Not that you needed a reminder, but this weekend's big games were a glaring example of just how international pro soccer has become -- at the club level.

The camel, so it is said, was supposed to be a horse - but it was designed by a committee and that's the way it came out, ungainly, unshapely, and often unmanageable.

As soccer finals go -- and they haven't been going that well lately -- this was not at all bad. It's always satisfying to see the underdogs come through, especially when they manage to play the better soccer. And Real Salt Lake certainly did that.

Trying to think of one word to describe the USA's performance against Denmark, I have settled on "stale." Nothing new to be seen here, very much the same old same old.

I had to feel sympathy for MLS Commissioner Don Garber when the lights went out at the Home Depot. Not once, but twice -- and we got television shots of him in his luxury suite, talking into his cell phone, trying to show some mastery of a situation over which he had no control at all.

A great shame, this. What promised to be -- what surely should have been -- an immensely pleasing semifinal between Switzerland and Colombia at the Under-17 World Cup was quickly turned into a disappointing occasion -- by the referee.

So, is that the end of the playoffs, then? Or do these conference finals also count as playoffs? I rather hope not, because I've had my fill of playoff soccer, thank you, and would like to see something a little more ... er, a little more, shall we say, refined?

I see that D.C. United President Kevin Payne has upset MLS Commissioner Don Garber by uttering some uncomfortable truths about the league.