MLS Cup final may be spared the truly wet stuff

CARSON, Calif. – The weather for today’s MLS Cup final  just outside of L.A.?

Let’s go with: “Something less than ideal … but hopefully not awful.”

Not for this time of year, at any rate.

Forecast for this afternoon in Carson, Calif., location of the Galaxy’s Home Depot Center, calls for temperatures in the mid-60 under cloudy skies. The better news is that the forecast pegs rain chances at just 10 percent, which isn’t too bad.

The Dynamo held their day-before practice in the rain yesterday; The Galaxy mostly got away with just dampness and sprinkles for their workout. (It seemed a little surprising that HDC and MLS officials allowed the teams to rehearse inside the stadium; there are, after all, about seven competition-worthy fields surrounding the big bowl on the Cal State Dominguez campus.)

This new MLS format for awarding the final (best record among the pair of finalists) will always make MLS Cup weather a talker and a potentially decisive variable.

What if San Jose had hosted the final, for instance? The Earthquakes did, after all, enter the post-season with the best odds of hosting. Check out the opening words from the forecast for Northern California, where heavy rain has made a mess of things all week: “An ‘atmospheric river’ will bring a flood threat to [northern] California with heavy rain and high winds …”

You never want to see “Atmospheric river” in the forecast for the league’s ultimate decider.

Not that many plenty of performers from both sides aren’t accustomed to dealing with conditions that run the gamut of the crappiness scale. David Beckham played all those years in Manchester. Ditto for Irishman Robbie Keane; there’s rarely a shortage of moisture around any EPL ground.

The men in orange deal with moisture of a different kind most of the year; Houston is among one of the nation’s humidity capitals.

Here’s what the Dynamo players say about the prospect of a match in the wet stuff today, if it comes to that. The Video is courtesy of CSN Houston:

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