DC United at New York Red Bulls 4/19/25

DC goes to New Jersey for the first match of this year's Atlantic Cup

Game Context

With three wins and three draws, the Red Bulls had been doing well in terms of points, but their offense had been struggling. In their previous four matches, they had scored just three non-penalty goals. They probably saw DC United’s shaky defense as the ideal chance to get things back on track.

After four straight losses, DC desperately needed some sort of result. I can’t say I really thought a win was in the cards, but even scraping out a draw would have been a welcome change.

According to the MLS power rankings, this featured #28 (DC United) playing against #16 (New York Red Bulls).

Formation

Troy Lesesne used the same lineup and formation as last week against Cincinnati. That was not unexpected (I predicted it in my preview!) but it was still a bit courageous seeing as that lineup got shut out at home in a game where they looked significantly more likely to score on their own goal than the opponent’s. But those problems were concentrated in the first half and they improved markedly in the second half, so Lesesne bet on more playing time helping the players gel.

Anyway, the lineup: Luis Barraza started his second straight game in goal behind a three-man centerback line with Kye Rowles on the left, Lukas MacNaughton in the center, and Lucas Bartlett on the right. David Schnegg and Aaron Herrera were the left and right wingbacks, respectively. Hosei Kijima and Brandon Servania played in central midfield and then João Peglow and Jared Stroud flanked Christian Benteke up top.

When Benteke had to come off with what hopefully is a minor injury in the 29th minute, Dominique Badji came in and played the same position.

In the 67th minute, Jacob Murrell came on for Stroud and Boris Enow replaced Hosei Kijima in two like-for-like switches (in the sense they were playing the same role, though I continue to complain that Murrell is not a winger).

At the 83rd minute, Matti Peltola replaced Brandon Servania and then there was the only positional wrinkle of this game as Derek Dodson came on for Peglow. He went to the right (where Stroud had started) and Murrell switched to the other side to take Peglow’s position. I suppose Dodson is more comfortable on the right, but I think this might have been a reaction to the fact Emil Forsberg had started to repeatedly slide deep into their left midfield to collect the ball, effortlessly bypass Murrell, and then play it forward. Dodson may not have done much with the ball but he immediately put a stop to this.

Expected Goals

DC ended up with 0.84 expected goals, about the same anemic amount they managed against Cincinnati. The Red Bulls had 1.16, not a huge advantage and one that I think is slightly flattering. DC actually outshot the Red Bulls 12-10 despite conceding an enormous possession advantage (67-33) throughout the game.

DC also “won” the first half 0.64 to 0.40 in xG in addition to winning 2-0 on the scoreboard. They only had three shots in the second half as they played extremely conservatively and “lost” it 0.19 to 0.76.

Peglow’s first goal was considered just 0.05 xG, which seems very low since he was in the box. I suppose the angle wasn’t favorable and Opta doesn’t take into account the fact he was one-on-one with the goalkeeper. His second goal was 0.2 xG, which seems quite high, but again they don’t take into account the fact he had to hit the ball overhead (I think it does mark it as a “volley” and deduct xG for that). The highest xG shot DC had otherwise was 0.10 xG off a blocked Brandon Servania shot from the 50th minute.

Eric Choupo-Moting’s goal was 0.21 xG, close but at a tight angle. It’s possible it gets a deduction for being deflected by MacNaughton? Emil Forsberg’s open header in the 87th minute was the Red Bulls’ best chance (0.36 xG), though I think it wasn’t quite so dangerous as it seemed since the ball was coming almost straight down, making it very difficult for Forsberg to do anything with it. Dennis Gjengaar also had a 0.25 xG shot in the 30th minute after getting behind Kye Rowles where he went for maximum power and missed the goal by a healthy amount. Everything else from the Red Bulls was 0.10 xG or less.

Goal Breakdowns

35’ João Peglow 1-0

Luis Barraza takes a routine long goal kick to the right side of the field. Benteke was already off injured and I’ve heard some people comment that had he been on the field, this goal doesn’t happen, but I’m not so sure. DC’s forward players had swapped positions so that Badji was over near the right sideline and not matched up against the centerbacks. DC often does similar movements with Benteke.

I think the intention was for Barraza to hit it to Badji with the two “wingers” more central (Peglow forward and Stroud behind) to try to win the second ball. If so, then Barraza’s pass is errant because the ball ends up going to Stroud. He misjudges the ball and moves too far back towards DC’s half to have a chance to head it, but Red Bull centerback Alexander Hack follows him rather than judging the ball himself, so the ball ends up going over both of their heads and bounces forward.

Peglow was drifting forward and has two Red Bulls, centerback Tim Parker and fullback Dylan Nealis, goalside of him, though neither is marking tightly. The bounce is too high for Peglow to trap it, though with a big jump he might have been able to head it down into the path of Stroud, who is making a run up the center of the field and has a half-step on Hack.

Instead, as you’ve seen, Peglow stands with his back to goal and taps the ball backwards with his head, then spins and races past Tim Parker. If another defender was in a better position, I think a grizzled veteran like Parker (at 32 he’s lost a step but has something like 279 MLS starts) would just pull down Peglow as he passed. It’s probably my biggest FIFA rules pet peeve: a yellow card isn’t enough of a punishment for professional fouls. At any rate, it would be a red card here and Parker lets him go. Peglow easily outruns him to the ball and is in on goal. On the apple.tv broadcast, Lloyd Sam is in the middle of an idle thought about Stroud but this gorgeous play causes him to cut himself off: “Oh my goodness!”

I think an underappreciated part of this play is that having executed this turn, Peglow calmly takes two really light touches in fast succession that improve his position but don’t give Nealis or the goalkeeper a chance to reach the ball first. Then he gets the shot away just before Nealis slides past. The shot, to be honest, is poorly placed. It’s close to the center of the goal and a good height for Red Bull goalkeeper Carlos Coronel.

Coronel has been having a great shotstopping season, but on this play he leans to right at Peglow shoots. Maybe Peglow fooled him with his body position, or maybe Coronel just guessed that the shot would be to the far post (probably the better choice in theory). Instead, Peglow blasts it very close to Coronel on his other side. Already leaning away, all Coronel manages to do is bat the ball as it goes past him and into the net.

This was a wonderful individual goal from Peglow. Barraza and Stroud were slightly involved, but Peglow was solely responsible for creating the chance with his clever header, his athleticism that gets him quickly to the ball, his touch that controls it, and then, hey, anything that goes in is a good finish.

In a short postgame interview, Peglow said he knew he was faster than Tim Parker, and Red Bull fans have been angry the coach started Parker (his first of the season), but I think most centerbacks would have gotten beaten by this. That kind of header is always going to be unexpected and the centerback has to turn all the way around to pursue. Peglow’s speed and control after the header were crucial to him getting the shot off before Nealis could slide over to disrupt it.

44’ João Peglow 2-0

Aaron Herrera takes a fairly routine throw-in on the right side of the field, just inside the Red Bulls’ half. He throws it forward to Stroud, who does well to chest it down to himself and start to drive toward the box. Red Bull midfielder Felipe Carballo bodies him and knocks the ball away, but Badji comes back and touches it back to Kijima ten yards outside the box. There are now six Red Bulls clustered around three DC United players (Badji, Peglow, and Stroud) so Kijima swings it wide to David Schnegg, then makes a hard diagonal run.

In the moment I wanted a first-time pass to reward Kijima’s run, but Schnegg takes a touch and spots Aaron Herrera making a hard run on the other side. He hits a high cross while Stroud and Badji crash toward the goal in hopes Herrera can redirect it toward them. The ball comes in a bit high (if you watch the replay, you can see Schnegg “sympathy jump” as Herrera jumps, hoping he can get it) and all Herrera can do is awkwardly head the ball almost straight upward.

Peglow is unmarked. Herrera was supposed to be marked by 19 year old forward Serge Ngoma, who subbed on after Nealis injured himself sliding on the previous Peglow goal. Herrera beats Ngoma into the box, forcing fullback Omar Velencia to abandon Peglow and go to contest the header. After the header, Valencia is actually in a good position to make a play on the ball, but since it was knocked upward he doesn’t know where it is. For his part, Ngoma is just watching instead of doing something useful like marking Peglow.

At any rate, to reach the ball Peglow has to run toward the endline. With the ball still in front of him and dropping down vertically, Peglow chooses to attempt the spectacular.

After Jacob Murrell’s incredible goal earlier in the season, a bunch of pedants came out of the woodwork to say it was an overhead kick, not a bicycle kick, because one of his feet was still on the ground. Well, this time it was a real bicycle kick. Usually bicycle kicks happen when a player is standing with their back to the goal, like Murrell was, but Peglow is facing the endline. This means instead of just trying to make solid contact, he has to make glancing contact to slice the ball towards goal. As if that’s not enough, it’s high enough he can’t drive the ball and has to loft it instead.

With Badji lurking in front of goal, if Peglow misses wide of the far post he might have gotten an assist, but Peglow doesn’t miss. The ball loops well over the goalkeeper and hits the side netting. Opta scored it at 0.9 post-shot expected goals, a near certainty…once Peglow managed to get that placement.

Unlike the last goal, Peglow’s teammates did contribute with some reasonable buildup play, but it still wasn’t a dangerous chance until he took his audacious shot. Neither of his goals are the result of the sort of repeatable patterns that we might hope to see next week, but he’s got to be full of confidence now and defenders are going to be paying more attention, which might open up some opportunities for others.

57’ Eric Choupo-Moting 2-1

Cameron Harper makes an overlapping run on to a good pass down the sideline, but Schnegg tackles the ball out for a corner. Omar Valencia takes the corner and tries to find Alexander Hack rushing to the near post, but Aaron Herrera easily heads it away. It’s a good headed clearance that goes out of the box, but as DC defenders push up the field, Felipe Carballo makes a smart play, diving to send a driven header through the air back toward Emil Forsberg.

Lukas MacNaughton was marking Eric Choupo-Moting on the corner, but he leaves him to contest the header. Forsberg wins it and with his back to goal makes a really smart play to head it wide to where Choupo-Moting is now unmarked. He chests it down and blasts it toward the far post. Barazza is helpless at the near-post, but MacNaughton has tracked back and manages to head the ball. It deflects off his head and into the underside of the bar and then into the goal.

MLS seems to have credited Choupo-Moting but the replays made it look like the ball would have gone wide had it not been for MacNaughton. I would have called it an own goal, but I can see it would have been harsh. MacNaughton was doing the right thing and had no time to react to the hard shot, while Choupo-Moting did well to quickly get the shot off before Rowles arrived.

The real question here was how Forsberg and Choupo-Moting were onside. Several DC United players raised their hands for offside after the goal went in. Alas, Forsberg was indeed onside because Jared Stroud lags well behind the line of the defense as it pushes forward. I’m not willing to say it’s his fault, though. He was man-marking Alexander Hack on the near-post run, so his momentum was toward the endline. He doesn’t ball-watch, he turns and runs back upfield like he should, but Carballo’s aggressive header came too fast. Maybe you could say rest of the defense (perhaps organized by MacNaughton as the central centerback?) should have recognized this and waited to push up until Stroud had recovered, but I don’t know, I think it’s just a great play by Carballo and then Forsberg.

Oh, and Choupo-Moting? The camera angle isn’t perfect, but he sure looks offside to me. Oh well.

Anyway, I think each DC player seems to have done the right thing on this one so I’ll chock it up to bad luck and opposition talent: Herrera cleared it well, Stroud did his best to get upfield, MacNaughton contested the header, Barraza had no chance at the shot, and MacNaughton got unlucky on the deflection as he tried to cover the far post.

Player Ratings

Starters

Luis Barazza - 4 - He made the saves he was expected to make, wasn’t really at fault on the goal they scored, and did a good job timewasting starting all the way back in the first half. So maybe this is harsh, but he also had a dangerous turnover to Forsberg and I was very annoyed by the number of goal kicks he put out of bounds when DC was struggling to keep the ball.

Kye Rowles - 4 - He’s been a polarizing player. I’m usually in the positive camp, but unlike some I didn’t think he was at his best in this game. He made a bad mistake in the first half that let Red Bull get in behind (Bartlett bailed him out) and then got beaten badly by Gjengaar in behind again on that 30th minute chance mentioned above, though thankfully Gjengaar wasted the chance. Everyone from DC struggled with passing but Rowles was particularly bad, completing just 57%.

Lukas MacNaughton - 5 - After a dismal performance against Cincinnati, MacNaughton looked a lot better. He’s always very animated and talkative, which I guess is good? Hard to tell how well he’s organizing things on the broadcast. As mentioned above I don’t consider him at fault for the goal even though it probably should have been scored as his own goal.

Lucas Bartlett - 5 - Normally I like Bartlett a lot, but he doesn’t seem as comfortable playing on the right of a back three as he did in the center last season. Maybe having another centerback with such a similar first name is hard to deal with. It seemed like the Red Bulls liked the matchup of Choupo-Moting against him and were seeking that out, but although Choupo-Moting sometimes briefly got in behind on long balls, Bartlett is DC’s best emergency defender and usually cleaned things up.

David Schnegg - 4 - We know he’s capable of being very impressive, but he’s surprisingly inconsistent. This was a down game with a lot of simple balls misplayed, though he had a few good crosses, including the one to Herrera that led to Peglow’s second goal.

Aaron Herrera - 5 - Not a lot of fireworks but he played well, especially in the second half when DC was bunkering with what was essentially a back five.

Hosei Kijimia - 5 - His confidence with the ball makes him exciting to watch, though it also means he turns it over a bit more than you’d like from someone in his position. I keep being surprised he comes off as early as he does, but I guess they think he’s better with fresh legs.

Brandon Servania - 5 - Zero progressive passes, zero progressive carries, but second among starters with 84% passes completed. Just a stability guy back there, making safe passes and putting in a tackle now and then. I think that’s what the coaching staff wanted from him and that’s what they got.

Peglow - 9 - Barraza and Herrera were credited with assists but come on, he won the game pretty much single-handedly with his two amazing goals. Even leaving aside the goals, I thought he was clearly DC United’s best player by a large margin. For example, Opta scored him as having 6 successful take-ons, which is the same number as everyone on the Red Bulls and four more than his teammates put together. There’s no good stat for this but I’d say he’s also more useful on defense than Jacob Murrell, Gabriel Pirani, and Dominique Badji put together. Which isn’t saying much, but anyway, he’s clearly the prototype of the sort of player Ally MacKay is trying to get for Troy Lesesne: very fast first step and some genuine talent with the ball, but too young and way too inconsistent to have better prospects than DC United (Kijima is also in this category).

Jared Stroud - 4 - He did well to hit the post while the game was still scoreless, but before Peglow’s goals he also wasted two decent chances.

Christian Benteke - 5 - I’ve seen some people online say DC was better once Benteke came off. Sorry, I don’t see it. Badji is a bit more mobile and so slightly better in some transition situations, but otherwise he’s an enormous step down in quality. “Benteke's teammates spend too much time trying to assist him when he’s on the field.” Have you seen his teammates shoot? They are correct to do so.

Substitutes

Dominique Badji - 4 - I get the idea here of putting in a guy who is like Benteke, but less so, allowing the rest of the team to play the same way. But I think it’s a disservice to everyone, including Badji, to pretend he’s really doing what Benteke does. He’s not. When he came on, I was like, why not Murrell? Well, I found out why, but I don’t know, if Benteke is going to miss much time maybe Lesesne should try some sort of false nine? Maybe Kristian Fletcher can play like that once he’s integrated back into the team.

Boris Enow - 5 - Just 10 touches in 24 minutes as DC struggled to keep the ball late in the game, but he did win a few tackles.

Jacob Murrell - 3 - As I mentioned in the lineup section, once he came on the Red Bulls seemed to exploit the fact he’s extremely limited as a defensive winger. But what I found most disappointing was his repeated turnovers in a situation where DC was desperate to, if not retain the ball, then at least hoof it upfield so that the defense can reset. No DC player was doing well at this, so the fact Murrell stood out as particularly bad is really saying something. I still wonder if he’d be more comfortable playing the actual #9 position the way Badji was, but I’m a lot less eager to see him there after this.

Matti Peltola - 4 - I hoped he could calm things down in his short cameo, but he was 0 for 3 passing. Not a great way to make the case for getting back in the starting lineup.

Derek Dodson - 5 - He only got 3 touches, but I felt he was a big improvement defensively over Murrell in the right wing position. Which is good seeing Dodson is, you know, a defender and not a winger. Maybe Lesesne should get Conner Antley on the gameday roster so that to hold a lead he can play with two fullbacks as wingers, two more full backs as wingbacks, and then three centerbacks. A 7-2-1 formation.

Other

Troy Lesesne - 6 - After spending the entire preseason getting the team ready to play more of a possession game, Lesesne has once again adjusted his expectations to the roster and shifted into a much more conservative gameplan. I’d be happier if he could get the team to succeed the way he wants them to play, but I hate stubborn coaches who’d rather lose games than compromise so I continue appreciate his flexibility.

Lloyd Sam - 7 - It’s a low bar, but I consider Lloyd Sam the best of the apple.tv color commentators by a huge margin and he turned in another great performance. Sure, he usually doesn’t say much that’s informative, but none of the other color people do either. The difference is that Sam’s vibes are impeccable. He always seems to genuinely be having a blast watching two bad MLS teams duke it out. It’s infectious. Glad that the league seems to recognize this, judging by the fact he and Sika are frequently doing two games a weekend now. Now if only they could find more color commentators like Sam and fewer of the scoldy Twellman variety.

Neil Sika - 8 - I’m usually not as much of a fan and his attempts to push the “is this rivalry dead” talking point (though accurate) were misguided, though it was funny that Lloyd Sam basically ignored his repeated questions about it. However, this was an unusually good game for Sika. First, “Wow Peglow” is pretty inventive. Second and most importantly, annoying as his rivalry talk was, the guy did his homework. It really warmed my heart to hear an MLS-paid TV guy use the phrase “Cheatin’ Bob” on an official league broadcast.

Standings

After starting the day 13th in the Eastern Conference, this win vaulted DC United to…13th in the Eastern Confernece. After all those losses it’s going to take more than a single win to move up. Still, it’s great to see DC tied on points with obnoxious big spenders Atlanta United.

Philadelphia’s Tai Baribo scored a late goal against Atlanta and now leads the Golden Boot race with 7 goals. Four players have 6, then Christian Benteke is in the pack with 5 goals.

Coming Up

DC United has another road game coming up and this might be the most daunting fixture on the schedule: away to the Philadelphia Union. Philadelphia has frequently been good in the last few years and seems good again this season, but last year they missed the playoffs…and still beat DC 4-0 at Subaru Park. DC did get a 0-0 draw in Philadelphia in 2023, but DC hasn’t beaten Philadelphia anywhere since 2021 and hasn’t won on the road since Chris Rolfe scored the game-winning goal in a 1-0 win in 2014.

After that, DC faces Ted Ku-Dipietro and a strong Colorado Rapids team at home at Audi Field, then hosts the Charleston Battery in the Open Cup midweek before going back on the road to play Toronto FC, who just got their first win of the season despite being outshot 23-2.