Reserves fall to 1-1

On an ugly rainy day, the DC United reserves suffered their first loss of the season to a Chicago team that was able to keep the ball in United's half for probably about 65% of what I saw. I only caught the last 30 minutes or so. Better turn out of fans than I was expecting with all the rain and the lack of confidence in the first team. I was actually standing in the pavillion right behind Chicago coach Denis Hamlett. Not quite sure why he was sitting on the bench on the crowd side rather than with his players on the far side. Tom Soehn was man enough to hang out in the rain, why wasn't Hamlett? He was a pretty quiet guy though. Didn't say much aside from a couple "Let's gos".

I didn't see enough of the match to write a full breakdown (if you want, you can find that over here), but I will say that United might have a pretty promising future on the left flank with Mike Zaher and Ryan Cordeiro. Zaher's main role was marking the speedy Calen Carr, which he did well, with just a bit of help from Jeremy Barlow at times. And the two best scoring chances I saw both came from Cordeiro. One was a shot from outside the box that went just high, and the other was a nice cross from the left that just missed Dane Murphy.

Danny Strats was wearing the captain's armband, and was involved in just about every play from his center midfield spot. I saw him break up several plays on defense, including one header on a corner kick. Jeff Curtin was conspicuous by his absense. Francis Doe was very unimpressive. Dare I say that this team really missed Rod?