Ben Olsen slowly trudged into the media room and dropped into a chair behind the table draped with a D.C. United logo – sitting off-center from the microphone, as has been his custom in his short tenure as interim head coach – his tie untied, even a button on his white dress shirt undone, his eyes bleary.
“I mean, yeah, we had it,” said Olsen. “What do you want me to say? We had it. You know. In the end you got to finish it out. The guys, I’m very proud of them. We just can’t reward ourselves. It’s very frustrating.”
A chance at the U.S. Open Cup final didn’t seem like that much to ask for, given all that D.C. United has endured this season: injuries, poor performances, the firing of the head coach, and a steady exodus of fans from its old, crumbling stadium. The resolve had still been clear, the approach deliberate – with most of the starters resting or playing limited minutes on Sunday in Los Angeles – and the objective was tangible, given D.C. had made it to the final in each of the last two seasons, including a win in the knockout tournament in 2008.
But the punishment of the once preeminent but now clearly second-tier Major League Soccer franchise continued unabated at the hands of the Columbus Crew – owners of the 2008 MLS Cup, the 2008 and 2009 MLS Supporters’ Shield and currently 1st place in MLS’ Eastern Conference – who ruthlessly crushed United’s last hope of salvaging not only hardware but a source of pride from the season with a super late equalizer and an overtime penalty kick for a 2-1 victory after D.C. had taken a surprising lead.
Perhaps it was fitting that forward Pablo Hernandez – the latest in United’s seemingly endless string of high-priced, underperforming overseas signings over the last three downward-spiraling seasons – was the axis of the match, tipping it in D.C.’s favor by drawing and finishing a penalty kick early in the first half, and then sending that advantage out the window when he retaliated at Danny O’Rourke for a hard tackle in the second half.
“I thought about my teammates,” said Hernandez when asked about his 58th-minute ejection. “I let them down. I want to say I’m sorry to my teammates. But I didn’t expect that decision by the referee at all.”
The replay of the sequence took center stage on the television inside the United locker room afterward – including plenty of choice words about referee Chris Penso, whose management of the game left much to be desired even if the ejection itself was at its worst debatable – but it didn’t change the fact that even down a man, D.C. had its chances to put the game away before Andy Iro squashed D.C.’s dreams in the 89th minute.
“When you’re playing down a man, you’ve got to get a break or two,” said Olsen, “and we got one or two maybe, and Bill [Hamid] came up big one time. You need things to go your way, and then we come down and have a chance – Andy [Najar] has a chance which is a great sequence, and we don’t reward ourselves.”
Ah, yes, the 19-year-old and the 17-year-old – two hopes for the future entrusted to save their team in the present. A lot to ask.
After dissecting the challenge of keeping a high defensive line while playing a man down, United defender Julius James wanted to make sure that wasn’t the most important thing on his mind, not letting reporters go until he said one more thing.
“I want to thank the fans, the diehards, for still supporting us,” said James. “This is a really tough time for us and especially for them. We try really hard, you know. We train, we have our families, and the most important thing is that we satisfy the fans, and we haven’t been doing that this year, and I just want to sincerely thank the diehard guys for still coming and supporting us.”
The looks of resignation and depression on the players’ faces were hardly unfamiliar – D.C. has only four wins in league play, remember – but the beaten, disheveled appearance of Olsen afterward resembles the club now more than ever with only eight games left.
“It was everything, obviously,” said Santino Quaranta of the U.S. Open Cup. “This was the only trophy we could win this year, and at the end of the day we wanted to give something back to the fans because this season has been abysmal and it was the only thing we had going for us. It’s gut-wrenching.”
