20 thoughts about the Charleston Open Cup match
DC United's first tournament game in two years
Troy Lesesne talked a big game about playing a strong lineup, but he rotated a fair amount. Admittedly much of the rotation was forced by injuries, but if Herrera, Stroud, and Leal had started I think the first half goes very differently.
Just how rotated was the lineup? Well, in terms of actual starters at this stage in the season, you had Kye Rowles in defense, Brandon Servania in central midfield, David Schnegg at wingback...and that's it (until Lesesne freely chooses otherwise, I consider Peglow and Jared Stroud the starting wingers, not Hosei Kijima). Just three starters.
And not all starters are created equal. I know it's impossible to compare across positions, but quick, who are DC’s top 5 players? Not sure but I'll give it a quick go: 1) Benteke 2) Herrera 3) Peglow 4) Bartlett 5) Uh...Kijima? Rowles? Servania as of the last two games? Anyway, my point is DC started without its best four players, and only one of those was missing by choice. Fortunately, it seems like at least Benteke and Herrera will start this weekend against Toronto, and Peglow seemed to be walking easily after the Colorado game (whereas Pirani, for example, was limping badly).
I saw some people comment that it's weird that Kristian Fletcher didn't make the gameday roster. He was at the game and I saw Lesesne talking to him afterward. But who would he have replaced on the bench? I think he just got crowded out of available offensive subs by Stroud, Benteke, Leal, and Barajas. In retrospect, it would have been good to have him instead of Benteke, but maybe there was something in warmups that made them change their mind about Benteke and they genuinely thought Benteke would play going into the game.
I try to expect the worst from DC against USL teams in the Open Cup, but I admit even I wasn't expecting DC to come out and play from kickoff exactly like they did holding the lead against Colorado in the second half. But...they did. 5-4-1 shape, no pressing at all for the first twenty minutes and just a little bit afterward. My guess at an explanation: Lesesne expected the Battery to be hyped up and really intense, so he told his guys to sit back and absorb the pressure. Alternatively, he knew there would be tired legs as players like Matti Peltola and Brandon Servania had to go 90 minutes for the second time in three days, so he wanted to conserve energy. If this latter point figured into his thinking, maybe it worked, because although they had to dig deep and really fight through fatigue and cramps, DC seemed to have a lot more in the tank in extra time.
For their part, Charleston probably should have come in playing very conservatively, but instead they really did try to play their game and got a couple half-chances out of it. But most of their danger came through #10 (as well as a whole lot of whining) and when he was subbed off that seemed to pretty much close up shop on their offense. I didn’t really see the sort of massive motivation advantage you kind of expect to see from USL underdogs in these matches, at least not until after the goals when a few of their players got salty about losing and started committing dumb fouls.
Kim Joon Hong only had routine saves to make, but he made all those without the shakiness he had in his first game or two. His distribution wasn't perfect but it was a lot better than Luis Barraza. He didn't have an opportunity to stop any tricky shots, but Barraza hasn't covered himself in glory in shotstopping either. Given this performance and the club's investment I now expect Kim to win his starting job back pretty soon.
What I want to see from a game like this is DC players looking clearly better than the lower league opposition. Of the starters in the first half, I think you could only say that about Peltola, Tubbs, Rowles, Servania, and Kijima. That wasn't enough, especially since of those only Kijima is at all creative and he couldn't combine with anyone else. Enow, Schnegg, and Murrell didn't play badly per se, but didn't look distinctly better than the opposition, which was disappointing. Dodson and Karamoko might have been worse. I was hoping Herrera and Leal would replace them, but Herrera came on for Schnegg for what I'm assuming are fatigue reasons.
In the second half, Leal certainly looked better than Charleston when he came on (and massively better than Karamoko). Herrera was instantly the best player on the field. Rida Zouhir came in for Enow and felt like he played at the same level, which is good for him but bad for Enow. For me, Barajas was overall a step down from non-exhausted Kijima, though he plays much more like a winger. Then Jared Stroud came on and looked like he was the best player on the pitch (of course his legs were much, much fresher).
Overall, I think it really speaks to the limitations of DC's roster. No one is really a gamewinner on their own (Peglow's match against the Red Bulls notwithstanding). When all the most technical players are on the pitch at once (Herrera, Kjiima, Peglow, Benteke) they can play well as a unit, but today DC never had enough of them on the pitch at once to generate any offense. And Benteke's magical ability to turn anyone's crosses into danger wasn't there either. That made for an extremely dull game in regulation.
Brandon Servania looked better on Saturday against better opposition. I think what he was really good at against Colorado was using their aggression against them, sliding the ball against their momentum and then surging into the space. Charleston didn't mount the same amount of pressure so he looked fine but not quite as effective.
I think the Battery made a mistake taking their many free kicks short instead of lumping it into the box. As a team, they were pretty short, so in theory it made sense, but they also weren’t generating much danger on the ground and anyway, this isn't the DC United of yore with Birnbaum back there. It's not even the DC United of earlier this season with Benteke and Bartlett defending free kicks. Tubbs, Rowles, and Peltola played well overall but they aren’t great in the air.
Hakim Karamoko failed to make an argument for starting, not just over DC's other attackers but also over the Battery's attackers. I guess he's yet another guy on this roster who’s out of position at winger but I don’t know, he seems like a real long term project at best.
The Randall Leal experience started in the second half with a couple good passes here and there but mainly contributing by shooting hopeful balls twenty yards wide of goal from way outside the box. Then, in extra time, suddenly he starting making some incisive through balls. The first “assist” was a decent pass but deserves scare quotes, but the second was very good. Then, with DC safely up 2-0, he switched to a third mode and just tried to make tired Charleston players look bad with increasingly absurd dribbling moves.
You have to say this about Jacob Murrell…was anyone else capable of scoring that goal? Probably not. Oh yeah, and Princess Bride style, he did it using his left foot. At this point it’s a pattern with him: he’s capable of great finishes. Too bad he can’t do anything else. Did you know he's listed at the same height as Benteke? I don’t know about that one, but he really is a lot taller than Badji and yet is much worse in the air. In MLS he’s combined well on occasion with teammates, but he couldn’t hold up the ball or do any combination play tonight. I wish he could get regular time as a #9 in USL to work on all these other skills. Even if DC had an MLS Next Pro team, I think he needs to be playing against adults.
Some people online were really impressed by Fidel Barajas in this game. Several people sitting near me at Audi Field were disgusted when he seemed to pull up from a confrontation with Zamudio on a through ball and another occasion where he didn’t seem to run flat out for a loose ball. Not a good look from someone who ought to be desperate for playing time. I'll say this for him, though: he actually plays like a winger, unlike most of our "wingers". I liked that he looked to combine and did it successfully on occasion. But...he was playing against very tired USL guys and didn't look like he could beat anyone on the dribble or really create anything especially dangerous. Whereas Jared Stroud—not a guy I normally think of as anything but a hardworking role player—came in, looked great, and clearly made everyone around him look better as well. You can see Lesesne’s quandary in MLS games: sub in a true winger like Barajas who does some nice things but doesn’t play much defense? Or sub in Jacob Murrell, who doesn’t make any of the correct movements for the position on offense, also doesn’t play much defense…and sometimes scores incredible goals out of nowhere.
The US Open Cup allows a sixth substitution in extra time. Benteke was the only field player left on the bench and clearly they didn't want to take a chance playing him. I couldn't help notice that the only other substitute, Jordan Farr, was warming up on the endline during extra time. Not stationary keeper warmups, either. He was warming up with the ball. Now who knows, maybe he’s good at saving penalties and they were going to put him in for the shootout. But then why was he dribbling a ball? I prefer think they wanted him to be ready to play in the field. Once DC went up 2-0 he sat down, sparing us the fun of watching a goalie playing wingback or something. Look, it could happen! A very, very long time ago I watched a goalkeeper playing fullback in a DC United reserve game at the RFK auxiliary fields.
DC’s next opponent is Charlotte FC. I saw they beat their USL opposition, North Carolina FC, 4-1 and was briefly jealous. But it turns out that game was also 0-0 after regulation and all five goals were scored in extra time, so it wasn’t that different.
DC is a mere four wins from raising the US Open Cup for the first time since 2013, when they somehow beat four MLS teams to win the trophy (one more win than they had in the entire 34 game MLS regular season).
I know some people feel very strongly about this and I really do understand where they are coming from, but man, this was not a great advertisement for the value of MLS participating in the Open Cup. This was probably DC’s first and last USL opponent, the special, unique part of the tournament. Despite perfect weather, attendance was very low, and the quality of the game in regulation was even lower. Yeah, I know, the Capitals and Nationals were playing, and the tournament’s not marketed properly, etc. etc. I get it, and hey, I voted with my feet and was there in the stadium. I’m just saying…it wasn’t a great experience.
ICL the dude who got the red card was really good
CHS looked like the better team through so much of the first 90 minutes. We now know, I think, that Murrell isn't quite ready for full-on MLS competition. He may get there but there are holes in his game that he needs to work on...a loan to Loudoun (is that still a thing?) or somewhere else would probably be best for his development.