New York Red Bulls at D.C. United
When: 8 p.m.
Where: RFK Stadium
TV: ESPN2
Sure, it’s only a month into the season, and D.C. United certainly hasn’t shown the dominant abilities of a team like Real Salt Lake, who may not have won in Monterrey last night but played with as little fear as I’ve ever seen for an MLS team in Mexico in a 2-2 draw that will give them the upper hand for next week’s return leg in Utah with the CONCACAF Champions League title and a berth in the FIFA Club World Cup on the line.
But with the way United was rebuilt in the offseason, the better fight, better play and better results, especially at home, and the way the fans have already embraced the team thus far this season – yes, in part because they always come out to see the Galaxy, too – is it too early to start talking about D.C. United being “back”?
“Are we a 1999, 2004 championship team, or a competitive team that is trying to get better? Do I think we’re back in terms of [the latter]? Yes,” United midfielder Santino Quaranta said this week. “Have we arrived, and can we say we’re at the elite? No, I think that it’s a work in progress.”
With that as the backdrop, tonight’s nationally televised visit from the New York Red Bulls is a chance for D.C. United to lift itself even further back into the discussion in MLS. D.C. head coach Ben Olsen and others have embraced the idea that they’re no longer the overwhelming favorites in the East Coast rivalry with New York – [sorry, have always had trouble embracing the Atlantic Cup thing, especially with Philadelphia now sitting squarely between the teams] – and see the Red Bulls game as a test that will show D.C. just how far it has come and how far it still has to go.
“They’re a good team,” D.C. goalkeeper Bill Hamid said. “Everybody knows that they’re a good team, but right now, in our minds, we’re a good team, and we want to prove to all of MLS that we’re a good team, that we battle against and get results against teams like New York.”
The Red Bulls certainly have that look to them, thanks to Thierry Henry, Dwayne De Rosario, Juan Agudelo and more. I asked Clyde Simms, the architect of the D.C. defense, about handling Henry and DeRo.
“[Henry] creates a lot of problems for defenses, mainly with his movement off the ball, which is great,” Simms said. “I think it opens up a lot. If he’s not scoring, he’s opening up things for his teammates, and he’s got a lot of good attackers around him. He does a lot of those little things that go unnoticed, but he definitely makes his team better… [De Rosario] just gives them another very good option coming forward. I think, even when they picked up [Mehdi] Ballouchy last season, it helped so much with their attack. DeRo makes those late runs into the box, and you know he’s good with the ball and good with his passing.”
But away from the X’s and O’s, United already seems like it has started to win back a fan base that was pretty disgusted with how the team had been trending the last two seasons. The players knew it, too.
“People want to come and watch entertainment,” Quaranta said. “You have to win, and there has to be a buzz about you. Success has to be there on the field for fans to come and watch us. It’s getting better. We have some good players that are dynamic, and that’s what I would want to watch, too, if I was a fan.”
Of course, a reminder again that it’s only five games into the season.
“It’s a little early to be drawing conclusions,” United president Kevin Payne told me. “We’ve done a lot of things that we set out to do in terms of acquiring certain players, acquiring depth, and beginning to build a core group that can remain together for a number of years and grow together.”
