The mood was lighter among D.C. United players this morning following Wednesday’s bounce-back 2-1 victory over Seattle, with plenty of inquiries into the disappearance of a sweet Chris Pontius mustache that Dax McCarty said would’ve earned the midfielder free lunch for a week had he kept it. Instead, it lasted only a couple hours.
“Too many people looked at me creepily in the convenience store, so I shaved,” Pontius said.
D.C. head coach Ben Olsen was markedly more serious. He won’t be convinced that his team knows how to show up in back-to-back games… until it shows up in back-to-back games. United haven’t won consecutive league matches since beating New York and Chicago in June 2009.
“I hope it’s not too good,” Olsen said of the mood. “We need to change the culture here, and it starts by putting a good game after a pretty good game. That’s a big part of why we haven’t been successful. Our challenge is to come again with the right mindset, and we’ll see tomorrow if we’re ready to take that next step.”
Aside from longer-term injuries like Branko Boskovic, who should get left knee surgery next week, Jed Zayner (hamstring) and Kurt Morsink (concussion), the minor ailments suffered by D.C. players against the Sounders don’t figure to play into the discussion of who starts tomorrow vs. FC Dallas. Pontius (calf), Clyde Simms (calf) and Marc Burch (hamstring) all expect to be available, which will mean Olsen will build his starting lineup based on an evaluation of who is playing better, not who is fit.
One choice will be obvious, McCarty, who said it’ll be weird to play against his old team. It’s a pretty big occasion for McCarty, considering his whirlwind move from Texas to Washington (via Portland) back in March.
“For me personally, it’ll be a little bit of strange feeling playing against those guys,” McCarty said. “They’re good friends of mine, like brothers to me, and I’m still good friends with most of them. It’ll be a little bit of a weird feeling, but that’s expected playing against your old team.”
“In video session today, he was very chatty because knows everything about them, obviously,” Pontius said. “He kind of knows how to break them down, which is good for us. He knows what makes them work.”
McCarty also knows D.C. United is a work in progress to reach the level that Dallas did last season. Even without 2010 MLS MVP David Ferreira, who is out long-term with a broken ankle, Dallas still toppled the L.A. Galaxy last weekend.
“I think the first thing was just a mentality that we had never had in Dallas before, the mentality that we just wouldn’t accept losing in that locker room,” McCarty said when asked about what he first noticed last year about Dallas that indicated it was a team that could make a run deep in the playoffs, ultimately to the MLS Cup. “… If you make yourself difficult to beat in this league, you’re going to have success. That was the first thin, and then obviously, we had some good soccer players. When we started playing well, our soccer really came out. That’s what we’re trying to instill here at D.C. United, get them back to that tradition of teams don’t want to play against you.”
Should Dallas feel that way against D.C. United tomorrow? That’s a department where D.C. United is still trying to improve. McCarty’s mentality helps that process.
“I think it was a collective group, and he was one of the few that stepped up his game, not only throughout the week but in the game,” said Olsen of McCarty’s leadership during United’s recent tough stretch. “Again, it shouldn’t have to have all these ‘Come to Jesus’ meetings to get us to play the way we need to play. That’s what I’m looking for, the same commitment, the same energy tomorrow. We’re going to make mistakes. There’s going to be issues. But if our mentality and fight can be consistent throughout this league, you can make playoffs, and that’s the message.”
