Christian Castillo, left winger on the El Salvador Men’s National team and bench warmer on Leon, in Mexico joins DC on loan. No word on whether there is an option to purchase his contract at the end of the year, but if this loan deal is similar to others in MLS, that is likely the option. At the time, the move was explained as an option on the left side, which would move Fred to center midfield, and possibly move Rodney Wallace to LB, putting Marc Burch on the bench. Onalfo was rather convincing in his plans for Fred, so we all kind of thought that Fred would be given a chance to shine.

But he wasn’t. On the eve of the 2010 MLS Superdraft, Fred was traded to Philadelphia Union, along with the 7th overall pick, and allocation money for the top spot on the returning USMNT draft list. (Let me just add, good luck Fred, I felt like this was going to be your year, and if Nowak plays you in the middle, I still think it will be).
Who did we get for this bounty?

Photo by Chris Leon

That’s right, familiar face Troy Perkins returns to DC, and clears up a rather murky goalkeeping situation. The USMNT keeper will slide into the starting spot for United, while DC now has three other keepers on the roster for 2010. This may be short term, as Wicks’ option was picked up, but I’ve been told you cannot cut a player who is recovering from injury, which Wicks is. Possibly, there is a trade market for Wicks, who is a great shot stopper. More likely, the world knows he’s cut when he gets better and we will get jack.

Photo by Rob Rowe

The 7th pick traded to Union was used to select Jack Mcinerney, a young US U17 player who will be a longer term project. DC had no pick until late, late, late in the draft, selecting Jordan Graye in the forth round, out of UNC and formerly of the DC United youth setup. He’s a local product, attending DeMatha high school, and has a chance to make the team out of preseason.

Luciano Emilio was allowed to leave, where he joined a second division Brazilian side (and he’s already scored a goal there with his head, which I thought was impossible.), leaving a giant hole up front for DC. Danny Allsopp is an attempt to plug that hole, and find a strike partner for Chris Pontius. Allsopp has a long career for a 31 year old, and here are his teams as follows:
1995 Croydon (Australia)
1995-97 South Melbourne (Australia)
1997-98 Carlton (Australia)
1998-99, 2000 Manchester City (England)
1999, 2000-03 Notts County (England)
2000 Wrexham (England)
2000 Bristol Rovers (England)
2003-05 Hull City (England)
2005-09 Melbourne Victory (Australia)
2009-10 Al-Rayyan (Qatar)
(Thanks to BTB)
He’s signed to a two year deal, with an option year after that, so we should all get a good look at the Australian. Hopefully, there are more moves for the attack.

The most recent acquisition by DC was made on Thursday, out of the blue. Floribert N’Galula, formerly of Manchester United, Randers, and Rotterdam, will be in the Black and Red for this upcoming season. He’s a defender/defensive midfielder, who I believe is projected to start in the middle with Dejan Jakovic.

Analysis: The cliche is that you can’t get something for nothing, and I’m sorry to see Fred go. Out of the old guard that was possibly on its way out at the end of 2009 (Olsen, Moreno, Gomez, Fred, and Emilio), Fred was the one I thought most likely to stick. Now it looks like Moreno stands alone. We obviously have a gaping maw sitting behind the striker at the moment, with internal candidates being Santino Quaranta…and Santino Quaranta. I believe they want to keep him on the right, thus more moves are obviously forthcoming.
The forward position is yet to be settled, but will be bolstered with the return of Brandon Barklage, who showed well in his first year. If he’s back to full strength, we’ve got some depth in the position. We still need another top forward, preferably someone with MLS experience.
Goalkeeping is set. Would I like to see Bill Hamid loaned to a USL1 side who will give him playing time? I would. Will it happen? Doubtful.
Defensively, I still say we need a left back and another centerback. I’d like to see Lawson Vaughan make the team as an option at right back, but it remains to be seen if that will happen. No one knows what Bryan Namoff will be able to contribute as he comes off of a season shortened by concussions.

Fans can be sure that the front office is not done, and that they were not satisfied with last years results. Sorry for being an absentee blogger, and I promise to be more with it in the new year. Vamos United.

After a somewhat lengthy search, DCU has (settled?) decided on Curt Onalfo to lead the Black and Red in the 2010 season and beyond (conceivably a three year contract). After Akron coach Caleb Porter turned the team down cold in favor of a new and lucrative contract at Akron, DC moved to secure Onalfo ahead of the MLS Superdraft and the beginning of the preseason, which begins in February.

Responses on the hire have varied on the internet, with most willing to give the new coach a chance, but with still others believing that DC didn’t look hard enough, still believing that DCU is the glory team of MLS. That may not be true anymore, and maybe fans would do better to grab themselves a reality check.

Links:
Soccer by Ives

A 40-year-old cancer survivor, Onalfo takes over an underachieving D.C. United team that has failed to reach the playoffs in each of the past two seasons. The current D.C. squad is at a crossroads, with Ben Olsen having just retired, former MLS MVP Luciano Emilio looking like a good bet to leave MLS and aging stars Jaime Moreno and Christian Gomez reaching the ends of their careers. With an infusion of quality young talent that includes Chris Pontius, Rodney Wallace and Danny Szetela, as well as the recent signing of Salvadorean winger Christian Castillo, Onalfo will have the task of turning D.C. into a serious contender in the Eastern Conference.

Fighting Talker

There are some real things to like about Onalfo though. One that immediately comes to mind is that he is fluent in Spanish. That’s a bit more useful in MLS than Soehn’s knowledge of German.

I guess the worst case scenario is that Caleb Porter goes on to later lead Toronto or Seattle (I had originially penned the Galaxy here, but Sounders fans are so much more obnoxious.) In that case, United will look ineffective for not being able to tie up a great coach and I go down as a blowhard of Ron Burgundian-proportions.

DCUMD

What worries me a little is that Kevin Payne is citing Onalfo’s “fluency in Spanish” and “familiarity with our community” as two of his positive traits. Sure, those things are nice, but neither was necessarily a box that needed to be checked during the decision process. Curt Onalfo’s resume might be impressive (he’s been a player, a national team assistant, an MLS assistant, and an MLS head coach), but I’m still waiting for someone to point out something good about Onalfo that wouldn’t be found on his resume. Something intangible. Like how he’s a great motivator, or how he has innovative drills focused on developing certain abilities. Anything!

Behind The Badge

Curt Onalfo:
“I am very excited to lead D.C. United into a new era, building on its storied and successful history. Having already played and served as an assistant coach for the most successful club in MLS history, I understand the expectations that come along with this position. It takes more to be the head coach of United and I fully intend to help bring D.C. its fifth MLS Cup.”

Unitedmania.com

MY TAKE: I’m working my way through Soccernomics, and in that book, it says that a thorough coaching search should take 8 months. Since we’re well short of that, we have to think of why. One, supporter pressure. In a league as small as MLS, supporters really do actually matter, particularly with DC and its large supporter’s groups. I’m not privy to the numbers, but I have to think that Barra Brava and SE (and to a much, much smaller degree, La Norte) make up a larger percentage of total ticket sales than other teams comparable groups. Pressure from these vocal groups may have pushed the team into a faster decision than they may have otherwise preferred.
Also, the talent pool in the US for coaches is small, and DC United may not be the glamour club that its supporters believe it to be outside of this country. As a result, DC went with someone who won’t offend, won’t sharply change the direction of the team, and someone who probably won’t win us the league on the strength of coaching alone. The team needs a lot of things, and a radical change in coaching may not been whats needed. All in all, I like this hire.

I know it’s been quite here at DC United Offside, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten about you. I just wanted to wish you all Merry Christmas, and I hope that you all get everything you wanted, and get to spend some quality time with family.

I have intercepted Kevin Payne’s Christmas list through an AOL mixup. I’ve decided to post it below, so enjoy:

Dear Mr. Claus,

It’s been a long year for me, Santa. I’ve done my best to be a good boy, but I haven’t always lived up to that standard. I know you saw my little fight with Adrian Hanauer in the newspapers. That wasn’t very nice, but they started it! I’ll keep my list short this year, and a couple of these items have been on here in the past and you haven’t come through. So I’ll try again.

1) A new stadium. I know this is hard to fit on your sleigh, but if you just want to kidnap Mayor Fenty and tell him that he won’t get the things he wants unless DCU gets a stadium, that might work.
2) A coach. Tommy was a bad boy this year, and he was mean to a lot of my players. He’s gone, and we need someone to replace him. I thought it was going to be Caleb Porter, but apparently he’d rather coach in a league that even less people pay attention to than MLS.
3) A creative offensive player. You’ve already gotten me an El Salvadorian present, but I’d like one more. The Brazilian model you got me a few years ago has worn down, and needs to be replaced.
4) A centerback. We seemed to want to play exciting soccer this year, which meant letting the other team score as much as they wanted. I hope to change that.

That’s all Santa. Just make it happen this year.

<3
KP

As soon as this team hires a coach, signs a player, or gets a stadium, I’ll be back.

As was previously stated here (okay, I was off by a little bit), it looks like Ben Olsen is going to hang up his boots. Although it could have been easily guessed that his time was running out, Olsen has decided that either pain or other considerations have made it undesirable to continue his career.

His contributions to the club cannot be understated, as Benny went from being a young and energetic kid, to a skillful young American player, an injured older player, and a tenacious, aggressive and professional veteran. It was easy to see what Ben still brought to the table last season, but it was also evident to those who watched that Ben wasn’t close to his old self most of the time. The thing that saddens me is what his last kick was for DC, a stupid, petulant red card. Similar to Zidane, albeit on a tremendously smaller and more insignificant scale, you never want a legend to go out in a negative way. Of course his legacy is much deeper than that, and Goff said that its likely he stays with the club in some capacity.

I hope that in the coming year or two, the club throws Benny a testimonial at RFK, giving all of his fans a chance to see him play one more time, and send him off with the love and loyalty that DCU fans have shown to him in the past.

UPDATE- Now this is funny….when I linked this page earlier today, there was a question in which Shipalane was asked if he knew his situation for the upcoming year, and he replied that the team had told him they wanted him back for 2010, but then, when responding to a comment and rechecking the link, that question was gone…anyone with google cache skills able to grab the original page as of this AM? DCU damage control was pretty damn speedy on this one.

The harder decisions (roster) are forthcoming, and hopefully, a good search can be conducted and the best possible candidate can be hired.

Link and link.

EDIT: Apparently, after reading more closely, the official line coming out of the team is that Soehn himself walked away before the team could make a decision. Interesting, and probably a good move on his part. Always better to quit than be fired.

“We don’t want to play like Colorado or New England, which most of the season sat with eight or nine guys behind the ball. How many people go to watch Colorado or New England play? That’s a problem for our league. We can’t play like we’re a team desperately trying to remain in 14th place in the Premiership.”

AND

Given a choice, we would rather attack than cynically defend. You look at the way Real Salt Lake played when they came here [a 0-0 tie in May] and sat 10 guys behind the ball. You don’t have to do that. Sometimes that is the best way to get a result — if you don’t care about the product, if you don’t care about advertising your league. Long term, who wants to watch that?”

One more…

“There are a lot of games in our league that I can’t watch. The problem in our league isn’t who is or isn’t in the playoffs; it’s that not enough people want to watch our league yet, and we have to convince them that our league is worth watching. I don’t think [playing conservatively] is the way to do it. I recognize there is more than one way to skin a cat. I’m not saying that everyone has to play an attacking style, but that is our style and identity, and we have to be honest with ourselves and say there are sometimes liabilities [such as missing the playoffs] that come with it.
“We still have a lot more trophies in our case than everybody else, so I think in the long run, it’s the right thing to do. This league is changing [a smaller percentage of teams will make the playoffs as MLS expands by three over the next two seasons] and we are going to see more of that kind of [defensive] approach: results at any cost.”

Making Friends and Influencing People, by Kevin Payne. Needless to say these comments have not been taken well across the league, and the fact that DCU have missed the playoffs twice in a row, along with the fact that DCU tied RSL in goals scored makes the comments ring a little hollow.

Meanwhile, Tom Soehn waits for his future to be sorted as his contract expires this month. This could also be read as, Tom Soehn starts to clear his office as the Front Office searches for his replacement and waits for his contract to expire so they don’t have to pay a guy they fired.

Looks like Moreno and Olsen would like to come back, with Moreno making a here or elsewhere-I’m playing statement, and Olsen saying that his future will be decided by the front office in the coming weeks. For both, it’ll be a necessary pay cut that they’ll have to accept to stay with the club. The team is stronger if they’re able to keep them, but in a reserve capacity. We will soon see how that shakes out, and the new CBA agreement may have a lot to do with it.

Lastly, and kind of interestingly, Fred is a wanted man, somewhere. Looks like Melborne would like to bring back Fred in a CAM role, AKA the role in which he’s a productive player that we never played him in. DC has an option for him in 2010, but I see him moving on.

More as it develops.

With the CBA expiring, old players at the ends of contracts, and generally poor performance, I have to imagine change in inevitable, and it would be for the better.

Reading other blogs, I think I must be one of the few who have general confidence in Josh Wicks. I think he has been an adequate shot stopper, and is not as insane as some people who repeatedly post the same things would have you believe. I can tell you for sure, that Steve Cronin is most likely not the answer. So, I’m not sure I agree with giving him the start over Kocic, who the team has invested in to some degree.
No Benny today, and none of the long term injury guys obviously (Namoff, Quaranta, Wicks). Columbus is in good form, has already clinched, and will likely still bring the whoppin stick to RFK.
My prediction: Columbus 3 DC 1. DCUs season is over, with only CONCACAF in the midweek to play for.

Let’s hope this weather has just made me unjustly pessimistic.