DC United loss at New England, 2-1

This one hurts. Hurts more than any other match this year. Losing 1 point here because of a faux penalty call hurts worse than losing 2 points to LA Galaxy earlier in the year because of a faux penalty call. Maybe that's because it was to one of our fierce rivals who look to be making a push up the table now that Twellman is back, or maybe it's because we deserved much better here.

I don't agree with the conspiracy theorists that this match, along with the Chivas-Chicago match on Thursday, is a result of the league encouraging fewer ties. I just think that MLS referees suck in general. But I can tell you for sure that I had no idea I was writing a premonition about United in Fullback's blog earlier today when I wrote "It was a shame to see such a great match between probably the two best teams decided by a terrible penalty call." That was written about Chivas-Chicago, but the same applies here. This was a really exciting and entertaining match. But matches like that need to be settled on the field. Not from the penalty spot after a little bump.


1. I felt like I'd just stepped into a time machine and traveled back to 2008 watching the chemistry between Fred and Luciano Emilio. They set each other up multiple times throughout the night, including Emilio's assist on Fred's goal. And if the crossbar was set just two inches higher, we would have won 3-2 because each of these guys hit the post in the first half.

2. That was probably Rodney Wallace's best match as a pro. He had one diving header just barely kept out by Matt Reis, and turned in easily his best performance defensively. Hopefully Wallace has hit the turning point and will actually emerge as DC's "best two-way player" as he was referred to by Rongen.


1. Josh Wicks had another productive start, making some key saves, despite giving up two goals. This was another positive step towards earning a permanent spot in the starting lineup.


1. I didn't see much of the usual sizzle from Chris Pontius in this one, despite consistently good service from Burch. And where was he on Shalrie Joseph's goal? Was he sprinting to keep up with Kenny Mansally so he wouldn't be able to get a quality cross off? No. He was jogging, and then stopped once he got to Ralston (who was already marked well by Jakovic) instead of running with Mansally.

2. Andrew Jacobson had a pretty good first half, but I would expect that from a defensive midfielder with the lineup that Nicol put out. He made it way too easy for Shalrie Joseph to score though on the first goal. Not only did Jacobson fail to mark up when Joseph should have been his man, but he actually knocked Wicks out of the way in the process.

3. I actually liked the starting lineup from Tom Soehn. It was nice for him to give Fred a chance at CAM again for the first time in around a year. But he was probably too late to make adjustments once New England brought in Kenny Mansally. We were getting beat nonstop by Mansally and Nyassi. I was thinking it would be good timing to switch to a 4-4-2 and bring in Janicki or McTavish as another central defender. Or how about Khumalo for Pontius to add a bit more speed on the wing? Soehn was right to make a change when he did, but a straight swap of McTavish for Jacobson and N'Silu for Emilio wasn't enough.

We can blame the referees all we want, but we need to look in the mirror a little bit as well here. A recurring theme this season seems to be a failure to punish our opponents by scoring more than just one goal when we're clearly the better team. It happened against Chicago, and now it's happened twice against New England.

Late breaking news! I just saw a replay again of the penalty call on FSC and Bretos seemed to think it was called a handball, not a foul. Rewinding and sure enough, the ball may have hit Jakovic's arm. I still feel like it's a crap call to hand the game to New England on a silver platter with a PK in the 90th minute on an unintentional handling, but it doesn't hurt quite as bad anymore.

DC United tie vs NE Revolution, 1-1

I'm having a real hard time figuring out how to feel about this tie. The ending kind of makes it feel like a win. I can tell you with certainty that that was the loudest I've yelled at my tv this year with Benny scoring a goal in extra time. But apparently the recurring theme of the season to date is earning ties against teams that we are better than.

In the first 45 minutes, we had an absurd amount of possession in New England's half of the field. And unless you're Kenny Cooper, it's pretty hard to score when you can't even get the ball across the halfway line. United was better than the Revolution in every aspect of the field. Except for coaching, and except for goalkeeping. We'll get into each of those more in the player ratings.


1. Our domination in the first half was due mostly to our midfield, led by Clyde Simms and Ben Olsen. It's no coincidence that we ceased to dominate midfield in the second half when Simms came out. Olsen's fire and heart earned us a point in this match. I would pay good money to have heard exactly what Olsen said to Thompson after the goal. Whatever it was, it better have ended with either "boy" or "son".

2. This looked like Jaime Moreno's best match of the season. Even when playing the final 20 minutes with an injury, Moreno became the first player in league history to score 100 goals and 100 assists, and will probably be the only player to do that in the next 20 years.


1. Chris Pontius continues to find himself in excellent scoring position multiple times per match. But he needs to spend all of the next week practicing his finishing. Harkes is right - low to the far post.

2. I'm still unsure on where I stand on Christian Gomez. The team did a much better job at getting him the ball in this match, but his passes were just a step behind too often. Despite this, he created many good opportunities. Christian is good, but he could be better.

3. Contrasting with the first game of the season, Rodney Wallace had a good first half, and a poor second half. And there was a good reason for that. Wallace played on the left wing in the first, and at left back in the second. Even though he played left back in college at Maryland, he seems better in the midfield where his attacking skills can be utilized without exposing his inexperience in defense.


1. Kenny Mansally was Wallace's man, and Shalrie Joseph was Andrew Jacobson's man on New England's goal. Both were open. Jacobson didn't do much after entering for Simms in the second half.

2. I wrote the same thing about Zach Wells last season. Louis Crayton isn't usually at fault specifically on the goals that are scored on him, but that doesn't mean that he shouldn't occassionally save some of them. The Revs only had one good scoring opportunity all game, and they converted on it. Meanwhile, the other side had a keeper who's only started 2 games previously in the MLS, went undrafted two years go, and he came up with several difficult stops.

3. I'm not anywhere close to jumping on the "Fire Soehn" bandwagon yet this season, but I think Tom Soehn cost us two points tonight. The substitution of Jacobson for Simms was unfortunate, but may have been necessary due to Clyde's illness. But subbing out Marc Burch for Santino Quaranta at half time is inexcusable for a lot of reasons. First, it forced Wallace to play a position (left back) that he has never played as a pro. The 3-5-2 can only be effective when the back 3 act as a cohesive unit. That doesn't typically happen when one of them is playing out of position. Secondly, it left us with only one substitute remaining for the final 45 minutes with Gomez, Moreno, and Olsen all still in the match. And thirdly, after dominating the midfield in the second half, why change 40% of your midfield? Hindsight is 20/20, but I would also argue that Devon McTavish would have been a better addition than Jacobson. Lastly, Francis Doe singlehandedly won our last match against the Revs, and he wasn't even on the bench. When the team is struggling to score, Doe would make for a great second half sub.

While writing this post, I almost wrote "win" twice by mistake. So I guess it felt like a win. And after their first five games, DC United is sitting in the middle of the Eastern Conference, on the outskirts of playoff position. Not a terrible place to be, and pretty much just what we expected, but I can't help but think we could do so much better. Next week, we'll take a look back and introduce a new feature to the blog to put the season to date in a different perspective.