The Culture Club edition of Behind the Music is the best hour of television I've seen in many a year. I laughed, I cried (from laughing), and I laughed some more.

"We'd be out playing football in the yard," said Boy George's brother," and Georgie would come out the front door wearing me mum's clothes ..."

So ...

I went to bed Tuesday night with the word "contraction" on my brain. It was hard to fathom that a professional sports league was considering shutting down two teams.

Yet, for some reason, the story seemed familiar ... like I'd read it before. Then I remembered, I had read it before, right here in the Boot Room, almost a year ago.

Remember? I wrote how the MLS Board of Directors were considering shutting down the Miami Fusion and the now-champion San Jose Earthquakes for economic reasons?

Of course, it didn't happen. And even though some of my e-mail pals tried to make me feel bad for writing about it, I remind you I never wrote it was going to happen, just that it was being considered by the Board -- and to this day, I've never heard anyone from MLS deny that it was discussed.

Oh, Commissioner Don Garber said it might have been brought up in the same way the league discussed signing Zinedine Zidane. And Miami investor Ken Horowitz said it "may have been" discussed "casually."

Hey, I can see that -- the Board is deciding whether to take a lunch break or order takeout, when Lamar Hunt says to Phil Anschutz, "Hey, before I call the wife ... what do you think about disbandng two teams?"

Anyway ... the word "contraction" got me to thinking about the year gone by ... and that I haven't done a soccer column in a while. So, here's my look back at 2001.

PRE-SEASON

It didn't take long for anyone in MLS to realize that two teams had radically improved themselves. Down in Lauderdale, before anyone was even fit, MLS coaches were commenting on the San Jose Earthquakes, with Jeff Agoos, Ronnie Ekelund and Dwayne DeRosario, and the Miami Fusion, with Carlos Llamosa, Chris Henderson and Alex Pineda Chacon. Those two squads were already playing better soccer than they did in 2000.

On the other side of the equation, the New England Revolution looked worse than ever, the Colorado Rapids looked like a club that was going to deconstruct itself in order to play a different style of soccer, and D.C. United looked like a good U-20 team.

One other lasting image from spring training: Tampa Bay's Mamadou Diallo storming off the field at the end of a friendly match, getting in new coach Alfonso Mondelo's face and throwing a tantrum. This year, I plan to pay closer attention to everything I see in the spring.

REGULAR SEASON

Each team's season in 10 words or less:

Chicago: With Nowak, real good. Without Nowak, so-so.
Colorado: Better with Valderrama. But not much.
Columbus: Poor Brian McBride.
D.C.: So long, Thomas.
Dallas: No rhythm.
Kansas City: Preki is God.
Los Angeles: Survive and advance.
Miami: Good show.
MetroStars: Mathis deserved their MVP award.
New England: How come other teams rebuild so well?
San Jose: Landon Donovan, he's good.
Tampa Bay: Unsightly.

PLAYOFFS AND MLS CUP

First Round

Miami vs. Kansas City (Miami advances)
No one will ever convince me Diego Serna should've played again after he cold-cocked Nick Garcia in the face at the end of Game 2. No one.

Chicago vs. Dallas (Chicago advances)
Dallas fans really hate Chicago, so they can be happy that their club drained the Fire pretty well in this series.

Los Angeles vs. MetroStars (L.A. advances)
Galaxy will never forget Cienfuegos' Golden Goal in series OT. MetroStars will never forget Peter Vagenas clearing Mark Chung's potential game-tying shot off the line late in Game 3.

San Jose vs. Columbus (San Jose advances)
What the heck happened to the Crew in Game 1? Game, set, match right there.

Semifinals

Miami vs. San Jose (San Jose advances)
Miami should've remembered it put together the best regular season in MLS by playing good soccer, and not been so focused on intimidating Donovan and the Quakes.

Chicago vs. Los Angeles (L.A. advances)
Galaxy is gutsy, makes Chicago pay for mistakes and poor finishing. All three games go to OT, where L.A. wins Games 2 and 3. For the year, Chicago has nine losses (including Open Cup), four to the Galaxy.

Final

San Jose vs. Los Angeles (San Jose wins, 2-1)
As the game heads to extra time, L.A. coach Sigi Schmid tells his team, "We've owned overtime all year." But as they say, go to the well once too often ... Quakes complete worst-to-first story. Schmid calls upon Marv Levy for advice. Galaxy get some revenge, winning yet another overtime special in the Open Cup final over New England.

In Tight Space

· The Chicago Fire stadium saga is among the most depressing stories in the six-year history of MLS. The Fire thought they were days away from announcing a new stadium at the Arlington Park International Racecourse. But a nasty combination of ill-intentioned politicians and bad-faith negotiating brought that deal to an impasse. Now, the Fire are looking at a two-year stint at either Comiskey Park or a small college on the outskirts of town.

Comiskey Park, which Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf is set to veto, would be an awful playing surface since nearly a quarter of the field would be the baseball infield ... and the college field is supposedly artificial turf (one of the newfangled "synthetic grass" surfaces) and way below FIFA's standard size. Making the story even worse, at the end of the two-year hiatus, the Fire would move into the newly-renovated Soldier Field.

I've written this a million times over, but for me, any teams that will be playing in NFL stadiums in 2004 -- regardless of the "better leases" I'm hearing about -- are holding MLS back. We've seen what MLS looks like in the most state-of-the-art NFL stadiums. It looks like a league with no future.

· Speaking of synthetic grass, I never thought I'd write this, but MLS probably needs to take a long hard look at the stuff. I mean, if a club like Ajax is considering it for the Amsterdam Arena, then MLS should be looking at it. Here's why. If the surface is good, MLS could go into some of its cities, like Chicago, and rehab an old facility with synthetic grass.

And there could be winners all over. MLS could get wonderful publicity for helping improve facilities for inner city kids ... and MLS could start to get more stadiums of its own. The only thing MLS would have to demand in the deal is that the fields do not come equipped with those embedded gridiron lines.

· Does anyone like that guy Carrot Top?

· In the past two seasons, we've seen four teams that were truly awful, the '99 K.C. Wizards and MetroStars and the 2000 Miami Fusion and San Jose Earthquakes make dramatic turnarounds. Well, it's time to get the same thing done in New England, where the Revolution need to provide one of the league's best fan groups with a better team.

This is the most important offseason in Revolution history ... they need to make dramatic improvements with all the MLS mechanisms that will be at their disposal, including draft picks and allocations.

· Petter Villegas' "I've played my last game with the MetroStars" comments are kind of funny. Unless Petter is planning on leaving the league entirely, he will have no say in where he plays.

· Have you seen the kids at your local 7-11 mixing Slurpees and Cappucinos? Frightening.

· I just learned that MercoNorte is Spanish for "Mickey Mouse."

· Kudos to D.C. United and the Washington Freedom for getting 22,000 to the Unity Games at RFK.

·Being redundant ... again. Is there not another Lockhart Stadium in an MLS city ready to be fixed up? And, is it just me, or hasn't anyone noticed that Crew Stadium ... you know ... works?

· Wondering if Phil Anschutz's Qwest Communications at $11 (it was up near $70 at one time) a share means anything for MLS?

· Here's an out-on-a-limb prediction: We won't see any trade activity until SuperDraft weekend.

· If the Fire play at Comiskey, at one end of the field, penalties will be taken from deep short.

Jeff Bradley is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at jeff.bradley@espnmag.com.