The smell of grass wafted through the SkyDome last night -- and it wasn't even the kind some people smoke. Although, come to think of it, you might wonder what organizers of the ChampionsWorld Series 2004 were inhaling when they kept insinuating this thing was close to a sellout. Let's just say there was ample elbow room.
In the 15 years since the SkyDome opened, it has been many things to many people: A symbol of grandeur, the worst basketball arena since James Naismith knocked the bottom out of a fruit basket, heaven (and hell) on earth for the Blue Jays, and then there was the night Madonna pleasured herself right there on stage.
Last night, all the rapture belonged to 40,078 soccer spectators as the SkyDome rolled out the green carpet for sports royalty in short pants.
Grass, all 110,000 square feet of it trucked in especially so Michael Owen and the boys wouldn't skin their million-dollar knees, mingled with the scent of popcorn and the beery bellows of a thousand Scouser Tommies bedecked in Liverpool scarves.
TURF PASSES TEST
Moment of truth. It's 6:45 p.m., and Porto players walk out to test the turf with tender tootsies. The world stops. The ground does not open and swallow them up. Game on.
On this night, Porto of Portugal beats Liverpool 1-0 in this most curious of sports. For instance, Porto goalie Vitor Baia is supposed to be one of the game's best. But how could anyone tell? He handled but one shot very adequately.
These guys score as often as a pickup hockey game organized by Gary Bettman. So I guess the next best thing is seeing them whack each other.
Porto's Derlei hits the turf, but then comes back, like Lazarus risen from the dead, to slam a kick directly off Liverpool goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek.
Yes, soccer is curious. It is a game full of feints and passion. It is chess with sweat. It is full of unrequited anticipation. By the second half last night, the game had dwindled to a bunch of substitutes hacking at each others ankles. The mind wanders.
It wanders to the 11 players on the Porto roster who go by only one name. There is Nuno, Pepe, Ibarra, even someone who calls himself McCarthy. Let's be honest. There are only two soccer players who should be known by one name. And neither Pele nor Maradona were here last night. Anything else is vanity run amok.
Hold it. Carlos Alberto, unmarked at the goal line, taps in the game's only goal on a penalty kick and saunters away like he's at the Sunday afternoon family picnic. Ho-hum.
Porto fans go nuts, as if they had just won Euro 2004. We have come to the conclusion that the best thing about soccer is the fans. They sing. They chant. Sometimes the action in the stands is more complex than a Lenny Wilkens game plan.
The game wasn't 10 minutes old last night before the first strains of Liverpool's official song -- You'll Never Walk Alone, lyrics by Rodgers and Hammerstein -- were heard.
How good is that? I mean, the best that hockey can do is a bad rhyme by some guy named Tom stompin' on a piece of plywood. That's it. Oh, yeah, and the scariest thing Maple Leafs fans can think of screaming is: "Go Leafs Go." No wonder they can't scare anyone this side of the Ottawa Senators out of the Stanley Cup.
In the corridor after last night's game, fans were loving it, serenading the players with all the gusto of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
MARKETING TOOL
The players? They acted like it was just another day at the office. Which, is precisely what this was all about -- a marketing tool to pad some of the biggest coffers in the sports world.
Now, excuse me, I've gotta go buy a scarf.
Apparently Leafs fans aren't the only easy marks in town.
