Welcome to another match day as D.C. United plays its fifth match in a row against teams in the Eastern Conference playoff race. DCU has acquitted itself reasonably well for a team at the bottom end of the table, going 1-2-1 in that span. New coach René Weiler’s unbeaten streak at the helm of D.C United came to an end last weekend at the hands of Messi and Inter Miami, 3-2. The task for the Black and Red doesn’t get any easier with long time bête noire, Philadelphia, traveling to the nation’s capital. D.C. United’s defensive corps will receive reinforcements with Lukas MacNaughton and Matti Peltola returning to the team after serving their suspensions.
The Union arrive at Audi Field leading the Supporter’s Shield race with 60 points and feeling the target on their back with three matches to go. Cincinnati and San Diego are within three points of Philadelphia. Vancouver sits four points back but with a game in hand. Miami is lurking five points back having played two fewer games. September has been a bit rough for Philly. Over the month, the Union were blown out of the water 7-0 by Vancouver before falling to Nashville in the US Open Cup Semifinal 3-1. Philadelphia broke their two game losing streak last weekend, defeating New England 1-0. Going back to the beginning of August the Union are 3-1-2 in MLS play. In those six games, the Union scored more than one goal twice and were shutout in both their losses.
Key Player: Christian Benteke
Since his arrival from Crystal Palace, Benteke has served as the barometer for D.C. United’s success, scoring 49 times and providing 11 assists. Last match, Benteke broke a four game scoreless streak and provided the assist on Jacob Murrell’s goal. Benteke didn’t play in D.C. United’s last match against the Union; if the Black and Red are to have more than a puncher’s chance to get a result, DCU will need him to use his use his deft touch and aerial dominance to help the team find the back of the net.
Watch Out For: Milan Iloski
The Union’s leading scorer, Tai Baribo, will miss the match due to yellow card accumulation. Between San Diego and Philadelphia, Iloski has 11 goals and four assists in 20 games played. With no other players in double digit goals and only Bruno Damaini above five goals, the Union will look to Iloski to provide scoring for an offense missing its biggest weapon.
Challenges:
For the last decade, the Union have dominated the match up against the Black and Red. Across all competitions, D.C. United is on an eight match (7 MLS matches, 1 US Open Cup) winless streak dating back to United’s last win in August 2021. Dating back to the beginning of the 2015 season, D.C United is 5-4-18 against the Union. During that span, the Union have out scored D.C. United 65-25 in 27 matches. The challenge D.C. United faces is simple, find a way to breakdown and defeat an opponent against whom the term “rival” is an exaggeration.
Previously:
D.C. United and the Union met in late April when the team traveled to Chester. Andre Blake kept a clean sheet, as the Union won 3-0. The Black and Red actually out possessed the Union and managed 10 shots, five on target, in a match where Benteke didn’t feature because of thigh issues.
D.C. United Availability:
Out: Kristian Fletcher (knee)
Questionable: David Schnegg (thigh)
Philadelphia Union Availability:
Out: Tai Baribo (Suspended – Yellow Card Accumulation), Frankie Westfield (International Duty)
Questionable: None
Location: Audi Field, Washington, D.C.
Kickoff time: 7:30
Referee: Jair Marrufo
Available Streaming: Apple TV+
Servania is sitting on a yellow card accumulation warning for DCU, so if he picks one up tonight he’ll be suspended for the Charlotte game next week.
A recent tweet from DC seems to imply (at least to me) that Farr might be starting in goal tonight. We’ll see if that’s actually the case
My hunch was correct! Lineup:
Farr; Herrera, Rowles, MacNaughton, Antley; Hopkins, Peltola, Servania; Pirani, Benteke, Peglow
Philly counters with: Blake; Wagner, Makhanya, Glesnes, Harriet; Vassilev, Lukic, Jean Jacques, Sullivan, Damaini, Iloski
Hopkins is a late scratch. Stroud starts in midfield now
Very back and forth first 10 minutes. Couple of chances for both teams, but I’d argue dc has had the better of it. Though Philly has been essentially a man down
Sullivan looked like he might be okay to continue for Philly from the sideline, and then he took a warm-up jump and screamed and crumbled – didn’t look good for him
Weather is not ideal, but a paltry turnout, especially in the supporters sections. They have loud banging instruments, so their noise wins, but Not many more than are in the Union supporters section.
I try not to take too close a look at the stands until about the 25’ mark, because Audi is a very late arriving crowd, but yeah, it’s not good tonight
That was too easy. Carved us up.
And Philly scores. So it begins
Stroud beats Blake, but hits the post
So unlucky. Good work by Stroud to get the shot off.
Stroud again, but hits the crossbar this time. He’s feeling it tonight, just needs a bit of luck
Stroud gets the crossbar! One post left
Servania is now suspended next game for yellow card accumulation.
Servania with the mugging of Uhre. He’ll miss next week.
Well that sucks….
No words.
Well the soccer gods hate us tonight.
It’s going to be one of those nights.
Wishful thinking from DCU social media
Is this karma for the return of the drums to the supporters’ section against the wishes of the supporters’ groups?
I’ve seen the original skeet and the one from tonight, but has there been any more detail on the whole situation from the discussions among the supporters groups , what was said to ownership. Obviously, tonight’s situation is too fresh for much discussion.
Not that I know of. I’m not a member, but I’ve been assuming for a while that they were being silent in protest against ownership. I saw the skeet too, and nothing there surprises me, but I don’t have any details.
I can’t say I really understand the supporter groups stopping chants and drums to begin with
Because they create the atmosphere that ownership sells, so it’s some leverage they have to get ownership to listen to them
Toronto got a point vs. Miami. Live table has us last in the East, as Montreal is level 1-1 vs. Charlotte and has a man advantage.
The Wooden Spoon shall be ours!
On the plus side, this sets us up to go from worst to first next year. With Cristiano Ronaldo bossing the attack.
Ain’t no way he’d want to come to DC.
Miami was the worst team in the league the year before Messi.
Well shit…
And there’s the 4th
Second half starts same as the First half ended. 4-0 DOOP
Five games this season where we’ve allowed at least 4 goals
Bill Hamid at the game. After Iloski made it 4-0, I told him we could use him out there.
I told him I’d tell ownership to bring him back if I thought they’d actually shell out money to do it
And 5
…..who did what to piss off the soccer gods?
I might have commented on Bluesky and I thought we had a chance tonight.
Also I might have stolen some of Jobu’s rum, but that doesn’t impact soccer right?
Wow, things have gotten bad enough that we had to bring on our recent $700k signing for only the second time ever
So, out of idle curiosity that’s not at all related to what’s happening on the field in front of me, what’s the worst score we’ve ever lost by? Can we set a record this season after all?
Philly specifically has beaten us 7-0. I think 8 goals has only ever happened a couple times in league history
Considering DC also lost 7-0 to San Jose this year, I hope they don’t it twice in a year.
Yeah, I just looked it up, no one has EVER lost 8-0, apparently
Well now I know what my inner chaos demon is rooting for.
In all seriousness, for the good of the team, I think this needed to happen.
Gives Weiler and Sogut some perspective on what is possible in MLS — and just how far off the pace DC United really are.
Weiler has seemed to give MacNaughton chances over Bartlett when both are available. I’ve been really critical of Bartlett’s performances this season, but MacNaughton’s contract runs out at the end of this year, and there’s no way we should be offering him a new one. Why he’s getting playing time ahead of Bartlett (or Tubbs, who got loaned to Loudoun) is surprising to me.
Why kept Bartlett instead of McVey who is doing awesome for San Diego is beyond me.
Bartlett was decent last year, but I have no idea what they saw in him to give him such a big, long new deal.
To be fair, the only player in MLS who won more headers last year than Bartlett was Benteke. McVey didn’t stand out in any good way to be sure..
Who thought it was a good idea to let Enow take that free kick?
Who thought Enow was a good idea?
This is where I bring up that he’s on a TAM deal through 2027, with an option for 2028. The way the club handled firing Ally Mackay was bad, but firing him wasn’t entirely unwarranted.
Someone asking about what provoked the soccer gods… I turned in a lot of my unused credit to upgrade to the A/V Club. So, nominally and perversely this is the most expensive ticket I’ve ever bought to a sporting event outside of the Major league baseball playoffs, and barely possibly a World Cup match.
How’s the club?
It was OK? They have a filled your own taco bar, crappy flour tortillas, pretty good Barbacoa and lousy chicken Tinga. I would’ve preferred the tacos they usually have in the concourse from La Tingeria. But they did have a pretty good seafood bar. Oysters on the half shell, big crab claws that had been split open. They also had a very good salad selection.
Dessert was nicer than the premium club. I’ve done a few times before. Fancy ice cream cups with black and red M&Ms for sprinkling, and churros.
I’d done the same tonight, but just for the regular premium club, not the AV. Ah, the expensive view of a terrible night…
Mercifully, no stoppage time and it ends only 6-0
Can’t wait to be back in… 15-ish hours for a very different Audi atmosphere
In DCU-adjacent news, Andy Najar just scored for Nashville
Imagine a DCU team that still had (healthy) Paul Arriola, Julian Gressel, Andy Najar, maybe Bill Hamid and Joe Willis or Steve Clark in goal, maybe Williams and McVey as CBs, and maybe Kevin Paredes and Griffin Yow. Maybe Hines-Ike, and Ku-Dipietro, along with Hopkins and Benteke. Contender at least.
Basically doing nothing other than maybe adding DP like Benteke, instead of getting rid of all the good players that have come through the team over the last five years.
It has been both baffling and pathetic……
Left after goal 6, which appears to have been perfect timing.
My advice to Rene Weiler would be: take off and nuke the site from orbit. The problem, of course, is that in order to do so we would have to do a lot of creative intra-MLS negotiations and transactions to free up roster slots and cap space. And that in turn would mean that we’re back to Dave Kasper pulling the strings, Weiler and Sogut not having the necessary expertise to do that kind of work.
But, yeah. Benteke can come back if he wants to. Herrera is fine. Weiler’s gonna regret throwing Kijima away, but that seems to be where we’re headed. Each and every other player on the roster is, at best, someone a competitive team would be looking to improve upon. Naturally some of them will be back next year due to contracts etc., and one or two might even prove useful with better talent around them. But every case where a player leaves the roster and we don’t keep any salary (or take on some other bad salary) is a win, regardless of what we get in return.
Kijima is fun to watch, but he has no end product.
He won’t work as a pure AM, sure, not in a large-minutes role. He needs to be a glue #8 type in a team that actually functions, and the lack of 90 minute stamina limits his roster-efficiency ceiling.
He’s also:
This is not a player you decide “meh, I don’t have a use for that” if you know what you’re about. But, <shrugs>, none if it will matter anyway, by the time DCU figures out what they’re doing he’ll be 30, he might as well go somewhere else where they might use all of that instead of focusing on what he can’t do.