Sorry, FC Cincinnati fans. Columbus Crew are again MLS Cup champions

There was no good outcome for the FC Cincinnati fans who had the stomach to watch the 2023 MLS Cup final, which FCC fell just short of playing in this postseason.

If Eastern Conference champion and "Hell is Real" nemesis Columbus won, your arch-rival would be crowned champion for the second time since FCC entered MLS, and the Crew would put a third star above their crest.

If Western Conference champ Los Angeles FC won, then FCC couldn't even claim to have been eliminated from the MLS Cup playoffs by the eventual champion. After claiming the Supporters' Shield as the best team during the regular season, that would be tough to reconcile.

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The Crew ended up beating LAFC, 2-1, Saturday at Lower.com Field in front of a crowd of 20,802. The MLS Cup was indeed the third in Crew history, and the organization's eighth major trophy.

Columbus partied and confetti wafted over the Crew as they hoisted a trophy for the second Saturday in a row. Meanwhile, TQL Stadium sat empty even though FC Cincinnati was about five-plus minutes from hosting MLS Cup, but failed to close out this same Columbus team.

And in New York City, the Empire State Building's exterior was illuminated with yellow-gold lighting. Building officials announced the color change and confirmed it was in honor of the Columbus victory via X, formerly Twitter.

In a performance that looked similar to the one Columbus delivered a week earlier in the Eastern Conference final at TQL Stadium, the Crew blitzed LAFC in the latter stages of the first half. Cucho Hernandez, who was later named MVP of the finale, scored a penalty kick and Yaw Yeboah added a second goal as the hosts took a 2-0 lead into halftime.

Denis Bouanga, the 2023 MLS Golden Boot winner as the leading regular-season scorer, punched in a 74th-minute tally for LAFC to make things interesting.

In the end, Columbus manager Wilfried Nancy made effective work of altering his team in order to close out the match without much fuss. LAFC didn't pose many threats in the roughly seven minutes tacked on at the end of the second half.

We aren't too far from the start of the 2024 season. MLS will release next season's schedule Dec. 20. CONCACAF Champions Cup information is expected in the coming weeks, too. All of that will help FC Cincinnati and its surrounding community turn the page to 2024.

But an offseason that already figured to be a painful one filled with "what-if's" for the FC Cincinnati community probably feels a little colder and a little darker on Saturday.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Sorry, FC Cincinnati fans. Columbus Crew are again MLS Cup champions