RIVER OR LIFE: Defensive Midfielders

The voting for attacking midfielders has gone pretty much as anticipated so far, with heavy support for three fan favorites in Quaranta, Pontius, and Barklage, and an obvious dissatisfaction with Fred and Allen. The only moderate surprise to me has been that Gomez and Szetela are not both closer to the 50/50 mark. Moving on now to the other half of the midfield...

As expected, Clyde Simms led the team in minutes played for the second year in a row, and was a critical part of our midfield. Obviously Simms' main role was in breaking up the attack of our opponents, but he wasn't asked to do as much offensively this year, which was a step down from his 2 goals and 2 assists in 2008.

poll by twiigs.com

After playing just 15 minutes last season, Ben Olsen came back stronger than most of us would have imagined in 2009. Although he seems to have lost some pace, Olsen's calmness and high soccer IQ served the team well as he often acted as the leader of the midfield. He has expressed interest in playing again next season. Now if we could just work on that temper...

poll by twiigs.com

At just 20 years of age, Rodney Wallace showed immense talent and potential in his 25 starts (tied for third on the team). Wallace split time between left wing and defensive midfielder, playing both roles with speed, aggression, and skill, if not always tactical awareness. He might even get more of a chance at left back in the future.

poll by twiigs.com

Returning from an uneventful stint in France, DC United's 2008 second round draft choice Andrew Jacobson played well when given the opportunity to fill in for Olsen or Simms in central midfield. Jacobson also demonstrated that he has the ability to shoot a heluva long ball, but needs to work on his accuracy (8 shots, 1 shot on goal).

poll by twiigs.com

Devon McTavish saw time as a right wing, central midfielder, and central defender this year, but didn't really catch on as a regular player in any of these roles. While he's never been mistaken for the most physically skilled player on the field, McTavish is an asset for his versatility, and has always had a knack for getting himself into good positions, while making very few mistakes defensively.

poll by twiigs.com

The former fourth overall draft pick John DiRaimondo did little to impress for United while playing in early Open Cup matches and earning just 45 minutes of MLS action. On the plus side, he did score the game winning goal for the Richmond Kickers in the USL-2 championship match. Is it possible that he'll be spending even more time with them next year?

poll by twiigs.com

Past, present, and future

I've always intended for DCUMD to be more of a community for United fans than just a guy writing a blog.  We've seen this space morph from a blog that was supposed to cover the connection between DCU and UMD into a blog that is pretty much exclusively related to DC United.  Recently I've found myself writing fewer opinion pieces and spending more time on tracking the way the team evolves over the year.  We've also introduced some new features designed to bring more fans into the picture.  Going into my fourth season of blogging, I'm anticipating further evolution.

Next week, we'll be moving one step closer to being a fan community by bringing in some guest bloggers to give a different take on the team/league.  Two fans and frequent commenters have already stepped up to volunteer, and there may be the opportunity for more fans to get involved in the future.  If you've got something to say about the team that is too long to fit in the comments section, just shoot me an email.

On a separate yet also sort of related note, I will be away next week for a family function and then a short cruise around the Bahamas.  But tune in tomorrow for the next episode of River or Life.

RIVER OR LIFE: Attacking midfielders

We've covered the forwards, and we've covered the front office. Heck, our front office results actually have been 100% correct so far, with Tom Soehn leaving the team and Kasper and Payne set to return. We'll have to wait a while to find out if our forward results are correct, but in the meantime, let's see what everyone has to say about our attacking midfielders.

Just remember, a vote for River means that you want the player banished from DC, and a vote for Life means you hope to see the player back next year.

The biggest question before the season was whether Christian Gomez would be more like his usual self in United uniform, when he used to earn around 10 goals and 10 assists every year, or more like himself the year before in a Rapids unifom, when he earned only 3 goals and 6 assists. The answer was somewhere in between.

poll by twiigs.com

Santino Quaranta started the season fast with 5 assists in the first third of the season, and earned a return to the US National Team picture with an appearance in the Gold Cup. But he faded later in the year, and injury forced his season to an early end.

poll by twiigs.com

The MLS Rookie of the Year candidate Chris Pontius was tied for the team lead in games played, but more importantly, he also won the prestigious Benny Award for the highest average player rating on this blog.

poll by twiigs.com

Scoring just 2 goals and 4 assists in each of the past two seasons, Fred has found the MLS to be a bit more difficult than Australia's A-League. Fred is a talented player who has never really fit into DC United's system. Hard to say whether or not that's really his fault though.

poll by twiigs.com

One of the few benefits of finishing so poorly in 2008 was that we received an allocation slot high enough to acquire Danny Szetela when he returned to the league mid-season. Szetela had an apparent falling out with the coaching staff and only had limited playing time, mostly outside of league play.

poll by twiigs.com

DC's third round draft pick Brandon Barklage had a very promising start to his MLS career, scoring goals in two consecutive Open Cup matches, and looking good in relief of Gomez as a central attacking midfielder in his 4 brief MLS appearances, before falling to injury.

poll by twiigs.com

Ely Allen was selected in the second round by the Galaxy and started 11 matches for them last season. This former U-18 National Team player didn't see any time in MLS this season, but did have a few appearances in the Champions League.

poll by twiigs.com

Remembering Tom Soehn

I've been a little bit surprised by some of the fan reactions we've seen over the past few days since the announced departure of Tom Soehn as head coach of DC United.  The most common sentiment has been "Thanks for your service", which is nice, but maybe not entirely genuine coming from the same people who were writing (and probably chanting at games) "FIRE SOEHN" so frequently in the past.

The truth is that most of us probably feel somewhat bittersweet and conflicted by the Soehn move.  While Soehn had very few ardent supporters among United fans this year, it still sort of feels like we're losing a member of our family.  And that's what Tom Soehn was for the past six years.  So even though I was in favor of the team finding a different coach rather than continuing on with Soehn, I also think we'd all agree that the team could have done a lot worse than Tom Soehn over the last three years.

Because if you get down to it, Soehn actually did some things pretty damn well.  There are a good number of players who are better today than on the first day they put on a United uniform.  I'm not sure how much of that is due specifically to Soehn, but I think that the talents of Chris Pontius and Rodney Wallace would have been wasted on some other teams.  Or how about Clyde Simms, who went from an occasional starter to a vital part of our midfield under Soehn's watch?  Or how about Marc Burch, who went from a reserve forward to a decent starting left back by MLS standards? (flame away)  You may even be able to make an argument that Soehn did the best he could with the players he was given.  The GM gives you too many forwards/CAMs and not enough wingers?  Convert Fred/Quaranta/Pontius to wingers then!

But along with Tom Soehn's player development success also came tactical failures.  The writing may have been on the wall even before the season that 2009 wasn't going to be a good year when players were saying that the reason the team was going to play a three-man back-line was because they weren't communicating well enough to play with four defenders.  Soehn persisted in using a 3-5-2 lineup far too often, even when playing on the road against quicker teams who were specifically built to exploit that kind of formation.

Soehn's inability to establish a regular starting 11 also held the team back.  Certainly that would have been difficult this year anyway with the multiple competitions and some unfortunate injuries, but even down to the very end, I don't think Soehn ever really had a sense of who his best 11 were.  Soehn waits until the very last match of the season in a must-win situation to give Danny Szetela his first league start?  Over a well rested Ben Olsen?  I often criticized him for giving Jaime Moreno so few starts, despite him finishing the season with only 1 goal less than our leading scorer, but there are many other examples of poor lineup choices over the course of the year.  Which isn't even to mention his recurring and now infamous pre-halftime substitutions, which must been instituted to intentionally demoralize his players.

Was Tom Soehn more bad than good as head coach?  That's hard to say.  But I think the mixed emotions that so many of us have been feeling points to the fact that he was some of each.  Soehn is sure to get another opportunity to be a head coach in the future, and he'll probably do better in a situation with less pressure from fans and fewer conflicting competitions.  For DC United though, it's time to move on and find a head coach that will continue to fill our trophy case.

RIVER OR LIFE: The forwards

The first round of River or Life with the DC United front office has gone pretty much as expected so far, with Tom Soehn just 0% Life, Dave Kasper over 50% but not convincingly, and Kevin Payne somewhere between 50 and 100. Now let's see where the forwards on the roster stand.

The thing about playing River or Life is that its somewhat up to the voter's discretion how you want to interpret the two choices, and I think that's going to come into play for a lot of us with some of these forwards. For example, if you think that the team should retain Luciano Emilio but only at a substantially decreased salary from his 2009 earnings, is that a vote for River or a vote for Life? That's totally up to you. Just remember in general, voting Life means that you want the player back with the team next year, and voting River means that you don't want to see him in a United jersey any more.

Since winning the MVP award in his first season in MLS, Luciano Emilio has failed to approach the 20 goal mark that he set in 2007. His 11 goals last year and 10 this year still make him the highest scoring player on the team, but it's questionable whether or not United has been earning a high enough return from Emilio to justify his $750,000 yearly salary.

poll by twiigs.com

The team captain Jaime Moreno constinues to be one of the most visionary players in the league, and even though his playing time has decreased substantially, Moreno's 9 goals and 3 assists seem to indicate that he's not done yet. This 14 year veteran is eager to return to the team for at least one more season.

poll by twiigs.com

After a promising start to his MLS career in 2008, Boyzzz Khumalo's 2009 season was unfortunately shortened due to a nasty wrist injury. He hasn't quite been able to nail down a regular starting role with the team yet, but has looked good at times playing mostly as a substitute either at forward or on the right wing.

poll by twiigs.com

Ange N'Silu started the 2009 season strong with United, earning a goal and an assist in some early appearances filling in for Moreno or Emilio, but he faded pretty quickly from the team's plans, due most likely to his apparent lack of teamwork with other players. Many of us continue to question the team's decision to let Francis Doe depart in favor of N'Silu for roughly the same salary.

poll by twiigs.com

Tiyi Shipalane won a spot on the United roster late in the season after impressing the coaching staff when playing against us with the Harrisburg City Islanders in the Open Cup. He didn't get much of a chance to establish himself since joining the team on loan, but his speed and creativity could give the team a different attacking style from what we are used to seeing.

poll by twiigs.com

Revisiting the ADRs

When posting the 2009 ADRs earlier this week, I asked what jumped out at you. Well here's some questions that jumped out at me:

1. Is Dejan Jakovic really all that good? The biggest surprise for me on the whole was Jakovic's even 3.00 rating. After winning three Benny Awards, you would have thought his rating would be among the best on the team. But in reality, a mediocre rating is probably appropriate for the leader of the United defense that gave up more goals than 10 other MLS teams.

2. Why can't we manage to secure a decent goalkeeper? Outside of Steve Cronin's quality performance at the very end of the season, the three goalkeepers that saw action for United in 2009 didn't fair too well on average. And this seems to be a continuing problem, as this is the second year in a row where we didn't have one regular starting goalkeeper earn higher than a 3.00 ADR.

3. How long will Chris Pontius stay in MLS? Pontius's 4.19 ADR led the team among regulars, and is the highest score we've seen from any player in the two years I've been doing this. Surely European clubs, as well as the USMNT, will start to take notice of his talents soon.

4. I guess Brandon Barklage should be our starting CAM next season? Well no. Reader DM pointed out in the comments section that we shouldn't read too much into any ADR with less than 5 ratings, and I agree. But Barklage's perfect 5.00 ADR from 2 ratings tells us that at the very least, he should be invited back to training camp next year to compete for a developmental roster contract (not just cut in the offseason like the team did to every one of its rookies last year).

5. Weren't Jaime Moreno and Ben Olsen supposed to deteriorate this season? Because they didn't. Moreno's 3.62 and Olsen's 3.73 are still well above average. Both have said that they want to return to the team next season, and I see no reason why not.

2009 ADRs

Contrary to popular belief, I don't give player ratings each game just for fun. I also use these ratings to formulate the yearly Annual DCUMD Ratings, or ADRs. Each Top Shelf is worth 5 points, each Call is worth 3, and each Rail is worth 1.

Soehn C R C C R T T R T R C R R R T R R (2.41)

Crayton T R R T (3.00)
Cronin T T C (4.33)
Kocic T C C T C R C R T R (3.00)
Wicks R C C T C T T C R C R C R T R C R T (2.89)

Burch R C T C T R T R C C R T R R C (2.73)
Habarugira C R (2.00)
Jakovic C R C C C C T T R C R R T T (3.00)
James C C T R R C T R T C T (3.18)
Janicki T C R R C R R C R (2.11)
John C R R C T (2.60)
McTavish C R C T C T T (3.57)
Namoff T T T C C C C T T T R (3.91)
Vaughn T R R (2.33)

Allen C R R (1.67)
Barklage T T (5.00)
DiRaimondo C R C R (2.00)
Fred R T T R T T R R T C T C R T C C (3.25)
Gomez R R C T R T C T T T T T T T R C R R T T R (3.38)
Jacobson C R T R C R R R C C T T (2.67)
Olsen T C T T R C C T T R T (3.73)
Pontius T T C T C T C T R T R T T T C T T C T T T C T (4.13)
Quaranta T C T T C T R C T C T R T C (3.71)
Simms T R R R T T T C T T C T T T (3.86)
Szetela T C R C R (2.60)
Wallace C C C R C R T C R C T T C R C T T R (3.00)

Emilio R T T T R T R T R T C T R T C C T C T R C (3.38)
Khumalo T T R C R T T R (3.25)
Moreno R T T T R T T C C R T C T (3.62)
N'Silu T R R T (3.00)
Shipalane R C (2.00)

Anything interesting jump out at you?