"An optimist is a guy that has never had much experience," is a famous maxim of archy, Don Marquis’s cynical cockroach-cum-poet. Well, I’ve experienced the opening days to more soccer seasons than I care to remember, and that optimism bug still gets me every time.

Opening Day is irresistible to suckers. We caress the virgin fixture list, still unbesmirched by unhappy statistics, and imagine it jammed with victories and the names of our own scorers. We are dazzled by the whiteness of the DC United away shirts, which look so pure and snowy they might have been laundered by the MLS Disciplinary Commission. And we cast aside the now conveniently meaningless woes of the pre-season friendlies and say, "This is where it really starts."

On the opening Saturday of the 1992-93 English season, I was travelling by train to watch my hometown team Lincoln City’s first Division 3 fixture, at Colchester United. A fellow Lincoln fan in the same carriage was bubbling with excitement because Lincoln had just beaten Jaime Moreno’s former club, Premier League Middlesbrough, 5-1 in a warm-up match. This result, he assured all those willing to listen, augured very well for the coming campaign.

When Lincoln scored the English season’s first goal in the second minute of the game I thought, "The bloke on the train was right. This is going to be our year." By the seventh minute of that game Lincoln were already 2-1 down (like my mood). They went on to lose that day, and achieved little of note over the following ten months’ struggle, finishing mid-table.

It was hard not to sink from the highs of hope into a similar instant despair three minutes into Saturday night’s game at Arrowhead Stadium, when the 39-year-old but evergreen Preki easily dribbled round the DC midfield - including Bobby Convey at half his age - to put his side Kansas City ahead with a shot straight down the middle of the goal that Nick Rimando seemed to be covering from another stadium altogether. Oh lordie, why did the season have to start? Why couldn’t we stay in limbo forever, seconds before the kick-off, with the grass flat and green and everybody happy and equal? Why did Preki have to go and spoil everything with a stupid goal?

Colorado Rapids fans went through the same emotions when San Jose’s Brian Ching sauntered past the dozing security guards that were supposed to be defending the Rapids’ goal in the first minute, and stuck the ball in the corner of the net with such ease that he almost had the decency to look embarrassed (I’m sure I saw him mouth to the Rapids defence, "What the hell do you think you’re playing at? Why didn’t you ask to see my ID?"). And in Dallas, Ronnie O’Brien’s mighty long distance strike for the Burn in the fourth minute of their game against LA surely left home fans thinking, "New season, new stadium, 1-0 already. Wahaaaay, the MLS Cup is ours!" Even if they do have to get there by playing on the giant Mondrian canvas mysteriously laid down at the Dragon Stadium that renders the lines to the soccer pitch almost completely invisible (no e-mails, please — I know it’s a gridiron field).

These early goals were all in some measure delusional, of course, just like that early Lincoln strike. Both LA and DC came back into their respective games, and although United lost eventually, they showed more confidence and cohesiveness during the last hour of the Kansas match than they did on any road game during the whole of last season. In particular the performances of Marco Etcheverry and Ben Olsen, combined with several deft passing sequences against one of the league’s strongest sides, should serve as cause for concrete optimism rather than the illogical, gut-based pre-season hope that, somehow, everything will go our way. You can even put a positive spin on Nick Rimando’s 92 minutes and say, "Well, he’s not going to play as badly as that again."

It’s a relief to lay to rest the seemingly endless pre-season and the nervousness of opening night. The speculative analyses and wayward forecasts (including mine) are already becoming redundant as coaches, fans and pundits focus on the actual performances before their eyes. These will still be open to interpretation, but after 30 games that tatty, despoiled fixture list won’t tell too many lies.

Next season I’ve promised myself to heed the words of archy the cockroach and take on board the experience of yet another early disappointment. I may immerse myself in something distracting and pointless, like college basketball, until the very first moment a ball is kicked. I will not invest a single emotion in hope.

Dammit, though. I wish DC had started off with three points. Maybe next week.