Yes. We don’t have a Chelsea or a Bayern or a Yankees who use their financial muscle to overpower their competition. We do have a DC and a Houston who have built consistent winners through superior scouting and tactical management.

And hey, if a team as old as DC got to the Open Cup in a notably anti-dynasty league, that to me doesn’t say your better days are all in the past; that to me says you still got it.

I think those who complain that the DC front office doesn’t know what it is doing are being very selective with their evidence… Rodney Wallace, Chris Pontius, and Dejan Jakovic aren’t exactly chopped liver when it comes to player acquisitions. The current United squad doesn’t suck.

I think it is very fair to say that the rest of the league has really started to catch up to the standard DCU has set. Which is a good thing, because most of the first decade of MLS saw clubs struggling to meet even that minimal bar.

As for “losing their mojo”… well, I’m sorry, but DCU has had a lot of games this year where the standard DCU style and quality has been on display. And that style is still more sophisticated than any other on-field product in MLS. Including Seattle and Houston.

Fundamentally, Payne and Kasper made a decision this year to try to squeeze one more good season out of the attacking core of Emilio, Fred, Moreno, and Gomez. I can’t blame them for taking that route. We saw on Wednesday that those guys are, as a group, simply too old to carry the squad to victory when it counts now. Unless DC’s management is blind, and we don’t have any evidence that they’ve suddenly lost their ability to make solid judgements about talent, you’ll see some significant changing of the guard this winter. But the team has young talent as well, so I don’t think it would be fair to suggest that DC is out of the running for the 2010 title.

If, by this time next season, DC is still inconsistently puttering along in mid-table, then I think you will be in a position to re-post this article and have it be a lot more accurate and timely.

As a native of Maryland, I’ve grown up watching sports traditions die, first the theft of the Colts, then the demise of the Oriole Way. It happens. Leagues where these traditions don’t come to an end are rightly derided as uncompetitive (see: La Liga, the New York Yankees). Certainly, if MLS is to continue to grow as a league, then DCU will face an uphill battle to maintain “signature” status. Realistically, no one should want it any other way. But I think it’s a little bit early to be writing epitaphs.