Award 7: The Harkesy

By definition, the Harkesy award goes to the United player who has demonstrated outstanding leadership ability. The award's namesake John Harkes is known as Captain For Life. Not only was he our team's first captain, but he was literally our team's first player.

1. United's captain this year is Jaime Moreno, and although Jaime is not the typical in-your-face Beckham style captain, I think he gets his point across. Moreno is usually cool and collected, and leads by example with his level of dedication and work ethic.

2. The other nominal leader of the team is the coach Tom Soehn. Soehn guided the team to a US Open Cup win (it's so easy to forget that). But his tactics and lineups this year have sometimes been questioned, and some indications late in the year may point to a theory that Soehn has maybe lost the support of his players.

3. Despite playing for a very short amount of time, a major leader in our locker room is Ben Olsen. One of my favorite memories of this club this year was the week that United announced the signings of Gallardo and los Gonzalos, Olsen took the group to see a Washington Wizards game as a sort of bonding experience. On and off the field, Olsen is our leader and our talisman.

4. It's not really worth even putting anyone else on here, is it? Early in the year I had Peralta penciled in as a nominee because he was a vocal leader in the defense, and I even considered adding Crayton. Gallardo, Emilio, and Simms have all worn the armband at some point this year, but really no one else is going to beat the above three for votes. If you disagree, please let me hear it in the comments.

poll by twiigs.com

(the 2008 Benny Awards)

I'll be back probably tomorrow with something on the games from last week.

Award 6: The Freddy

By definition, the Freddy award goes to the player who created the biggest story this year. Not necessarily as a distraction, but just a story that created a lot of buzz and got people talking about the team. The award's namesake Freddy Adu was easily the biggest story for MLS as a whole in the 2004 season. Even though he was never a regular starter for United, he will always remain a part of the team's history as the youngest player ever to play a professional sport in the US at age 14.

The best piece of soccer journalism this season was Steve Goff's piece on Santino Quaranta and his past struggles with drug addiction. This article was mentioned numerous times during United broadcasts on television. My favorite part of the article was about how Olsen and Moreno vouched for Quaranta and convinced the front office to give him another chance. Quaranta's play this year has shown that he deserved it.

Another big story this season revolved around Ben Olsen's ankles, but most of all, his only 15 minutes played this year, emerging to a standing ovation from a packed RFK Stadium. This brief appearance inspired a blog post by Dan Steinberg, which was eventually blown to new proportions with weeks of arguing between soccer fans and elitist fans of other sports. This was followed up eventually by an above-the-fold front cover WaPo Sports story comparing the TV ratings of United and the Nationals.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the theme of the season, which was bringing in foreign acquisitions to replace proven quantities at several positions, highlighted most by the replacement of Christian Gomez with Marcelo Gallardo. This season has of course had its share of highs and lows which, coincidentally or not, also tend to follow the pattern of Gallardo's injuries.

Another underlying theme would be the trials and tribulations of Tom Soehn as head coach of United. There were pleas from United fans to fire Soehn up until around week 8 (not the least of which came from this blog). Soehn then helped rally the troops as they enjoyed a 6 game winning streak, but then has since hit rock bottom once again, with his job remaining in jeopardy going into the final 3 weeks of the regular season.

poll by twiigs.com

(the 2008 Benny Awards)

Award 5: The Grosy

By definition, the Grosy Award goes to the player with the most cajones. In general, the nominees for this award are players who aren't afraid to play through injury and leave it all on the field. The award's namesake Josh Gros was famous for his work rate, and his career with DC United has seemingly ended way too soon, thanks to the numerous concussions he'd received throughout his time here. Gros's energy and consistency has been sorely missed this season.

1. The only United player to wear any head protection this season was Bryan Namoff. His reputation as the team's "Iron Man" makes him a strong candidate. Or maybe this is all just an excuse for me to link this picture again.

2. Santino Quaranta is another guy who has played through pain multiple times this year. He's spent most of the season with a cast on at least one of his arms, and even finished one recent match with a bloody sock. Tino returned to DC this year as a kind of polarizing figure, but his heart has never been questioned.

3. Team newcomer Ivan Guerrero is nominated purely due to one play in a match earlier this season, in which Guerrero lunged to cross a ball that was about to go out of play for a corner. Quaranta wound up scoring on the cross. Guerrero wound up falling into the advertising boards and injuring himself.

4. Despite participating in only 15 minutes of action all season, Ben Olsen certainly deserves a nomination for playing through injury. As the team's emotional leader, Olsen displayed a bit of bravery that a lot of other players on this team could learn a lot from, and those 15 minutes may have been the high point of the season.

poll by twiigs.com

(the 2008 Benny Awards)

Open for business

With United's Open Cup debut scheduled for tomorrow evening at the Maryland SoccerPlex, the coaching staff has some really interesting roster decisions to make. Last year, United took a Harrisburg Islanders squad way too lightly, and supposedly have learned their lesson. Even though the Rochester Rhinos are currently struggling in USL, DC should take this opportunity to earn a Champions League birth seriously. Although I can't say I'm too fearful of the Rhinos' lineup. Their "star" player/coach Steve Guppy is suspended due to a red card, and I double checked to make sure that the Ze Roberto listed on the team isn't the same Brazilian national we've all heard of and didn't just transfer to the team from Bayern Munich.

So with Rochester's lack of form in mind, along with the idea of taking the Cup serious for once, I thought we'd take a look at United's roster options. This is not a tournament that United should roll out a full Reserve squad, but then again THEY CAN'T. In Reserve division matches, the team has the luxury of utilizing "guest players" not currently on the roster, but for official matches like this one, the team can only use players currently under contract. With only 9 players from the Developmental roster available, DC will clearly need to mix in at least 9 of the Senior roster regulars. Goff has confirmed that Moreno and Quaranta will not be available, but Olsen and Mediate probably will, and so will newly signed Craig Thompson. (No, I can't believe I just linked BS.)

Here are the up-to-date options then for tomorrow night: Barlow, Burch, Fred, P. Carroll, Carvallo, Cordeiro, Doe, Dyachenko, Emilio, Gallardo, Kirk, Martinez, McTavish, Mediate, Murphy, Namoff, Olsen, Peralta, Simms, Stratford, Thompson, Thorpe, Wells, Zaher. Soehn's choices could say a lot about where he feels some of these players are at. Does he choose to start the highly paid Quavas Kirk in this match, or keep using him only in the safety of the Reserve division? Do we dare give another start to the recently demoted Jose Carvallo? Is it worth risking further injury to Ben Olsen just to get him some field time? Are rookies Jeremy Barlow, Pat Carroll, Dane Murphy, or Mike Zaher worthy of their first appearances with the first team?

Here's my proposed starting lineup with a mixture of the regular starting XI with a healthy portion of developing talent:

---------------Wells--------------
Namoff-McTavish-Mediate-Burch
Kirk-Dyachenko-Stratford-Cordeiro
--------Emilio------Doe------------

Subs: Pat Carroll for Namoff. Zaher for Burch (or Murphy for McTavish). Barlow for Emilio.
Bench players not used: Carvallo, Murphy, Simms, Thompson

The worst thing about this match though is that for some inexplicable reason, it will apparently not be shown on USLlive.com like the Wizards/RailHawks, Dynamo/Battery, and Chivas/Sounders matches. Really unfortunate. Which is making me ponder the long drive up to Germantown. Anyone else going?

The win they needed

After a couple of underwhelming victories the past few weeks, this win was just what United needed to not only continue their unbeaten streak, but also gain some confidence going into Superliga. Recently, United has been beating lesser opponents while giving up too many goalscoring opportunities. But in this match, against inarguably one of the most talented offensive teams in the league, DC dominated possession, dominated the scoreline, and performed admirably well on defense. United struggled early in the year in international play, but after this big win in a great atmosphere over a good team, the team may finally be ready to make something happen in Superliga.


1. Luciano Emilio extends his goal scoring streak to 5 games by adding another 2. Now with 10 goals on the year, Emilio is back on pace to score 20 for the second year in a row, and is tied with Buddle for 2nd place in the league. With Donovan likely to miss a good bit of time on national team duty, Emilio should now be considered the favorite to win the Golden Boot for the second straight year.

2. What a perfect cross to assist Emilio on his first goal by Marc Burch. I gave him a hard time in my review last week, but in this match, when Quaranta left the pitch and Fred moved to the right, DC was able to take advantage of LA on the left side moreso with Burch than they had with Fred. Burchie was also just an inch or two away from a free kick score that rattled the crossbar.

3. It was disappointing to see Santino Quaranta come out after 25 minutes of fantastic soccer. He earned the penalty kick in the 5th minute, and made several great runs in his short time, and also made a good stop on defense. There was a very noticeable drop-off in play on the right side once Quaranta departed and Fred moved over.

4. Props to Tommy Soehn for rolling out his top lineup and using his substitutes I thought much more effectively than LA.


1. Although they all made some key stops during the match, I think any one of Zach Wells, Gonzalo Peralta, or Devon McTavish could have done better to stop Buddle's goal. Wells looked confident making some great saves, and for the first time looked like a decent starting keeper. Peralta's whiffed clearance and McTavish's inability to get a touch were the main causes of the goal, but Wells could have reacted a bit sooner too. This defense was just inches away from their first clean sheet, and it would have been wonderful to earn it against the top scoring team in the league.

2. Marcelo Gallardo was largely uninvolved for most of the first half, at least at times when he wasn't smacking Donovan in the nose. By the way, shouldn't ABC have done better to dump out Landon's cursing? Anyway, Gallardo redeemed himself later in the match with a well-taken goal.


1. In my love of creating controversy, I'm going to put Fred down here today. This was his second match in a row that I think he underperformed. My comments about Burch and Quaranta above show clearly that Fred was the weakest link on the wings in this match. His assist to Emilio's second goal was well-placed, but I think Emilio could have had a hat trick today had Fred played the ball across the front of the goal to him instead of taking a weak shot right at Cronin earlier in the second half.

With this win, United moves solidly into the playoffs, now sitting in third place in MLS with 22 points. But more importantly, they are now beaming with confidence, ready to go on a run in Superliga, and are once again finally a reasonable candidate to win the Supporters' Shield. Also, how great was it to see our talisman Ben Olsen running around on the pitch again? And so unexpected. I'm curious to see how Soehn will use Olsen in the Open Cup match on Tuesday.

With this match being shown on national TV before the Euro final, with the obvious draw of David Beckham, I bet that DC United earned a lot of new fans across the country today. People who tuned in to see Donovan and Beckham didn't see very much of them in the second half, did they?. Any fan of the sport who isn't necessarily a big MLS fan who watched this match saw two good teams, but only one team good enough to pull off the victory, and only one team that fought hard for 90 minutes instead of giving up after 75.

Outplayed and outcoached

I'm slowly starting to calm down enough to admit that that was a pretty exciting and fast-paced game. But for United it was again a tale of two very different halves. Or maybe I should say a tale of the first 30 minutes and the last 60 minutes. Preki made tactical changes at halftime that clearly worked. Tom Soehn made the tactical change of deciding to sit back and try to preserve a 1-0 victory for 60 minutes against a team with some good attacking players. He decided that it would be best to play a possession game, even though his possessing midfielder wasn't 100%.


1. I considered leaving this space blank again, but Marcelo Gallardo does deserve some recognition for his goal. He's still learning to play with the 'Merricons around him. Which is hard to do when you're on the ground most of the match. Although Blanco doesn't seem to have the same problem.


1. At the end of the first half, I thought that Gonzalo Martinez was having his best game of the season. The 4-4-2 formation was really allowing him to use his speed to get forward into the midfield. He was aggressive as hell and held his own against Harris for most of the match. But he missed a crucial stop on Chivas's second goal, which could have cost the team the match, and I'm not sure that he crossed the center line once in the second half.

2. After being specifically called out by management and the coaching staff last week, I thought Santino Quaranta put out a much stronger and more energetic performance tonight.


1. Domenic Mediate looked like... well... he looked like a right midfielder who was forced to play center back. I guess we shouldn't have expected much better? I was really disappointed to see Mediate standing around with his hand up calling for offsides on the third goal instead of marking his man. I hate that! Does a player calling for offsides ever actually influence a referee?

2. I really think that we might need to put to rest the idea of bringing in Rod Dyachenko as the first substitute in midfield every match. All year he has looked to be one second too slow every time he has to make a decision. This leads to a lot of fouls and a lot of giveaways. I understand that Gallardo isn't fit enough yet to go 90 minutes, but I'm at the point where I'd rather see Stratford than Dyachenko.

3. I was all ready to come on here and give Tom Soehn props for putting together a good starting lineup that played really pretty well for 30 minutes. But that's about as far as it went. Because the tactical decision to sit back and defend a single goal lead has NEVER WORKED in this league.

So we might as well start the countdown. If this persists, and there's no reason to believe that anything will change over the next few days, it will be exactly one week from today that Tom Soehn will be out of a job. That's Sunday May 25. And that will already be too late.

One more thing... All of the fouling on Gallardo isn't going to stop anytime soon. And that's because the opposing teams know that they can get away with it. That would NEVER happen with Ben Olsen on the field! Atiba Harris's second foul on Gallardo wouldn't have happened, because Olsen would have already shoved him to the ground after the first foul. We need a player to step up and fill that enforcer role. Early in the year it looked like that would be Peralta, and sometimes I think that it might be Burch, but he draws yellow cards too easily.

Ugh. It's hard to lay your heart on the line for a team that doesn't have one.

Legs, thighs, and breasts, but no wings

So Goff reported from practice yesterday that with the potential absence of Peralta, United will be switching back to a 4-4-2 for the match tomorrow night in LA. I guess the thought of Domenic Mediate as his lone center back in a 3-5-2 was enough to force Tom Soehn to face reality. But with Marc Burch moving to the back line, and with Fred still gimpy, Goff is also reporting that rookie Ryan Cordeiro may get his first start at left midfield.

Loyal readers should already know my thoughts on Cordeiro. Along with Stratford and Zaher, Cordeiro has been among the most impressive players I've seen on the Reserve squad. He's left-footed, he's got decent crossing ability, and he can even shoot from the outside. Others have pointed out that he's likely to lose the ball a couple times each match, but similar to Quaranta, Cordeiro has got the energy and the heart to chase down opponents to try to win the ball back.

But the idea of starting a rookie has got me thinking… How many wingers does DC really have on their roster? Or maybe a better way to ask this would be… If you were to put every player on United's roster in their BEST position, how many of them would be playing on the wing?

I'd say that given his production last year, Ben Olsen's best position is on the wing, but you can't really include him in this discussion due to his injuries. Fred's preferred position is clearly CAM. Santino Quaranta is best as a withdrawn forward. Devon McTavish might be best on the wing, but he's also a pretty damn good central defender, so that might be a toss-up. I think Marc Burch is better at left back than left wing. Mediate's a utility guy who can play in many different spots, so his best position *might* be on the wing, but it's hard to say. Gallardo, Dyachenko, and Simms all definitely are better off in the middle.

Did I miss anybody? That's the entire senior roster midfield, and not one besides Olsen is definitively a true winger. Maybe McTavish, and maybe Mediate, but keep in mind that both of these guys are earning only the senior roster minimum salary. When is United going to start spending money on the wings? In the offseason they spent a lot of money in central defense, central midfield, and up top, but not a dime out wide. Obviously the team didn't know the severity of Olsen's injury at the time, but surely it was obvious to all of us that Olsen couldn't have more than a couple years left, and his history of injuries has always been troubling. Even if they didn't know that Olsen would be out the whole year or most of the year, the front office should be smart enough to realize that he was never going to be able to play 30 games. So despite Olsen's injury history, and despite the loss of Josh Gros, the front office's solution to our deficiency of wingers was to draft Ryan Cordeiro and acquire a 20 year old developmental project in Quavas Kirk?

I'm starting to lose faith.

But still. If only because of Chivas's ineptitude in defense, I'm predicting our first road goal, but not our first clean sheet. I'm gonna go with a 1-1 draw tomorrow, with United's goal coming from the run of play from a poaching Jaime Moreno.

Ben Olsen on Elliot

Ben Olsen gave an interview on Elliot in the Morning yesterday. Not quite as many juicy tidbits as Burch's interview, but still totally quality stuff:

On his ankles: "The right one turned out alright and the left one I had to go in again. And we're trying not to go in again, we're trying to look at other options, see what's going on. And it's frustrating when you don't know why you can't run, and doctors don't know why you can't run, so we're kinda scrambling right now... In the past I've been at fault for playing through things and then hurting it worse. I'd like to think my pain tolerance is pretty high, especially in my ankle since I've dealt with pain there for so long. You know if something's not right. I tried to run a couple times and it started getting worse. I actually tried to play a little bit and it put me out for a couple days with pain, not being able to walk really well. I'm pretty sure something's wrong. I'm going crazy. I want to get back as quick as possible, but there's no sense doing it if you can't run."

On Zach Wells: "The poor kid's living in my basement. He's a southern California kid like most goalies."

On the new additions: "They've been great on the field so far. And they're great in the locker room. There's a lot of bad spanish being thrown around by the gringos."

On David Beckham: "My contract looks nothing like Beckham's. Not even a quarter of his."

And finally, on hair growth, and why he doesn't have any tattoos like some other guys on the team: "I've got enough on my body, hair-wise. I can't really do all that. I'll be too busy. I'm a hairy guy! I've got a nice David Haselhoff like hairy chest, ya know. I can't put any tattoos on there to make me look even crazier."

Marc Burch on the Junkies

Our boy Burchie gave an interview on the Junkies yesterday morning. Listen to it here (4/4, Segment 10) or download it here. For a transcript of Marc's previous interview with the Junkies, check out the Edgell archives.

Burch on Ben Olsen: "He could shave before he gets to practice and then by the time he leaves he's got a full grown beard. You don't really know, but I think he's been going for a little bit of the caveman look lately."

Burch on Santino Quaranta: "The one thing about Santino that I've learned is that he's not very bright."

Burch on his, um, *career*, at Maryland: EB asks if he "banged more lacrosse chicks, soccer chicks, or cheerleaders." Burch: "I think maybe a lot of the soccer chicks are doing the soccer chicks." But Marc does point out that the women's lacrosse team is probably the hottest at Maryland.

Burch on his salary: He tells the guys that his base salary this year is only $33,000 and unsurprisingly the Junkies are shocked. But Marc goes on to explain that the players also earn bonuses from tournaments, for each win, from Adidas, Nike. But... "If you suck like some of the teams you're not gonna make any more money."

And finally, back to Olsen: "He's got a nice house in DC. He drives a BMW."

Dev versus Dom versus Tino

On this the first actual week of DC United's 2008 campaign for international domination, we take a look at the probable starting lineup for the opening Champions' Cup match Wednesday against Harbour View.

Of the 11 starting roster slots, I think 10 are pretty much locked up, and the last 1 is only available due to the injury of our hero. Although Wells and Carvallo may rotate at times during the year, and Jaime Moreno probably shouldn't be counted on to start more than around 70% of our matches, there is really only one position where we have a truly open competition for the starting job, and that's at right midfield. Here are our top options:

Devon McTavish
Strengths:
1. Defensive ability - Although McTavish entered the league as a wide midfielder, and played there in college, his greatest asset for United has proven to be his quick reads on defense. Great tackler too.
2. Looks - With Bobby Boswell departed, Devon had within his grasp the title of most popular player among the ladies. That is until Santino came to town. Might this be the motivation that Devon needs to beat out Tino for this position?
Weaknesses:
1. Defensive ability - Like I said, McTavish's greatest asset is his defense. And as the club's only legitimate defender substitute, he might be more valuable on the sideline in a warmup suit, ready to enter at any time if there is an injury.
2. Offensive ability - McTavish remains unproven thus far in the wing position. In the few outings he had there last year, he wasn't overly impressive.

Dominic Mediate
Strengths:
1. He's a Terp - Obviously a huge strength when it comes to this blog.
2. Better at offense than McTavish
3. Better at defense than Quaranta
Weaknesses:
1. Worse at offense than Quaranta
2. Worse at defense than McTavish

Santino Quaranta - See this previous post

Those are the three possibilities that I think could get the job for the Harbour View match, but there are also some underdogs who could emerge as key Olsen substitutes as the year goes on. Justin Moose was our opening game starter at right wing last year, but he just barely made the team this year, so he's probably got a ways to go before cracking the top XI again. Although a few more performances like this and he'll be there quick. Quavas Kirk is another option, although I think Soehn is grooming him to be Namoff's backup instead (Who was it that predicted that?) I almost included Kirk in this post JUST so I could use one of his totally entertaining pictures from myspace.

So if I'm Tommy Soehn, I'm gonna play it safe and give the start to Dom this week. Quaranta could turn out to be the better player, but he's still only been with the club for a couple of scrimmages and I don't quite think he's earned it yet. But the outcome of the away leg could definitely affect who we start in the home leg. If we're behind, Tino gets the nod. If we're up, you might just see McT.

Osorio's notes

The following notes were obtained exclusively by DCUMD from Juan Carlos Osorio following the match last night.

Round 2... FIGHT!

So after several days of dealing with flooding in my basement, I'm finally ready to write about United again. (Why in Maryland do we have something like 59 days straight with no rain, and then it rains nonstop for three days? My sump pump and I are not happy about that.) Actually it was a pretty rough weekend altogether between United, the Redskins, and the basement.

But moving onto happier things, let's discuss how badly we are going to beat the Fire tonight. The entire A-squad should be healthy enough to start tonight, and with the atmosphere at RFK, I fully expect United to grab the series tying goal within the first 15 minutes. And the Fire will be forced to attack.

Trust me, Chicago does NOT want this match to go down to penalty kicks, because we have better shooters, and Troy Perkins is a beast and will dominate.

But they MIGHT want this match to be decided in the final 15 minutes of regular time, or in overtime. I think Chicago's counterattacking style lends itself to that sort of situation, because if United makes one mistake late in the game then the whole season could be over.

But I don't think this game will even get that far. I'm predicting the first goal to come early in the match when the teams are still feeling each other out. Probably coming from the wing: either Fred or Olsen. Then United will add two more goals in the second half, one to Luciano Emilio (who will be subbed out shortly afterward). And then… here's a shot in the dark… the third goal goes to either Marc Burch or Bobby Boswell at the back post to put away a Christian Gomez free kick. Chicago might strike on a late goal, but it won't matter, as United wins the match 3-1.

So that's what we call a finale?

A 3-2 loss at home would have been crushing earlier in the year, but let's not get too down on ourselves. We were without our best central defenseman Greg Vanney for 90 minutes, our biggest inspiration Jaime Moreno for 80 minutes, our lucky charm Clyde Simms for 40 minutes, our hardest working player Ben Olsen for 45 minutes, and our leading goal scorer Luciano Emilio for 40 minutes.

How great would it have been for Olsen to score that goal inside the six yard box with his head while LITERALLY sitting on his ass.

I've never heard of him before, but that Robbie Rogers kid is a stud, and would be a great addition to the DCU/UMD connection. I could see him as the heir-apparent to Olsen's spot on the right wing. One can only dream.

Regardless of two disappointing results at home in the final two matches of the season, DC United still owns the Supporters Shield, and should still be considered the favorite to win the MLS Cup.