DC United got back in this thing called CONCACAF Champions League. With a 7-0 walloping of Marathon by Toluca, DCU is tied on goal differential with Marathon and a win on Thursday would put them in a strong position. The way the rest of the CL schedule works out, a win Thursday, coupled with a Win against San Juan at home and an away draw with Toluca would see them through. Based on the fact that the next league game is San Jose on Sunday, DC SHOULD be able to get 3 points in that game at home without throwing out their best 11. My hope is that they take the next two CONCACAF games seriously, and then put 11 behind the ball away at Toluca on October 20th.

Other News:
Goff says that we MIGHT be opening away at FC Dallas, home opener against New England, and then we will plays Philadelphia’s home opener (most likely at the Link).

By my math, we should be seeing both Marc Burch and Dejan Jakovic back from surgery soon. This should help matters, if only because it means we won’t see anymore Avery John.

Also, in somewhat old news, DCU roster moves have put Ely Allen, Ange N’Silu, and Greg Janicki on the inactive list, which means they are only available for CONCACAF play. Out of those there, I’d only like to see N’Silu get another run out, perhaps at Toluca. Boyzzz Khumalo is also activated, though he’s not ready for game action.

Also, I probably forgot to mention this too, but the team signed Lawson Vaughn, formerly of Chivas USA. This move is a cover pickup, with our centerback situation being so bad lately that Clyde Simms has started three games in the middle.

DCUMD does the first of his Benny Awards, this time for the most underrated player on the team this year.

I should be in attendance on Thursday, despite a night class and a pending assignment that will be explained in said class. Never question my dedication (to United. To Graduate School….I guess that’s debatable).

Houston is not considered to be a contender this year, with losing DeRo, and not many more additions. The team is getting older, and not any faster. DC needs to get on them early, and then close the game down. Wicks should be out with a hip flexor, so either we will see the return of the great Louis Crayton, or we see the debut of Milos Kocic and the exploding head of Louis Crayton on the bench. According to Goff, Crayton said he was 150%, but Soehn had his doubts.

In case you’re curious, we’re 2-3-1 all time against Houston, and 2-0-1 at home.

MLS Net preview.

This preview recounts the rainy horrors of last year’s attempts to play Houston at RFK.

OFFICIAL DC UNITED THE OFFSIDE PREDICTION:
Last week, I called the draw and got the score way wrong. For accounting purposes, we’re going to just count the result, and I’ll keep a goal differential between what I thought we’d score, and what we did.
Since thats the case, I’m 1-1 for the season, with a -3 goal differential.
THIS WEEK: Houston 1- DC 2. Let’s go United.

What do you think?

This Sunday, United travels to the Home Depot Center to visit one of the sadder cases in MLS in the last 2 years, the Galaxy. LA, who have been reorganized and retooled an extent by former USA and DC United head coach Bruce Arena, are moving forward this year with a more “experienced” team than last year, with an average age around 30. This never bodes well for a long season, but its better than playing Josh Tudela every game.

LA strengthened its backline through the draft, picking Omar Gonzalez, and thru the transfer market, picking up Donovan Ricketts, the Jamaican National Team keeper.

Goldenballs is set to return in July, and until then, LA is free of the obligation of his salary. However, they’ve yet to spend that money. So, it’s just a gap in their team.

Landon Donovan, fresh off of his German adventure, brings the only constantly threatening force to a team that will be lacking in attacking bite.

Dema Kovalenko has been added, most likely for his oftsited “grit” in the defensive midfield. But enough about LA.

DC travels across the country, already with its usual complement of injuries. Not making the trip, Santino Quaranta and Fred are already sporting hamstring injuries that will keep them out at least until the home opener, in Fred’s case, and the Houston game, in Santino’s case.

Louis Crayton and Bryan Namoff, who suffered leg and rib injuries respectively, will be fit and in the starting lineup on Sunday.

All week, Tom Soehn has said that he expects that DC will come out in a 3-5-2, at least until their attacking width is healthy. Below would be my expected lineup…

Crayton
Namoff———Jankovic———–Burch
Simms—McTavish
Khumalo—Gomez—Wallace
Emilio—-Moreno
I’d like to see Moreno as a withdrawn Forward, in sort of a dual playmaker roll with Gomez, but we’ll see how it rolls forward.

Links and OPO:
Sports Illustrated says that DC will finish in last. I will eat a soccer ball if that happens. The text for those who don’t want to boost SI’s ad revenue..

• D.C. United will finish in last place. Christian Gómez is back, but he lost his form a while back. Gómez and Luciano Emilio formed a strong partnership in ‘07, but two years later, the two players are fighting to recover from poor seasons. D.C. had a terrible regular season but managed to win the U.S. Open Cup. That triumph set United up for failure this year, as it once again will compete in the CONCACAF Champions League, a tournament that sunk D.C.’s regular-season hopes in ‘08.

Soccer America thinks DC loses to LA this weekend.

The Examiner offers all you need to know about the game, including injury updates for both squads (Ricketts, Buddle questionable, Lewis probable, Todd Dunivant and Leonard Griffin (who?) are out. )

MLSNet’s Charles Boehm has a nice piece about the young defense, and the decision to go with the 3-5-2. Here’s Benny,

“The 4-4-2, sometimes with a young back line, it’s confusing,” acknowledged Olsen, moments after his tongue-in-cheek attempt “to duck what formation we’re going to play this weekend” drew laughter from the media in attendance.

“Sometimes three in the back makes it a little bit more concrete for them as far as their decisions,” he continued. “But we’re working on that stuff this week and the coaching staff will take care of that.”

Steve Goff’s paper preview.

Donovan is still sleeping over at DCenters. I’m sure he’ll having something up soon.

Ok, that’s it. It’s game time, huahh!

Official Prediction!!!

The Official DC United Offside Prediction: 3-2 DC.
Your thoughts?

Some tidbits for you on this Monday morning:

- From the UnitedMania podcast (which I listen to every Monday), it looks like Santino’s hamstring, which pulled him from Sunday’s game in the 25th minute, is serious enough to warrant an MRI. An acronym no DC fan likes to see.
- Here’s a interview with our boy, Ben, on his return and the fans’ support.

-Here’s one of Coach Soehn:

Here’s the wrap up from Comcast.

“I’m disappointed with the way it went in the second half,” said Beckham, whose appearance helped United draw roughly double its usual crowd. “We lost our way. We kept giving the ball away, and we didn’t play well. It was hot out there, but it was more than that today.”

Yes it was more than that, David.

-An interesting post at Booked for Dissent about the difference between Ben Olsen’s return and the plight of Claudio Reyna in New York. He also noticed something about Beckham which made him think very highly of Goldenballs.

- ESPNSoccernet’s Recap of the game. Gotta love this lead-in…

WASHINGTON – The motion of Moreno and control of Emilio trumped bending it like Beckham and the emotion of Landon Donovan in D.C. United’s 4-1 victory over the Los Angeles Galaxy on Sunday.

Niiiiice.

- The Washington Times ascribing our success to having Latin players. Okay.

- Goff’s recap. Good as always. The Post also ran a side bar on Ben, which you should check out.

- Behind the Badge with their Quote motherload…a highlight from Ben,

On the fan support
I don’t understand, it I really don’t. These people here are just so supportive of me. All I do is play hard, I like to play soccer, I like this team and I guess they appreciate it. It’s nice to see. It’s emotional. A lot of this stuff you act like it’s not a big deal. But I like to play soccer; this is my living and I want to come back, but again it’s going to be a long road back. But again I’d like to thank the fans for helping me through this and giving me the benefit of the doubt – I get choked up just thinking about it now.

- D’s recap over at Dcenters. Always a good source.

-JCM at Poplar Point Perspective appeared to be pretty pleased with DC on Sunday.

Possibly the best game of the year from this group. Simms was steady. Fred was dangerous. Quaranta, while he was on, was very good running down long balls and making well struck crosses. But, Gallardo was the class of the group. From beginning to end, he was the best player on the field. Just a masterful game from him, and his goal could win goal of the week.

-DCUMD writes with glowing words for most of the team, excluding the same player that I’ve had gripes with for the last three games.

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.

That’s plenty for now. Get back to work!

Meet your new forward, Francis Doe. He comes by way of New York, and has 2 goals in 8 career games. For those keeping score, that’s exactly two more than my boy Guy Kpene has scored, ever. I’m told that Doe has got some jets, which we are sorely in need of, since no one will mistake Emilio or Moreno as Olympic sprinters.

And now for the funny article.

This recap came to me by way of Google Alerts, and boy am I glad it did.

Here’s the link from “Merinews”. Here are some excerpts you are sure to enjoy…

On April 17, 2008, with 13,329 spectators in Washington’s JFK stadium, DC United played its MLS game against Columbus crew. The game was transmitted live on ESPN, with Perralta destroying chances of any victory to his own team.

THE FIRST half started with both teams measuring their forces and struggling for possession of the game. DC United was just simply playing with the ball while Columbus Crew was trying to score.

Columbus Crew received a setback when Carroll received a booking (yellow card) for anti-professional behaviour (reckless foul) on the field at 29 minutes into the game.

Regardless, DC United wanted to prove to the spectators of the Robert F Kennedy (RFK) stadium (Ed Note: They got it right the second time, that counts for something) that they were made of steel, and scored an equaliser at 42 minutes. Brian Namoff did the equaliser with the assistance of Luciano Emilio and Jaime Moreno. Unfortunately, DC United was unable to focus on the game and their house of steel melted with an own goal by Gonzalo Perralta giving the Columbus Crew an advantage in the field.

DC United was pathetic in this game. In addition to the own goal by Gonzalo Perralta, the team itself was not performing to the standards of a football [soccer] team. DC United did not have the discipline and tenacity to continue playing after the shock of the own goal. DC United has to see DVDs of this game and check, where improvements can be made.

I think Goff can just let these guys write the gamers from now on.

Links:

WaPo’s preview.
Not quite River v Boca, but…hey.
The Carroll brothers, reunited again. Erroneous!
A Q and A with my boy Santino. (Will I be foolish enough to get his name on my jersey? Time will tell)

This is another occasion of school interfering with my United responsibilities. I’ll be in class until 10, but it’s being Tivo’d. So I’ll be up late tonight watching it.

Feel free to comment here during the game, though that’s yet to happen (I think everyone’s over in Goff’s game threads).

Predictions: With Gonzalo Martinez out with a hamstring, I hope we go back to 4 in the back to avoid a repeat of last week. We can’t play that formation without everyone healthy, that’s just all there is to it. If we play smart, I can see a 2-0 victory, with a strong performance by a refocused backline and a hungry Zach Wells. Goals from Moreno, and Emilio.

Before our season officially starts against Harbour View FC (where I will be, with bells on), there is scant real news to report.

- Justin Moose, Pat Carroll, Dan Stratford and Ryan Cordeiro have all signed developmental contracts, so they are all officially impoverished. So if you can drop off a bag of canned goods at their group homes, I’m sure it’d be much appreciated.

- Here’s the rest of the roster shakedown according to Goff...

DEVELOPMENTAL (10 available slots)
IN: D Pat Carroll, D-MF Jeff Carroll, MF Justin Moose, MF Quavas Kirk, MF Dan Stratford, MF Ryan Cordeiro.
EXPECTED: GK James Thorpe, D Brandon Owens.
POSSIBLE: MF Tony Schmitz, D Dane Murphy, F Cezar, MF-D Galen Thompson.

SENIOR ROSTER (18 available slots)
IN: GKs Jose Carvallo and Zach Wells; Ds Marc Burch, Bryan Namoff, Gonzalo Martinez, Gonzalo Peralta and Devon McTavish; MFs Ben Olsen, Fred, Clyde Simms and Marcelo Gallardo; Fs Luciano Emilio, Jaime Moreno, Franco Niell.
EXPECTED: MF Dominic Mediate.
POSSIBLE: MF-F Santino Quaranta, F Guy-Roland Kpene, MF-F Rod Dyachenko, MF Josh Gardner, F Jamil Walker, F David Blumer.

Note: Because of their age, Kpene and Dyachenko are eligible for the developmental roster, according to DCU officials.

I imagine Kpene and Dyachenko will sign developmental contracts pretty soon, or else they’ll have to ply their trade in the USL. Truth be told, they may get more playing time down there. Actually, they definitely would.

For senior roster, I’d like to see Quaranta (if he’s in shape), Walker, and Gardner make it. I have no info on Blumer, except that he came from a team called Grasshoppers, and I guess that’s pretty cool.

-Here’s a preview of the Harbor View game, from the Jamaican POV.

- DCU will have 29 of their 30 games televised in the area, either through Comcast or on the World Leader/ABC. So that’s good. Want to see the home opener on TV (like me since I’ll be on a business trip)? TOUGH. You can’t. Suck it.

- Mr. Soccer By Ives himself gives his DC Preview. Read it. I agree with his points about Kirk’s opportunity to shine if Olsen is a slow healer (and I think he will be) and that Niell is the x-factor that could make this team really run on all cylinders. Imagine if you had TWO forwards that could actually score goals in the run of play. I bet you could have the best record in the league with that…oh wait. Well. It’d still be nice.

On second thought, that was a lot of news. So consider yourself schooled for the day.

This is Soccerticketsonline’s (nice site, awful name) preview of DCU for this season.

They didn’t talk about the swindle from Colorado, or the new centerbacks, but I don’t blame them. Its not nearly as exciting as Gallardo coming to town.

But I would have to agree with their general conclusion, that DC is in position to make a strong run at the Cups they’re in, in addition to MLS Cup. Good time to be a DCU fan.