Early in a 2-0 loss to Chicago on Saturday, Andy Najar — known to no one outside D.C. United’s staff a few weeks ago and now starting in MLS at age 17 — chased a ball down on his own endline and centered it across the face of his own goal.

That’s how things are going for the once-mighty team these days. Three years of atrocious personnel decisions and a recent rash of injuries have left a team that looks incapable of winning.

Santino Quaranta, now an elder statesman of sorts at age 25, pointed to the injuries — Clyde Simms, Bryan Namoff, Marc Burch, Juan Manuel Pena. But he wasn’t pleased with a game in which the only real test for young Chicago goalkeeper Andrew Dykstra was his own blazing free kick.

“If that’s our best chance of the game, that’s pretty sad.”

One thing looks better for United: Their clothes. After the game, every player was changing into a nice suit, though Carey Talley stretched the definition of “nice” with some bright green pants. Simms, who hopes to be back on the field for United’s next game April 28 against Dallas, said he thinks the idea originated with goalkeeper Troy Perkins.

Yet Perkins also has trouble looking sharp on the field. In the first 10 minutes Saturday, he had to scramble to avoid being chipped by Collins John, then flapped at a corner kick. At the end of the half, he raced out of his box to try to prevent a breakaway and couldn’t come up with the ball. And he could’ve done better on the second Chicago goal.

United are 0-4. They started 0-4 in 1996, though the last loss was in the since-discarded postgame shootout, and went on to win the first MLS title.

“Yeah, we’re not 1996, man,” Quaranta said. “We don’t have those kind of players here.”