Whenever soccer is hit by a genuine tragedy, such as last month’s on-field death of Cameroon’s Marc Vivien-Foe at the Confederations Cup, the sport undergoes a short period of soul-searching whereby its relevance is cast into an enlightened perspective. Remember, say the suddenly solemn commentators and analysts who the previous week described a stray back pass as "catastrophic", that it’s only a game. What do mere soccer results matter when death is involved?

These sombre but hackneyed reflections usually dry up within about 48 hours (or less, if you’re a FIFA executive planning the remaining games of an utterly pointless tournament), at which point everyone returns to the matter at hand. That is, winning at all costs and by any means possible. Careers and reputations are at stake, after all. So guess what, it turns out that soccer’s not "only" a game after all.

Now that cheating, corruption and gross amounts of money are endemic to the professional game, any talk of sportsmanship and playing soccer according to its true spirit (if it ever had one) has to be taken on board with a sceptical smile. And however much DC United fans feel that the Metrostars’ barely legal fourth substitution on Saturday night was an unjust twist that led to defeat, Bob Bradley’s wily interpretation of the rules must be seen as merely yet one further contravention of the game’s surely mythical ideals.

Bradley seemed almost surprised to be asked after the game if he thought his jersey-juggling introduction of Eddie Gaven constituted unsportsmanlike behavior. After a moment’s hesitation, however, he launched into some disingenuous ‘coachese’ that would have made any politician proud.

"Those are the rules in our league," he said. "You have a bunch of guys that work hard and give everything they have, and you got guys cramping, and you’re playing the game down a man in this heat in the afternoon, then you look after your players first. That to me is the most important part of the spirit of the game, you look after your team and your players."

Looked at from this viewpoint, it’s hard to pin any blame on Bradley for the farcical shirt and goalie swap that swallowed up the first minute of overtime. He spotted the chance for a trick, and it paid off handsomely when Gaven had the fresh legs (and, it must be said, the skill) to sprint half the length of the pitch to score the winning goal. MLS must carry the can for an ambiguously worded rule, and the referees who have allowed the loophole to be exploited this season must share the blame for spinelessly allowing such shenanigans.

Furthermore, any pious condemnation of Bradley must take into account the numerous other regular breaches of the game’s spirit that are so embedded we now almost take them for granted. Shirt pulling, for example, has returned to the game with a vengeance over the past decade, but is too infrequently punished. Diving and the faking of injuries to waste time or incur punishments for opponents are viewed as standard parts of many players’ repertoires, and it’ll take more than booing from the crowd to stem them. And when it’s our own player who dives to win a penalty, we no longer much care. If the other side’s cheating them we have to cheat too. It’s only fair.

Coach Ray Hudson condemned the Metrostars for their "disgraceful sporting behavior" on Saturday, although you wondered if he was secretly thinking, "Why didn’t I think of that?" For it was only a week since the same coach had damned his players for failing to commit enough fouls against Columbus Crew. And only three days since Brandon Prideaux fortuitously escaped ejection in Dallas after the referee was the only person in the stadium who failed to notice that he’d given the foalish defender a second yellow card. Eleven-man DC went on to finish that game off nicely with two late goals, and I don’t recall any true-spirited sportsmen on the United bench calling Prideaux off the field in the name of truth and justice.

Why not? Because first and foremost players and coaches want their side to win and they don’t much care how. They are accountable to the team management and to the fans, who will ultimately judge on results, and when they look at the 1-0 victory on the fixture list they won’t even remember how the team ran the ball to the corner flag for the last ten minutes of the game. And they’ll get away with it for as long as the rules, the game’s authorities and the referees allow them to do so.

It would be preferable, though, if we could be spared the hypocrisy that comes with an event like Foe’s death, when the game temporarily closes ranks and tries to pretend it’s one big solid sporting community imbued with nothing but love and mutual respect. Such a claim could only be taken seriously if soccer was not already riddled with theatrics and devious ‘professional’ tactics on the pitch, and widespread financial irregularities off.

When the Metrostars failed to return the ball to DC late in the game after Santino Quaranta had put, or rather thumped, the ball out of play to allow Amado Guevara to be treated for an apparent injury, it was tempting to applaud. It’s better, perhaps, just to quit the pretence. We’ve come way too far to bother any more with the sham that soccer’s "only a game".