D.C. United vs. Toronto FC: Preview, time, and how to watch
Winless in four, D.C. United are on the hunt for points before the international break. The Black-and-Red are eager to snap back to winning form after a 1-1 home draw with 14th-place Chicago Fire and a road loss to CF Montréal.
While D.C. has had a few tough weeks, we must remember the substantial progress made this season.
Head coach Troy Lesesne said, “When you look at the whole scope of the first half of this season, the things that we’ve put in place, try to really reset and, you know, reinvent D.C. United and a new way going forward in 2024, there are many things that I think that we can feel good about.”
He continued, “We’re doing things in an attentional way. And we’re seeing the results on the field, it doesn’t always materialize in three points. And there’s plenty of things that we have to continue to work on to realize three points every single week. But I know if we continue down this path, that we’re going to be in a good place by the end of the season and many seasons to come.”
Hear everything head coach Troy Lesesne had to say in the pre-game press conference here.
For their part, Toronto will be a formidable opponent. Coming off a draw with Philadelphia Union on Wednesday, D.C. will do well not to underestimate the Reds.
The Reds have made a strong comeback from last season, rising to 6th place in the East after finishing 2023 at the very bottom of the league. Much of Toronto’s turnaround can be credited to head coach John Herdman, former manager of the Canadian men’s and women’s national teams and the New Zealand women’s national football team. Herdman has organized Toronto into a treacherous team, capitalizing on his talented roster to punish opponents.
We’re expecting the same great atmosphere at Buzzard Point and know the support of the Black-and-Red faithful will give the team a warm welcome home.
Let us know your thoughts about tonight’s match in the comments below, and come back here during the game tonight to chat in real-time with the community!
Key Player: Christian Benteke
Veteran striker Christian Benteke is tied for the leading MLS goalscorer of the 2024 season with 13 stunning goals. His incredible vision of the game has helped D.C. out of many tight spots this season. Benteke sees the game differently and is able to find himself in opportune positions with ease. The Black-and-Red have come to rely on the forward as their main goal scorer, but the striker isn’t selfish – you’ll notice he frequently sets up his teammates in optimum positions to take dangerous shots.
Watch Out For: Lorenzo Insigne and Federico Bernardeschi
Insigne is a lethal striker who may come into the match against D.C. United much fresher than his teammates. He missed the midweek match against Philadelphia for the birth of his third child. Toronto is trying to fly the designated player back from Italy in time for the match but has not confirmed his participation yet. Federico Bernardeschi will be another Toronto player to keep close tabs on tonight. If the Black-and-Red aren’t careful, Federico Bernardeschi, Toronto’s leading goal scorer, will also cause serious pain for the home team.
Challenges: The Black-and-Red will certainly deal with tired legs and overall fatigue as they head into their fourth match in just two weeks. To add to the strain, only 14 players are available for the match. We anxiously await the transfer window and reinforcements for this team.
Previously: While D.C. United lost the away leg to Toronto last season, but the Black-and-Red posted a victory at home. We hope history repeats itself.
D.C. United Availability:
Out: Conner Antley (knee), Russell Canouse (not due to injury), Christopher McVey (knee)
Questionable: Jacob Murrell (illness)
Disciplinary: Matti Peltola (suspension – red card), Cristian Dájome (yellow card accumulation)
Toronto FC Availability:
Out: Shane O’Neill (thigh), Prince Owusu (calf), Brandon Servania (knee)
Questionable: Richie Laryea (thigh)
Location: Audi Field, Washington, DC
Kickoff time: 7:30 pm ET
Referee: Jon Freemon
Available streaming: MLS Season Pass on Apple TV
United has recalled Matai Akinmboni, but Jacob Murrell is questionable with an illness. So it still may be just 14 outfield players available, and no more than 15. Thankfully, there’s a two week break after this game.
Yep. 🙁 I just updated with this info, and I am not at all happy to do so. Looking forward to the break so these guys can take a breather and regroup.
I hope Lesesne tries something different tonight. We looked really solid at the start of the season with four in the back and have just been getting ate alive with flank play/cross field balls since then. Put in Pirani/Murrel for Dajome/Peltola and go with a diamond 4-4-2. Herrera shifts to LB while Stroud drops to RB. Murrell and Benteke up top while KDP leads the diamond and Pirani/Koch act as shuttlers.
Christian Benteke needs just one more goal to be tied (with Ben Olsen) for 9th in DC’s all-time career scoring chart. Mateusz Klich needs just one more assist to be tied for 12th most career assists in United history. He’s 7 away from the top 10, which if he keeps up the same pace he’s been on, he’ll reach.
When you bring in DPs that wind up in the top 10 of scoring categories like that, that’s pretty good business.
Thanks, Sarah. Your preview and match day thread always appreciated.
In other sports news, sons Gregory (age 60) and Patrick (age 58) just completed the Show Low AZ 70.3 Ironman triathlon.
Thank you for your support, David! We are glad you’re a member of this community.
Congratulations to Gregory and Patrick!
DC United is the third game I’ll be watching in the coming hours.
Champions League, Emma Hayes first crack at the US Women, and watching us crash land this space ship before getting two weeks off.
It’s a good day for my problem!
How are you feeling about this Champions League final?
I was really rooting for Dortmund, and Real Madrid have had some hateful flops and embellishments. At the end of the day, looks like this is truly a team of champions, and underdogs are not anointed, but this was not great for my rooting interests.
That said, completely different game if Adeyimi does a competent job on a complete one vs one, and I’m personally furious at him for fucking it up.
On the bright side, get to switch to the USWNT friendly early enough for kickoff, so, thanks, you white shirted (expletive deleted)s!
Staab comes on! And I would be cursing the gods if I was in a game, losing 3-0, and Shaw and Lavelle get subbed in
So… how long do you think it takes for Emma Hayes to say “my bad,” and never not start Jadyn Shaw?
Love Smith, but that assist pass was her one accurate pass of the half so far. Great finish by Swanson
Flood gates may be opening. Davidson heads it off the noggin of a Korean defender spectacularly for a two goal first half lead
Well, Davidson ghosts in unmarked on another corner for an exceptional headed goal. A brace for Tierna! Yowza
Horan comes up, Girma gets the arm band. I think we’re gonna see that a lot more in the coming years.
Albert is the sub in, gets some boos on her announcement. If weirdos were hoping to make her a poster child for bigoted victimhood, Hayes seems to be denying them of that
Swanson gets the brace, first goals back from injury. She’s a real force
4-0. The field reporter keeps asking players about “learnings” under Emma Hayes, and it makes me pretty dubious of her.
I’m going to watch this on much delay as the Old Glory game is at 7. I’m also assuming it’s not going to go well.
Lineup out.
Murrell on the bench, might be a “bring out your dead!” situation for the bench
Female center ref tonight in Old Glory game. Nothing wrong with that. I think she’s the only female center ref for MLR.
Damn gonna be a long night. Anthem just scored a try at the 1:52 mark.
And there’s another try. The first wasn’t converted and this time was. It’s now 12-0 to Anthem after 8 mins of play.
Old Glory has come back with 2 tries and 1 made conversion to tie the game 12-12. First half hydration break at the 19:43 mark.
12 all at half.
Old Glory is rolling in the 2nd half at the 2nd half hydration break it was 33-12. We scored 2 tries during a man advantage for a yellow for a high tackle head to head contact low danger level and no mitigation. 21 unanswered so far.
Final score OGDC 47 Anthem 29.
Calling it now- if someone gets injured tonight, it will be Osorio doing it. Hope he controls himself.
Let’s keep it simple this game: don’t let Bernardeschi, Toronto’s only real threat currently, control the game.
Welp, so much for that…
90 seconds in and DC leaves Bernardeschi wide open on the flank. He slashes in and slips a pass to a wide open attacker for 1-0.
Field looks mucho better
I’ve never seen a professional team get pulled out of there shape quite like this DC team. Toronto just pinged it around and pulled 3 DC defenders out of position on that goal.
That hurt. I have a feeling we are in for quite a bit more of that tonight if we can’t hold our shape.
Apple, I tuned in to hear Dave Johnson, not an occasional interruption rap battle from him. Stop playing him muffled under this hack
I think Dave is at the Annapolis Blues season opener? He’s still on iHeart Radio though.
Naw, he’s on deck, they just were mixing the audio
Yall remember when we were lauding this team for how energized they were to start matches? Where did that go? Team has looked deflated
They’re not robots in terms of stamina. They need breaks, a squad of replacements, subs.
Subs are there. They’ve only been used past the 75th minute as of late.
Minutes add up.
I personally am in favor of early subs, if you know you’re gonna make them, but having to start the same players all the time will hurt any team. So you need more players who can contribute to avoid needing to squeeze the few
Totally agree. I’m not blaming the players for being tired. I’m blaming the coaching staff for not rotating and/or utilizing their bench better. The first 5 games or so guys like Fletcher and Murrell were seeing fairly regular subs around the 65-70th minute. All of a sudden that stopped. Pair that with pretty meh performances and I’m scratching my head wondering why Fletcher isn’t getting at least a midweek start to spell Stroud, as an example.
I was originally surprised when I saw Bernadeschi as a wingback, but now I get it. He’s running the “we won’t tackle you here” area that has been there all season
It feels like they’ve been playing for an eon. Not even 30 minutes in.
Santos or Ted- who is having the worse game?
Touch choice
That left side is getting abused.
Seeing the replay of the second goal, Santos was a vague presence on the left at best
Nothing new, unfortunately. Not to mention Tubbs got sucked out of position as well, and Birnbaum took an extra second to slide. Sloppy all around.
When was the last time we had a reasonable left side? Mora 2019, Woolard 2015, or Erpen 2005? Even then I would not say it was strong. Well overdue for the solution that Jeahze was suppose to fill.
Austrian LB coming in the transfer portal, so it was reported.
Bernardeschi with quite a finish for the second.
Waiter?
A goalscoring play coming down our left flank. Don’t see that every day.
Bernardeschi attacking DC’s left shouldn’t be allowed. Responsible for both TFC goals.
Stroud with a golazo denied by the frame
I thought that was Ted.
I wish Ted was that close to scoring, dismal tonight
Benteke looked injured for a sec, and the whole season flashed before my eyes
For all the difficult chances he finishes, Benteke sure does make the easy ones look hard…
Stroud almost gets Benteke an assist, Benteke can’t dial in the shot
Anybody else get a little upset that Sean Johnson improved his game as he got older and Bill Hamid… didn’t?
Johnson has always been pretty good, but not exceptional. Hamid had some massive peaks, the team was just not good enough when they occurred. No jealousy here
Tubbs defends Bernardeschi. You see, Santos?
Anyway, I’m gonna cordially invite our newest signing, the left back, to get his ass through the Visa issues ASAP
The better you are, the luckier you get.
We have no luck currently, but that doesn’t feel like a mistake
I haven’t been watching the game, but I’m not at all surprised by the score. This team needs the international break and the new LB, hopefully coinciding with a switch away from the 3-4-2-1 that just isn’t working.
I think if Fletcher or Rodriguez were showing better, we’d return to the 4-3-3 we started with. They’ve been quite ineffective, though
I think Fletcher has been struggling with the freedom that he gets in the role under Benteke. A more rigid positional assignment would probably help him at this stage in his career.
Interesting hypothesis, but what I like to see from young prospects is fearlessness and high energy. Can’t say we saw that from him remotely in his one start
That half was a microcosm of DC’s season: DC wasteful and their opponents are clinical. Weirdly, as bad as it looks, it’s not crazy to say DC could (should?) have at least a goal if not two themselves.
They were winning the xG battle at halftime, I think.
The Benteke sub is wise to me, this is a shitshow.
Uh oh, think he just indicated his groin to Lesesne.
No we don’t need anymore injuries.
Maybe it was just a tweak, and he knew to take it into the break rather than continue
Huh, I was surprised that a familiar looking player named Longstaff is playing for Toronto, turns out he’s the brother of the famous Longstaff who plays for Newcastle
Seems like Tubbs was a good pickup for the future
Looks much more comfortable on the right hand side of the defense. Toronto in general have been pretty passive in the second half, though.
Must say, TKD gets the tap in but Fletcher unsettled the defense before it switched sides, MUCH better from him
Terrific flicked header by Murrell gives Pirani ample space to operate, Flores takes him down.
Opportune position, but strangely Rodriguez takes it and misses everything
I was saying to myself, “If anybody but Klich is taking this, I’m going to be pissed off.” And, well…
I can’t believe we a) paid a transfer fee to b) pay Rodriguez $1 million, and c) the GM that did that still has a job with the team.
Hahahaha, Bernardeschi kicks the ball away for a STUPID second yellow. We’re a man up
Murrell has a Motor on him. He’s been everywhere the last ten minutes. Need more one touch passing from Pirani/Fletcher right now though.
Penalty… what a potential turnaround!!!
Tubbs grappled in the box, taken down
And that’s a second double yellow—- what in the hell
And Klich puts it away! Holy crap.
Never a penalty but I guess I can’t complain.
It’s all tied up!!!
Klich smooth as butter with the deception on the PK, our 11 against 9… what the hell
Wow. We tripled the number of players with more than one goal tonight.
In honor of Bernardeschi, Longstaff gets a stupid yellow for kicking it away
The winner is chopped off for offside, let’s see this back
Wait, what?
Stroud wasn’t, that’s for sure
I think they said Bartlett. Didn’t get a clear look on replay.
It was Bartlett who leaves it Fletcher after being in an offside position.
Ah, I see it now, just a shade when he played it
We never got a great look on the replays about Bartlett’s position. That said, they almost gave up the winning goal, allowing a breakaway even with a 2-man advantage. That was absolute shite from Pirani to get stripped in that position. That young man makes the worst decisions with the ball at his feet.
An undeserved point if there ever was one.
I mean, when your opponent is making mistakes, why interrupt them? I agree it was fortunate, in the extreme, but that was some really undisciplined shit from Toronto
He was offside.
That play is gonna be bugging me for the rest of the season, perhaps longer
Well, this draw is a moral victory, but a real shame there weren’t more minutes for the power play
I don’t much to say yet as I’ll have time to think in through.
My initial take is that Klich is an excellent soccer player. I’m am glad he is on our team. He has a level of spatial, ball, and pace of the game control that is unique on the team. I hope our FO can sign him to end his career here if he’s up for it.
100% agree. My only condition would be to move him further up field or get more support behind him so he can roam without needing to worry about leaving holes in the midfield.
Never keep a DP past his ability to run. This isn’t Europe. We can’t and shouldn’t keep him past his expiration date, which might not even be next season, but is coming.
Yeah, it’s going to be some potentially gutsy calls from Ally Mackay this offseason. Both Benteke and Klich are coming to the end of their contracts this year. Both are performing well, and Benteke is so aerially dominant that the entire gameplan is built around him. They’ve likely merited returns next year, but you also have the opportunity to bring in two, maybe three new DPs (if you can classify Peltola as a U-22). Do you roll the dice, and hope for even greater rewards, or do you stick with what you know and hope they don’t fall off a cliff?
I don’t have an answer to your question as I don’t know what DP level center mids will be available next offseason. I think that Klich has at least a year left in the tank. I also don’t know what his wishes may be with regards to his career.
As for Benteke, with the caveat that I don’t know him so don’t know what he wants to do next year, I think he has at least three years left in the tank. For field players, center backs and inside-the-box forwards tend to be able to play well past 35 because their game isn’t based on speed. It’s based on having a knack to read the game ahead of the opponent and get to the space first. Yes, Benteke is a great jumper but he usually wins the headers with his feet by getting to the space first.
I don’t think there is a better inside the box forward in the world right now. He is clearly an asset behind the scenes too in that he is a very classy professional who brings a professional and positive attitude to training. I think he makes the players and coaches better,
I saw something like this posted after another game in the past week. I’d just like to say this is the most absurd thing I’ve read here. Benteke isn’t even the best in the box in MLS, but the world? The guy came here because he couldn’t score in England — 4 goals in over 30 matches in EPL and Cup tournaments. He had a decent year the year before, He did have 11 goals the year before that, but that was almost flukey. The 3 years before that, he was invisible.
In MLS, he’s able to score with some fairly crappy service, because he’s bigger and savvier than the piss-poor defenders and the goalies in MLS. Few of his goals are impressive snap headers. Mostly he just gets in the way of the ball and guides it where the goalie isn’t — and I say mostly advisedly. That’s his goals — but he fails to put away more chances than he makes.
I dig Benteke, but his goals say a lot more about the poor quality of MLS defenses than it does about him.
He couldn’t score in England because he was miscast in a system that didn’t play to his strengths. Zlatan didn’t do a lot of crazy snap headers either. He mostly timed little runs inside the box and got to the space first. Bread and butter for an inside the box forward.
I wouldn’t use the EPL as the measuring stick for a player’s quality. It’s a fine but declining league that is being choked by one of its members having infinite resources and the others getting punished for trying to keep up. The other teams are being pushed to counterattacking styles because they don’t have the resources to compete with the big spenders in a toe to toe press or possession style. Benteke was miscast as a lone forward who was expected to outrun two and three defenders. Thats just not his game.
I admit I was hyperbolic in saying he’s the best right now at his role. He could he though as his game is very much out of fashion outside of Italy. It speaks a lot that it took a coach who came up from the minors who is trained in figuring out his roster’s strengths and emphasizing them rather than a Pep Guardiola who has his system and just burns guys out in his system rather than adjusting for his roster.
I feel like Benteke never got a chance in England because they don’t adjust tactics for players anymore. They just sign guys and try them out in some coaches’ divine system then toss them away when the coach is actually putting a square peg in a round hole. They need a salary cap there, badly.
The same thing happened to Klich. That is why such a quality player was available to sign.
No forward converts more chances than they make. If they did, scores would be 11-10 rather than 2-1. Benteke has been delivering this season at a world class level. Whether he’s the best, you can make reasonable arguments against and that’s fair.
A certain Man City Norwegian would be my pick, but I appreciate your deserved attention for Benteke.
A weird game that definitely means a lot for DC’s mental state going into the break. That being said there’s still ALOT of work to do. This game was equally Toronto losing it and DC doing just enough to get something out of it.
Heh, Toronto got four yellow cards tonight. Which means just two players picked up yellows, but they both got second yellows as well.
They picked up 5. I believe Osorio got a yellow after the final whistle for something he said to the ref.
My bad. They picked up 8. Longstaff in the 90+8’, Osario and Marshall-Rutty in 90+4’, and someone after the final whistle though I don’t know who.
The TFC Twitter feed is nothing but sadness after the 79’.
Props to Rodriguez. He came on and controlled the central midfield. well. I know that Toronto was back on the heels at this point, but he still put in the work. This is not easy because he has not seen much of the field this year. He did well combining with Klich. He should play more.