Okay fine, Major League Soccer. Toronto will come to your poorly scheduled, freezing cold, late-on-a-Sunday-evening championship game featuring two teams we know nothing about.

But we don’t have to like it.

So here’s the list of things we’re prepared to do: Sit there politely.

That’s the whole list.

Lots of things seem like a good idea in the spring. Say, inviting your wife’s entire family — including her chronically unemployed brother, Dave — to stay at your house for the month leading up to Christmas. And suddenly, it’s November.

When MLS placed their showcase game in Toronto last March, they may have expected something like gratitude.

Then Toronto FC spent the summer burning through all the good will this city’s soccer supporters have to offer. And once that ordeal was done, the club’s season ticket holders were expected to pony up for a ducat to Sunday night’s MLS Cup as part of their package.

Give the average Toronto sports fan this much — he doesn’t put up a fight, but he can take a beating.

A week out, things started going really wrong. The thin supply of glamour this league has — all of it contained in the person of David Beckham — evaporated in the semis. FC Dallas and the Colorado Rapids, two poorly supported and anonymous teams, made the final.

By the time MLS commissioner Don Garber pulled into town last week, he’d probably downgraded his hopes to something short of a post-Krakatoa-level blizzard and at least four rows worth of crowd.

If that’s the bar, Garber will be overjoyed this morning.

Rumours of a fan boycott didn’t come off. The stands were about 80 per cent full.

The climate cooperated as much as it will around this time of year. No mascot was incinerated by fireworks.

Helpfully, Dallas and Colorado played a game of very decent quality. Colorado won 2-1 in extra time, not that you or anyone else in this city should care.

The atmosphere? It had its moments.

Like in the pre-game, when they showed a pumped-up collage of FC Dallas season highlights, complete with gritty screen captures of the team’s biggest stars.

AVILA! (Who?) MCCARTY! (Never heard of him.) JOHN! (Isn’t that a first name?) FERREIRA! (A vague bell.)

That was pretty exciting — for the five-dozen Dallas fans who travelled here for the game. They were either cheering or trying to light a fire with vigorous side-to-side friction.

Everyone else was staring at the screen because it’s on the north side of the pitch, and the wind whips in from the south.

Then the teams filed in and there was ... nothing. Really. Not a peep. I don’t know who you all were, but I hope you’re sitting behind me the next time I go to the movies.

Just as the paramedics were getting ready to start randomly checking pulses, the crowd ostentatiously perked up at the playing of “O Canada.”

“Hey Don Garber, just in case you’re wondering, we’re being purposely quiet the rest of the time.”

But it was too cold and too boring to keep that sort of thing up for long.

A half hour in, murmurs were morphing into something resembling interest. The opening goal, a lovely on-rushing effort by Dallas star David Ferreira, provoked a spontaneous eruption.

The rate of fan attrition at halftime was low. Most stubbornly returned to see the evening out. And as the tie game tightened, their resistance crumbled. Many in the crowd spent the last quarter of regular time and both extra-time periods “oohing” and “aahing” like this had something to do with us.

Really, we’re too good. We can’t help ourselves. That’s part of what defines this city’s sports culture. And it’s also the reason that they — MLS, MLSE, Rogers and anybody else with something to sell — take us for granted.