Game Review: DC United 1 - 2 Columbus

For a while now, my frame for looking at this season has been offense bad, defense good. The offense has been a talented but disjointed mess, with the defense providing some experienced cohesion to make up for the lack of production up top. Well, so much for that.

I guess that frame was also fairly ignorant, because thinking back, it ignored a major feature of the season thus far. DC's opponents have had ample opportunity to slash and run against this back line. Runs may get shut down with a timely tackle, but most of them have come with speed and numbers, finding plenty of passing lanes. Teams simply look dangerous against DC. They seem to almost constantly press ahead of the defense, which runs to play catch up and relies on far too many last-minute displays of skill to clear the ball.

And then there's the offense. If I got the defense wrong, I'm pretty sure I've tagged the attack nicely. Where other teams slash, we dither. The ball cycles around the midfield and then slowly makes its way up the field, by which time there are eight opposing players in the box. Thinking about the number of passes and shots that United have tried to thread through a jungle of legs is painful. Contrasting it to the way opponents swoop in on our own half is just mind-boggling.

Simply put, DC is slow; mostly slow in terms of raw physical speed and glacial in moving the ball up the field. This might not be a terrible problem if we, say, used the flanks or had a team of pinpoint touch and accuracy. But the current team is not set up that way by any means. It's worth noting that all our league goals have been garbage goals. We haven't been the beneficiaries of sustained build up or accurate shots, but rather the recipients of luck during goal mouth scrambles. Play has been unimaginative, and so have the players. A sobering thought: right now we have one forward in whom I have even a sliver of trust, and his name is Santino Quaranta. Glad we have that second DP slot now?

In conclusion, we have Emilio. I have no explanation. Maybe he's sulking in the wake of contract talks that didn't flatter him. Maybe he got too comfortable with MLS. Maybe he simply can't work with Gallardo, whose passes are constantly ahead of Emilio both physically and mentally, as if meant for a quality of player that the Brazilian may never achieve. All I know is that he's uniformly awful thus far, and awful in ways that even his slump of early last year didn't touch. His speed, touch, shot, and decision making are horrendous, and it's time for him to sit for a while.

MOTM - For all of the futility, Gallardo delivered the best balls, literally and figuratively. His effort can't be faulted, and his vision on the field was the most productive by far.