DC United @ Chicago Fire 3/1/25

DC United looks for its first road points of 2025

Game Context

This was the second game, and the first home game, for Gregg Berhalter’s new regime in Chicago. In week 1, some embarrassing mistakes led to a lopsided defeat by the Columbus Crew, but there were signs of promise as well as their high-priced new winger Jonathan Bamba notched two assists. Going into the game, Chicago knew they’d be missing Brian Gutiérrez, their attacking midfielder who scored a brace in week 1, due to a suspension, but just a few minutes before the game started one of their central defenders was also a late scratch and had to be replaced by Sam Rogers, a backup getting his first minutes for Chicago.

Although DC United is in year 2 of the Mackay/Lesesne era, DC was also trying to adjust to a lot of new players as well as offseason tactical changes. They too were looking to cut down on mistakes made in week 1 and execute their game plan more effectively.

According to the MLS power rankings, this featured #24 (Chicago Fire) vs. #26 (DC United).

Formation

The basic positions were similar to last week, save for Jacob Murrell going back to the subs bench:

• Kim Joon Hong in goal

• David Schnegg at left back, Kye Rowles and Lucas Bartlett as the centerbacks, and Aaron Herrera at right back

• Brandon Servania and Boris Enow pairing in central midfield

• Hosei Kijima on the left and Jared Stroud on the right

• Gabriel Pirani playing behind Christian Benteke as either an attacking midfielder or second forward

However, whereas against Toronto Schnegg was often starting high up the field, effectively playing winger while DC was in possession, in this game he stayed home more often and waited for the situation to be right before overlapping with Kijima. This was meant the formation felt more like what most of us expected for this season, with both Schnegg and Herrera coming forward to help in the attack depending on the situation.

At 60’, Murrell came in for Stroud and Matti Peltola replaced Servania. These were like-for-like subs in terms position so the formation stayed the same.

At 74’, with DC United needing a goal, Dominque Badji came on for Boris Enow. At that point, Kijima dropped back to pair with Peltola in midfield, Pirani replaced him on the left, and Badji played in the center.

At 85’ Rida Zouhir made his first DC United appearance replacing Kijima in central midfield.

Expected Goals

DC earned 3.18 xg to Chicago’s 2.53, outshooting Chicago 17 to 11. That xG total includes the penalty, and while DC “earned” the penalty by getting the ball to be contested in the box, it was a crazy error from Sam Rogers. In non-penalty xG, Chicago out-did DC. 2.53 to 2.39. But: if you take out the two set piece goals Chicago scored, DC held Chicago to 0.94 xG. I know that’s a bit of “otherwise, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?” but I thought DC’s much-maligned defense really did do well in open play.

Last season there were a lot of second half meltdowns, but DC had more xG in both the first half (1.56 - 1.35) and the second half (1.62 - 1.18). Chicago’s last shot came at the 78th minute. After that, DC had 7 shots and the penalty as they tried to tie the game.

Christian Benteke’s first goal was 0.29 xG and just 0.27 PSxG, so you could say perhaps that Opta thought Brady could have saved it. Jacob Murrell’s wondergoal at the end of the game was 0.08 xG, which I believe still overstates the likelihood of the shot going in but does take into account the fact it was a volley. Christian Benteke’s 36th minute header off the crossbar (0.38) and Dominique Badji’s 80th minute header that Brady saved (0.32) were both more xG than either goal.

For the Fire, Cuypers’ first goal was 0.85 xG and the second was 0.83. Their highest xG shot otherwise was Cuypers again in the 28th minute when he hit the crossbar with a header (0.25).

Goal Breakdowns

4’ Christian Benteke 1-0

With Kye Rowles on the ball against Chicago’s set defense, he steps forward into the gap between Hugo Cuypers and Philip Zinckernagel, then plays it wide to David Schnegg on the sideline. Chicago is closing around him but he picks his head up. Benteke is matched up against Sam Rogers and asking for a through ball, while Pirani has broken out into a run that Chicago’s other centerback, the veteran Jack Elliot, is slow to recognize. Schnegg hits a great long through ball into the left channel past Chicago’s press.

It’s kind of a weird play because Pirani and Benteke are making the same run. Usually that’s bad, but here Pirani outruns both Elliot and Benteke to the ball, enabling Benteke to peel off and head toward the penalty spot. Meanwhile Sam Rogers misjudges Schnegg’s pass and takes a bad first step, so he ends up way behind Benteke.

Pirani brings it into the box with Elliot moving in for a tackle. Somehow Pirani sneaks a pass past Elliot—maybe it’s a nutmeg, or maybe it’s just in front of Elliot—to the wide open Christian Benteke. Benteke then can just one-touch it past Brady to the far post.

It’s a wonderful team goal that required a lot from several players: a great pass from Schnegg, good control and awareness from Pirani, and a good run and clean finish from Benteke.

30’ Hugo Cuypers 1-1

Someone from Chicago hits an in-swinging corner and then there’s a comedy of errors. Chicago centerback Jack Elliot is matched up with David Schnegg, but gets away from him and jumps for it near where Jared Stroud is in the zone. They both go up for the ball. Chicago’s intention here, I’m pretty sure, is for Elliot to either head it on frame or flick it on, but he misses the ball and so does Stroud.

The ball goes right past Bartlett and Rowles, both of whom seem to expect the ball to have been hit by someone by this point. It also goes past Kim, who has been pushed into the goal by Jonathan Bamba. Meanwhile, Brandon Servania has been matched up one on one with Hugo Cuypers, but Cuypers evades him and gets to the far post for a free header into an open goal.

Really hard to say who to blame here. It’s Servania’s man who scores, so I guess 3/5 for him. Maybe 1/5 for Stroud for missing the header and then 1/5 for Bartlett for not being ready to clear it if the ball isn’t touched. For some reason MLS players rarely seem to plan for the untouched cross (Portland scored a direct free kick goal this week due to the same issue).

70’ Hugo Cuypers 1-2

Chicago runs the same corner routine aiming at Jack Elliot at the near post. Schnegg stays with him for longer this time, but he’s still not in a position to make a play on the ball. Bartlett is, but Elliot gets in front of him and flicks the ball on. Bartlett and Benteke are both really strong on aerial duels in general, but it’s worth noting here that Elliot dominated aerial duels in this match.

Since Matti Peltola had replaced Servania by this point in the game, he is matched up with Hugo Cuypers. As the ball comes in, Peltola peels off Cuypers to track the flight of the ball. In theory, this is what DC needed on the first goal: someone focused on where the ball was going and not worrying about any touches. That said I think Peltola is too far back to reach the ball in time if it hadn’t been touched.

In any case, Elliot does touch the ball, flicking on toward the back post. This time Kim isn’t impeded by Bamba, but he can’t cover enough ground to get there in time. Cuypers, alone, reaches a foot up and jump-kicks it into the goal.

I’m going to give Peltola 4/5 of the blame for letting Cuypers go entirely (it’s a bit more blame than Servania, who at least tracked him the whole way) and Bartlett 1/5 for losing the duel to Elliot.

90’+6 Jacob Murrell 2-2

With only a few seconds left in the match, Aaron Herrera hits an in-swinging corner. Chicago reserve forward Tom Barlow heads it out, but only as far as Peltola at the top of the box. He passes it past the onrushing Jonathan Bamba to Herrera. With Chicago fullback Andrew Gutman rushing to close him down, Herrera has to hit his cross with his first touch.

I assume he wants to chip it toward Benteke but mishits it. It ends up being a lofted ball that’s going behind most of the players in the box toward the top of the penalty area. David Schnegg has floated back to this spot and is in a good position to try to shoot through the mass of players when it gets to him, but it doesn’t reach him. Jacob Murrell runs to it and, with his back to Chicago’s goal, he leans back and hits it overhead. Extreme Internet pedants have repeatedly declared this is not a bicycle kick because his left leg isn’t elevated. In fact, it might still be on the ground.

Instead of a hard, driven kick like Christian Benteke’s bicycle from a couple years ago, Murrell has to hit it in a lofted arc. Incredibly, it loops into the upper left corner of the goal. Chris Brady has had several good saves at this point to preserve Chicago’s lead and he reacts as quickly as you could hope, but it’s placed too far in the corner for him to reach.

It’s an absolute ridiculous goal and it’s the last kick of the game. If Lionel Messi or Luis Suárez scored this goal, everyone around the world would be watching it for days. They’ve scored a lot of goals, but they didn’t score this one. DC United’s Jacob Murrell did. We probably won’t see a better goal by a DC player this season.

Player Ratings

Starters

Kim Joon Hong - 6 - On the goals, he had no chance of stopping the shots themselves, but he can probably find a better way to deal with opponents trying to interfere with him. Otherwise, he only needed to make two saves. The important thing for me was I didn’t see any of the nerves from the Toronto game. I do hope he could improve his accuracy on long balls. It seemed like he overhit several beyond where Benteke could get to them.

David Schnegg - 5 - Chicago’s Philip Zinckernagel was a much easier assignment than last week’s Frederico Bernardeschi. He had a number of strong tackles where he not only took the ball but started a counter. 47 for 71 passing (66%) was disappointing, even if he and Herrera were being asked to make risky progressive passes. When putting together my leaguewide leaderboards, I was surprised to find his 0.5 xA was good enough to make the top 10 list.

Kye Rowles - 5 - A few mistakes, but I continue to think he looks like a solid defender and an improvement over McVey.

Lucas Bartlett - 6 - He had one bad mistake where he turned the ball over, but otherwise a very solid game.

Aaron Herrera - 6 - I didn’t think Bamba seemed very dangerous; probably that’s down to the team and the gameplan but I think Herrera deserves some credit too. Maybe last week’s “defense-first” role was a false alarm because he was getting forward early and often today. He put up a respectable 0.3 xA, but like Schnegg, his pass completion percentage was surprisingly low (45 for 66, so 68%).

Brandon Servania - 5 - I think he’s going to be a backup once Peltola is fully healthy as he doesn’t provide quite as much oomph on offense or defense as Enow and Peltola. For that matter, he’s probably behind Kijima as well. It’s great that DC has a guy who can put in this steady a performance, though he gets a lot of the blame from me for the first goal.

Boris Enow - 5 - A quieter game from Enow than last week, but pretty solid. He had 5 progressive passes compared to Servania’s 1.

Hosei Kijima - 5 - A much quieter game than last week for Kijima. He didn’t get a chance to show much of his quality on the ball, but he was also much more ball-secure this time. He led the team in completed passes with 93%, which might be playing it a bit too safe considering he spent most of the game in the attack.

Gabriel Pirani - 6 - A very encouraging game, much improved from last week! He got the assist early, of course, but also was much more effective in the center of the field. After attempting only 15 passes against Toronto, he attempted 53 this game (completing 79%) so he was much more involved and much more ball-secure. He even tracked back on defense at times! Definitely not an all-star performance, but enough to restore some of my faith in his potential.

Jared Stroud - 5 - Not as involved in the game as I hoped, but it might not be a coincidence that Herrera looked better this game when he had Stroud covering for him when he went forward. Stroud still ended up with 0.3 xA.

Christian Benteke - 5 - Great goal to start things off and got up to 1.3 non-penalty xG on seven shots, good enough for fourth in the league this week. Missing the penalty was unfortunate, though if he had scored it, presumably the result would have been the same as it ended up. This is the first penalty he’s missed for DC since 2022, but that’s only four made in the meantime. It turns out he’s 14 for 23 in his career, which makes one wonder…you know…maybe Badji or Murrell should be taking them? I guess that’s out of the question. I did appreciate that after Murrell scored, Benteke grabbed the ball and seemed to want to hurry up and restart to try to win the game (his teammates ignored this and went to celebrate with Murrell, which was fine since the game ended at kickoff).

Substitutes

Jacob Murrell - 8 - Well, I keep on saying I don’t think he’s very good when he’s asked to play winger, and he keeps getting on the scoresheet anyway. I was glad Stroud was able to start over him and I’m still hoping Fidel Barajas can do better at this position once he’s been with the team longer. Murrell again rarely was on the ball and wasn’t able to create any danger from the wing. And yet! Needing a goal, DC had basically three forwards in the box with Benteke, Badji, and Murrell. And obviously, if a coach is going to play a forward out of position, it’s great for the forward to reward him with the sort of golazo that only a forward would even attempt, much less score. What a moment!

Matti Peltola - 5 - I thought he had a good game defensively after coming in. That seems to bode well for improving the team when he is ready to start over Servania. However, it’s disappointing he let Cuypers go on the second goal.

Dominque Badji - 5 - Seven touches in 14 minutes, so barely involved, but he did get a strong header on target to force a save. When Murrell isn’t needed on the wing, I wonder if we’ll see the end of Badji and Benteke on the field together?

Rida Zouhir - 5 - I was pretty surprised to see him get in the game, but afterwards Troy Lesesne said that their plan going in was that if they were down a goal, Zouhir would come in. That’s quite the vote of confidence in his attacking capabilities. He didn’t get a chance to shoot, but he was very involved in pressing for the equalizer with 17 touches in just 6 minutes. But he might be my new favorite player because of this moment:

Zouhir is there on the bottom-center of the shot. Murrell’s looping bicycle kick is dropping towards the goal (it’s a bit hard to see but it’s in line with the top of the net). Every player on both sides except the diving Chris Brady are just peering at it to see whether this outrageous attempt will actually hit the target…except new DC United player Rida Zouhir. He’s already celebrating! Even Jacob Murrell himself is waiting with breath caught to see what will happen, but alone out of everyone in the stadium, Zouhir is sure it’s going in.

A silly thing I’ve done for years is carefully scrutinize DC United player reactions when a teammate scores. The more enthusiasm the better. I may not have any stats on this but I can confidently say this is exceptional celebratory work from Zouhir, just amazing given his short time with the team. I would have been happy with him being excited by a teammate’s goal, and he certainly was excited too. But Zouhir has taken this much further by demonstrating an ironclad faith in his new teammate’s ability to hit this absolutely absurd shot.

Coach

Troy Lesesne - 6 - Less fanciness in the gameplan seemed to produce better results overall. I always appreciate Lesesne’s flexibility. And from a motivation perspective, he had the players playing hard right until the end of what seemed sure to be a depressing road loss. Although I didn’t end up blaming “set piece coach” for the goals, I can’t help but wonder if at least some blame for the corner kick situation lies with Lesesne. Or at least whoever on the coaching staff is responsible for set piece defense.

Coming Up

Next week sees DC hosting Sporting Kansas City at Audi Field. We are still in the thick of DC’s “easy” early stretch of games. Sporting KC was bad last year (31 points, so nine points worse than DC that year) and has had a rough start to 2025, getting smashed by Inter Miami in the CONCACAF Champions Cup and losing their first two regular season games to Austin FC and Bruce Arena’s new-look San Jose Earthquakes.

After that, DC hosts CF Montréal, a team I expected to be very bad. They actually looked okay against Atlanta but just suffered a brutal game against Minnesota. For the crime of being from a cold weather city they start the season with seven away games, so they’ll be on their fourth straight road game when they come to DC.