Okay, let’s get this season started, and not without some intrigue.
Things are chilling down at RFK after a gorgeous day – perfect soccer weather – and here’s how things stand with just minutes to go before kickoff.
D.C. United’s starting 11: Pat Onstad; Jed Zayner, Dejan Jakovic, Perry Kitchen, Marc Burch; Andy Najar, Clyde Simms, Dax McCarty (captain), Chris Pontius; Josh Wolff, Joseph Ngwenya
That means, of course, that Charlie Davies is on the bench, along with Santino Quaranta, Branko Boskovic, Rodrigo Brasesco, Kurt Morsink, Blake Brettschneider, and Joe Willis.
There are too many storylines on the field that could be in play to even start counting them off. But to start, United head coach Ben Olsen was successful in keeping it quiet on how he planned to use Davies, but the more surprising member of the lineup is Burch, who makes his first start since August, over Daniel Woolard, who got most of the first-team minutes at left back during preseason.
We’ll get to the others in due course, but a couple others that might come into play sooner or later: That’s a lot of money to spent on Boskovic to not play him; and Bill Hamid can’t be happy about getting omitted from the 18-man roster.
The Columbus Crew starting 11: Will Hesmer, Sebastian Miranda, Chad Marshall, Julius James, Rich Balchan, Eddie Gaven, Dejan Rusmir, Emmanuel Ekpo, Dilly Duka, Jeff Cunningham, Andres Mendoza.
Intriguing storyline No.1: Welcome back to James after getting let go by D.C. United after lasting a year and a half in Washington.
Intriguing storyline No. 2: Cunningham enters the night sitting on 132 career goals, one behind Jaime Moreno for the all-time lead in MLS history. Can’t imagine D.C. would be happy if RFK is the place where Moreno lost his top spot.
