Getting Reacquainted with DC United, A Metaphor on the Benefits of Inherited Wealth

Had some great damn songs, but...

[Standing Disclaimer: While I have watched…just a stupid amount of MLS over the years, I don’t watch the vast majority of games, never mind all of them. As such, it’s fair to take anything below that isn’t a hard number or a physical trophy as an impression, a couple steps removed.]

Thumbnail History

Tempting as it is to see DC United as the team that squandered its legacy as the first best team in MLS, that narrative writes their first (and only) renaissance out of its history – i.e., the 2004-07 seasons, which saw them win another Cup and two more Shields. The echo might have been half as loud, but it did happen. Against that, those first straight-up fucking insane seasons – DC won three MLS Cups and two Supporters’ Shields, on top of having a crack at a fourth Cup in 1998 (the Chicago Fire won that one) – created a firewall thick enough for them to hold at sixth place on the all-time Joy Points Scale (methodology below*) despite getting slapped with four (4!) Wooden Spoons and some of the worst seasons in league history. Between them checking out of the post-season a half decade at a time and 10 seasons of Benny-ball (when Ben Olsen was in charge) thrown into the mix, it’s almost impossible to remember that DC United reigned as the undisputed Kings of MLS 1.0. Some of MLS’s first great players starred for DC, not all of them listed below (e.g., Jeff Agoos, Roy Lassiter, and Raul Diaz Arce, to name a few). In fewer words, yeah, the designated-player era passed them by. That doesn’t mean they didn’t try, and that they haven’t had a couple hyped hopes, but they have yet to catch up to a league that seems to get faster with each passing season.

Best Season(s)

I’ll always have a soft spot for MLS Cup I, when DC stepped into the downpour that fell on it as the underdog, but I’d call the 1997 and 1999 seasons the franchise’s high-water marks. I don’t remember 1999 so good, partially because I’d moved on to Boston and rooting for the New England Revolution, but I had a front row seat for 1997 and they ran away with everything that wasn’t nailed down. Special team, special players…also, this is where I picked up my aversion to success…

Long-Term Tendencies

DC built their trophy-winning seasons on reliable, live-wire attacks – sometimes to the point of covering for a shaky defense. The reverse held true as well: they suffered their worst seasons when a stumbling attack became the anchor that drowned them. Defense hurt a little as well, but the offense was always a little worse. And here’s a fun little detail: despite its reputation for playing it safe, the Benny-ball era (2010-2020) didn’t consistently translate into improved defensive performances: DC either hit over or above the average for goals allowed in eight of his 10 seasons coaching the team.

FC Cincinnati 1-4 DC United: A Problem with Casting

The importance of the casting call can't be stressed enough. Look at these schlubs.

The only positive you can take out of the….sincerely fucking awful penalty call Bartolomeo Toledo called on behalf of FC Cincinnati is the fact that Emmanuel Ledesma had the poise to put it away. With a stutter-step, which I thought wasn’t legal. And, again, on a total bullshit call.

That that it mattered. Lucas Rodriguez scored the last go-ahead goal of the night just five minutes later. The game ended 1-4 against FC Cincinnati, but the game started getting away from them as early as 10 minutes in. Sure, Kendall Waston pinged a free header off the crossbar – think that was somewhere in or around the 20s – but, for the first time in a while, the game looked very much like a USL team (that’d be Cincy) playing against an MLS team. The same DC United handing out points at home and conjuring malaise in soccer form over its past 10 games (and they’re still 2-2-6 over their past 10 with last night’s win) looked like the better team on both sides of the ball: they played out of trouble more effectively, won their defensive battles (box score be damned), moved the ball more effectively and to better places.

I caught the final 10 minutes of the game in real-time - aka, after hope got lost and fell into a car-compactor then in use – and it seemed to play out under a gentleman’s truce. It was worth circling back to see how they arrived at that moment, because it gave an answer to the question of how much stock Cincinnati fans should place in their last two wins. The short answer is, not a lot. Last night made those look still more like bad days for the Houston Dynamo and the Chicago Fire than good days for Cincinnati.

What really stood out last night – particularly in the second half, especially – was how thoroughly the wheels came off. Right before DC scored its second and final go-ahead goal, I wrote the word “GAPPY” in my notes, and just like that – as in, all caps. Cincinnati wasn’t getting any pressure on the ball, and for a while at that point, while leaving space all over the field. Nearly every player on the field, but especially in midfield, Cincinnati players assumed the proverbial position (not a proverb) and appeared, for lack of a better word, confused as to what would happen next. Call it a fresh twist on ball-watching; it wasn’t the usual case of losing marks, but…I don’t know, sincere curiosity as to what would happen next? Once DC got hold of the game, they only let go of it when sporting decency called them off.

DC United 4-1 Portland Timbers: The Subtle Brilliance of Plausible Deniability

Audi Field, artist's rendering.

I’ve been whining about giving key Portland Timbers rest since, well, what was universally accepted as a flat performance against the Vancouver Whitecaps over the weekend, when the Timbers lost 1-2 at home. I’m not going to re-litigate that particular point - that said, more on that later - but, in the wake of the kind of demoralizing thrashing the Timbers haven’t seen since a head-full-of-doubts March (which lead to a sputtering April, remember), I do want to expand on a point I didn’t realize until after the final whistle blew.

To start at the beginning, the Timbers lost 1-fucking-4 to DC United tonight, aka, formerly the second-worst team in Major League Soccer (stay classy, San Jose Earthquakes!). To their credit, and in Portland’s defense (just generally, as opposed to the defense specifically), DC, 1) always had ground to make up due to a second-half slew of home games (because Audi Field), and 2) they’d added Wayne Rooney, of England international fame, into their line-up in mid-July.

Nothing about that particular set of circumstances - e.g., fatigue for the Timbers/DC upgrading and playing in happier climes - augured this kind of blowout. And, yes, it was a blow-out: take away the 10-15 minutes before and around the time Samuel Armenteros made it possible to believe everything would be all right, DC was the better team tonight (emphasis added, and intended). All the same, nothing about tonight was inevitable. And, in that precise sense, I understand the math - i.e., going with your best players against the perceived weaker team with an eye to guaranteeing at least one win on this two-game road-swing (it ends at Sporting Kansas City, and on Saturday…huzzah?), and then (serious question, then?) maybe the team rests players who’ve been bleeding for this team throughout its, in light of this loss, frankly incredible 15-game unbeaten streak. I’m not just talking Diego Valeri, even though he’s the guy I keep mentioning; I’m talking Diego Chara, Sebastian Blanco, even Larrys Mabiala and Julio Cascante. And with the way I’m seeing a lot of people shit all over the defense tonight, I can’t imagine anyone complaining about the latter - more on that later too. None of that happened, though: instead, Portland trotted out the same old team and, after a sluggish start, they survived, even willed themselves into the lead. And, just when they thought they could earn their rest, Audi Field turned into a cauldron of fucking piranhas! Auugghhh!!!