Game Context
CF Montreal has had a tough start to their season where they have to play six games on the road. This was their fifth game. They came into the season considered a solid team but one in which owners had underinvested. Matt Doyle put them in his fourth tier (out of five) and the MLS preseason power rankings had them at #25, just one spot above DC United. But their results so far were encouraging: two road wins against FC Dallas and Inter Miami, plus a draw against Orlando and a freak loss against Chicago.
DC was coming off a hard-fought point in St. Louis where they were missing a number of starters due to international play. Everyone was back, but Lesesne had to at least consider whether some important players needed rest. Aaron Herrera played 90 minutes in two games while Matti Peltola came out of his second game with a minor injury, but they both went back into the starting lineup. Pedro Santos didn’t start, but that wasn’t a rest issue, he was gone last week because of his red card against Inter Miami.
Formation
The big change was on the left side as Conner Antley and Cristian Dájome started over Pedro Santos and Gabriel Pirani. That was a bit of a surprise since Antley played on the right last game against St. Louis, but as Lesesne mentioned in the postgame, he wanted some more speed and defensive acumen on that side to match up against former DC United wingback Ruan, who played right wingback for Montreal and is extremely fast.
Jason Anderson pointed out on Twitter that Montreal tried to play with a forward high on the left in order to keep Aaron Herrera pinned back. I didn’t pick up on this while watching the game, but it sounds like a good idea that didn’t work out too well for them since Herrera was still very influential on the game.
Jason also seems to think DC played a 4-3-3 with Klich and Ku-Dipietro playing high with Benteke. I like the idea of getting Klich closer to goal since, unfortunately, we don’t have anyone more creative than he is, but I didn’t really see this happening. It still looks like a 4-5-1 to me with Stroud and Dajome high and wide in possession, Klich in front of Peltola in the midfield, and Ku-Dipietro playing underneath Benteke.
Scoreline
There was only one goal, but it was a fine one. It was even—arguably—from a set piece! DC has looked pretty toothless on corners this year despite Benteke’s aerial prowess, but this goal came from a long throw-in by Herrera that reached Benteke in the box. He flicked it on, but it was too far behind the on-rushing Ku-Dipietro. Fletcher tried to reach it, but a Montreal player got in a desperate touch to push it past him to the top of the box where Pedro Santos ran on to it and smashed it home at the near post.
DC won the xG battle decisively, 2.1 to Montreal’s 0.8, and that definitely matched the feeling in real-time. In a return to a pattern from earlier in the season, DC had a huge advantage in shots (22-7) but many of the shots were blocked, so DC only had five on target.
Player Ratings
Alex Bono - 7 - Not much to do. FBref says Montreal had just a single shot on target and Bono made the save (though sometimes these stats leave things out; Josef Martinez had another shot that got past Bono only to be cleared off the line by Aaron Herrera). I suppose Montreal was playing too deep to exert much pressure, but whatever the reason, I appreciate that Bono didn’t have any mistakes with the ball this time after some shaky moments in previous games.
Aaron Herrera - 8 - He played great, which is fast becoming the expectation. Fought hard all day on defense but still got forward and contributed a lot to the attack. It’s really fortunate we were able to get him in the offseason.
Lucas Bartlett - 7 - Clean sheet and good passing. Another solid game, as is usual for him.
Christopher McVey - 6 - Also a reasonably solid game, but as is usual for McVey, he lost more aerial duels than I’d like for a centerback.
Conner Antley - 7 - I think this was the best game Antley has played in a DC jersey thus far. Very active at left back defensively with some trips forward, but always disciplined to keep Ruan from racing in behind him. He only let Ruan get behind him once that I noticed, which is great work. As we know from last year, Ruan needs a lot of opportunities to convert one into an assist.
Matti Peltola - 6 - He wasn’t quite as involved defensively and only went 60 minutes after playing in two games during the international break, but it was nice to see him get up to 0.2 expected assists this time.
Mateusz Klich - 7 - Klich had 10 shot creating actions, his highest of the season, and though he didn’t end up getting on the scoresheet, he had 1.2 expected assists to go with his usual industry in the midfield. My only complaint is he got a very dumb yellow card that brings him to 4 on the season, one away from a suspension.
Jared Stroud - 7 - Got free a number of times for crosses, but it felt like they weren’t as accurate as usual. Maybe that was just Montreal packing the box with defenders.
Cristian Dájome - 7 - He finally got to play in his natural position. He did pretty well, but I’m not sure he did enough to show he should start over Pirani. If they put in similar performances, Pirani is nine years younger and there’s at least a bit of hope that he might get a lot better with more playing time.
Ted Ku-Dipietro - 7 - He had some great defensive plays early in the game and was his usual energetic self. Also as usual, he wasn’t able to translate his aggression into quality chances.
Christian Benteke - 8 - He racked up 1.19 xG with headers and some mostly-blocked shots in the box. Getting the right places to take a lot of shots is what you want out of a center forward, even if he didn’t score today. His flick-on was probably the biggest DC contribution to Santos’ goal, though it won’t be tallied as an assist.
Substitutes
Jackson Hopkins - 6 - In my view he was playing out of position as a defensive midfielder where he doesn’t have enough defensive presence, but that wasn’t a big issue in this game. Still a step down from Peltola, but he did well moving the ball forward in possession.
Pedro Santos - 8 - He was subbed on to provide more offense from the left back position. Mission accomplished. Great technique on the goal. He also had an important tackle on the edge of the box.
Gabriel Pirani - 6 - He got a chance to play a few minutes on the right side of the field and I wonder if he might not be a little more effective there. Anyway, he had a few nice moments on defense and also a couple of aggressive carries forward. The latter reminded me of his play last season where he did well to push forward with the ball, only to get dispossessed before he could find a productive outlet.
Kristian Fletcher - N/A - Not too involved in a handful of minutes, though his run into the box forced a Montreal defender to play the ball to where Santos was able to score.
Other
Manager - 8 - Starting to take it for granted, but Troy Lesesne had all the players looking coordinated, on the same page, and playing better than the sum of their parts. It took a while to get the goal, but the win was deserved.
Referees - 6 - Finally back to the usual refs, but if you’d told me these were still replacement refs I would have believed it. Some missed calls but fortunately nothing major. The red card VAR decision was a close one so I guess we have to accept it. The fans in the stadium were really mad about the amount of stoppage time, but it seemed reasonable to me.
Aerial Duelist
A lot of people have remarked on Christian Benteke’s ability to win balls in the air. This past game was quieter for him—relative to his season thus far—winning “only” 9 out of 11 aerial duels. Considering in his three other games he has gone 12 out of 14 twice and then a mind-boggling 24 out of 31 against St. Louis, 9 out of 11 might seem quiet. But how does this stack up to other players in MLS?
As usual with advanced stats, the unfortunate caveat I have to give at the outset is that we only have this data going back to 2018. But looking back, who has the most aerial duels won per 90 minutes in MLS in that time? Let’s put a minimum of 4 games played on there. The answer: Christian Benteke, this season, with 14.2.
Well, it’s a small sample size. Who is in second place? Cristian Colmán, a Paraguayan forward in his 2018 FC Dallas season. He only scored two goals that season but managed to win 8.1 aerial duels per 90. So his average was still lower than Benteke’s lowest game thus far this season.
We have to beware limited sample size, of course, and it’s probably not a coincidence that seven of the MLS top 8 in this statistic didn’t play a thousand minutes in their season (Colmán, for example, played just 610 minutes, not even twice as many as Benteke’s 360 thus far this year). The one guy in the top 8 who did play more than a thousand minutes played a lot more, 2,788, and he still ended up in third place with 7.8 aerial duels won per 90. That man? Christian Benteke, in 2023.
If we only look at player-seasons who had more than 10 games-worth of minutes played, Benteke from this year drops off the list of course, as does Colmán, so Benteke in 2023 is at the top with 7.8. Chinonso Offor’s 2021 Chicago Fire season and Kei Kamara’s 2018 Vancouver season are next with 5.8 and 5.7. respectively. Then there’s Zlatan Ibrahimović with 5.3 in 2019. Rounding out the top five is DC United’s own Steven Birnbaum with 5.2 in 2019. I can’t help go two more places because number six is, somehow, Chris Pontius with 5.0 for LA Galaxy in 2018, then Steve Birnbaum again with 4.9 in 2023.
So: Benteke’s 14.2 so far this year is crazy. Which raises the question: how does it compare globally?
Well, there are a lot of leagues out there without good stats, but FBref has advanced stats for MLS, the top 5 European leagues and their second divisions, and a handful of others like the Eredivisie, the Argentine first division, etc.
In that data set, Benteke’s current pace of 14.2 is good for fifth place behind Matt Smith (18.4 for QPR in the Championship in 2018), Peter Crouch (15.5 for Stoke City in the Championship and Burnley in the Premier League in 2018), Adebayo Akinfenwa (15.1 for Wycombe in the Championship in 2020), and then Matt Smith again (15.0 with Milwall in the Championship in 2020).
A few points worth of note here:
It’s interesting that the English Championship is represented in 3.5 of the top four seasons. I guess its reputation as having a lot of long ball teams is justified!
2018 was Peter Crouch’s last season. It’s a shame we don’t have stats on his earlier years, where you’d think he would have been even better.
If you’re wondering, Matt Smith is 6’6” and Peter Crouch is famously 6’7”, whereas Akinfenwa is only 6’1” but very wide. Benteke is listed at 6’3”. Sometimes you wonder if listed heights are too generous, but Benteke looks bigger than 6’3” to me.
You’ll recall that Benteke’s season last year averaged 7.8 aerial duels per 90. That’s only good enough for 160th on the worldwide list when the minutes bar is down at 270 minutes. But it’s worth noting Benteke also has places #42, #43, #49, and #57 on the list with his 2019, 2020, 2018, and 2017 Crystal Palace seasons that ranged from 9.5 to 10.2 aerial duels won per 90. Those were all in the Premier League, so against MLS defenders and with a manager like Troy Lesesne who is eager to exploit his exceptional ability, Benteke’s torrid pace thus far might actually be sustainable.
Hot Starts in DC United History
DC has 9 points through 6 games, a very good though not quite blistering pace. This made me wonder how it compared against past DC United seasons. Out of the 28 previous seasons, in 21 of them (75%) DC United had 8 or fewer points after 6 games. The lowest total was 3 points in 2010 en route to a last place finish. Those 21 worse starts also include DC’s other Wooden Spoon years, as well as teams that would start slow but go on to win MLS Cup like the 1996, 1999, and 2004 squads (4 points, 8 points, and 6 points respectively) and two Supporters Shield winners, the 1999 and 2007 teams (8 and 7 points).
The best start a DC United team has ever had in six games was the 1997 team with 14 points out of a possible 18. For the pedantic, I’m counting both shootout wins and losses as draws, but in this case I think it comes out the same because DC won one of their two shootouts and MLS back then gave a point for winning the shootout and zero for losing it.
Other strong starts: the 2006 Supporter’s Shield winners had 11 points, as did decent teams like the 2015 squad and Rooney’s second year in 2019. Meanwhile, the legendary 1998 team, widely considered the best DC United team ever, started with 9 points just like the current season, as did the not-nearly-so-impressive 2001 and 2009 teams.
Standings
DC United moved up to #8 in the Eastern Conference, good enough for the play-in game if the season ended today. They’re up to #14 in the Supporter’s Shield standings.
The Red Bulls’ Lewis Morgan scored a penalty over the weekend so he’s now two goals ahead of Christian Benteke in the golden boot race (with a lot of other players in the mix as well, of course).
Coming Up
On paper, next week could be DC’s hardest match of the season as they play the MLS Cup winners, Columbus Crew. Columbus is very strong again this year. They’re third in the East on points but second by points per game. So far this year they’ve also won all three of their home games. But there’s two reasons for hope. First, DC’s game against them falls squarely in the middle of two Tuesday games against Tigres in the CONCACAF Champions Cup. Unless Tigres blows them out at home in the first leg (not impossible), they will be looking forward to the extremely difficult away leg in Mexico as they play DC and might well rotate players as a result. Second, their star forward, Cucho Hernandez, was left off the gameday roster this past weekend due to some sort of disciplinary issue. That kind of thing usually doesn’t last more than a game, but even if he’s back, it could still be a distraction.
After that tough match, DC has games against two struggling teams: at home against Orlando City, then away against NYCFC. With DC playing surprisingly well this year, they’ll be favored to get at least four points from those two games. It’s been a while since that was the case!