DC United tie vs LA Galaxy, 0-0

If I was going to look at our remaining schedule and pick one match that would probably end scoreless, this would not have been it. You know the league has got to hate when two of its marquee teams finish with a scoreless draw. I certainly expected a couple of goals once the match seemed to open up late in the first half, but some good defending combined with quality performances from two of the lesser known goalkeepers in the league preserved clean sheets for each team.

But should it have been a scoreless draw? The offside call which disallowed a goal by Emilio from Fred early on looked too close to call for me. And then there was the shove on Emilio midway through the second half, which could have easily been called a PK. Maybe Geiger didn't have a great view, but if the side judge sees outstretched arms by the defender, he's got to call the penalty. I also rewound the tape a couple of times to confirm that in the 84th minute there was definitely a handball from Miglioranzi in the box. DCU could have scored 2-3 goals with a more lenient referee.


1. Bryan Namoff made two sliding saves, had a couple good steals, and almost scored with his head on a corner kick. He seemed to be in Donovan's head a bit too.

2. A couple good late saves from Josh Wicks to keep this one scoreless. If nothing else, I hope that shutting out Donovan and Beckham gives our defense some confidence.


1. Santino Quaranta looked like the best attacker on the field for most of the match, and that includes Donovan.

2. I have a feeling that some fans are going to criticize Luciano Emilio for this match, but keep in mind that he could have scored 1 goal and set up 1 penalty kick had the referees been watching the game more closely instead of admiring Beckham's good looks.


1. Rodney Wallace was the worst of the 3 national champion Terps on the field tonight. Sullivan said late in the match that Wallace has had a lot of chances from the wing. But very few of those chances resulted in shots on goal.

Speaking of Sullivan, I have to admit that he and Bretos did a pretty good job announcing this match impartially and without blunder, which is a bit rare, but a nice improvement over the terrible Christian Miles from the Marathon match.

So where does that leave us? Still out of the playoffs for now, but I'm not too discouraged quite yet. DC has 29 points, which puts them in 9th place overall. But they are only 1 point behind Toronto, Chivas, and Colorado who each have 30. Toronto is a good team, but I've got to think that Chivas and Colorado are going to fade at some point, and with 5 of our final matches at RFK where we're still undefeated, I still think United has a good chance of making the playoffs. But before we can continue with the regular season, we first have a midweek home match against Toluca, and then of course the Open Cup Final next Wednesday!