigged and/or inconsequential) “contest” to name the cannon.

There is, without a doubt, an absolutely perfect name for this new Texas prize. The cannon should be called “Gonzo” or “The Gonzo” in commemoration of the famed Battle of Gonzales “come and take it” cannon. But I suspect, in another case of major league cowardice marketing Major League Soccer will (again) shy away from any name that might possibly be offensive to anybody. It’ll surely be called something warm and fuzzy - like Dynamo.

And that is a shame. The historical reference would lend a certain depth to the rivalry. I’d like to see Dallas and Houston trade “come and take it” jabs back and forth. I’d like to see some “come and take it” flags in the stands. But after the league’s spineless reaction to the 1836 controversy I simply can’t imagine it happening.

Deprived of any historical relation Major League Soccer’s newest trophy will be little more than a contrived (and strangely Freudian) spectacle.

There you go. That’s the roster. Of course you can bellyache about this inclusion or that inclusion, but such bellyaching is completely futile.

First, there’s really not much on Bruce Arena’s roster about which to debate.

I suppose you could bellyache the Jimmy Conrad selection and say Berhalter would have been the more obvious choice. But isn’t that nagging little ache just the tug of your inner-Eurosnob, isn’t that just the squeaky little voice that doubts Major League Soccer, that can’t quite shake that old superstition that says European based players are inherently more prepared for the international stage than players plying their trade right here in the States? And isn’t that nagging little achy voice overdue for a right and proper beating? Jimmy Conrad earned his spot.

Perhaps I would have taken Taylor Twellman over Brian Ching. Perhaps. But truth be told I really can’t justify taking one or the other. I think I understand why Bruce chose Ching. If Brian the Elder takes a knock, Brian the Younger will come in handy. Of course, I can come up with an equally valid argument for Twellman. Perhaps I’d even consider taking Twellman over Wolff. But, then again, I’ve never been a great fan of Wolff. And there is something to say for his international experience. Back and forth it goes; it’s an exercise in futility.

So Hejduk gets pulled with an ACL injury the day after the roster is announced and Albright comes in to take his place. It’s lousy for Hejduk but when you get right down to it Hejduk vs Albright isn’t going to make much difference. Hejduk runs all day (like a chicken with its head cut off some say) and has loads of experience. But I don’t trust him one bit and whenever he steps on the field I think he’s a red card or a penalty kick waiting to happen. To me he’s always been the soccer player equivalent of a ticking time bomb. Albright? He’s a top notch defender and he’s more versatile than Hejduk in the attack. He lacks experience but he brings other attributes to the team, namely crossing and set piece ability. Ticking time bomb with plenty of experience vs an inexperienced but more versatile player? It’s a wash. Anyone who spends much time worrying about it is wasting his time.

Second, it’s done. The roster is decided and there ain’t nothing you can do or say about it. For this brief moment there is nothing to talk about. It is what it is and nothing’s gonna change that. Right now we just have a list of 23 names. Those are our guys: come what may.

Come what may. That’s been the underlying sense for me since the roster was announced. Come what may: whatever happens will happen. Come what may.

I know the fatalism will wear off as June draws closer. Training camps and friendlies will instill in us a sense that we control our fate. Come June we’ll have a structure of reasonable expectations, we’ll have criterion for judgment and we’ll have a sense of exactly what to expect from this team. No matter what happens in camp we’ll go to Germany and with an idea of what has to occur if we’re going to control the situation and dictate the games.

Of course this sense of control is merely by proxy. And, yet, it is not unreasonable. If we, “the home viewer,” can speak with some facility about what we have to do to control the situation then surely the coaches and players, who see and (hopefully) know more than us, can do the same. Particularly at the World Cup, particularly in evenly matched groups like ours, every team - at least as an intellectual exercise - ought to be able to anticipate and understand what it must do to succeed.

But there is a distinction between thinking you know what you have to do, and truly knowing what you have to do. There is also a distinction between knowledge and actualization. You can’t tell where teams end up amid those distinctions until the game is played. That is also why this sense of control is only temporary. Once the whistle blows that fatalism will take hold again. There’ll be 11 guys on one side and 11 guys on the other: come what may.