Plain and Simple

When all is said and done and over analyzed with the United-Revolution 1-1 tie, it comes down to ‘character’.   United came out and really outplayed the Revolution in the first half, and realistically, should have netted a couple of goals and put the game away, but some unlucky bounces and bad finishing put the teams in the lockerroom goalless. 

Due to injuries the funny looking big-headed kid, Twellman, the shiny-headed thug, Reis, and the absence of United-killer Doug Warren, the Revs essentially employed a formation that Steve Sampson would have been proud of a 4-6-0.  Yeah, yeah, it’s in the books as a 4-4-2, but one of the ‘forwards’ was 80 year-old Steve Ralston….can you have two ‘withdrawn’ forwards?  Regardless, they gutted out a goal due to some lackidasical team defensive play (you can legitimately point the blame finger at 4 to six players), Shirlie Joseph found himself a goal.

Last year, United would have hung their heads and half-heartedly poked and prodded to see if they could equalize, but meekly go home with a loss.  But the will of Ben Olsen and Jamie Moreno wouldn’t let them.

Well, that, and a couple of subsititution miscues……  after the first half, United subbed out Marc Burch for Tino Quaranta.  It’s hard to argue with this substituion for several reasons: 1. It gets Tino back on the field to help him with his match fitness.  2.  Rodney Wallace isn’t regarded as a left back in a three-man defense.  With the meager pressure New England was mustering, it was a decent opportunity to get him some time there.  But then Clyde Simms told the coaching staff that he was sick and couldn’t play anymore.  Forcing United to burn a second subsitution to bring on Andrew Jacobsen.  It’s not a huge downgrade in talent or capability, and it was an opportunity to get another young player prove himself (remember that the game was 0-0 at the time)…..but there was one glaring issue.  With two subsitutues used, United still had Christian Gomez (who rarely can go 90 minutes), Jamie Moreno (who’s coming off of surgeries), and Ben Olsen ( zero ankles) on the field.  Surely, at least two would need to be pulled off.  And that was indeed the case.

Fred came on for Gomez in the 60th minute.   Apparently, Gomez had hamstring issues (the Official nagging injury of DC United), Fred also needed minutes to regain match fitness, and well, Gomez traditionally runs out of gas in the 65th minute anyway, so initially the subsitiution looked solid.   The only remaining issue was that Moreno and Olsen needed to gut out the rest of the game.

Five minutes later, Moreno chased down a ball in the left attacking corner of the field and then came up a bit lame, grasping at his hamstrings or lower back region.  He was trying to stretch a few minutes before that, but you could see his grimace from the Nest.  You could also see him signal to the bench that a sub was needed. Unfortunately, the fourth sub rule is only used in Open Cup play.  Moreno motioned a second time, and looked at the bench…..the bench full of players who were no longer loosening up because off of the manpower moves had been made.  Jamie had to really tough out the next 25 minutes.

But as the clocked ticked to the 90 minute mark, United earned a free kick near the corner where Jamie had come up lame.  Jame stood over the ball, while the rest of the team crashed the goal.  Miraculously, Ben Olsen ran to the far post (possibly the 8th time in United history that a player made a far post run), while wearing Wells Thompson Ben headed the ball towards the goal, the now helpless Revolution defenders couldn’t redirect the ball out of the goal.

Olsen immediately responded by ‘congratulating’ Thompson for his man-marking abilities.  It was also Jamie Moreno’s 100th MLS assist (making him the league’s first 100 goal, 100 assist player). But the goal had nothing to do with skill.  It was all guts.  Moreno sticking out the game while hurt, but still contributing where he could, and Olsen’s sheer determination to get to the ball.

Both men have tons of skill, but in those moments heart and character were on display.

Other Moments

Chris Pontius is getting to be reminicient of Earnie Stewart.  Sadly, not exactly in a good way.  There were times in the 1990′s when Stewart patrolled the flanks for the National team, that he would have a space the size of Iowa to himself, but teammates seemingly refused to give him the ball.  Several times over the last couple of home games, Pontius has been in the same situation, with Gomez holding the ball with a man draped on his back he’s looked Pontius in the eye and then decided that a better option would be to turn into traffic so he could lose the ball there.  Steve Goff wrote a piece this week where Soehn said that younger players need to trust that Gomez can recieve the ball in difficult circumstances…..but Gomez (and Soehn) also need to recognize that they need to trust the abilities of the other players, too.

Jakovic is starting to settle down in the defense.  He had some miscues the first couple of weeks, but he showed some great decision making in when to step up to win the ball, and when to step back and cover.  And his late game tackle where he got the ball and physically handled the attacker reminded many of our favorite Kiwi.  Hopefully, he’ll keep improving.

If you’re looking to join the "Wells Thompson is a Punk" or "Jeff Larentowicz Sucks" fan groups, there’s now a waiting list.

Up next is the US Open Cup ‘Play-In’ game against Dallas on Wednesday night.  Being defending Champions aparently doesn’t count for peanuts, so United’s got to get in via the back door.  Time to defend another Cup…..