D.C. United 1, Fire 1
It’s difficult for D.C. United to avoid harboring at least a little disappointment – along with a healthy dose of encouragement – two weeks into the 2009 campaign after leading in each of its first two matches only to walk away with a pair of ties.
The latest draw, a 1-1 decision in Saturday’s home-opener in front of 15,895 at RFK Stadium against Chicago, one of Major League Soccer’s early favorites this season, offered one half of promising, if not dominant soccer followed by a shaky 15 minutes and courageous play just before the final whistle to protect the result.
“I thought we put a heck of a lot into and denied them all over the place,” said United head coach Tom Soehn. “We did a great job. I wish we would’ve come out with a little bit more from the first half because we put so much into it, and it showed because our legs were a little bit heavy coming out in the second half.”
It took United (0-0-2, 2 points) less than seven minutes to get on the scoresheet, when Ben Olsen won the ball in midfield, freeing Luciano Emilio to drive toward goal, move the ball to his left foot and beat Fire goalkeeper Jon Busch with a shot low to the right corner.
Olsen, making his second straight start after 17 months out due to ankle surgery, nearly connected on goal himself with a header in the 31st minutes, five minutes after rookie midfielder Chris Pontius, who played another solid 90 minutes – in his second position in as many weeks, scoring at forward at Los Angeles last week – shot high on a open chance off a pass from Jaime Moreno.
But the Fire (1-0-1, 4 pts) tested and erased United’s one-goal lead in the first ten minutes after the break. D.C. thought it had avoided disaster when Brian McBride missed a wide-open chance at the top of the box in the 50th minute and Patrick Nyarko’s shot two minutes later, off a giveaway by United defender Dejan Jakovic, slipped through Josh Wicks’ legs, only to see the D.C. goalkeeper recover in time to pounce on the ball.
But Nyarko, a second-year forward from Virginia Tech, got the best of Wicks in the 53rd minute, pushing the ball by the onrushing netminder to tie the score.
“I think maybe we tired out in certain areas on the field, and that led us not to pressure well as a team,” said United defender Bryan Namoff. “In the first half I thought our pressure as a whole was very good. The second half we were almost scattered pressure, a few guys instead of the entire group. That hurt us.”
In the final two minutes of regulation, Wicks summed up the night. First he spilled Tim Ward’s long-distance effort in the 88th minute, too, but again still managed to deflect McBride’s rebound. Wicks then dove left for a world-class save off substitute Chris Rolfe’s strike in the 89th to avoid the defeat.
“He came up with a big save, and we were able to get out of there with a tie,” said Namoff. “That’s what we expect from our players.”
Notes
Both teams played without some of their regular starters. The Fire were missing defenders Bakary Soumare (Mali) and Gonzalo Segares (Costa Rica) due to World Cup qualifying, while D.C. United went without injured Santino Quaranta (hamstring), Fred (hamstring), Greg Janicki (post-concussion) and Devon McTavish (post-concussion).
Chicago defender C.J. Brown went off after just 14 minutes with a quad injury and was replaced by Dasan Robinson.
Chicago playmaker Cuauhtemoc Blanco, who was suspended from U.S. Open Cup play last summer after an alleged headbutt of a member of D.C. United’s operations staff, entered the game in the 70th minute to a chorus of boos. He got into a minor tussle with Ben Olsen in the 82nd minute, trying to draw a foul after some embellished contact.
