I hope everyone had a lovely Independence Day. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a middle-of-the-week holiday, so naturally, it’s messing with my calendar awareness. To the kicks!
FC Dallas 0-1 D.C. United (Washington Post): D.C. United get their first win in Dallas in 17 years. Those 3 points look mighty large as the playoff bubble gets crowded. D.C. United is in limited company leading MLS with 22 matches played.
D.C. United’s summer transfer window options, summarized (The DP): Expect this link to work at 9:00 AM! Ryan reviews how D.C. United’s roster might fluctuate this summer.
Man stabbed during Mexico-Qatar Gold Cup soccer match at Levi’s Stadium; 2 sought (CBS): There just isn’t any good news coming out of Mexican soccer.
Canada tops Cuba to advance to CONCACAF Gold Cup quarterfinals (Sportsnet): Canada’s victory assures that they will face the United States in the quarterfinals.
Report: New England Revolution signing midfielder Ian Harkes (MLS): Bruce Arena and a Harkes… it’s a duo as old as (MLS) time.
A brief kicks today, so feel free to expand them in the comments!
That road win was huge. It was also difficult and unexpected. It was 90 degrees at 9pm central time, the team was short handed and on short rest. It was just tough luck getting slotted as the opponent in FC Dallas’s July 4 game.
Coach Rooney’s man management was great in that game. We will take the luck from Dallas hitting the crossbar in stoppage time.
I’m relieved that there are no injuries as guys were reasonably cramping down the stretch of that game.
As for the points, I am happy with three points from games at Nashville then at Dallas with two days’ rest, one of which is a travel day. It was just a hard stetch.
It’ll be good to have both Fountas and Benteke back again on Saturday. We will miss Klich.
Ditto all the observations.
Well said. Much needed 3 points. Let’s hope for 3 more when a barely Messi-less Miami comes to town on Saturday.
Tremendous levels of luck involved. Dallas hits the crossbar in stoppage time, but missed a sitter earlier. In the first half. there was the breakaway that Pines and Bono managed to defend. Meanwhile Taxi’s shot nearly missed wide, but deflects in off the post, scoring on DC’s only decent chance of the entire match. Still, the 3 points look good in the standings.
Yep, and Pines had as good a potential assist to Dallas in the second half as you could want.
Pines did well overall, but truly lucky win.
DCU is trading for Ian Harkes. Draft pick and contingency GAM.
I was wondering why he was hanging out in the club section last game….
(Very nice person to talk to, FWIW. He did nicely in Scotland.
Not “trading for” Harkes. They’re trading him away to New England.
You sure? I may have misunderstood what I read. I though NE had his rights (MLS can be confusing) and was coning here? Your take is more intuitive, as he was a home-grown here.
If I am in error, sorry for the confusion and fake news.
Revs acquiring his MLS rights from DC. This is from Goff: https://twitter.com/SoccerInsider/status/1675988451743629313
Anyone else get the feeling that once in the games in hand are made up by other teams that DCU will be out of playoff position?
Most likely but there are more than 10 games left in the season so our situation is not dire. We can still make the playoffs, all we need is consistency because right now we are neither good or bad. We have shown that we can compete with most if we put the effort but our main problem is specifically that, we don’t always put 100% effort. When you are not world-class good, effort and urgency must be there for 90 minutes +.
Yeah. I think it’s 50-50 if we’re still in a playoff spot. My guess is that it will come down to deadline day unless we can make a push now. Can’t afford to drop points against Miami on Saturday and we really needed at least a point from a short handed RSL team.
They won’t all win every one of those games in hand and many of those games in hand are against each other. Some of those games in hand are things like on the road at Cincinnati or Houston in August. Some of those games in hand will have injuries or a bad bounce that turn a draw into a loss or a win into a draw. None of those teams are consistent like Cincinnati or New England or Nashville or Philadelphia.
Our remaining season has lots of winnable games including home games against good teams we match up well with like Philadelphia. DC United has a lot of quality but lacks consistency so far. That is not uncommon for a new-ish group (in that the new pieces plus the guys from last year make a new whole group plus they have a new system they are working to perfect) that is common among teams coming back to being competitive after hitting rock bottom the previous season.
Bottom, line, there is still a lot of soccer to play and I don’t think those DCU ending up below the playoff line is any sort of certainty.
Agreed all around. Philly is scary even when we’re at home, though. We do need to win those winnable games. Beating Dallas does help things a bit on the “unexpectedly good news” side. We’ll have Benteke back, which might make up for the loss of Klich (who honestly has been the 2nd most important player with how much ground he covers and how clean he is on the ball).
I give Rooney all the credit for this win. He made the necessary changes from Saturday given the high temperatures. The team that played Saturday on short rest would have wilted. He also made great substitutions in the second half to get fresh players in the game. Getting a win playing a 4th place team used to the high temperatures in front of a sold-out away stadium seemed nearly an impossible task, but he pulled it off.