Recapping D.C. United’s 1-1 draw with Orlando City by us and WaPo. Mane Land with the other end of things.
DC Sports Announcer Dave Johnson on His Most Memorable Game (It’s Not What You Might Think) (Washingtonian): Dave’s so great.
Michael Estrada de Cruz Azul es Buscado por Anderlecht de Belgica (Futbol Total): A former D.C. United player may go to the former team of a current D.C. United player!
Reviewing Loudoun United’s 3-1 opening day win (us): This was fun!
Finally apparently not only is Barry coming back to HBO next month but it’s the last season? OK OK OK I’ll have to prepare accordingly:
That’s a lovely article about Dave. I’ve heard that story before, but it’s hitting a little bit differently now. My father-in-law passed away very unexpectedly last Monday, and the whole family has been dealing with that (never hurts to get a cancer screening, everyone). He wasn’t exactly a soccer guy, but he would always go see his granddaughters play for their youth teams, and he started making sure to check the DC United scores and let me know that he knew what had happened when I stopped by. Typically, he would be asking me how DC could be that bad, because he had the misfortune of following them during this decade.
When you lose a loved one, it’s very easy to look back and question why you didn’t do or say all these various things. And I regret never taking him to a United game. He wasn’t a soccer guy, but he might have had a good time. And understood a little bit more about why I kept being interested in this team that lost all the time. Any game can be special, at least for somebody.
I am so sorry for your loss. I hope your incredible reflections will ease the grieving, with time, of course..
I appreciate it.
Great article about Dave Johnson. What a story. And great to link the Maneland side of things as well–nice perspective. Great start to the season for LU.
Ru-ing the missed opportunity for 3 points. Folks giving Ruan a lot of credit for a solid match in Najar’s absence, and I guess that’s fair. Andy was missed though — there was one 1st half attack — not sure if it was Ruan or Williams who blew it by sky-ing a pass into the box when a better pass probably would have gotten at least a scoring chance. I feel Andy would’ve nailed it, but them’s the breaks.
I don’t want to suggest that anyone should be perfect, including me. I had spent 10 minutes calling for Wayne to sub out Durkin and Santos (or move Santos back) and then they pull off the the team’s lone goal. Great job by Durkin, but I want to give Santos a lot of credit. There’s a comment in post-game thread saying it’s an unearned assist, which is rubbish. Santos created a turnover with his pressure, then got the ball in the corner in a tough spot, but managed to dribble out of there to find space, and then to get the ball to Durkin in a dangerous spot. So, good job by Rooney in not paying attention to fans who wanted to get them out…
Rooney didn’t have a lot of options, and it was inspired to put Santos up top. On balance, Durkin was DC’s most dangerous attacker on the night, which I guess doesn’t say a lot good about Santos, but also really says a lot about Benteke who consistently flubbed his lines. Back in the day, with the same service, Emilio would have had at least a brace. Still, there was improvement there with the near misses. Hopefully, that sort of in-game practice will help Benteke sharpen his game.
I called it unearned cuz it was a bit of brilliance from Durkin to work the space and execute the shot. Santos had nothing to do with that.
We’re going to have to disagree about Santos’ effectiveness, the pass to Durkin was the only chance he was involved in. That’s the second striker’s job, he didn’t come up for most of the match.
I didn’t say he was effective earlier. To the contrary, I said I’d been yelling for Rooney to bring on Fletcher and Hopkins to make the attack more productive. I just noted that if Rooney had done what I’d been calling for, Orlando probably wins 1-0.
At that point we were desperate to create and score chances. Santos did nothing to capitalize on the dominance we showed up to that point in terms of chance creation, and he didn’t have a shot that I can recall. We can bicker about whether his pass to Durkin was a “dangerous” one till we’re blue in the face, we didn’t get close to winning the game despite having as high as 63% possession in the first half, and Orlando weren’t doing much with their 37%, either. That’s not what we need from out second striker.
We need someone else in that position, I’d prefer Asad who at least showed some progressive drive.
Durkin makes team of the week.
Well done by him. The shot was a cracker!
Doyle has a short comment on DC while talking about Orlando in his weekly round-up.
Durkin’s Buzzard Point earns 1-1 draw with Orlando. To date:
Buzzard Points (home goals): Benteke, Durkin, Klich, Ku-DiPietro
Talones (home assists): Canouse, Ku-DiPietro, Jeahze, Santos
Also, having actually been at the match, I thought that DC United looked very composed both on offense and (thankfully) on defense. Orlando’s goal was a matter of inches.
Benteke is obviously a big body for MLS center backs to try to handle, but he has to start burying those gimmes.
I was impressed with Ruan and believe he should continue to be our starting right back. Najar seems to have lost a step on defense and should defend farther up field. Maybe an Asad-type sub role.