Tag: d.c. united

soccer

MLS recap: Fighting in Toronto, sweating in D.C.

Posted on by Beau Dure

No lineup analysis this week — over the break, we’ll go team-by-team to look at the rosters.

Yesterday:

– Come on you Reds! No, we didn’t mean red cards! With neither side finishing in Toronto, we go to the judges’ scorecards. Adelaide Byrd has it 29-28 Toronto; Nelson Hamilton scores it 29-28 Kansas City. Cecil Peoples insists that leg kicks can’t finish a fight and therefore has neither team winning a round for a 30-30 decision. It’s a draw!

Oh, that was a soccer game, not an MMA fight?

TFC fans were hopping mad after the first round … half, I mean, half … but the biggest complaint seems to be that more Wizards weren’t sent off. The game ended 10-v-10 as is. Toronto squandered a few chances, but if Preki and company want to hang on to that playoff spot ahead of all the more talented West teams just behind them, they should consider investing in some defenders who aren’t quite as clumsy.

–  Soccer soup: The other scoreless tie Saturday was in D.C., where the stats can be a little deceiving. Both teams played positively for the most part, though the heat and humidity sucked the life out the game at times. For some reason, several United attacks wound up on the foot of Stephen King, who was denied brilliantly once or twice by Real Salt Lake keeper Nick Rimando. The rest, he squandered. RSL’s Will Johnson told the Salt Lake papers (the team’s White House visit provided a handy excuse to open up reporters’ travel budgets as if they were suddenly the Washington Post) that he found United’s lack of attacking urgency baffling for a home game, and indeed, RSL was pressing toward the end while D.C. counterattacked. That said, United managed to get a few shots on goal.

– Galaxy stomp: LA 4, Houston 1. No question that the Galaxy can survive without Edson Buddle and Landon Donovan. More pressing question is whether the Dynamo defense is aging before our eyes.

– Quick six for Red Bulls: Hot start, sudden skid, and now the Red Bulls have just as suddenly won two games in the Red Bull Arena fortress.

– Rapids for real: Colorado isn’t going to catch Los Angeles this season, but the Rapids shouldn’t be overlooked. A home win against East leader Columbus ought to grab some attention and bolster some confidence. Colorado scored the winner short-handed thanks to Pablo Mastroeni once again showing the flashes of temper that have hampered his career. (Or, perhaps, made us all regret that he didn’t go to Serie A, where he might have fit in well.)

– Can Dallas hang around? Jeff Cunningham is going through another stretch as Mr. Hyde, and yet FC Dallas isn’t out of it in the West. Brek Shea, my choice for Player of the Week, scored twice against San Jose. The club even showed signs of life at the gate with a crowd of 14,331.

Also, Chicago beat Philadelphia and former coach Peter Nowak 2-1, and Seattle exorcised the demons of a disappointing start with three spectacular goals against New England.

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soccer

Quick handoff at United-Freedom doubleheader

Posted on by Beau Dure

D.C. United and the Washington Freedom warmed up for their back-to-back games Saturday in RFK Stadium with back-to-back practices Friday in RFK, giving those of us seeking economy in our journalism a chance to talk with a few players from both teams in one session.

A few stories to watch:

United injuries and turnover: Clyde Simms is back. New defender Juan Manuel Pena could go the full 90, says coach Curt Onalfo. Forward Danny Allsopp passed a Friday fitness test. And if the paperwork goes through, United could bring former league MVP Luciano Emilio off the bench.

Weather: Unfortunately, these players will be returning into a cauldron. The game is at 4 p.m., and the forecast simply says “very hot.”

“I’m excited about everything except for that,” Simms said as he dripped sweat after Friday’s practice. “A lot of hydration today and tomorrow, and I’ll be all right.”

Onalfo wants his players to keep possession. “It’s easier to run in heat if you have the ball.”

Quick transition: One nice thing about the heat is that the players won’t need much time to warm up. That works for the Freedom and Athletica, who have agreed to warm up quickly and try to get their game started 15 minutes after the United-Red Bulls game ends.

“Last year (with the Freedom playing first), I thought we played too early for the sake of getting the field cleared out for the MLS game,” Freedom coach Jim Gabarra said. “I felt it should be tight. We don’t want to make people wait around.”

Big WPS matchup: The St. Louis Athletica roster is imposing. Hope Solo’s in goal. Shannon Boxx is in midfield.

“This is one of the tougher matchups we’ll see in WPS,” Gabarra said.

Both teams have speedy forwards – Washington’s Lisa De Vanna and St. Louis’ Eniola Aluko. Not that De Vanna can simply outrun the St. Louis defense.

“Tina Ellertson’s pretty much as fast as Lisa, and she’s strong,” Wambach said.

“If we can beat St. Louis, who a lot of experts are saying is one of the best teams in the league, I think that gives us a lot of confidence going into the rest of the season,” defender Cat Whitehill said.

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soccer

On D.C. United: “We’re not 1996, man”

Posted on by Beau Dure

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.”

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soccer

Anatomy of a goal: Fire’s Dykstra to McBride

Posted on by Beau Dure

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The dagger for D.C. United started with former Woodbridge, Va., resident Andrew Dykstra, the young goalkeeper for the Chicago Fire.

Dykstra, who had 80-100 people coming to watch him, said he was looking for Brian McBride with his long distributions late in the game. He wasn’t able to get the ball to him in the corner a little earlier. Then he saw McBride drift into the box and figured he would aim there.

“I trust the 36-year-old veteran,” Dykstra said, undercounting by one year.

The 37-year-old veteran knew what to do next. He couldn’t see United keeper Troy Perkins, but he could hear him.

“The goalie was talking, so I knew where he was,” McBride said. “I was trying to put it on goal. I didn’t pick out the corner, but I knew where the goalie was, so I was just trying not to put it right at him.”

So now you know, MLS keepers: When a long ball is going to McBride, keep your mouth shut.

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soccer

MLS: Who’s paying cash for clunkers?

Posted on by Beau Dure

Soccer America’s Paul Kennedy has a provocative piece on Major League Soccer teams’ wild misses in judging talent. Sure, teams make mistakes all the time, but in this new era with more guaranteed contracts, those mistakes can be more costly.

Kennedy singles out Toronto and the signing of Latvian left back Raivis Hscanovics, about whom Wikipedia says the following: “In March 2010 his contract was terminated with Skonto FC because of knee problems. He later joined Toronto FC.” (We’ll have to take Wikipedia’s word for it, because the source cited on that note is in a language I don’t even recognize.) After a messy spring that included a protracted breakup with Ali Gerba and the shock retirement of Jim Brennan, Toronto put out a starting lineup last weekend that looked like a preseason lineup full of trialists.

“What has Preki been thinking all these months?” Kennedy asks. But Preki’s only part of the Toronto brain trust. There’s also “Trader Mo” Johnston, the wheelingest, dealingest soccer director in the business. Players and coaches have come and gone, but Toronto hasn’t yet found the right mix.

The coaches are always the most visible player personnel people. But do they always have the most influence? Hard to say.

In most cases, they have a fair amount of input, always able to bring “their guys” into a roster. Adrian Hanauer is the guy who can be fired by the fans if things are going wrong, but Sigi Schmid clearly has players he wants to keep around. In New England, Mike Burns has the player personnel job but hasn’t been in that position as long as Steve Nicol has been head coach. Curt Onalfo brought Kurt Morsink with him to D.C. United.

D.C. might be the best place to inquire about the brain trust, because it’s not delivering as well as it used to. United hasn’t shaken off the disastrous class of 2008 South American imports — Jose Carvallo, Gonzalo Martinez, Gonzalo Peralta, Franco Niell and designated player Marcelo Gallardo. The younger players on the roster that year also fell off the team, leaving an unsupported core of Jaime Moreno, Santino Quaranta, Clyde Simms, Marc Burch and Bryan Namoff.

Coach Tom Soehn has departed. General manager Dave Kaspar remains. That might be fair to Kaspar, who also has presided over the building of an excellent academy program that is producing solid prospects. But was it fair to blame Soehn?

Generally, the coach/GM relationship is co-dependent. MLS champions Real Salt Lake were built by a pair of Duke classmates, coach Jason Kreis and GM Garth Lagerwey. Where coach and GM are less close — Los Angeles in the brief Ruud Gullit era springs to mind — results aren’t as good.

The new collective bargaining agreement has changed the landscape — not dramatically, but enough so that teams need to adjust. And 15 years of evolution have given the teams plenty of leeway in finding players. For all the braying over the league’s single-entity structure, teams control their own rosters and destiny. And it’s no accident that New England and Houston have been successful in replenishing rosters year after year while others struggle.

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