DC United Ties Morelia 1-1 In SuperLiga Opener
 

- By Joseph Schoenbauer, Wednesday, July 25, 2007

DC United's poor run of results continued Wednesday night in front of 13,335 at RFK Stadium, failing to retain an early lead despite being a man up for the last 32+ minutes when they gave up the tying goal in the 79^th minute to a Monarcas Morelia side missing their top players and still weeks away from beginning their league season.
 
DC United started brightly, pressing early through the probing Christian Gomez and the skilful touches of Rod Dyachenko, preferred from the start to Nicholas Addlery following captain Jamie Moreno and Guy Kpene's failure to overcome their comparative muscular injuries.
 
In the 7th minute, DC United was awarded a free kick some 30 yards from goal on the right hand side of the top of the box. Christian Gomez took the opportunity with aplomb, striking the dead ball forcefully and skillfully around the wall and into his lower right hand corner.
 
It was clear as the first half wore on that Monarcas Morelia were reeling from being in preseason and labored to create any significant chances.  Their greatest asset at times, to the great displeasure of the DC United fans, seemed to be the referee, who in the end whistled 22 fouls on DC United compared to 6 for Monarcas, despite DC United not playing a dirty style of soccer.
 
However, reality was blurred slightly as the sheer size of several of the Mexican's sides players overwhelmed the smaller and weaker midfield of DC United, with Brian Carroll in particular being culpable of kicking at their shins after losing the physical battle.
 
With 10 minutes left in the first half, DC United looked set to add to Gomez's goal when Fred and Dyachenko combined to set up Emilio with the goal at his mercy, only for the ball to take a customary hop on the Washington Nationals infield, causing Emilio to sky the ball over the goal after it met his shin guard rather than his foot. Head coach Tommy Soehn remarked, "We finally got bit by the infield. That's a big goal. That's 2-0 and that really puts them on their heals. So that's disappointing."
 
As it happened, it once again became a theme of the night for a DC United that has failed to win or hold a lead in 5 games, having lost 3 games 1-0 and failing to hold a 3-0 post halftime lead against FC Dallas at home the weekend before the All-Star break, losing their legs and shape before giving up the game tying goal to the superb Juan Toja in the 81st minute.
 
Still they led 1-0 going into halftime. Monarcas made 2 of their permitted 4 changes at half time, bringing on a forward and defender in straight swaps to keep the same tactical lineup.
 
DC United should have been given a further boost of confidence 10 minutes into the 2nd half when Luis Landin of Monarcas rose to his feat following a clumsy foul from Bobby Boswell and violently pushed out at the turned around Boswell. After several minutes of unnecessary mitigation by the refs and his assistants, he reached into his pocket and awarded him a red card, with Boswell receiving a yellow for his part. Chants of "Na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, Goodbye!" rang out amongst the crowd.
 
Tellingly, Monarcas had other plans. With everything against them: being down a man, in preseason form, missing their top players such as Mexican Fernando Arce and Argentinean Leandro Gracian, and playing away from home, they began to fight back.
 
Their Brazilian right winger Tiago created for himself the best chance of the night for either side when he powered through United's left hand side of defense. Leaving one player in his wake and Marc Burch in a heap just inside the 18 yard box, Tiago shot with just Perkins to beat, and was dramatically beaten by the post. With Perkins laid out following his attempt to save, the ball hit the post and bounced beautifully back across the face of goal and into Perkins loving arms.
 
In the 79th minute, Monarcas got their equalizer. A long ball from Adrian Aldrete, who had come on at half time to provide fresh legs, found the lumbering Diego Martinez, playing in an uncustomary right midfield position due to lack of options, wide open on the right side of goal. A poor touch actually aided him as his trap popped the ball up just so. With no one in site to cover, Martinez had what seemed an eternity before connecting sweetly with a right foot volley that appeared destined for the far left corner of the net as soon as it was hit, giving Perkins no chance.
 
Christian Gomez, in almost frustrated fashion looked to lead DC United courageously on to victory. But his teammates were not up to the challenge. Often forced to pick the ball up far deeper on the field than normal, Gomez was running himself into the ground, yet on several occasions looked up to see Fred only staring back at him and forwards Emilio and Addlery, who had come on for the withered legs of Dyachenko, in poor positions to receive a pass. Gros' forays up the right were also not bearing fruit, with Ben Olsen switching to the left for moments in support of Fred, who was subdued for much of the night.
 
In the end, Gomez was able to link up with Emilio for several shots at Moises Munoz's goal, as well as one chance in which Emilio chose to square across the face of goal, a chance that went begging. Agonizingly, it was all for not.
 
DC United Head Coach Tommy Soehn began his post game press conference, "It's very disappointing. I think we played a pretty solid game overall. Martinez scored a great goal and if you're going to go down like that at least its going to be a play like that that's going to bite you but we had plenty of chances to put this game away."
 
Commenting on the SuperLiga and the opposition, he continued, "There's a lot of pride. I think the rivalry between Mexican clubs and American clubs is a good one, and I think you can see that both teams were hungry to win the game."
 
About only using 1 sub, Soehn commented, "We wanted to get the second goal. These home games are very important and we needed to get the result... It was an intense game."
 
Ben Olsen added to his coaches comments, "We played against a good team. There wasn't many opportunities for them and they did very well with the one they had. A little unlucky but give them credit for taking their one chance. We still could do better managing the game. When we're [up] a man, can we keep the ball? Can we make them work a little bit harder? They pressed and... it's disappointing. We're very disappointed but somehow we have to put this one behind us and move on because we've got a very good America team waiting for us on Sunday."
 
Final thoughts:
Obviously the coaching staff, players and fans alike will come away from this game disappointed and frustrated with the result, as they should be.  For reasons previously mentioned, Monarcas had everything going against them, and I didn't even mention how poor they were in the Mexican League
last season, failing to reach the playoffs and never really making a challenge. As is obvious, like the LA Galaxy, they are not in the SuperLiga on merit, rather because they are owned by the television
company airing all of the games in Mexico. A rivalry between top Mexican and American sides based on the competitive nature of the games? I don't think so just yet.
 
With Moreno and Namoff out injured, from his decisions, or lack thereof, Soehn has rendered the subs bench completely depleted apart from Clyde Simms, who is also out of favor and has not been given any significant time this season in center midfield despite Brian Carroll's inconsistencies.  Therefore he only subbed Dyachenko due to cramping.  Soehn may believe that Monarcas was the team on the back foot, but considering where the two teams are in their respective seasons, it seems DC United has just as many players that cannot compete at a strong level for a full 90 minutes.