About Last Week

United we stand, together we fall...hard

I can say that Bushman’s been working hard and that’s why he’s not been around. It has nothing to do with the two of us wanting to take a huge mulligan for putting D.C. United so high in our preseason predictions.

Man, what a disaster that game was.

Yes, it was just one game and there are 29 more. But it was against a side many thought would be well out of the playoff race. Granted, with Ryan Smith spicing up the attack and Jimmy Nielsen holding down things in the back, we may well be wrong about that. However, the 4-0 result looks to be an ominous beginning to the Curt Onalfo era.

I didn’t get to see the game, which is probably fortunate, but the most troubling aspect of the highlights were that two of the four goals were off rebounds from Troy Perkins. It didn’t look like he was getting much help from the back line and it was raining, but making those kind of saves is why United sent a big package to Philly for his rights. Josh Wicks can give up those kind of goals even with one shoulder out of commission.

According to Soccernet -- have to go there because the new MLSsoccer.com doesn’t have anything updated from last week -- United managed just one shot on goal. For an allegedly revamped attack, that’s unacceptable. But the reason I’m kicking myself is going off preseason results, which you should never take much stock of, and the fact that I knew Onalfo’s teams in Kansas City struggled offensively and this makeshift back line isn’t going to win many games.

Suffice it to say, it appears it will be a long season at RFK. It might be too much of a knee jerk reaction, but the fact is now with 16 teams in the league you can’t start slow. On the bright side, even though the stadium is falling apart they will now serve Ledo’s Pizza and Ben’s Chili Bowl. So they’ve got that going for them.

Other stuff going on…

- Couple of great games in Champions League action this week with Bayern this time coming back against Manchester United and a thrilling 2-2 draw at the Emirates. Bigger than the games, though, were the injuries to Wayne Rooney and Cesc Fabregas. Kind of takes the luster off of the return legs and really opens the door for Barcelona to repeat as CL champs. Arsenal’s only hope lies in that Barça’s first choice center backs will be out of the return leg and Rafa Marquez is always susceptible to being sent off; however, I don’t see that happening (Arsenal advancing, not Marquez being Marquez). ManU can get a 1-0 result, but they’ll need a great performance out of Ryan Giggs and have Dimitar Berbatov show up in a big game. Not sure they can get past Lyon without Rooney, though.

- Injuries are mounting for World Cup players, as noted above. Rooney seems like he’ll be back in plenty of time, though with ligament damage that’s no sure thing. Fabregas though apparently broke his leg while taking a penalty kick -- we’ll find out for sure this afternoon. How the hell does that happen? The only positive, as an American fan, is for once the injuries weren’t to one of our players.

- The other big winners? Chelsea. By not playing midweek, and therefore not having anyone injured, once again they seem to be in the driver’s seat for the Prem. A win at Old Trafford this weekend would be huge for the home side, but I’m not sure ManU have the horses with Rooney on the sidelines. A draw wouldn’t be disastrous, as they’d maintain their one point advantage. Arsenal aren’t out of it, but it would be nearly miraculous for them to win any silverware this year.

- Switching gears to hoops, gotta pull for Butler this weekend as a Terps fan. Obviously Duke isn’t getting any support and West Virginia isn’t much better, even if they do have Billy Hahn on the bench. (Btw, Hahn hasn’t lost any intensity, has he?) I still don’t even want to talk about Michigan State other than to say doesn’t this disprove the theory you have to have great guards to win in March? So in the end, I have nothing against Butler, so that’s who I’m rooting for. The lesser of all evils wins on this one.

- Finally, in somewhat breaking news (as I was about to post this, at least), MLS has officially added a second DP slot and will allow teams to buy a third. My initial thought is this gives an inherent edge to NY and LA with Seattle and D.C. maybe being other teams that would buy the third slot. It will be interesting to see how a second DP is used as teams have shown that just one doesn’t work, but perhaps having three stars on a team might tip the balance in the favor of the DP. Beckham and Donovan showed last year two big guns can do some heavy lifting and if they had a third musketeer, maybe Bruce Arena wins his third MLS Cup.

It also belies the notion over the winter that the owners were complaining about losing money. If they were that concerned this wouldn’t have passed. Of course, they couldn’t admit to that until after negotiations with the union were done.

Also interesting to me is that DP’s now only count for $335k against the cap. The salary cap this year was raised by $235k, so teams only have to cut $100k of other salaries to add a DP.

But, hey, kudos to MLSsoccer.com for getting the scoop from down the hall. Now get functioning scoreboards!

- Pat Walsh