North America has two groups of soccer fans: general soccer apologists and Major League Soccer apologists. The first camp feels the need to defend the sport, tooth and nail, at all times. Any perceived slight leads to a lengthy diatribe. The second set of folks, a subgroup, will defend MLS to the death. Again, any perceived insult leads to a winding philosophical rant.

Dealing with both groups can be exhausting, and for one simple reason: some soccer games just stink. When your new-to-soccer friend who just caught a dull 0-0 proclaims said game to have been boring, you don't have to defend the sport or the league. Just tell him to watch better teams in the play-offs. Everybody has snored through a 10-3 NFL game. Soccer is no different.

A major factor contributing to these groups – and the "scoring = excitement" and "soccer = boring" myths of North American sports – is lazy journalism. Anybody can write gushing words about a glorious 3-2 win or an edge-of-your-seat 4-4 game. The same is true for high-scoring NFL, NBA and NHL games. Where we writers let folks down is in acknowledging and describing just why a game was awful.

This is odd, given that critics revel in dressing down bad TV shows or plays. In soccer, journalists stay away from the wretched games. Rather than articulate just why a game reeks, they will focus on another angle, fingering a coach or an injury as the cause for the game's dullness and then looking to the future. Will said loss derail a team's title hopes?

To fill this gap, as the 2013 MLS Cup final approaches, I will now break down some not-so-glorious NASL Soccer Bowl and MLS Cup finals from years past. Come slumming with me, then, to the dark alleyways where lurk soccer games that are really best forgotten.

1971: The never-ending series

In the 1970s, the people behind the North American Soccer League were either a group of innovators or a bunch of charlatans, depending on your point of view. They loved to tweak rules and challenge conventions. Above all, though, they were not complacent, even with themselves.

In 1967, the first season of the United Soccer Association ended in a breathtaking final between the Los Angeles Wolves and the Washington Whips, LA winning 6-5 after extra time. After the USA merged with the National Professional Soccer League to form the NASL, though, the NASL tweaked the format. It went to a home-and-away two-legged series, then flirted with a classic European table to decide its champions, then reverted to an ever-so-American "best of" series.

In 1971 – and only in 1971 – the top two teams faced off in a best-of-three series. However, rather than providing 270 minutes of non-stop action, the Dallas Tornado and the Atlanta Chiefs proved only that more can be less.

If the "best of" format was implemented to eliminate the need for perhaps unfair one-offs, which often resulted in overtime, it was ironic that the first game of the series ended tied and went to overtime. The Chiefs squeaked out a 2-1 win. Even worse, that first game and the third were played at the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium between Braves baseball games, and forwards and defenders slid about the muddy infield like dogs in the snow.

Dallas crushed the Chiefs 4-1 at home and won the series with a 2-0 away victory. The highlights from the 270-plus minutes of play take up a full minute and 11 seconds. Tornado fans probably enjoyed the second game, but neutrals could only ask: why are we still watching?

1981: The longest 35 yards



The NASL Soccer Bowl quickly reverted to a single-game final. Some great games happened, including the '77 final between the New York Cosmos and the Seattle Sounders and the '79 meeting of the Vancouver Whitecaps and the Tampa Bay Rowdies.

One Soccer Bowl, though, is best forgotten – the 1981 edition, between the Chicago Sting and the Cosmos. The game was played before a reasonably full Exhibition Stadium in Toronto, but despite it being only September, the temperature was already down in the 20s. Neither team scored in regulation, so it went to overtime. The teams' profligacy continued for another half-hour and a penalty shootout beckoned.

This was no normal shootout. The NASL had deemed conventional spot-kicks to be too easy. They clearly favoured the kicker. Thus, the NASL changed the rules. Players started 35 yards out, could advance with the ball, and had five seconds to shoot. The last tweak was thought necessary so players couldn't round the keeper – and, presumably, to keep fans from poking their eyes out with pencils. The result was that very few players scored. Smart goalkeepers came off their line just a little bit and forced a player to sprint hard and then try a shot from distance. It was not a high-percentage play.

Think of the 1981 Soccer Bowl as the dark twin of the final of the 2012 African Cup of Nations. In that game, the first 14 penalty-takers scored, with Zambia beating Ivory Coast 8-7 in the shootout (In 1992 the Ivorians had won a goalless final against Ghana 11-10 on penalties, with both goalkeepers scoring). In 1981, no Cosmos player scored. Thus, the Sting rode to victory on "penalties" scored by Rudy Glenn and Karl-Heinz Granitza. The fans were just happy the game didn't drag on any longer.

2000: The Midwest slugfest

The Great Plains and Great Lakes are barren places, where howling winds scream unabated from October till March. In such inhospitable regions, naturally enough, defences tend to hold the upper hand. And if NFL fans still love the Brian Urlacher-led Chicago Bears defence of old, Kansas City fans from way back will recall fondly their team's former goalkeeper, Tony Meola. In the 2000 MLS Cup final at RFK Stadium in Washington, the best defence (KC) played the best offence (Chicago). The defence won – the spectator did not.

We have to give credit to Meola and KC, though – they had five shutouts on their path to glory. But credit is not the same as applause. A fan can marvel at an Italian catenaccio without wanting to watch it for 90 minutes. In the 2000 final, an early goal by Miklos Molnar only strengthened the defence versus offence dynamic. KC sat back for 80 minutes, getting bodies behind the ball, and Meola made a few key saves in the dying minutes. I watched the game live, as a youth, and recall my stomach churning at key moments. For a neutral, though, little entertainment was on tap.

2002: The game that wouldn't end

Steve Nicol's New England Revolution were the Buffalo Bills of Major League Soccer – the bridesmaid who never caught the bouquet. Before the 2002 final, though, Stevie was just an interim manager whose team went on a run.

The team's core – Jay Heaps, Taylor Twellman and Steve Ralston – overpowered lesser teams. In the final, they faced the LA Galaxy. This, though, was a Galaxy pre-Beckham, even pre-Donovan. Their star forward was a Guatemalan, Carlos "El Pescadito" Ruiz.

The Revs had a huge advantage: the game was played at their home field, Foxboro. More than 60,000 fans packed into the stadium – a rarity then as now. They saw what was then the longest game in league history. Neither team scored after 90 minutes, so extra time it was - the first to score would win, under the shortlived "golden goal" rule. Ruiz spurned two chances to end the game in the first period of overtime; the second period dripped away as the game headed for penalties.

The full 90 had been emotionally, mentally and physically taxing. In the two extra sessions, the play went from combative to sloppy to downright ugly. In almost 120 minutes, the Revolution mustered a single shot on goal. The Galaxy had seven, roughly one for every 17 minutes of play. So what happened in those 16-minute intervals between shots?

Undoubtedly, something more exciting was happening somewhere else. People fell in love. Some died. Some didn't. At Foxboro, fans were a little cold and quite bored.

With seven minutes left, Ruiz scored the golden goal and put the fans out of their misery. And won LA's first MLS Cup, of course. Mustn't forget that.

2005: The other game that wouldn't end



For the first decade of MLS, a strict salary cap meant that cynical midwesterners such as me could not cry foul about big-spending clubs from the coastal metropolises. Things changed quite drastically in the league's second decade.

In 2005, the US national team forward Landon Donovan got sick of riding the pine in Germany and arranged a return to MLS. There was one problem: his enormous salary would be a major problem for any team under the cap. However, the Galaxy were owned and operated by Anschutz Entertainment Group. AEG could pay the bill. What is puzzling is that the team salary cap for 2005 was about $2m. Donovan's salary was $0.9m. The so-called designated player rule did not go into effect until two years later, with the arrival of David Beckham. Did the Galaxy really fill the rest of the roster with just $1.1m?

Donovan's arrival announced the demise of the salary cap as a rigid requirement, if not as a concept. Donovan led the Galaxy to the 2005 MLS Cup final against the Revolution, still coached by Steve Nicol and featuring a hardcore of Michael Parkhurst, Shalrie Joseph, Twellman and Ralston. Still, three years after the last loss, neutral fans thought: "Didn't we already see this?" As in 2002, the teams from Boston and LA produced a real yawner of a final.

To call the game "tedious" would be to employ a significant understatement. The game had a few lovely movements, including a 60-yard dash by Donovan and a neat finish by Herculez Gomez that was, correctly, called back for offside. So regulation ended 0-0.

Legs got tired. The first overtime ended goalless. By then, the LA manager, Steve Sampson, had already tossed on the Guatemalan forward Guillermo "Pando" Ramirez. He was on loan from CSD Municipal and had been barren in front of goal most of his time in Carson, but in the 107th torturous minute, he scored the game-winning (not golden) goal. Matt Reis punched a corner clear but it fell invitingly to Pando, whose sweetly struck volley was unstoppable.

Still, that volley could not erase 100-plus minutes of boredom. Another Guatemalan had scored an MLS Cup winning goal for the Galaxy, but the salary cap era was coming to an end and more expensive imports were on the horizon.

In conclusion

Paint dries. Grass grows. And thanks to YouTube, you can watch many of these games over and over again. Some are even titled "classics" – by the cable companies which overpaid to play them late at night, instead of infomercials. However, no matter how many times you view them, if you are a neutral then these matches will never be exciting.

The champions took home a trophy, but the players and coaches of both teams will endure an infinity of infamy. On the biggest day of the season, they stunk it up. One team won, almost by default. Here's hoping that in 2013, Sporting KC and Real Salt Lake won't offer up another entry to this list of shame.

Elliott blogs about soccer at Futfanatico.com. He is the author of Real Madrid & Barcelona: the Making of a Rivalry.