D.C. United 3, AC Milan 2

Oh, it doesn’t matter. Onward to the positives tonight, of which there were a few for D.C., and that’s been rare this year. [Some game quotes here.]

How about Bill Hamid? Snuffing Pato out from close range in the 1st minute and then making a nifty poke on the 20-year-old Brazilian with his foot in the 23rd. One suggestion: he shouldn’t work his right arm when the ball’s at the other end of the field – it makes it look like his shoulder is still out of whack.

“Bill is a gamer,” said United head coach Curt Onalfo. “The kid is something special. He comes up big, he’s got a presence in goal. He’s 19 years old, but he’s got this presence of a more experienced goalkeeper. The information he gives is good, and he makes timely saves. Credit to him for stepping up again and doing another good job for us.”

“Honestly, I have more butterflies in league games than this because we’re trying to make it to the playoffs,” said Hamid. “This game, we just came with the mentality to enjoy ourselves and to have fun. And we did, and we won.”

Troy Perkins was a bit more unluckly in the second half, as there was some doubt – not a lot from me, to be honest – about the validity of the penalty kick called when sliding Kurt Morsink got his arm into the way of a cross on the ground. And then Massimo Oddo‘s howitzer second goal was deflected off Julius James’s arm. Perkins and the rest of RFK also could only stare when Ronaldinho nearly hit paydirt with his bicycle kick. The Brazilian’s touch was sweetness. His running? Not so much.

But back to D.C., Chris Pontius also looked particularly sharp on the ball, and Santino Quaranta played with some verve, too. United desperately needs them to provide a similar spark against Chivas USA this weekend.

“It was great to see. It was good to have [Pontius] back on the field,” said Onalfo. “It was good to have Quaranta back on the field, but certainly I thought Chris had an excellent 45 minutes and we’ve missed him sorely, there’s no two ways about it.”

“Yeah, I grew up watching these guys,” said Quaranta. “I was a huge [AC Milan] fan as a kid, our neighborhood was, and everybody. I always looked up to them and it was fun to play against them. This was the most fulfilling international friendly I’ve played.”

Hopefully, it won’t be United’s most fulfilling game of the year.

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