DC United Hoping to Beat Back a Roaring Fire

DC United Hoping to Beat Back a Roaring Fire

Mike Martin

June 06, 2008

The Fire are the hottest team in MLS having blasted NY 5-1 in Giants Stadium in their last game, but they’ve had almost two weeks to cool off since that game. While United has recently found their form and could surprise a Fire team that may be a bit overconfident.

Washington D.C., Clearly, if you were handicapping this game, you’d have to put your money on the Fire. DC has never won in Toyota Park and has yet to play a convincing 90 minutes on the road this year. The Fire have the best defense and the second best offense behind incumbent player of the month, Cuauhtemoc Blanco, while DC has the worst defense and a middling offense that has been shut out five times this year already. One of those shut outs coming a few weeks ago in RFK by the very same Fire team.

“For me Chicago has been one of the best teams in the league so far from what I’ve seen, so we’re going to turn our focus to them.” Soehn said after the Houston rain out. But, DC will need more than focus to take points from a Chicago team that has lost only a league best two games, considering DC has a league worst seven losses.

So, all signs point to the Black and Red getting whitewashed in Toyota Park; however, a little overconfidence can go a long way to undermining a hot team in MLS, and United could take advantage of a Fire team that might think themselves better than they really are.

For one thing, Chicago has not been very convincing in their own house this year. Their best wins, outside blasting NE early in the year, have come on the road, and their home record is a hardly daunting 2-2 overall. Since thumping the Revs 4-0 in week two, the Fire have lost two of three matches at Toyota Park and only scored three goals. KC shut them out 1-0, the Fire barely scraped by Colorado 2-1, and Houston reversed that scoreline to beat them in their last home match.

DC plays an extremely similar style to Houston at the moment, and could give the Fire just as many matchup problems. Houston relied on scrappy wing play to negate Chicago jamming up DeRosario and Ching in the middle, and then the Dynamo got some opportunistic goals to douse the Fire. Well, that pretty much describes DC right now exactly.

Assuming the Fire will jam up Gallardo by Gutierrez kicking the crap out of him in classic Fire tradition dating back to the days when they mercilessly roughed up Gomez and Marco before him. But, Fred and Santino should be the difference in midfield to turn the tide DC’s way, even though that won’t be enough to totally turn the tables as the Fire has easily the best defensive line in the league. Especially with Conde back in the center of defense, and launching killer long balls over the top. The Colombian has been on the outs since Osorio left, but has pushed his way back into the team recently and that isn’t good news for United fans.

“Wilman played an unbelievable game [against NY in their last game]. He was able to step in and win a lot of balls, and he played solid balls out of the back, too, bypassing the midfield to our forwards. It’s important from the standpoint that he wants to show our coaches that he wants to be on the field. As far as all the other, outside issues that took place, I think we’ve moved on from that. He’s committed to this team, wants to be here, and wants to be on the field.” Said Osorio after the NY win.

So, even if Fred and Santino somehow swing the midfield DC’s way when we’re going forward, DC still has to get some production from somewhere else if they want a prayer of pulling off an upset. Houston and KC got opportunistic goals from Ricardo Clarke and Jack Jewsbury respectively, and Boswell scored the winner by nodding in a quick freekick taken by Mulrooney.

DC has been all about opportunism lately. Santino and Simms pounded shots for Emilio to collect rebound goals the last two games, so there’s reason to believe he could get another to extend his scoring streak to three games. Soehn said after the NE game that, “The good part is that we’re creating those quality chances right now and every game I’m seeing it get better and better.” Another possible hero could be the wily veteran, Jaime Moreno who single-handedly stole a point in Chicago last year with a silly shot that completely fooled Matt Pickens for the 1-1 draw.

But, scoring and winning are pipe dreams unless DC eliminates the mistakes that have plagued the team so far this season. Chicago will absolutely punish mistakes as they did when they beat us in RFK. Namoff and Santino let Mapp score the winner and Simms totally lost Blanco to let him get the icing on the cake with a cracking goal to seal the deal.

However, that very game may be Chicago’s undoing if they assume DC is the same team they were that night. DC was playing a bad formation, and was a mere Chivas debacle away from the rock bottom of their season. Since that Chivas loss, DC has found their formation and steadily gotten better in every facet of the game.

Defensively, the matchups really aren’t that frightening either. Mapp will not have as easy a time getting free as he did against Santino as that was pretty much a one on one matchup back then. This time Namoff will help on that side of the field. The Fire will need Segares to get upfield a lot to really swing things their way on that side, but if Santino continues his lovely attacking abandon of late, then Segares will be too preoccupied to get forward much.

Thorrington on the other side will have it even tougher this time around, if he even plays. He will have Martinez to contend with this time again too, but with Prideaux behind Thorrington, he’s getting no help offensively. And Martinez will have the help of two center backs inside of him this time around as well. Thorrington may not even play, either as he’s back from back spasms, but maybe not totally fit yet. Should he not play, then Logan Pause taking his place hurts their offense considerably, even as it may well slow down Fred just as much. But, the longer this game goes 0-0, the better for DC.

In fact, Chicago may go with a 4-5-1 simply to get more players into the attack, but I think that would be a mistake as it pulls Rolfe too far from the front of goal and will allow McTavish to step up and help Simms on Blanco. No, Chicago’s best chance is to go man on man with the expectation of winning more matchups than they lose.

However, regardless of what Chicago does, the central pairing of Peralta and McTavish really will be the key to keeping this game tight. There’s no doubt Blanco will set up his share of chances no matter how good Simms plays (Of course, Simms needs to keep Blanco from romping down the middle of the field for another goal of the year candidate obviously!), and Rolfe and Barrett are as opportunistic as it comes. That forward pair have cruelly punished DC mistakes the last few years. However, McTavish has had a year to get sharper and Peralta was brought in specifically to eliminate those types of mistakes. This is a good test to see how far they have come in being able to do just that.

Bottom line is that DC has to eliminate the blatant mistakes. If they give up a good goal or two, there’s not much shame in that, but bad mistakes might be a hole too deep to dig out of against a very tight Fire defense even if the offense continues it’s remarkably better form. A valiant tie would be perfectly acceptable, even a well played loss could be tolerated as unavoidable, but a mistake prone ugly loss could easily undermine all the confidence the team has built up over the past three weeks.

With any luck Chicago is looking past DC towards their Open Cup match against the Crew, or is simply overconfident given the results to date. Whatever. If they are off their game even the slightest, and DC comes in with the right mentality, United can absolutely shock the Fire in their house. Wouldn’t it be lovely to somehow see the big VW shirt unfurled in Toyota Park? Now that would be a Tifo classic!

So there you have it, realistically DC is not likely to get a result, but there is more than random luck on their side. A little help from an overconfident Chicago, DC continuing to their steady improvement, a good bounce here or there and United could get just the confidence boost they need to pull themselves back into respectability.

United returns to RFK for three straight games against NY, SJ, and LA before taking the month of July off for Superliga and Open Cup play. There’s a possibility the Houston match postponed by the rain will be replayed in July however. Still, United absolutely needs 9 points minimum before July to keep their season afloat. A point, or soccer gods willing a stunning three points would go a long towards that goal.

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