Columbus 2-1 TFC: From Lake Ontario to Markham, We're Singing The Blues

Steal their Seoul in South Korea, Make Antarctica cry "Uncle,"
From the Red Sea to Greenland, they'll be singing the blues.
Well they never Arkansas her steal the Mekong from the jungle.
Tell me, Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?

- "Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?", Rockapella

You think Carmen Sandiego brought misery to the video gaming world with her over three decades of thieving? With today's 2-1 loss, TFC's probably done enough of that in just six -- and not surprisingly, Carmen still gets more fans.

Granted, they did try to stop the bleeding, but in the end, it was a 62nd minute penalty off a soft tackle from Terry Dunfield off Gonzalo Federico Higuain that decided this meaningless match. Higuain did open the scoring in the 17th minute by blasting past two defenders and shooting it past Freddy Hall, while Andrew Wiedeman -- yes, Andrew Wiedeman, off a Dunfield cross, would equal the scoreline nine minutes later.

Luis Silva showed us why he's Rookie of the Year in WTR's books with a number of efforts, while Eric Avila, possibly in his last game in Red (once again, you can thank Paul Mariner for that) showed us what he could do, except for a few extra moves that cost him a clear chance at goal midway through the first half. Also, we got a glimpse of Adrian Cann, who was the CB in the place of the injured Darren O'Dea, and in a surprising non-M. Night Shyamalan-like twist, was actually really good.

Freddy Hall was once again bad as usual, letting the first goal in easy, followed by a disastrous non-attempt to save the Higuain penalty. No matter what good work he did to save the match, this show is once again another testament to his unsuitability for MLS. We can only hope that someone in the head office will come to their senses, and reunite the Stefan Frei-Milos Kocic tandem at the price they actually deserve.

Either way, many supporters are now thanking their lucky stars this season is over. Sure there are the playoffs, but that's a distant dream that we've been promised over and over. Today's performance gives neither confidence, nor does it inspire us to do more. All it really did was just make us wish someone capable was in charge of this team, something that TFC supporters should be afforded as a bare minimum.

Ryan Johnson was taken off the field in the middle of the second half, but Mariner had no sub ready for a number of minutes, and even then the Jamaican was replaced by the defensive Doneil Henry. And while pushing for a draw, Avila was withdrawn in favour of Logan Emory. These puzzling choices seems to demonstrate a clear lack of effort, a folding of the tent when some sort of result was still possible. Weather or not, it's still no excuse.

Our souls are gone, we've cried uncle and we've certainly sung the blues. What else is left? It certainly doesn't take ACME to figure out what went wrong -- and now we've got about five months to sort it all out.