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Coming into this game, I assumed the Union would play a lot of their young players, giving some of their regular MLS starters a breather given the recent fixture congestion. Nope.
Once seeing who the Union were playing, I figured that they would easily be able to dominate their inferior opposition regardless of how puzzling the 4-3-3 formation was. Nope.
Once finally breaking through in the second half with a Jack McInerney goal he could not have been less excited about, I figured our long national nightmare was finally over.
Once Ocean City Nor'Easters equalized near the death, I figured we were headed to extra time and perhaps penalties. Well, at least I was wrong about that as well.
With the last action of the game, Brian Carroll scored a controversial (?) game-winning goal off a corner kick to ensure the Union advancement into the 4th round of the U.S. Open Cup where they will face a D.C. United squad that needed penalty kicks to sneak by a Richmond Kickers club entrenched in USLPRO, the 3rd division in the U.S. Soccer hierarchy.
And did I mention the quality of the stream, the absence of commentators, and a scoreboard bug straight out of the 90s made the stream itself completely unwatchable? Never mind that the game itself was cringe-worthy, that the stream was just as bad just combined to ensure everything about the game would turn into one long running gag on Twitter. I am well aware that I will be thankful for even having a stream once the 4th round match at RFK Maryland Soccerplex is not streamed at all, but the Union production people (?) have to provide their fans with a better service than the jumbo tron cam.
You can click on the above link for Scott's running Twitter commentary on tonight's game. He did much more than I ever could given the stream.
In short: The Union played ugly, the Union won at the last second, and the Union advanced to the 4th round of the USOC where they will face D.C. United on the road on June 12.
Let us never speak of this game again.