It’s been almost two weeks since I attended a D.C. United practice, and hmmm, yes, some things have changed. Interim head coach Ben Olsen said he thought I had forgotten about him since I physically missed last week’s fireworks while on vacation.
Not bloody likely.
In any case, the bite was indeed there in practice today, with things getting particularly testy as Marc Burch got into Junior Carreiro‘s ankles one too many times, nearly leading to an on-field brawl before cooler heads prevailed.
“We’re fighting for our jobs,” said Burch. “We’re not having a good season in any way, and everybody’s fighting for their jobs. It’s going get frustrating. It’s going to get chippy at times. I lost my head a little bit today, a little bit of frustration from the game, getting to practice, and I’m a little bit sore, a little late on tackles. It wasn’t right what I did, and I apologized to Junior, but things like that are going to happen.”
“It’s a thin line of going a little overboard and keeping your guys competitive,” said Olsen, “and I’d rather it that way than the other way. It means guys want to play on the field, guys don’t want to lose, and that’s a mentality that we all needed to get back to. And I say, ‘we all’ because I was a part of that. We’ll see. I thought on the weekend, all that stuff was pretty good, the fight, the passion was there, the commitment, but again we don’t have anything to show for it because we didn’t reward ourselves by making a better defensive play on the free kick and we didn’t reward ourselves with a goal.”
Yep.
Other tidbits: Rodney Wallace (broken leg) was on the stationary bike, and Olsen said he’s out another 1-2 weeks after suffering a minor setback. Chris Pontius (hamstring) also got a little tweak up in New England and didn’t participate in training. Andrew Quinn (knee) was working out on the side, as was Brandon Barklage (knee).
One new face was Jemal Johnson of U.S.-born-but-raised-in-England fame. It appears the club likes him. Olsen said the weather was tough on him, “But he certainly didn’t do bad. A good player, good with both feet, and he’s here to show us that he belongs here.”
Burch agreed: “He strikes the ball well. He seems like a pretty smart player. Everybody’s system is a little bit different, and I prefer a little more hard work. I was trying to get him to do that today, but he’ll realize what kind of team we are right now and that hard work’s what we need. I think that he can help if he can.”
Other notable D.C. United Academy participants in practice included Conor Shanosky, who is scheduled to start preseason with George Mason in the next week or so, and Jalen Robinson, who helped D.C. United win the U-17 SUM Cup in Houston a couple weeks ago. There are whispers of his imminent inclusion in the U.S. U-20 pool.
Lastly, a big picture quote from Olsen after I asked him about the once-preeminent brand in MLS being passed up by the rest of the league: “I guess that’s one way to look at it. The other way to look at it is there’s been some really good times and expectations are high here. Yeah, there’s issues with stadiums, but my concern is solely on trying to get wins for this time. I can’t deal with all that stuff. That’s not my world. I can only hope to help these guys through what’s been a tough year and try to get points. But every team goes through ups and downs. I’m talking years. Rebuilding, new players signing that didn’t work out, there’s all types of things that in this league, make teams inconsistent, not to mention how close in talent every team is. You don’t finish here, or you don’t finish there in a game, you outplay a team but they make one play, and you get enough of those and you sit in a spot like we’re at right now. IT’s tough. These guys have been through a lot. Curt [Onalfo] went through a lot. We’re still going through a lot, but we keep trucking along. What else can we do?”
