DC United @ New York Red Bulls, 6/29/24
DC United looks to snap their losing streak in New Jersey
Game Context
After a decent start to the season, DC had hit a prolonged skid. They hadn’t won since May 11th and entered this game having lost four of their last five, including the past three straight games. Making matters worse, Christian Benteke and Matai Akinmboni were suspended due to red cards in the previous game against Houston. Combined with other injuries, DC had only two field players for the bench and had to recall Jeremy Garay and Hayden Sargis from their lower-divison loans.
For their part the Red Bulls had only lost one game in their last five, beating Orlando and Toronto and drawing Nashville and Montreal. But they started this game with two star players on the bench. Lewis Morgan was only just back from playing with Scotland in Euro 2024, while Emil Forsberg had been out with a foot injury. Their starting goalkeeper Carlos Coronel was also out, still playing with Paraguay in Copa America.
According to the MLS power rankings, this match pitted #7 (NYRB) against #25 (DC United). When these two teams played earlier this year, DC lost 4-1 at Audi Field.
Formation
DC started the game in their typical 3-4-3 with an improvised backline of Aaron Herrera, Lucas Bartlett, and Matti Peltola. Cristian Dájome and Pedro Santos were wingbacks flanking a midfield of Mateusz Klich and Martín Rodríguez. Jared Stroud and Ted Ku-DiPietro were flanking Jacob Murrell as center forward, though of course they would drop into the midfield in defense so it looked more like a 5-4-1.
After the red card, Taylor Twellman said DC should go to a four man backline and that this would be better for Herrera to be a fullback (though as far as I know Peltola has only played centerback in three-back systems). Anyway, Twellman spent the rest of the game insisting that DC had done exactly what he predicted. He was in the stadium and I wasn’t, but every time we saw DC’s shape, they still looked like they were playing three in the back to me and that the change was Stroud was playing in Dajome’s wingback spot. Since they were defending constantly, instead of a 5-4-1, they had a 5-3-1.
Goal Summaries
1-0 Jared Stroud 5’
Red Bull was pressing high, but Klich relieved pressure by passing out wide to Dájome. He pushed forward aggressively, allowing two Red Bulls players to collapse on him, and then passed at the last second to Jared Stroud running up the middle of the field. Stroud took a clever first touch that rolled the ball up to Murrell at the top of the box and beat his man to Murrell’s return pass. Stroud took one more clever touch to get free from pressure and slotted the ball into the lower left side of the goal. The goalkeeper could perhaps have done better, but it was a beautiful sequence of play from DC.
1-1 Elias Manoel 23’
The Red Bulls were given a penalty after Matti Peltola held the arm of Sean Nealis as he tried to jump for what otherwise seemed like a routine corner kick. Tyler Miller guessed wrong on Elias Manoel’s probably unsavable penalty.
2-1 Pedro Santos 45+3’
In a rare movement forward and a pattern very similar to the first goal, Ted Ku-Dipietro worked a give-and-go with Jacob Murrell near the top of the box and was fouled as he got the return ball. It was a silly foul since he was several yards further out than Stroud had been and it wasn’t all that dangerous, but Ku-Dipietro is good at drawing this sort of contact. Santos put the free kick in the upper corner and did very well to get the ball over the wall and still under the crossbar.
2-2 Cameron Harper 77’
With DC pinned back, the Red Bulls work the ball from DC’s right side around toward the left. Cameron Harper got the ball near the top of the box, marked pretty closely by Martín Rodríguez. He passed it out wide to where Kyle Duncan had massive amounts of space because Santos was pinched in to the center of the field. Duncan had time to sit near the endline and pick out a pass. He cut it back to Harper, who was near the penalty spot and completely unmarked because the centerbacks were marking two forwards near the six yard box and Rodríguez had needlessly drifted in the vague direction of the ball. Harper’s resulting shot passed close to Peltola and Miller but neither could stop it.
Player Ratings
Tyler Miller - 5 - Made a few decent saves and had no real chance on the second goal, but struggled with his distribution, only completing 27% of his passes. Part of that is Benteke being out, but even Benteke can’t win the ball if it’s kicked straight out of bounds, and there were a lot of those.
Matti Peltola - 4 - The penalty turned a fairly routine play into an almost sure goal. Admittedly, his holding is the sort of thing that’s usually not called, but in the VAR era defenders have to play smarter. Otherwise he had a decent game.
Lucas Bartlett - 7 - No real highlights, but I give him a lot of credit as the only true central defender on the pitch for organizing the line and defending set pieces.
Aaron Herrera - 6 - Not many opportunities to get forward given his position and the game state. A couple times I noticed he was slow to push up, leaving Red Bull attackers onside, but otherwise he was solid enough.
Cristian Dájome - 3 - He made a real contribution to the first goal with an aggressive carry and a nice pass, but obviously getting sent off was a complete disaster. The second yellow was very soft, assuming it was for the tackle (it took so long coming out I wonder if it might have been for dissent) but the first was very deserved and very unnecessary. I’ve often excused his defensive play because he’s not a “natural” defender, but he’s been playing wingback and fullback all season (and isn’t very dangerous in attack) so at some point you have to say this is just who he is.
Mateusz Klich - 6 - Really didn’t get a chance to showcase his creativity but he was a big contributor to the defensive performance. I appreciated that he was still running hard in the final minutes of the game.
Martín Rodríguez - 5 - He did better than I expected in the middle of the field. He can hold the ball under the press and make a safe pass. He doesn’t do much else, but that was helpful for this game. However, I put most of the blame for the second goal on him for ball-watching instead of continuing to mark Harper.
Pedro Santos - 7 - This might have been Santos’ best game defensively. One advantage of being pinned back is that there wasn’t space to outrun him. He’s had a tendency to make stupid fouls in the past, but while he got a dumb dissent yellow, he avoided any bad fouls. And of course the free kick goal was excellent and much-needed.
Ted Ku-Dipietro - 5 - He earned the free kick that Santos scored on a give and go with Murrell, but otherwise was very uninvolved with a team-low 16 touches in 80 minutes. This season he’s been nearly incapable of maintaining possession. He can beat one or even two guys with his gritty dribbling, but if he can’t shoot immediately he loses the ball at that point. Those tendencies continued and weren’t great under these circumstances.
Jared Stroud - 7 - He scored a wonderful goal after the intricate passing sequence with Dájome and Murrell, then battled tirelessly for the rest of the game in Dájome’s wingback spot.
Jacob Murrell - 5 - Both of DC’s goals game from give-and-go movements with Murrell providing the final pass. Unfortunately, for the rest of the game DC desperately needed Murrell to be a hold-up forward and so far he doesn’t seem able to play that way. When he got the ball, he would just charge into a bunch of defenders and lose it.
Substitutes
Gabriel Pirani - 5 - Came on and played just like Ku-Dipietro and Murrell: dribbling into crowds and immediately losing the ball instead of helping his teammates catch their breath. He did have one nice outlet pass late in the game, but he also had a collision in the box that the commentators ignored but I thought risked having a penalty called on him.
Christopher McVey - N/A - Great to see him back on the field. Hopefully he can play more minutes soon.
Jeremy Garay - N/A - I’ve written him off, to be honest, but he’s still just 21. We might see more of him if the injury picture doesn’t improve quickly.
Getting Results from Red Cards
The story of this game has to be DC holding on for what felt like ages after a really early red card and coming away with a point, so that made me wonder about how that fits into the team’s history. At the beginning of the season I wrote about first half red cards on the opposition, so maybe it’s only fitting we’re now in a position to consider first half red cards on DC.
Overall, DC United has played 103 games where they received at least one red card. I think they’ve played 910 regular season games, so they get a red card on average once every nine games. Unsurprisingly, their record isn’t great in those games: 26 wins, 20 draws, and 57 losses. If anything, that’s better results than I expected—that’s 98 points, only a hair short of one point per game—but of course many of these red cards occur very late in games, some are situations where a player from each team gets a red card, and so on.
So what’s the best result DC United has ever had involving a red card? There’s a clear answer: a 2005 match at RFK against the MetroStars. DC was leading 1-0 after Bobby Boswell headed home an early Christian Gomez free kick, but in the sixtieth minute Jaime Moreno was given a straight red card for a DOGSO foul on Eddie Gaven. But Amado Guevara of the MetroStars had already gotten a second yellow at the very end of the first half, so from there it was 10 on 10. Dema Kovalenko and Joshua Gros would score and DC would win 3-0. DC was very good in the 2005 season (they’d go on to have the best record in the Eastern Conference).
Highlights and recaps are sadly hard to find for old games like this, but there’s a short MetroFanatic recap still online that is like a delightful message in a bottle from MLS 1.0 fan culture. They refer to DC United as “Scum” (a common practice by fans of other Eastern Conference teams dating back to the Etcheverry dynasty years) and call Jaime Moreno fat. Jaime was especially hated by MetroStars fans in this period because after doing great for DC’s early years, he spent 2003 playing for New York and didn’t do well (struggling with injuries, I think) before going back to DC in 2004 and immediately playing great again.
Anyway, that 3-0 win is the best margin of victory DC United has ever had in a game where they got a red card, but since the MetroStars had an earlier one, they were never at a man disadvantage. There are five games where they won by two goals and in all of those they actually were down a man.
The most satisfying of those is probably a 2007 home game against the Red Bulls, now in their second season of Red Bull ownership and managed by Bruce Arena. DC was winning 2-1 in the second half on goals from Ben Olsen and Luciano Emilio (Dema Kovalenko scored too, but he was now playing for NYRB). Bobby Boswell got a second yellow in the sixtieth minute and DC had to try to hold on to their one goal lead for thirty minutes. But 2007 DC United was extremely good and would go on to win the Supporters Shield. They didn’t just hold on to the lead! Ben Olsen scored twice more to complete a hat trick. Juan Pablo Ángel pulled one goal back, but that was all the Red Bulls could manage and the game ended in a 4-2 DC victory.
That’s a heartwarming memory, but it was a reasonably late red card. Any first half red cards among these 2 goal wins? Turns out there’s one! All the way back in 1998, DC was on the road at Miami. It was the Miami Fusion and not Inter Miami, of course, but the Fusion also played in Fort Lauderdale, so was it really that different? Their famous player was Carlos Valderrama, not as good as Messi but about as recognizable. Anyway, DC was already leading 1-0 on a Richie Williams goal when Jaime Moreno got a red card in the 29th minute. Tony Sanneh would nevertheless score a second goal less than ten minutes later and DC would go on to win 2-0.
This was the first-ever game for the Fusion and evidently that was of sufficient historical interest that someone has put a terrible recording of the whole thing on Youtube. To be honest I used my free time this week watching the US National Team instead of this game (I chose poorly) but I did watch the goals and the red card. The first goal is a nicely worked cutback, the second is a rebound shot after a Marco Etcheverry free kick. Jaime Moreno’s red card, unfortunately, was for some sort of off-the-ball retaliation that wasn’t caught on camera.
Any other notable results from early red cards? Well, there were twenty one-goal wins, but nearly all of them involved second half red cards. There was one exception: a 1-0 win by DC against the LA Galaxy, also in 1998. This is especially notable because Mario Gori got a second yellow in the 16th minute, even faster than Dájome’s in New York (I believe it’s the only faster second yellow in DC history, in fact). The game was 0-0 at that point, but DC got a goal off a Robin Fraser own goal. A Brazilian player named Wélton playing for the Galaxy got a straight red card in the 57th minute, however, so DC only played a man down for forty minutes.
When we turn to DC’s 20 draws, here there were some more first half red cards. Seven, in fact. I won’t bore you with all of them, but there are a few interesting games here worth highlighting.
First, there’s DC’s “MLS is Back” game against Toronto in 2020. Junior Moreno got one of the latest possible first half red cards, six minutes into stoppage time, but it’s notable because DC was already down 2-0 at this point to an Ayo Akinola brace and would still be down 2-0 past eighty minutes. But Federico Higuaín scored in the 84th minute and Frédéric Brilliant tied the game in second half stoppage time for an unlikely draw that looks even more unlikely given DC would go on to “win” the wooden spoon whereas Toronto would earn the second best record in the league.
Then there’s the 2011 game at RFK against Toronto where a 20-year-old Bill Hamid in his first season as a starter got a red card in the 7th minute with the game scoreless. It would end 3-3 thanks to a hat trick from Dwayne De Rosario. This was the season where DeRo was traded twice during the season and won league MVP after scoring 13 goals in 18 games with DC even though DC didn’t make the playoffs.
Then there’s another 1998 game at the Miami Fusion where Roy Lassiter got a straight red card in the third minute. This is, I believe, the earliest red card in DC United history, but they held Miami scoreless for the rest of the game and it ended 0-0. But this was 1998, so there was a 35-yard running shootout where DC triumphed 3-2 to “win” the game.
Finally, it wasn’t a first half DC red card, but special mention has to go to a 1999 game at Miami. Yes, Miami again. Something about Fort Lauderdale really brought out the red cards, it seems. Miami made a very early substitution in the ninth minute, presumably for injury, and right afterward had a player naemd Leo Cullen sent off. The player who was being subbed off went over to the ref to argue about the call and got a red card as well. On the scoresheet that’s two red cards nine minutes into the game, but only one was for an active player so Miami was only playing down one player. Roy Lassiter scored the opening goal for DC in the 61st minute and two minutes later got…you guessed it, a red card, then Jay Heaps of Miami got their third red card in the 65th minute. At that point DC had 10 players and Miami had just 9. Needless to say, Miami scored two goals after this despite to take a 2-1 lead (DC United being unable to press home a man advantage isn’t a new phenomenon). Fortunately Eddie Pope tied things up with an 86th minute goal to salvage a draw. Except, yeah, this was early MLS, so then there was a running shootout and DC won that 2-0 to “win” the game.
There’s only two other games in MLS history were a team got three red cards, and those didn’t have the extra red card for the opposition, so it’s possible this is still the game with the most red cards in MLS history.
This past weekend’s game is not quite on the DC’s top shelf of zany red card games, but it speaks well of the team that they fought to a draw despite such a long span of time down a man. It’s not quite the 87 minutes of that 1998 Miami game, but hey, this team is nowhere near as good as the 1998 DC team, so maybe they at least break even on the accomplishment.
Standings
DC United is now on 20 points, which puts them #13 out of #15 in the Eastern Conference. They’ve played more games than most of the other teams at the bottom, unfortunately, but they still a hair ahead of Chicago by points per game. They are four points away from the last playoff spot with four teams they’d need to pass. They’re still nine points clear of San Jose in last place, so the wooden spoon is probably out of reach, but it’s no sure thing yet.
Coming Up
DC has a tough home game on Wednesday with FC Cincinnati coming to Audi Field. They’ll be without Dájome and, much more importantly, the still-suspended Christian Benteke. Then they’re back on the road this weekend to play Orlando City. Playing three games in eight days is always hard on players but DC’s very short bench will make that even worse. After that, DC has a home game against Nashville and then a road game against Minnesota before the Leagues Cup break.