1:0 Philadelphia New York Glesnes 11.20.21 · Playoff

In over two decades of Metro Playoff Failure, we have seen it all... except for one thing. One glaring gap on the resume of defeat. Metro had never ended the season on penalties. Oh, what the soccer gods had in store for us today!

Apparently, they didn't. After slugging through a scoreless regulation, and then two scoreless overtime periods, and then three minutes of scoreless injury time, the dam finally broke. Seconds before the referee was ready to signal for penalties, Metro failed to clear the ball, and a long looping laser from outside the box pierced the back of the net. The soccer gods had a different type of failure in mind.

How did we get there? By playing 120+ minutes of what we've gotten accustomed to: low-scoring soccer with a minimal number of chances. Regulation ended with just a solitary shot on goal between the two teams, and Carlos Coronel saved that. To call the Metro offense weak would not do it justice: they were at their impotent worst, be it with starter Fabio or sub Patryk Klimala. The only potential scoring opportunity came when referee Fotis Bazakos somehow did not call a blatant handball in the box.

There was more action in overtime than in regulation. Klimala got two straight fantastic one-on-one opportunities, but had one saved by Andre Blake (Metro's ONLY shot on goal for the entire match), and missed the other wide. Later on, Kyle Duncan hit the far post on a shot that looked destined to go in. Of course, destiny had other ideas.

A fantastic save by Coronel and a late tackle by Andrew Gutman kept the game scoreless into injury time, as everyone started to pencil in their penalty takers. But Bazakos had other ideas, giving the Worms a phantom free kick outside the box. Metro failed to clear the ball, it landed with Jakob Glesnes, and that was that, for the game and the season.

Well, at least we haven't lost on penalties yet. Saving that for the next Metro Playoff Failure, soccer gods?

Lineup: Coronel, Gutman, Nealis, Reyes, Edwards, Duncan, Davis, Yearwood, Casseres, Fernandez, Fabio. Subs: Klimala, Clark, Tolkin, Royer, Diarra.