D.C. United 1, Timbers 1
D.C. United put a season of hopeful uncertainty out of its misery, but not before a desperate final 20 minutes in one last-ditch push that while not enough to preserve their playoff hopes, at least kept intact their dignity.
Players crumpled to the ground at RFK Stadium after the final whistle sounded in a 1-1 draw with Portland on Wednesday that needed to be a victory for D.C.’s postseason dreams to survive, utterly exhausted and despondent at the missed chances for a victory that mirrored the points they’ve squandered repeatedly throughout the year.
“Basically it was my pregame speech: Let’s go down swinging,” United head coach Ben Olsen said. “Let’s show the people that we are completely committed out there and ready to push it to the limits to get this result.”
As he has done since his Washington arrival in June, Dwayne De Rosario brought United (9-13-11) to life with a stunning left-footed strike from a narrow angle, beating former United goalkeeper Troy Perkins to the near side to tie the game in the 73rd minute. To that point, D.C. had struggled to impose itself, running on heavy legs in its third match in eight days and giving up a first half goal to Kenny Cooper on a characteristic defense lapse on a cross by another former D.C. United player, Rodney Wallace.
“It’s disheartening,” De Rosario said. “It is, but it isn’t in the sense that we still showed some fight and credit to the guys, showing some fight. But it’s a little late.”
De Rosario’s career-high and MLS-leading 16th goal sparked a frantic final stretch as United sent waves of players forward and relied on Bill Hamid (four saves) to almost single-handedly stifle the inevitable counterattacks in the other direction.
When Brian Umony’s redirection in the 83rd minute hit the underside of the crossbar and landed six inches in front of United’s goal, the moment was there to seize for D.C. Five minutes later, De Rosario calmly avoided Perkins, who’d come wildly off his line, and chipped to rookie forward Blake Brettschneider, whose easy nod into the net was denied by an offside call.
“It was so loud, I couldn’t hear the whistle,” Brettschneider said of the celebrations of the 14,312 inside the stadium who’d been all but silent before De Rosario’s goal.
Despite a heavily wrapped right shin – where he’d been kicked for the third game in a row – De Rosario again rounded a sprawling Perkins in the 92nd minute, only to see Eric Brunner’s desperate slide block his shot.
“If [De Rosario] doesn’t get MVP of the League there’s something wrong,” Timbers coach John Spencer said. “Plain and simple. For the last three months of the season since he came here he’s been the best player in the League by far – a country mile.”
Brandon McDonald’s header missed inches wide on the ensuing corner kick, and D.C. United still had one last chance when De Rosario slid the ball across the goalmouth to Joseph Ngwenya in the 94th minute. Poised for a first goal of the year that couldn’t have been more timely, Ngwenya was weak with his shot, enabling Perkins to retreat for the save and then to stymie Brettschneider’s rebound for his best save of the night. It kept the Timbers (11-14-8) barely afloat in the MLS playoff race but left D.C. United with only pride to play for in its final game this weekend and without a postseason for the fourth straight year.
“It’s one of those games where we worked, we tried, we were fighting,” United midfielder Santino Quaranta said. “You come [back into the locker room] knowing you gave it everything you got, and I’m alright with that. It felt like a schoolyard game at the end, you know.”
The season was strikingly similar for a young team in the first year of a rebuild under Olsen.
“A lot of this I’ll take the blame for because we were a good enough team to make the playoffs,” he said. “I can promise you I’ll get better as a coach and this team will get better.”
Nineteen-year-old Perry Kitchen, whose emergence in central midfield on Wednesday is part of the foundation Olsen will build on next season, appeared to grasp the hard lesson.
“It’s a men’s game, and we pushed deep,” Kitchen said. “I still don’t know how we didn’t get the goal, but I’m proud of how we worked, and I think it’s fair to say we left it all out there on the field tonight.”
