NYCFC @ DC United
The Pigeons come to Audi Field with DC perched precariously just above the playoff line
Game Context
DC came into this game barely ahead of a huge pack of teams trying to claw their way into the play-in game. Unfortunately, Mateusz Klich got a very debatable yellow card at the very end of the last game that meant he was suspended for this one.
NYCFC are in a good spot in the standings, but they are clearly a massive step down from Eastern Conference leaders Inter Miami, Columbus, and Cincinnati. They were also looking to snap a six game winless streak.
Formation
DC got an actual left back (David Schnegg) during the midseason transfer window so that Lesesne can play a 4-4-2, but Schnegg has been out several games after picking up an injury in training. Today Lesesne decided to play the 4-4-2 anyway. Alex Bono was in goal with Lucas Bartlett and Christopher McVey in central defense. Pedro Santos played left back and Aaron Herrera right back. With Klich unavailable, Martín Rodríguez partnered with newcomer Boris Enow in central midfield, flanked by Cristian Dájome on the right and Gabriel Pirani on the left. Jared Stroud played up with Christian Benteke.
This was, uh, creative, but it was basically a disaster. In theory, Rodríguez would help possess the ball and Pirani would add the creativity DC normally gets from Klich. In practice, Rodríguez only played backwards, DC’s defense and central midfield was incapable of getting the ball to both wide midfielders, Stroud is pretty ineffective that far forward, and Aaron Herrera wasn't able to get forward very much. This was a recipe for NYCFC running riot in midfield.
It’s a bit unfortunate Troy gets his initial tactics wrong pretty frequently, but I appreciate that he is always willing to adjust and I figured there'd be adjustments at halftime. Sure enough, there were, and they completely turned things around, even though the formation didn't change, just the personnel and perhaps some of the instructions. Ted Ku-Dipietro replaced Dájome and, more importantly I think, Stroud switched places with Pirani. Both players looked better in their new spots: Stroud's defensive work rate is higher (and so is Ku-Dipietro's) whereas Pirani is better at playing the ball in traffic than Stroud. Pirani also did a better job sliding back into central midfield to help add numbers.
Goal Breakdowns
32’ Santi Rodríguez 0-1
After passing it around the back, NYCFC’s fullback takes a poor touch and has to just launch the ball under pressure from Pirani. Bartlett easily wins the aerial duel to head the ball upfield. Enow competes with an NYCFC player for it and does get a head to it, but only makes enough contact to drop it perfectly for a nearby Pigeon.
From there, NYCFC passes the ball around calmly, seeming totally unbothered by DC attempts to pressure them. After many passes, they finally move incisively into the box. There’s desperate defending from players like Enow and Bartlett, but they can only disrupt the play and can’t win the ball. Finally Keaton Parks hits the loose ball out of the scrum to an onrushing Kevin O’Toole, who has made a curving run from his position on the left over to the right side. That makes him Santos’s responsibility. Santos reacts late and has terrible position, but lunges in anyway, clattering O’Toole to the ground as he shoots. Bono makes a save as the ball ends up getting kicked but the referee calls a penalty.
MLS Live never showed a great replay but Santos only does the bare minimum of complaining, so I suspect it was a fair call. Santi Rodríguez scores the penalty with a panenka, which is annoying, but oh well.
67’ Christian Benteke 1-1
NYCFC has the ball in their half. DC presses and, unlike in the first half, they generate real pressure. With two players closing on him, Keaton Parks plays a bad pass across the defense and Aaron Herrera intercepts it. He surges forward and plays an entry pass to Ku-Dipietro, who tries a flick toward Benteke that's cut out and cleared. It seems like the danger is passed, but Herrera has stayed high and wins the ball in the air, heading it forward to Ku-Dipietro again. An NYCFC defender manages to kick the ball out of the box along the ground, but the first person to reach it is…you guessed it…Aaron Herrera once again. A slight criticism is that Herrera misses the fact that Pirani is wide open at the top of the box, but his no-look pass to Ku-Dipietro near the endline is still a good play.
Ku-Dipietro tries to chip it toward Benteke, but only manages to knock it off a defender’s chest for a corner. And that would have been the end of it, just another case of Herrera being great and Ku-Dipietro repeatedly failing to turn advanced touches into genuine danger, but as Ku-Dipietro is playing the ball, James Sands slides in recklessly with his legs on either side of Ku-Dipietro’s legs and scissors them together as Ku-Dipietro jumps away from the tackle. I'm not sure how much contact there really was, but man, this was such a stupid challenge to make. There were ten ways for it to end up being a penalty, and though the referee ignored it at first, VAR intervenes and a penalty is called.
On MLS Live they showed Christian Benteke’s past MLS penalty placements: one in the upper left corner, one in the lower left corner, and one high and just right of center. He dances a bit and then smashes the penalty exactly where that previous central one went, too high for the goalkeeper to reach.
Player Ratings
Alex Bono - 5 - I thought he could have done better on their second goal, but it was called back for offside anyway. Otherwise, not a lot to do actually.
Lucas Bartlett - 5 - I thought his passing was worse than usual and it looked like he felt that way too.
Christopher McVey - 5 - I wish he could help us more in possession, sometimes he seems like he has the ball skills, but he was stuck firefighting in the first half.
Pedro Santos - 3 - He gave up the PK with a clumsy tackle and wasn't able to do much going forward. He really seems to be falling off as the miles pile up on him this season. David Schnegg’s injury is really tragic.
Aaron Herrera - 7 - He wasn't able to get forward as often as I'd like but as usual he had a strong game and was probably DC's best player on the field. As detailed in the goal breakdowns above, in the buildup to the penalty DC earned, Herrera made three different plays that only he makes and deserves the lion’s share of credit for the goal in my book.
Boris Enow - 4 - Like many fans, I'm definitely not sold on him yet. I think he's still struggling with the pace of the game, which is probably a lot faster than the Israeli league. Hopefully he’ll adjust. I appreciate that he tries to play the ball forward (unlike Rodríguez in this game, for example), but that said I think he takes too many risks in dangerous spots on the field.
Martín Rodríguez - 4 - He rarely lost the ball, but he wasn't able to actually help us play through NYCFC's press and connect with Benteke. After a few strong games even I was wondering if we should try to bring him back, but now I'm back to assuming he’s gone after this year, much like…
Cristian Dájome - 4 - He had a few good plays on defense, but I think he does better in space and NYCFC did a great job denying us any kind of space in the first half.
Gabriel Pirani - 6 - I think he has done a much better job making himself available compared to earlier in the season, but his teammates usually don't find him, so in practice he wasn't very effective in the first half. He did very well with his goal, though! It would have made it three goals in three games, and it’s certainly not his fault it was called back. In the second half he and Ku-Dipietro combined well, which is a new and very promising development.
Jared Stroud - 5 - As mentioned above I think Troy made a mistake having him higher than Pirani in the first half. He looked tonight like the journeyman player he basically is, not the 10 G+A overachiever he's been at times this season.
Christian Benteke - 5 - He got an early yellow card he really disagreed with, but actually the referee was much more willing to call fouls in his favor on aerial duels than most have been lately. Largely a frustrating game due to lack of service, but he took care of business on his penalty.
Ted Ku-Dipietro - 6 - Sometimes players look more complacent after their contract gets extended. Ku-Dipietro played his best game in a while. There was his usual defensive workrate, but I thought he looked better than usual on offense with Pirani to combine with. He earned the penalty that salvaged the team a point, even though it came after what could uncharitably be called three failed attempts by him to make a play.
Matti Peltola - 5 - The game was already tilting in DC's favor when he came in but he kept that going. Suddenly there’s a lot of competition for defensive midfield with him, Enow, and Canouse. Is it really true that none of these three guys can play fullback better than Santos?
Dominique Badji - 6 - No final product tonight, but it's unmistakable that he adds a lot more to the attack than our other alleged forwards like Murrell or Fletcher before his loan.
Jacob Murrell - 4 - I want to like him, but he often subs in playing midfield where he provides fresh legs for running and not a lot else. He really seems like a pure forward, which would be fine, but the trouble is I don't know that he has the tools to be a successful forward in this league. Starting to think in a few years he'll be knocking in 10+ goals a season in the USL Championship.
Russell Canouse - 5 - It was great to have the home crowd welcome him back. And after being disappointed with Enow I was hoping he would present an upgrade. Well, so far, he, uh, looks a bit like Enow to me, like he's trying to readjust to the pace of the game. Every reason to think he’ll improve on that quickly, though.
Where Are They Now? 2022 Edition
You can tell it was a bland game because for this week’s feature I’m going to ignore it and check in on how DC United’s 2022 staff and players are doing. You might recall I previously did this for the 2023 team. In 2022, if you’ve suppressed the memories, Losada lost the locker room, got fired, Chad Ashton led the team toward the Wooden Spoon, and then Rooney came in and brought home the, uh, title. So…not exactly great memories. Let’s see how the many people who left after that season are doing now (for those who stayed, refer to either my 2023 article or your knowledge of this season).
Coaches
Hernan Losada - The good news was that Losada got hired by CF Montréal in December, just seven months after his shock firing from DC United. The bad news, from his perspective, was that he was replacing Wilfred Nancy, who the fans already liked and who looks better and better in light of his exploits with the Crew.
That would be a thankless job, except the even worse news was that one suspects Nancy was leaving because the team was downshifting into the “spending even less than DC United” zone. You really don’t want to be in that zone. Losada led the team to a playoff-missing tenth-place finish that many nevertheless described as “outperforming their talent level”. So that’s…good, I guess? Some also allege the team missed the playoffs because it wilted late in the season and the locker room was unhappy—sound familiar?—but Losada had just a single DP and a very meager roster.
The people running CF Montréal into the ground clearly weren’t going anywhere (the club is currently 12th) but someone had to pay the price, so Losada was fired after the season. This past summer, he got a new job at Deinze, a team playing in Belgium’s second division that narrowly missed promotion last season (recall Losada played many years in Belgium and made his name as a promising manager in its first division). It’s early days, but Deinze is 4th out of 16 teams after four matches played.
Chad Ashton - After ten years as an assistant and two interim head coaching stints at DC, Ashton has…dropped off the grid. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s painting in Ben Olsen’s old studio space, there’s lots and lots of youth soccer jobs that aren’t very public. DC United’s website says he’s a scout, so maybe he’s still working for the team, or maybe it’s just a sinecure like they gave Ben Olsen. I assumed it was the latter, but I think someone saw him at Audi Field talking to Lesesne recently, so who knows, maybe he really is still working with the team.
Goalkeepers
Rafael Romo - Leaguewide, he might be the best known of 2022’s batch of departing players, albeit for the wrong reasons. After 2022, he joined Ecuador’s Universidad Católica (another quick reminder, not the team DC played many years ago, that was a Chilean team with the same name). He started 23 games last season and has started 21 games already this season for an upper half but not worldbeating team. He’s teammates with 2023 DC United’s forgettable midseason addition, the Panamanian forward Jose Fajardo, who is up to 9 goals and 6 assists, a goal contribution every 90 minutes, which gives you an idea of the level of Ecuador’s league.
Since Romo was mainly known for being so bad in advanced stats he caught the eyes of MLS stats people who otherwise never watched DC play, it’s unfortunate there’s no advanced goalkeeping stats for the Ecuador league to see how he's doing. I can’t even find regular goalkeeping stats, other than to say he's faced 11 penalty kicks in 44 games and saved one of them.
His most notable action for most of us, however, is that he started every game for Venezuela at this summer’s Copa America. Venezuela allowed only one goal in three group games that included a surprising 1-0 upset over Mexico that helped ensure Mexican fans couldn’t make fun of the US for exiting after the group stage. Romo said in an interview that it was tough returning to the US given how much of a nightmare his season with DC United was, so at least you can be assured it wasn’t just the fans who suffered that year. Sadly, Romo and Venezuela went out in penalty kicks to former Red Bull manager Jessie Marsch's Canada in the quarterfinals.
Jon Kempin - I remembered him as just another one of the endless revolving door third string keepers, which I guess he was, but he actually started 11 games for DC, albeit most in 2021. At any rate, 2022 was the end of the road for his soccer career and a few months after the season, he posted a retirement message on Twitter. He now works as a sales representative for Medtronic, a huge medical devices company, and has returned to live in the Kansas City area where—way back in 2010—he was the first homegrown player in Kansas City Wizards history (and one of the last players signed before their name change to Sporting Kansas City later that year).
Bill Hamid - Speaking of homegrown goalkeepers, after leaving DC, he played 10 games the following year for Memphis 901 in the USL Championship, giving up 12 goals. He and Memphis "mutually agreed" to terminate his contract. He played in, as far as I can tell, a single match for USL 2's NOVA FC, a 3-2 loss in the US Open Cup to Caroline Core FC. Recently he started playing for the Maryland Bobcats in NISA, a struggling third tier league. There's not a lot of information available about these games but it appears he's started three games for Maryland, all wins, giving up only one goal. “Difficult-Tart8876” in one of the two DC United subreddit threads about a recent Bobcats game mentioned he is also a goalkeeper coach for local youth team Fairfax Brave SC.
David Ochoa - After DC, he signed with Atlético San Luis, a bottom-half Liga MX team, where he had seven appearances for their U-20 squad and played 33 minutes in Liga MX as a substitute before having his contract terminated due to unspecified "indiscipline". This season he resurfaced with LAFC and made a bunch of appearances for their MLS Next Pro squad LAFC 2. In August he played briefly for the first team in one Leagues Cup game, which appears to have been why the team had to pay DC United the mighty ransom of a third round draft pick (one of the least valuable currencies in the universe). Three days ago at the roster freeze deadline, LAFC announced he had been signed to a first team contract through the end of the season, but he didn’t make the bench for LAFC’s most recent game, their nightmarish 4-2 loss to LA Galaxy (where 2023 DC alumnus Lewis O’Brien got a red card for LAFC while the outcome was still in doubt).
Defenders
Chris Odoi-Atsem - After 57 appearances with DC United, he briefly surfaced scoring a game-winning last-second goal in the last 2023 regular season game of the mostly amateur NPSL's Alexandria Reds, but now is a business development representative at Salesforce.
Brad Smith - After 2022, he signed as a free agent with Houston Dynamo not long after they hired Ben Olsen (though Smith was in Seattle when Olsen was with DC). He's only had a couple starts but is a regular substitute, appearing in 18 matches in 2023 and has appeared in another 18 in 2024. This season he has two goals and two assists in just over four games' minutes. Not bad, though I confess being slightly disappointed because before his injury I thought he was a good player, definitely good enough to be an MLS starter somewhere.
Tony Alfaro - After 2022, Alfaro signed as a free agent with NYCFC. He appeared in six games, starting four, before being traded to LA Galaxy for $500,000 in GAM. At LA he appeared in another six games that season, including four starts. This year he has been a regular starter for El Paso Locomotive FC in the USL Championship.
Sami Guediri - DC promoted him from Loudoun United during the 2022 season and he ended up starting 10 games. After the season, he signed with ES Sétif, an upper half team in Algeria's top flight (Guediri was born in Florida to Algerian parents), where as best I can tell he seems to have played regularly during the 2023-2024 season, but it looks like his contract ended two months ago and Transfermarkt thinks he hasn't joined another club yet.
Stayed through 2023: Brendan Hines-Ike, Andy Najar, Donovan Pines, Gaoussou Samake, Jacob Greene
Stayed through 2024: Steve Birnbaum
Still with the team: Matai Akinmboni
Midfielders
Drew Skundrich - In 2023, Skundrich played for the Colorado Springs Switchbacks of the USL Championship and was quite the iron man, starting 32 of a possible 34 games. In 2024, he's back with Loudoun United (presumably to again be close to where his wife Andi Sullivan plays with the Washington Spirit). He has 17 starts and one goal for Loudoun this year.
Sofiane Djeffal - DC cut him after the 2022 season, but his college coach was an assistant at Austin FC and they picked him up in the re-entry draft. He made three starts and seven total appearances in the 2023 season for Austin, but they declined to exercise their option after the season. In 2024 he was a regular starter with Orange County SC, a bad team in the USL Championship, but they "mutually terminated" his contract in June amid some rumors of discipline issues. Now he's playing for San Antonio FC, an even worse USL Championship team, where has two starts and four appearances so far.
Stayed through 2023: Chris Durkin, Victor Palsson, Ravel Morrison
Still with the team: Russell Canouse, Jeremy Garay, Jackson Hopkins, Ted Ku-Dipietro, Martín Rodríguez
Forwards
Ola Kamara - After leaving DC as a free agent, Kamara played for Häcken in Sweden in 2023, making twelve appearances but only one start and notching two assists. In 2024, he's returned to his hometown of Oslo where he is playing for Vålerenga in the second division. Vålerenga is currently at the top of the table, seven points clear of second place, with eight games to go. Kamara has started six games out of sixteen total appearances, though his last start was in June, and he has three goals and three assists.
Adrien Perez - Perez was the top scorer in MASL (indoor soccer) before signing with LAFC and eventually DC United. He missed most of 2022 with a foot injury and after the season DC declined to pick up his option. In December of 2022, Perez signed with the Empire Strykers, an MASL team in Los Angeles, and played with them over the winter. Then in February 2023 he signed with the San Diego Loyal of the USL Championship, starting 23 games and providing 10 goals and 3 assists. The Loyal folded after the 2023 season, so this year Perez moved to Louisville City, currently the top team in the USL Championship. He has two goals and six assists in twelve starts and eighteen total appearances.
Kimarni Smith - After leaving DC, Smith signed with San Antonio FC of the USL Championship but played sparingly in 2023, notching one assist in just under five hundred minutes. This season, he's playing for Spokane Velocity FC in USL League One. He's started fifteen games and subbed into eight more. It's a bit hard to believe but he's not listed as having any goals or assists. I’m not sure the USL League One stats are trustworthy, but other players for Spokane are shown as having scored and Smith has stats for things like tackles and duels, so maybe he's playing fullback or something.
Miguel Berry - Atlanta United acquired Miguel Berry from DC in early 2023 for $150,000 in GAM with another $100,000 in potential performance-based incentives. It's unlikely he hit those, because although he played a thousand minutes with Atlanta (10 starts, 17 more sub appearances), he scored just a single goal. The LA Galaxy signed him in the re-entry draft and he's once again been a regular substitute, with twenty-seven total appearances but only five starts and 753 total minutes. He's scored two goals and has one assist. But he's still playing in MLS, which is more than literally everyone else on this list besides Brad Smith and maybe David Ochoa can say. Watch this stoppage-time game-tying goal he scored against RSL back in May to end this retrospective on a happy note.
Stayed with the team until 2023: Taxi Fountas, Nigel Robertha
Still with the team: Christian Benteke
Standings
DC remains in 9th place as Atlanta and Philly lost. DC's now ahead of the teams below in them in points per game, thanks to Atlanta's terrible home loss to Nashville. Of course, 9th place means "you make the playoffs" but only just: you go on the road to play #8 in the play-in game. Toronto is in eighth place, three points ahead of DC. Charlotte is five point ahead with a game in hand, so passing them and escaping the play-in is possible but really doesn't seem likely.
Christian Benteke’s penalty gives him 19 goals on the season and helps him maintain a two goal lead in league Golden Boot race over Luis Suárez. Benteke would have actually widened his lead, but despite already losing due to a brace from the returning Leo Messi, Philly gave up an extremely late garbage goal to Suárez. Thanks for nothing, guys. Unfortunately, after the DC game, Denis Bouanga scored in El Tráfico to join Chicho Arango—off the injury list and playing again—in the “two goals behind Benteke” club.
Coming Up
DC travels to play the Philadelphia Union next Sunday. Philly are three points behind DC and way ahead in goal difference, so this is your proverbial "six pointer". Just a huge game. The bad news is Philly has a game in hand and might already be tied with DC on points (and ahead in the standings) by the time the game happens. But really it's good news: Philly has to place NYCFC on the road on Wednesday whereas DC gets extra rest. Hopefully NYCFC can take care of business and also tire them out. Maybe draw a couple red cards while they’re at it.
Then DC comes back to Audi Field to play Columbus. That's going to be a tough assignment. I don’t suppose we can convince Columbus to make like Montreal and replace Nancy with Losada beforehand?
After that, DC is back on the road against Nashville. Nashville is four points behind DC, so potentially it's another six pointer. Nashville previously lost 8 straight before somehow beating Atlanta 2-0 on the road this weekend, so we'll see where they are in the standings by the time this game rolls around.