D.C. United may not have achieved its primary objective tonight at Maryland SoccerPlex, where it was knocked out of contention for the U.S. Open Cup with a 3-2 loss to New England, but the plot was certainly advanced when it came to the two players on the roster whose absence from the regular season starting 11 has most been in question: Branko Boskovic and Andy Najar.
I laid out the argument for Boskovic last weekend following his superb performance as a substitute against New York last week, and Boskovic strengthened that case with another masterful effort in the center of the park against the Revolution – even if it got off to an ominous start when he earned a yellow card for simulation after going down in the post on a mere hint of contact in the first half. And some of the Montenegrin’s passes were far from perfect.
But his orchestration of the D.C. United offense was impossible to ignore, and he could’ve walked away with four goals just as easy as he walked away with two following a pair of fiercely dipping free kicks over the New England wall in the second half after United had gone down, 2-0. The first was miraculously denied by a saving Bobby Shuttleworth; the second hit the right post.
Boskovic finally unlocked the Revs with a pair of strikes less than 10 minutes apart, two powerful left-footed blasts in the 73rd and 82nd minutes, but by then the concern had already grown: shouldn’t he have come off as soon as New England went up 3-0? At that point, there seemed to be little doubt that Boskovic had elbowed his way into D.C.’s starting lineup on Friday at Houston. But those plans had to be shelved after he limped off the field following a challenge from Alan Koger that left him with a bum left knee afterward.
“That’s what happens when you get whacked over and over,” United head coach Ben Olsen said. “Eventually, we’re all human. You get that many licks, they start to add up. I thought they could’ve protected him a little bit more.”
“I think it’s nothing serious, but tomorrow I have a MRI,” Boskovic said. “On the field, I feel pain, and I think, ‘This guy broke my leg.’ But now it’s better. I don’t think this guy want to hit me, but the ball is between us, and he go same like me, and I think it’s not a bad foul or something like that.”
“Boskovic was very good, very sharp, dictated the game, and the finishing, he was unlucky maybe not to get one more,” Olsen said. “He’s been a great pro for us, and he’s done everything we’ve asked. These aren’t always easy games to play in when you’re a European international, but he comes in and he plays hard.”
As for Najar, the inspiration also grew as the game wore on. There were moments when he nearly put himself in on goal, and his confidence grew with every touch.
“Tonight I saw Andy Najar back, and believe me, I’m happier than you guys are to see that because I love the kid,” Olsen said. “He played his heart out tonight. He responded to, I think, some of the suggestions that we had for him, and he showed tonight that he took a big step forward to getting back in MLS games.”
Thus, the stage is set for Olsen’s dilemma setting his lineup on Friday. That it came at the expense of another trip to Maryland SoccerPlex this summer – given the traffic on I-270, that’s probably okay.
“We certainly showed more than they did in the first 50-60 minutes,” Olsen said. “It wasn’t great. I didn’t think either team was great. But we certainly had the ball, we just didn’t simplify things. We didn’t move the ball side to side and just find the open man. We were going for killer balls. Our forwards, I thought we struggled a little bit to hold the ball up.
“We were lacking a little bit of energy, a little bit of concentration, that killer instinct that first 50-60, and then you get that second goal, and we wake up. That part’s unacceptable. The good teams don’t need to wake up. They wake up at the start of the whistle, and they’re ready to go. I thought that part wasn’t totally there. I didn’t think it was that bad. We still controlled the game, and if we’re a little sharper in the final third or a final ball, decision-making on whether to just keep the ball moving and make the simple pass rather than go for the killer ball, it was better, we’d be okay.”
