D.C. United Preseason

Is There Such A Thing As A "Loud" Offseason?

So, D.C. United was horrible last year. If you missed that, then there is no real reason for you to be reading my posts. Not that there is otherwise. Anyway, DC United has not been quiet in the off-season, beginning with signing Ben Olsen as permanent head coach (a process that was handled poorly and was slightly embarrassing). I'm tempted to list all the changes because there are so many, but I want to talk/write about some of them. Let's jump in, shall we?

Vayacondios

United shed a number of players. Underperforming and highly-paid strikers, Pablo Hernandez and Danny Allsopp are gone. Not highly-paid, but still underperforming striker Adam Christman was sent packing as well. Jaime Moreno was rather ignominiously forced into retirement, a move that angered a number of the D.C. United faithful, particularly in the way it was handled. Maybe - he's looking for another team that will have him for one more season. At any rate, he is not on the team roster. So, of D.C.'s strikers from last year, none remain. Not surprising for a team that had record-breakingly bad offense.

Much of the midfield remained intact. Rodney Wallace (who wants to be a defender) was involved in a trade to Portland and Carlos Valera was waived. Neither was a large part of the team last year (Wallace was injured and Valera joined with much of the season elapsed). Boskovic, Najar, Tino, Pontius, Simms, King, Morsink, Shanosky are all still with the team.

In defense, Pena (yes, he played for D.C. United last year) is no longer with the team. Recently, Julius James was waived which surprised many who felt that he was D.C.'s best defender for the later part of the season (and was far cheaper than Dejan Jakovic, his partner in central defense).

Troy Perkins was sent to Portland. Although many expected Perkins' season to improve from his previous one, his massive salary was moved off D.C. United's books in exchange for another 'keeper.

To all of these players, I wish the best. They were part of a poor team that may have made everyone look worse than they were. I suspect all of them will have greater success elsewhere.

It's Either Cold or Hot, often Humid, the Infrastructure Is A Bad Joke, Traffic Is A Nightmare, and Housing Prices Are Ridiculous

"Welcome to D.C." to a number of players (for expectations, see the section heading above). Having no strikers at all, D.C. picked out two forwards in the "re-entry drafts" - Joseph Ngwenya and Josh Wolff. Neither of these strikers are jaw-dropping acquisitions. Wolff has been and probably will continue to be dangerous, but he is past his prime. Ngwenya was never able to convert his athletic prowess in goals - here's hoping he has a renaissance season, but I wouldn't bet on it.

The big acquisition in the attack (and overall) has been U.S. national team striker and Sochaux man, Charlie Davies. Long story short, the night before the final 2010 World Cup qualifier, Davies was involved in a horrific traffic accident in D.C. One of the other passengers lost her life and Davies was horribly injured. Horribly. The sort of injuries that most of us would use to stay on disability payments for a half-dozen years. Davies, however, is possessed of mutant healing powers and was mobile in time for the World Cup (although not fully fit by all estimates except his own). He feels that he was not being giving the opportunity to regain his starting spot at Sochaux and has come to D.C. to prove to the world (and Bob Bradley) that he is the blazingly fast and ruthless striker that he was before his injuries. He is a risky acquisition - he is possibly fragile or may not have and never will fully recover from his injuries. Ben Olsen took a long hard look and has decided he is worth risk. If Davies is fit and performs, he can almost single-handedly end D.C.'s scoring drought.

The midfield has had two big signings - the first being Perry Kitchen, who probably will not be playing in the midfield, but as a central defender. Nevertheless, he played as a defensive mid last year and I'm including him as a midfielder for now. Olsen and his counterparts in the DC brain-trust considered him to be the best overall player in the college draft and thought he would be picked before their number three pick. He wasn't and now D.C. has him.

The bigger signing, no offense to Mr. Kitchen, has been that of Dax McCarty. McCarty was involved in a trade for Rodney Wallace. McCarty is only slightly older than Wallace and was part of FC Dallas' drive to the MLS Cup last year. He recently captained the U.S. national team (it was a B/B- team of young players being examined by Bob Bradley) in a friendly. He also scored a sick bicycle-kick goal in U.S. team training camp which was captured on film and has D.C. fans salivating into their beer cups (don't look for bicycle kick goals from McCarty during the season; it is his creativity, youth, and skill that has us drooling).

D.C. also recently added Fred to the roster - not an exciting addition and one that has had a far-from-unified fan response. Personally, I don't have a big problem with it - he was overpaid when he was here last, but I assume that has been corrected and I do think he is an MLS-quality winger, lack of scoring notwithstanding.

D.C. has not made any dramatic moves in defense. A Uruguayan defender, Rodrigo Brasesco, lauded by those who follow South American football more closely than I do, has been added and is expected to easily earn a starting position. As I mentioned earlier, it appears that Kitchen will be competing for a spot in central defense as well. D.C. also acquired Chris Korb in the draft, but he is expected mainly to provide cover. Similarly, Daniel Woolard was added to the roster, but is not a projected starter. Home-grown defender Ethan White was also added to the roster; he too does not figure into the starting eleven picture at this point and is projected to be a reserve.

In goal, D.C. made two acquisitions while actually only attempting to make one. United acquired Steve Cronin from Portland in exchange for Troy Perkins. It seemed a reasonable trade as Perkins had been disappointing and D.C. had been attempt to acquire Cronin before Perkins became available. Unfortunately, Cronin has broken his wrist in pre-season and with Bill Hamid still recovering from shoulder surgery (he'll be back soon, but the first few games are questionable), the Black-and-Red were considering putting me in goal after my showing in our indoor league last year. Fortunately (unfortunately for me), D.C. had acquired recently-retired Pat Onstad, not as a keeper, but as a goalkeeping coach. He has agreed to come out of retirement for an unspecified period, I assume simply to kill my dreams of ever sharing the field at RFK with my heroes.

So Much for Closure

In conclusion, there is far too much left to write for this to be concluded properly and I hope to write more. Of course, since I haven't written since before Christmas, more frequent posting may be unlikely. Nevertheless, I have plenty of thoughts, comments, and concerns before the season really starts going. I have left off a couple of the other United acquisitions and releases, aiming mostly to hot the big ones. In terms of D.C.'s adding and dropping of players, I have to think that D.C. has done a pretty good job. There remains of the question of who will stick the ball in the net if Davies isn't 100%, but Olsen and company have added some exciting players and D.C.'s suddenly young team looks to have improved upon last season.

Adios, Onalfo.

Everything looks dismal for DC United.

Bottom of the table with only three wins isn't bad enough. More and more, it looks like DC United will become CSKA Baltimore or Maryland Wednesday or perhaps the DC-MD-NoVA Wanderers; there has been zero progress on a local stadium, while the Maryland Stadium Authority looks increasingly like it will come back positive on a new stadium near or in Baltimore. The sole ray of sunshine has been DC's 7-0-0 non-league record, including a (thus far) semi-final run in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup. Of course, if Seattle progresses as well as DC, I think it's pretty clear that the final will not be at RFK this year. Either way, DC looks a lot like the Pompey team that it just beat and that's not just because Portsmouth were wearing DC's jerseys.

So amidst all this murk and gloom was the clamor that "something must be done!"

After all, we signed a Montenegrin few outside of central Europe had heard of as our DP, while Seattle and New York just added guys who played for their national team in the World Cup. Chicago grabbed a promising, if temperamental and mouthy, Mexican and combined him with a big-name, if temperamental and worthless, Swede. Now, finally something has been done: Curt Onalfo was fired this morning; Ben Olsen has now been thrust into command.

Was this fair to Onalfo?

Not in the least. He was brought in late, after several key roster decisions had been made. His defense has been decimated by injuries, including the seeming career-ending injury to Bryan Namoff, the defensive captain. The loss of the services of Olsen, Gomez, and Emilio (degraded as they may have been) ripped the heart out of the DC offense and it has been unable to recover. Of the "big" signings that were made, Castillo is now gone and Allsopp spent most of his time on the bench. Onalfo inherited a disaster and was asked to heal this roadkill of a team while it was being dragged by a tractor-trailer. Moreover, the transfer window isn't even closed and the new signings haven't had a chance to make an impact.

Is this the worst decision ever made?

Hardly; Operation Barbarossa, the Great Leap Forward and the Native Americans trusting us to keep our word top the list of the "worst decisions ever made." This isn't that bad of a decision. Onalfo's team has been dreadful - it may not have been good when he got it, but we're worse than expansion Philadelphia now. Onalfo, given time, may have been able to build a competitive team, but there was certainly no sign of that. By firing Onalfo now, it sends a message to the players that their slate is now clean, for better or worse, and they need to start playing for their spots and contracts next year. Hopefully, DC will not dally in finding a new head coach (and hopefully, no one is stupid enough to give Olsen the position permanently, yet) and he (it's a sexist industry, sorry ladies) can start to shape DC into what he wants it to be and can actually see what he needs for next season.

Adios, Onalfo.

Despite being thrown under the bus and being clearly upset about it, Onalfo's reaction has been restrained and fairly classy, up to this point. I wish him luck in his future endeavors and believe that he deserves and will get another chance.

Bob Bradley?

I'm inclined to say "dream on," but who knows? For DC, I don't think it would be a bad decision. Bob Bradley tends not to coach teams with the attacking flair and style with which DC United has been associated. Not working right now though? DC's style. I am also aware that Bradley is known as "Cheatin' Bob" around these parts for his use of the former "fourth substitute" rule in the playoffs against us. I, however, say that this team and its fans need to stop living in the past. Yes, I'd like to see attractive attacking football too, but the first task is to collect the jetsam currently wearing the Red-and-Black and form them into a team. Then maybe we could ask Bob to make it prettier. I'm sorry Bob Bradley didn't obey the spirit of rules in the past, but DC United desperately needs some new thinking and Bradley might not be a bad place to start.

That said, Bradley is going to be expensive and I'm not sure DC would shell out the money for him, given the team and it's "horrible hemorrhaging of all things monetary."

A Shot Fired in Anger

Ich liebe Deutschlands. Nicht wie so den USA, aber ich liebe noch Deutschlands. Yeah, depending on the breaks in the World Cup and should the U.S. go out earlier than I hope, Germany may well gain my support. I have also been a Michael Ballack fan for sometime and it is a pity that he is not playing in this World Cup. However, I now never want to see him in Black-and-Red or even in playing MLS.

Now, I never thought that Herr Ballack was suddenly going to show up stateside after being dropped by Chelsea; I assumed he'd be picked up by another top-flight European club or, at worst, a Bundesliga side. This has nothing to do with sour grapes. However, regarding his future, Ballack decided to let us all know that he thinks he still has a few good years left in him and he is "not yet ready to 'retire' by going to the United States or Dubai." Hey, Michael, I know my swearing in German isn't what it should be, but "verpiss dich." If that doesn't translate properly, you've been in England long enough that you should be familiar with the phrase, "get knotted." Sorry to be redundant, but I want to get my point across.

I know MLS isn't a top tier league. I know that players like Michael Ballack would never come to the U.S. in their prime. But the last thing I want is player who views it as retiring. That's a lie; the last thing I want is players who so unabashedly view it as retiring as to say it and not think it is burning bridges. If he wants to retire, he can buy a house in Dubrovnik or pretend to play in Dubai. If he wants to the come to the U.S., he needs to view it as "a new challenge," "the twilight of his career," or have an interest in "elevating the play of the game in the U.S." Something like that. If he wants to come here, half-ass it and collect an enormous paycheck, sorry, I'll take the considerably less-skilled Stephen King. At least he wants it.