And so it ends…

By: Herschel | October 26th, 2009

In what can be conservatively called a Bad season, Kansas City came back to tie D.C. United and kill their chances of moving into the playoffs.

Kansas City started with a different look using Kamara and Zoltan at the same time but kicking Kei off to the wing and leaving Zoltan up top with Josh Wolff; yes an improvement but not by much since Wolff did look slow on a couple of breakaways. The defense was also reworked because of injuries having Bessler, Hohlbein, Marquess and Jewsbury in the back.

The game was a bit entertaining at times but the Wizards again failed control the midfield which led at times to a lot of D.C. pressure. I guess that’s what happens when we play 2 offensive players in the middle of the field and have no holding/defensive midfielder to slow down the opponent advance; but hey, did anyone really expect Vermes to bench Arnaud?

Kamara opened up the scoring with a nice diving header off a free kick by Zusi. Although leading, United had most of the scoring chances in the 1st half but their forwards and the post kept KC in the lead. The 2nd half started off with DC United pressuring the Wizards back line that had to work hard containing not only the DC forwards, but also the midfielders that moved up due to the lack of KC ball control.

Hartman kept it scoreless with a couple of great saves, but finally a long Ben Olsen pass caught Marquess napping allowing Fred to steal the ball and in the jostle between the two the Brazilian fell to the ground. Penalty? Not in my book since he went down way to easily (I might be a bit partial after watching 2 Premier League games that morning and afternoon and knowing that it would have been considered a dive in those games), but Salazar gave it to him and Moreno barely got it past Hartman. A few minutes later another play off the Wizards’ left side gave D.C. a free kick on a dubious foul; the cross was headed backwards towards the goal by Jack Jewsbury and then parried up (instead of out) by Hartman, allowing James to head it in as it came back down. 2-1 United.

KC went all out in the final minutes making Steve Cronin work hard to keep DC on top. Shots from Lopez, Arnaud and then a free kick by Lopez were all stopped; this last one earning KC a final corner in the 90th minute. The cross came in and in the confusion a shot towards goal was stopped by Fred with his forearm, earning KC a penalty and Fred a red card for denying an imminent scoring opportunity. Lopez finished off KC’s goal tally for the year and tying the game.

Commentary: Not much to say about this one. I thought Marquess held his own until the 2nd half and made a rookie type mistake by losing the ball and fouling Fred. I can’t blame him on the 2nd goal since the ball should have been headed out instead or towards the goal, and Hartman had no pressure when he went up so he should have punched it over. All in all an OK game that meant little and where these mistakes are tolerable.

I like Zusi in midfield, but he Arnaud are similar players (although Zusi has a better touch) and give us little defensive support. At one point in the second half the D.C. midfield was just completely on top of the KC defense since Zusi, Arnaud, Lopez and even Kamara brought little defensive pressure and could not hold possession to make better distribution. On the pass that Olsen sent in to Fred that led to the penalty he ran with it for yard after yard with no pressure from any of our mids; now that was pretty bad.

My Oscar obviously goes to Fred who basically acted his part in getting the penalty and the later foul that led to the DC goals; simulated an injury at the end of the game to lose time just to try and come back on the field the moment he stepped off it, and even tried to dupe Salazar on his handball by going down to the ground after the ball hit his arm. All in all a busy night for Fred.

Season over and the transition begins. I’ll be writing in the next few days about what I think should happen with the team and the coaches and T.D.

Here are the highlights: