Dax McCarty treated it like it was no big deal. But make no mistake, it was huge, just like his offseason move to D.C. United.
In fact, the brief video clip of McCarty that surfaced last month just after the U.S. national team training camp in Los Angeles concluded might’ve made more of an impression than his captaincy of the U.S. side that drew 1-1 with Chile.
It in, McCarty does what every soccer player who has ever stood in front of a goal dreams of: He took to the air and connected with smashing authority for a stunning a bicycle kick goal.
For a team starved of highlights for most of last season, D.C. United couldn’t have been more excited to see arguably their biggest offseason acquisition announce his arrival.
“And he got up [afterward] like it wasn’t nothing,” said United midfielder Clyde Simms, who saw the video. “I saw a little smile after when he was running back.”
“I was happy someone caught it on video so I could see it again,” said McCarty, who didn’t know that footage existed until it was posted on ESPN.com. “Mixx Diskerud played in a pretty good ball that was a little bit behind me, but it was in the air for a while, so I was thinking to myself, ‘What the heck, why not? Just go for it and see what happens.’ And luckily my technique was pretty good, and I connected with the ball perfectly. There aren’t many times you’re going to score a goal like that, whether it be in an intrasquad scrimmage in training or in a real game. I definitely enjoyed the moment. I think the reason I was more subdued with my celebration was because my teammates were all about the business side of it.”
McCarty’s move to Washington this winter also has been underplayed even though it is all but completely unprecedented in the history of Major League Soccer.
On Nov. 21, McCarty started for FC Dallas in the 2010 MLS Cup final in Toronto, a game that his team led before succumbing in overtime to the Colorado Rapids, 2-1.
The next evening when McCarty arrived back in Dallas, he learned that he’d been stunningly left unprotected by Dallas ahead of an expansion draft in which his pedigree and price tag stuck out like a sore thumb. The Portland Timbers snapped him up with the first pick, then promptly dealt him to D.C., along with allocation money, in return for defender Rodney Wallace and a 2011 fourth-round draft pick (first round in the supplemental draft) that turned out to be Evansville midfielder Robby Lynch.
No player of McCarty’s stature had before made such a move — an impact player and rising U.S. national team member (one who would wear the U.S. captain’s armband during the offseason) dumped after taking his team to the cusp of an MLS championship. The closest approximation would be Seattle midfielder Brad Evans, who won the 2008 MLS Cup with Columbus before being exposed and selected by the Seattle Sounders. Houston defender Adrian Serioux went to Toronto FC (and later, FC Dallas) after the Dynamo’s title run in 2006, and Houston defender Ryan Cochrane and New England defender James Riley were taken in the 2007 expansion draft by San Jose after the Dynamo had beaten the Revolution in the MLS Cup that season. But none of those three players had as integral a role on their MLS teams or in a national team, similar to D.C. United defender David Vaudreuil, who was taken by Miami in the 1997 expansion draft.
The biggest impact for an expansion draft player may go to Brian Carroll, who went through San Jose to win the 2008 title with Columbus when D.C. United left him exposed. Sebastian Le Toux didn’t a lot of games but got himself into the discussion for last season’s MLS MVP in Philadelphia after the Sounders decided not to protect him.
“[2010] was rewarding for me, and it was my first professional club so I’ll always have special memories there,” McCarty said. “But it was definitely a little bit of a shock. It caught me off guard a little bit. That’s just how the business works. It’s a salary cap league. We had some very good rookies who came in and performed very well. Certain guys were injured, myself included, and at the end of the day, those guys are not making as much money as some of the older guys, and I think part of that had to do with the salary cap and maybe part of it was the coaching staff was ready to move on.”
D.C. United general manager Dave Kasper said the team had an inkling McCarty might be available, and immediately set things in motion.
“We had prior conversations with Portland about what players they might be interested in from our roster, either trading before or teeing it up for an asset that would come our way from the expansion draft or after,” Kasper said. “Rodney was high on their list. It was just one of those things that we pounced on when he was exposed.”
McCarty had thought his future in Dallas was set after signing a new contract at the beginning of last season — he earned a base salary of $145,000 in 2010. But while his former club seems more intent on committing to second-year midfielder Eric Alexander ($40,000 salary), it’s difficult not to imagine that McCarty’s departure may have had something to do with his differences with head coach Schellas Hyndman.
“I certainly have had my issues with Schellas where we didn’t see eye-to-eye on certain occasions,” McCarty said. “But I think fair credit both of us, we let the past be the past and put the water under the bridge. He treated me fairly, just like every other player, and I worked hard, and in his eyes won a spot and was a good contributor in the team along with a bunch of other guys.”
The lesson, of course, is that sports can be a fickle and unforgiving business.
“Your whole career is probably not going to go as smoothly as you’d like it to go so for me I just learned, try to grow and mature as a player and move on,” said McCarty, who, at only 23, now gets to start the next chapter of his professional career with a team that couldn’t have wanted him more.
“I thought [the trade] was great,” said Simms, who knows McCarty was brought in to partner with him in the midfield, not replace him. “I think a lot of people look at Dax as a D-mid, but he’s not a D-mid. That all depends on how we decide to play, and [D.C. United head coach] Ben [Olsen] decides the formation we need. Even when [McCarty] was successful in Dallas, he had [Daniel] Hernandez who was that guy – we play more of similar position – and with the national team, you can tell he’s an attacking midfielder. The great thing about Dax is he covers so much ground. Not only is he making great runs off the ball, but he’s getting back and helping out on defense, and that’s going to be a huge plus.”
McCarty hasn’t been in D.C. long enough since the trade to gain the full appreciation of the reception he’s likely to get from the team’s faithful when he first takes the field at RFK Stadium, but he said his first training session in Fort Lauderdale was as intense as any he had while with the national team.
“For me you take it on the chin,” McCarty said. “You never want to feel like you’re not wanted. But when I found out I was coming to D.C. United, and that they made a move to get me, that immediately puts everything that happened with Dallas in the past. That’s in the back of my mind now. I’ll definitely cherish those memories that I have, but it’s on to a new beginning, starting over, so to speak, and a mentality where the whole team wants to get D.C. United back to the top, where they deserve to be.”
That’s a goal that neither McCarty nor D.C. United are likely to underplay.
