D.C. United 2, Philadelphia Union 2
For the second time as many weeks, D.C. United stared a signature victory square in the face – and blinked.
The only difference between the late game-tying goal United allowed on Saturday in a 2-2 draw with Philadelphia that should’ve been a victory, and the equalizer they gave up one week earlier in a match against Houston that ended with the same score, was two new important player additions who got an immediate taste of the disappointment that has been all too frequent at RFK Stadium this year.
“I feel like I’ve been here all season after that game,” said Brandon McDonald, who United acquired on Monday along with Dwayne De Rosario. “You could tell that’s what has been happening.”
With De Rosario needing less than a half to inject life into the D.C. attack and register his first assist for his new team, and Andy Najar connecting with an absolute bomb from 35 yards in the second half, D.C. preferred not to walk off the field feeling like they’d lost.
“The errors we can correct, which is a good thing,” De Rosario said. “They weren’t really breaking us down. We broke down ourselves. There are definitely a lot of positives we can build on.”
But in front of 13,365, United (4-5-7, 19 points) also extended its current winless streak to four games and failed to make up any ground on the Union (7-4-6, 27 points), who maintained their top spot in the Eastern Conference.
Carlos Ruiz did the final damage in the 84th minute, getting his head onto a cross from Sheanon Williams, who raced by a gassed Chris Pontius to latch onto a through pass from Sebastien Le Toux.
It was the second time in the match that Pontius had been directly involved in letting D.C. give up the lead. Four minutes after United had taken a 1-0 advantage into halftime, Pontius chested a ball down directly into the path of Veljko Paunovic, who lofted a cross into the box where rookie Perry Kitchen mishit a right-footed volley into his own net.
“I’m the one that put the ball in the net so I’m going to take the blame for that,” said Kitchen, who’d had Brian Ching’s 89th-minute equalizer deflect off his head seven days before. “I probably should’ve cleared it with my left foot. Just to be safe, I put my right foot out there, hit it, and it went in.”
Najar reclaimed the lead in the 58th minute after collecting a pass at the halfway line, beating Danny Mwanga, racing forward and blasting a shot past Philadelphia goalkeeper Faryd Mondragon.
“That’s the first time I’ve scored from that distance,” Najar said. “I can’t really believe it. I’m really happy that I scored. I can’t believe that I was able to hit it and score.”
It was the second gorgeous goal of the evening for D.C., which opened things with a fantastic sequence in the 44th minute.
After Ethan White picked out Najar with a pinpoint cross-field free kick, Najar settled the ball on the left wing and sprung De Rosario into the box. The Canadian beat former United defender Brian Carroll to the endline and cut the ball across the six-yard box, and unmarked Josh Wolff had only to redirect it into the net at the near post for the lead.
Each team had opportunities to add one or more goals. Bill Hamid (four saves) made a point-blank parry on Ruiz to preserve the 2-1 lead immediately after Najar’s goal, and Pontius should’ve put D.C. in front following Kitchen’s gaffe but hit the post.
Mondragon (four saves) was responsible for keeping the Union from going behind earlier, making two of his three first-half saves in a five-minute span, denying a Pontius volley in the 20th minute and a blast from Wolff after a Philadelphia turnover four minutes later.
The visitors also had their own chance to get in front, but Le Toux fired wide left after beating Hamid on the counterattack. In the 19th minute, Hamid also made a spectacular outstretched dive to his left to parry away a shot by Mwanga.
But all the good that D.C. achieved was overshadowed by the eighth goal they’ve given up in the final fifteen minutes of a match and the first time they’ve failed to win after leading at halftime.
“I’m not in the business of throwing people under the bus,” Wolff said. “It’s still a group thing. Finishing out games is something you can stress all the time. It’s in training. It’s during the week, and the fruits of your labor have to come out on Saturday nights. It’s something that we discussed based on our last result, and again it’s there for us to take, and we’re not taking it, and that’s disappointing because we’re going to look back in September and October, and these are points that you can’t make up for.”
