D.C. United Off Season Recap or How I Learned to Worry about Everything Simultaneously

The MLS season is drawing near and D.C. United's off-season is coming to a close. It has been a busy time for the Black-and-Red. Numerous events and changes occurred both in the team and with the entity itself. I don't know if one could say that last years roster was "blown-up," but some of the highest paid players and mainstays of the 2009 team are no longer with D.C. Moreover, the environment around the team has changed as well. Because writing actual paragraphs and sentences of all these changes would be longer than my graduate thesis, I have decided to compile a list of my fears and worries which I have placed below:

• Christian Castillo becomes the new Fred; all flash with disappointing substance.
• MLS labor negotiations fail and there is no MLS season.
• Spiders.
• The team moves to Baltimore.
• The team moves even further away.
• Jaime turns out to be to old to be useful but too skilled to be obviously useless.
• Fish/Sharks/Whales/some of the more aggressive corals.
• Frustrated with his international career, Troy decides to "phone it in" in the MLS.
• The Zombie Apocalypse.
• Why has D.C. left (according to speculation) considerable room under the salary cap?
• Why was Flo N'Galula released for monetary reasons if plenty of space under the cap exists?
• A confident Germany.
• United may intend to pick up a big signing after the World Cup, when prices have peaked.
• Will Chang bought out his partners and then later went looking for new ones.
• I am a disappointment to my parents.
• Without a "10," D.C.'s tradition and style become MLS monotony.
• My girlfriend is secretly less tolerant of my soccer obsession than she lets on.
• A large piece of RFK falls on my head.
• Tino's improvement stagnates.
• Neither Pontius nor Allsopp prove threatening enough to drive an offense.
• Strangers.
• Curt Onalfo turns out to be a mediocre manager from a mediocre club with an affinity for mediocre players.
• Pontius, Wallace, or Jakovic are picked up by European teams over the summer.
• Namoff misses a large portion or all of the season, again leaving D.C. weak in defense.
• The housecat in my lap is thinking about killing and eating me.
• The Philadelphia Union are not the Red Bulls and D.C. might start losing derbies.
• D.C. continues to descend into mediocrity.
• Seattle gets better.
• My perceived reality is really all a psychotic delusion.