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

DC United win vs Marathon, 3-0

This win was exactly what we needed. Nothing will inspire confidence in a team fighting for playoff position like a multiple goal victory in which we were clearly the better team.

The offense is clicking, and oh yeah, that's 3 shutouts in our last 4 matches. With a makeshift backline at that. Is it possible that DC United is peaking at exactly the right time? In 2006 and 2007 we peaked too early and faded late in the regular season, only to bust out of the playoffs before advancing out of the Eastern Conference. With the talent that this team has up front, and with Jakovic and Burch both hopefully to return to the starting lineup on Sunday, I see no reason why we can't be one of the leading contenders to reach MLS Cup.


1. When Luciano Emilio is hot, he's hot. How's that for analysis? Within the first 10 minutes of the match, Luci was getting chances, but missing them. In the second half, he just didn't know how to miss. His first goal came from a well directed header off a John cross, and the final goal was all Emilio, beating the Marathon keeper 1v1.

2. I'm not sure if DC was poised to pull away in the second half already, but the insertion of Jaime Moreno couldn't have hurt. He got off to a slow start, but his goal was just classic Moreno. He is still one of the best in MLS in that position in front of the goal because he is just so cool and collected.

3. So a 4-4-2 formation with two attacking wingers and two holding midfielders? I think this is what a lot of us had envisioned when United moved away from the diamond 4 midfield, but it's never looked as good as it looked tonight. The combination of Chris Pontius on the left and Santino Quaranta on the right is perfect for this formation. Pontius started the sequence that led to the first goal with a run up the left side, and Quaranta's smart touch to Moreno earned him an assist on the second. These two should be starting in these positions for the remainder of the MLS season. It's telling that Fred wasn't even on the 18-man roster.

4. Avery John and Lawson Vaughn both played well as our two fullbacks. John conjured up his inner Burch on his assist to Emilio for the first goal, and also shut down every attack on that side of the field. In his United debut, Vaughn certainly didn't look like a guy playing his first match in 2009, and he did well in replacing the unreplaceable Namoff.

5. Give credit to Josh Wicks, Julius James, and Clyde Simms for earning 3 clean sheets in our last 4 matches.


1. I didn't quite understand the removal of Tiyi Shipalane before halftime, but it seemed to work in Soehn's favor. Shipalane performed well getting forward, as I think we all expected against an inferior opponent. It probably won't be until next season that we get to see what he can do against another MLS team.


None.

In the Insider's poll earlier this week, only 23% of voters predicted that United would advance in the Champions League. Now all it will take next week is a United victory at home over SJJ and a Toluca victory on the road over Marathon. Both are very likely at this point, and then all that will be left will be a meaningless faceoff between the B teams of DC and Toluca, with both having already clinched a spot in the next round. The quarterfinals won't be held until the week before the start of the 2010 MLS season, so no need to worry about fixture congestion at this point. It will be tough to advance further than that, but I think most United fans would be satisfied with the progress of at least moving past the group stage.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The more important match is this weekend against San Jose, who have already done us a lot of good by tying the Rapids twice in the last week. Look for United to put out the strongest starting lineup we've seen in months on Sunday. A win is all we need, but I think I'll be surprised if we win by anything less than 2 goals.

DC United win at San Juan Jabloteh, 1-0

This 1-0 win reminded me a bit of another 1-0 win less than a week ago against the Wizards. United was clearly the better team, and our defense did well in shutting down some opportunities, but a big part of the victory can also be attributed to a weaker team failing to get any quality shots on target. You could say that they fredded away all their chances. Meanwhile, DC went up early on a converted penalty kick but failed to score for the rest of the match.

For only traveling to T&T with 16 players, Soehn apparently decided to take this match seriously because we started the 11 best players we had. But with several guys playing outside their best positions, they were not able to leverage their talents into very much chemistry.


1. He disappeared for long stretches of the match, but Christian Gomez scored our only goal, almost scored another on a header only kept out by a pretty good save from the SJJ keeper, and should have had an assist when he found Shipalane in space late in the match.

2. Clyde Simms was once again the more competent of our two central defenders. So with Wallace filling in at CDM adequately, and Olsen and Jacobson now both healthy enough to share time, what are the chances that Simms will remain in central defense even after Jakovic returns from injury? A Simms/Jakovic combination might have the highest soccer IQ of any other central defense in the league. It's definitely something to consider heading into the final playoff run, and would at least cut down on the mental errors that we've seen from James.

3. Devon McTavish reminds me sometimes of a poor man's Namoff. He made some good defensive plays, sent in some excellent crosses, and pops up in the box every once in a while with a chance on goal. It would have been easy to assume that McTavish was playing RM for how much ground he covered on that side of the field, and he was often more involved in the attack than Szetela.


1. Some tense moments due to the play of Milos Kocic, Julius James, and Avery John. Kocic is a competent shot-stopper, but he struggles with his decision-making. James and John each had too many giveaways, but were very good defensively to help us preserve the clean sheet.

2. It's not his best position, but Chris Pontius filled the left wing role very well. He ran at defenders, and also got back defensively when necessary. I see no reason why Fred should start at LM while Pontius is on the bench ever again.


1. For all the fans who have been calling for Danny Szetela to start, do you still think this guy is our future? I don't want to put too much weight on a single performance since he hasn't played a meaningful game in several weeks, but this match certainly did not give me the impression that Soehn was wrong to bench him. The knowledgeable Chest Rockwell suggests that Szetela would have done better in the middle, so I guess I'm willing to give him one more chance.

2. In his first DC United appearance, Tiyi Shipalane missed a chance to put us up 2-0 by hitting a weak shot straight at the keeper late in the match. I don't think that playing a forward at the top of a 4-4-1-1 is going to be Shipalane's best position though. I'd like to see him playing out a bit wider next time. But mainly, I'm just extremely disappointed that he chose to wear his shorts properly.

So... um... Is it just me or do we actually have a shot at advancing in the CCL this year? If Toluca beats Marathon tomorrow, we'll be only a home victory over Marathon next week away from second place. Is that enough for us to shift our focus away from league play to try to advance in the CCL? Not in the least. But we played well against Marathon in Honduras for about 80 minutes until we janicked away our shot at a road tie. After that though, it's back to reality with a must-win home match against the Quakes next weekend.

Check back in tomorrow for a big announcement here at DCUMD. Until then, let me know in the comments section what you think about my proposed Namoff-Simms-Jakovic-Burch back line?

Roster reset

With DC United in the process of finalizing a loan for Tiyi Shipalane from the Harrisburg City Islanders, I was pretty darn confused as to the status of our roster, since we'll now have 27 players listed on our first team roster when the league maximum is 24. Sounds like a good time for a late season roster reset!

Senior (20):
1 Wicks, 2 John, 3 Habarugira, 4 James, 5 Burch, 6 Jakovic, 7 Janicki, 8 McTavish, 9 Namoff, 10 Szetela, 11 Fred, 12 Gomez, 13 Jacobson, 14 Olsen, 15 Pontius, 16 Quaranta, 17 Simms, 18 Emilio, 19 Khumalo, 20 Moreno.

Developmental (4):
1 Kocic, 2 Wallace, 3 DiRaimondo, 4 Allen

Brandon Barklage has been placed on season-ending injured reserve, which freed up a spot for Ely Allen on the developmental roster.

David Habarugira was brought in under MLS's "Short-Term Injury Replacements" program (Rule II.K) for Ange N'Silu on 8/14/09, making N'Silu ineligible for at least 6 league matches.

So with Shipalane on his way south on I-83, United is going to have to make a roster move. And what of Adam Smarte? The Liberian PDL striker who has been training with the team for over a week now? The popular opinion is of course to overreact to the most recent matches and call for the sacrifice of Greg Janicki, but I don't think I see United cutting him just because of one awful performance. The more likely move I think will be to move Boyzzz Khumalo over to that short-term disabled list also. After all, how many South African wingers can you have on the active roster at once?