Philadelphia Union @ DC United 5/4/24
A rainy clash at Audi Field with DC's league-mandated "rivals"
Game Context
Philly entered this match level on points with DC and coming off two consecutive home losses to Real Salt Lake and a Seattle team that DC had just scraped out a 2-1 win against…but as I described at the end of my Seattle game writeup, Philly has a game in hand and, more importantly, DC had one win in the last fifteen games against Philly so really, it hardly matters what their form is. I refuse to consider them rivals since the “rivalry” is completely manufactured by the league’s marketing department, but I admit a win against them would mean more than against most teams.
Either because they had just played on Tuesday or because of their two-game skid, Philly rotated a couple starters. Most notably they sat their defensive midfielder, José Martínez, and started 37 year old Alejandro Bedoya in midfield.
Meanwhile, DC rebounded from two losses with an uncomfortable home win over a rotated Seattle side that looked like the better team in the second half despite being down a man.
By the MLS power rankings, this was a match between the #10 team (Philly) and the #18 team (DC).
Formation
The big question each game with DC is what Troy Lesesne is going to do about the left back situation. Conner Antley seemed to be working pretty well as a stopgap, but he’s been hurt. Dájome has been deputizing at fullback, but it’s really not his natural position.
This time Lesesne had a new solution to try. Instead of last game’s 4-1-3-2, they came out in what I would call a 3-4-3 on offense. Before the season, there was speculation that they would play three at the back with Aaron Herrera playing right centerback, but instead, against Philly the left centerback was Matti Peltola joining Bartlett and McVey. More on that later.
Dájome and Herrera played on the left and right as wingbacks. Jackson Hopkins started with Mateusz Klich in central midfield. Christian Benteke played center forward, Stroud was up on the right wing, and rookie forward Jacob Murrell got his second-ever MLS start playing on the left.
I say Murrell is a forward because that’s where he played in college and he continues to play like a forward, but out of possession it looked to me like he would drop into the midfield, leaving Stroud higher with Benteke so that we defended out of what often looked like a 5-3-2 shape.
I didn’t pay as much attention to Philadelphia, but it seemed like they played a 4-4-2. Maybe I’m projecting my own confusion, but I think they were surprised by how DC lined up and didn’t adjust very well, at least in the first half. Quinn Sullivan (playing right midfield) and Nathan Harriel (playing right back) frequently ended up standing in almost the same place waiting for the ball, which I speculate was part of some strategy to exploit Dájome playing left back, but in the event was harmless and probably counterproductive. The way to get through DC’s aggressive defense is by spreading players out, not bunching them up.
Scoreline
DC got the first goal after only eight minutes with a nice stretch of possession that really got going when Jackson Hopkins beat Julián Carranza and Jack McGlynn on the dribble and nutmegged Bedoya with a pass into Jacob Murrell at the top of the box. Murrell immediately fired a shot that was blocked by Jakob Glesnes. The ball bounced out to Carranza, still deep in Philly’s half, but Klich immediately took the ball from him.
If you wonder why DC takes so many risks counter-pressing after turnovers, there were still six DC players ahead of Klich when he won the ball back. From there, Klich, Hopkins, McVey, and Stroud passed the ball around before working it over to Aaron Herrera. This is typically where Herrera sends a hopeful ball towards Benteke, but Herrera spotted Klich making a run and popped the ball over three Union defenders to him in the box. This forced centerback Damion Lowe to come over, but that still left the other centerback, Glesnes, on Benteke, Harriel marking Murrell, and Philly’s right midfielder Quinn Sullivan to mark DC’s wingback Dájome. Well, Sullivan should have been marking Dájome, but he ball-watches instead, leaving Dajome wide open.
Klich one-touch passed it to Stroud, who was barely on-side at best, playing him in to the endline. Lowe dived to block any pass into the six-yard box, but Stroud cut it back behind him to the penalty spot where Dájome ran on to it. Dájome absolutely crushed it into the goal and then did the international “my partner is pregnant” celebration. Congratulations to him on the coming child and his first goal on the season! It’s probably DC’s best-looking team goal this year and highlights everything distinctive about Lesesne’s system: high pressure to win turnovers, patience in possession, and Aaron Herrera being the main creator.
The only 2024 DC staple missing from that goal was Benteke winning a ball in the air, but that would come with DC’s second goal in the thirty-third minute. Bono kicked long, Benteke beat Lowe in the air to flick the ball on to Stroud near the top of Philly’s box, and he headed it over to Jacob Murrell. But Murrell still had a lot to do because Glesnes was right there in a good defensive position.
But Murrell…to be honest, I’m not sure exactly what he did. I’m not totally sure he knows either. Maybe he was fooling Glesnes by pretending to try to pass it back to Stroud, then letting the ball run through his legs to set up a left-footed shot? Let’s go with that. He shot hard and low to the far corner. Philly’s goalkeeper, Oliver Semmle, dove but couldn’t quite reach it.
Philly had already threatened, especially when Carranza rattled the crossbar with a free kick after a silly DC foul near the top of the box, but their first goal came on another free kick in the forty-second minute. Unfortunately, this was as simple as it gets. The players all lined up on the far side of the top of the box, Bedoya made a simple curving run around the front end of DC’s defensive line, Kai Wagner found him with a simple pass along the ground, and Bedoya chipped the on-rushing Bono. Jacob Murrell was the player in front who failed to close down Bedoya fast enough, but I don’t see much reason to blame him. It seemed like a problem with the set piece defense. Bedoya ran to the sideline pointing at someone, which after set piece goals I always assume is whoever came up with the idea. Maybe a Philly coach spotted something on film. In the post-game press conference, Lesesne said a “passing lane” was left open that shouldn’t have been…possibly Stroud shouldn’t have been quite so wide before the ball was kicked?
At any rate, DC still held on to their one-goal lead for much of the rest of the game, but Philly got a tying goal on another very simple shot where the ball was played back to Jack McGlynn. He was far from goal, far enough that there were nine DC players between him and the goal, plus Dájome pressuing him from one side and Benteke drawing level from the other. And he just…kicks it really hard and it goes into the very upper corner of the goal where Bono can’t reach it. Simple to explain! Not at all simple to do. I was familiar with Jack McGlynn’s magic left foot from his US youth national team play, but I highly doubt he’s scoring another one as good this season. Fotmob gave the shot 0.01 xG, though to be fair Murrell’s goal was 0.07 xG so DC also got a little luck. But 0.07 xG is still seven times more likely! Oh well.
For what it’s worth, DC ended up with 1.1 xG to Philly’s 0.6, but a draw at home after leading 2-0 is going to feel like a loss.
Player Ratings
Alex Bono - 5 - Philly didn’t give him a lot to do since they only had three shots on goal. In retrospect, maybe he should have stayed on his line for Bedoya’s goal, but in the moment it felt like the right thing to me and it did force Bedoya to make a pretty nice shot to score. It also seemed like Bono had a harder time finding Benteke with his long passes for some reason.
Cristian Dájome - 7 - Besides the goal, which was great of course, I thought he was a bit anonymous, but FotMob gave him .46 expected assists so I must be forgetting something. It’s much less nerve-wracking watching him defend when he’s not playing fullback.
Christopher McVey - 6 - He had a nice progressive pass in the buildup to the first goal and in general had a solid game at centerback. In the second half he was moved to wingback where he…looked like a centerback trying to play wingback. But I’ll count that against Lesesne instead of him.
Lucas Bartlett - 6 - He and McVey kept Carranza and Gazdag quiet, so a solid outing.
Aaron Herrera - 7 - By his exalted standards this was a quiet game with only two shot-creating actions, but his pass to Klich in the build-up to the first goal was really good (and doesn’t show up in the stats as a shot-creating action because Klich and Stroud both touched it before the shot).
Matti Peltola - 6 - I was surprised to see him playing on the back line, but he was solid all night. It was nice having someone playing on the left who had played there before.
Mateusz Klich - 7 - I think this was one of his better games. He contributed to the first goal at several different points in the build-up and was unlucky not to get an assist in the second half after a great move in the box.
Jackson Hopkins - 7 - I think this might have been his best game in a DC United shirt. If only we could play a midfield of Bedoya and McGlynn every week! Hopkins looked almost dominant at times in the first half against them. It’s performances like this I try to remember when he has bad games in central midfield.
Jared Stroud - 8 - He got two assists, but he got them playing the way he always plays. In a team with a lot of allegedly promising young attackers on the bench, he’s still a nailed-on starter.
Jacob Murrell - 7 - He’s basically taken Pirani’s spot and in some ways is a similar player: he doesn’t get many touches and puts in effort but is somewhat ineffectual on defense. But he thinks like a forward and takes a lot of shots, something this team really needs. Sometimes the shots go in!
Christian Benteke - 5 - It was a very quiet game with zero shots and “only” 8 out of 12 aerial duels won. Maybe it was just an off night, but I think other players, particularly Bono, just didn’t find him as much with their passes. But even so, he still played a crucial role in the second goal.
Substitutes
Ted Ku-Dipietro - 6 - Spent a little time as a second forward and was a bit unlucky not to score given his shot beat the keeper only to be headed clear by Harriel, then seemed pretty ineffective in central midfield. More on that experiment below.
Steven Birnbaum - 5 - He got his first minutes of 2024 playing in the center of the three man backline. He looked fine and didn’t really have that much to do, to be honest. Lesesne made it clear in the press conference he expects Birnbaum to work his way back to starting.
Gabriel Pirani - N/A - Came in very late and got off a shot. The shot was blocked, but it was the only DC shot in the last thirty minutes, so good job?
Kristian Fletcher - N/A - Got a single touch. Not much to say about it.
Notably absent players
Mohanad Jeahze - Once again, didn’t make the bench. Maybe he helps out behind the counter at a local deli and he had to cover for someone who was sick?
Other
Manager - 6 - As discussed below, I thought Peltola at LCB worked pretty well, and in this instance the Hopkins/Klich midfield was quite successful. The second half personnel adjustment? Not nearly as convinced, but it wasn’t a disaster either.
Referees - 7 - I didn’t have a big problem with any calls, but restarts took forever. I guess otherwise the game went smoothly, but was it really necessary to spend so much time talking to players?
Troy Lesesne’s Latest Gameplan
In the post-game press conference, Troy Lesesne was upbeat, saying that he was proud his team had gone toe-to-toe with a top Eastern Conference team, dominated much of the game, scored great goals, and only lost points because of two goals that he implied were one-offs.
I wasn’t quite as impressed, but it’s worth breaking down the two big problems with DC coming into the game and what Lesesne did to address them.
Problem #1: Left Back
All season DC has had a big left back problem. As we discussed last time, McKay did a lot of great work over the offseason, but at the start of the season the roster had exactly one natural left back on it: Mohanad Jeahze. That was risky since he missed most of last season with an ankle injury. Then, for reasons no one has been willing to air publicly, Jeahze essentially hasn’t played this year. So that’s zero left backs.
What to do? Lesesne seemed to find a stopgap by playing recent USL signing Conner Antley in that spot. After a few rough outings, Antley grew more comfortable and even impressive at times…but then he got hurt. That left Cristian Dájome deputizing at left back, where he did his best but was clearly a liability.
When the starting lineup came out for this game I thought Dájome would be back there again, but it turned out that DC was lining up with three at the back and Matti Peltola was playing left centerback. Until this point, I think Peltola has played exclusively at defensive midfield for DC United, but he’s played left fullback and centerback for both his previous team, HJK, and the Finland national team, so it made sense to me.
I’d say my initial impression that this was a good move was borne out by the game. Peltola played ninety minutes on the backline, always seemed to have matters in hand, and DC gave up very few dangerous chances. Meanwhile, Dájome played a more attacking role as left wingback and scored the opener.
What worried me about the move was Jackson Hopkins replacing Peltola in the midfield. At times this season he has struggled defensively, and while Klich is pretty good early in games he usually fades as he gets tired. Well, for this game at least, Hopkins put those fears to rest. He and Klich both had strong performances.
I’m ready to see this lineup a second time, but my one worry is that Philly made this easy on us by playing much of the game with Alejandro Bedoya and Jack McGlynn in midfield. Bedoya has had a great career, but he’s 37, and while McGlynn’s technical skill makes him very promising as a great deep-lying distributor, his athleticism is supposed to be his Achilles heel, causing him to struggle defensively.
I don’t know enough about Atlanta United’s roster to know how good their midfield is so we’ll just have to see, but this was definitely a good start for this arrangement of players.
Problem #2: Second Halves
DC has struggled to finish games. The problem isn’t completely obvious, but it feels like the field tilts against DC as second halves go on and usually the advanced stats bear this out. My theory is that while DC’s starters tend to really understand Lesesne’s aggressive pressing defense, the bench players are on the bench in part because they don’t execute it as well. So as the intense play tires out the midfield, Lesesne has been forced to bring on players that either make more mistakes in the press (Santos, Pirani, Hopkins, Murrell) or who seem to be complete defensive non-entities (Rodriguez, Fletcher). The opposition dominates possession and eventually punches goals in as a result.
At first glance, something similar happened: DC took a 2-1 lead into the second half and lost it. The majority of their shots and xG came in the first half. So whatever Lesesne did this time (we’ll get to that in a second) didn’t work! Or did it? Possession did flip Philly’s way in the second half (from 56-44 in DC’s favor to 40-60) and so did duels (22-16 and then 20-24), plus Philly got four of their five shots in the second half. But DC still generated more xG (0.33 to 0.2). Lesesne clearly considers McGlynn’s shot to be a “just gotta hand it to him” moment, not anything he expects his defense to stop. So while it wasn’t as good as the first half, maybe it’s a promising improvement compared to previous games?
I don’t have time to do a big statistical workup of that question this week…maybe next time. For now, I just want to note what Lesesne did differently with his subs because it was very surprising for me.
The big change came in the seventy-fourth minute when Steven Birnbaum subbed on and took the center spot in the three man backline. I was expecting him to come on for Bartlett or McVey and was eager to see who would be favored. The answer: they both stayed on the field. Instead, Birnbaum came on for Hopkins. Oh, I said, okay, Peltola will move back to defensive mid, McVey to LCB, Birnbaum will take the center, and Bartlett the right. Great.
But that still wasn’t right. The defensive line was Peltola — Birnbaum — Bartlett. Ted Ku-Dipietro, who had been playing as a second forward since coming on ten minutes earlier for Jacob Murrell, moved back to central midfield beside Klich. Dájome moved from wingback into that second forward slot. So then who played wingback? Christopher McVey!
I was very surprised by this, edging almost to horrified. McVey has some good moves…for a centerback. He’s never shown the sort of skillset you’d expect from a wingback. You can’t totally trust online references on positions played, but FBref claims he’s only played two games where he spent any time in midfield, both for Inter Miami in 2022 where he is also listed as playing in defense for part of the game.
Meanwhile, for me, what’s special about Ku-Dipietro is his uncanny ability to dribble through defenders (not past defenders so much as through) and his willingness to shoot. Both of those things aren’t nearly so impactful in central midfield. Meanwhile, Dájome scored a great goal, but he feels a lot less dangerous than Ku-Dipietro in that second forward position. Why do all this? Why not leave KDP and Dájome where they were and instead put Peltola or, if you must move him to midfield, put McVey at defensive midfield?
It was only after the game that I came up with a theory. Ted Ku-Dipietro’s success as a player stems from his quickness, and he was still pretty fresh. Maybe what Lesesne wanted was not just fresh legs in midfield (he’s tried that in previous games with players like Pirani and Fletcher and it didn’t work) but someone with a good burst who puts the opposition under more and faster pressure. And insomuch as Dájome might start to have tired legs after long runs as a wingback, second forward is a less intensive position, whereas McVey frequently is cited by Apple broadcasts as the DC player covering the most distance, so perhaps he’s in really good shape?
So that’s my theory: the priority was to get energy in midfield and that was more important than playing people at their natural positions. And Lesesne might justifiably feel it was a success: Philly didn’t generate good chances, they just drew level anyway off an absurd shot from McGlynn.
I’m not wholly convinced. Ku-Dipietro and McVey weren’t very effective in possession at their new positions. I’d feel much better if we continued to dominate the game and generated better chances for the third goal that would have locked in the three points. I also think players benefit from stability, so having guys like Dájome play three different positions across 90 minutes isn’t doing him, or the team, any favors. But I admit that Lesesne seems to be playing a lousy hand here, so we should probably be grateful for the creativity while we wait for the roster to improve in the next two transfer windows.
Standings
The draw puts DC at #9 in the Eastern Conference both in total points and points per game. That’s just barely in the playoffs, two points clear of Atlanta and Montreal. They’re now at #17 in the league-wide Supporter’s Shield standings (#18 by points per game).
Christian Benteke, still at 8 goals, is now two goals behind the joint leaders Leo Messi and Luis Suarez who each have 10. Chico Arango is also ahead of him with 9.
Coming Up
Next up is a road game against Atlanta United. Atlanta’s transfer budget is intimidating, but they are behind DC in the standings and haven’t won in their last five games, including three at home. Admittedly they’ve been playing some tough teams. They lost at home to Minnesota and Cincinnati, they tied on the road against Chicago—okay, that one wasn’t so tough—and they drew 2-2 at home against the Philadelphia Union. Hah, imagine drawing 2-2 at home against the Union! The timing for the Atlanta game might be a bit helpful, as they will be coming off a Tuesday night Open Cup game against the Charlotte Independence, but I suspect they won’t play their starters (edit: it’s taken me long enough to get this out that their lineup is posted and, indeed, it’s basically the reserve team).
Next is a home game against the New York Red Bulls. The Red Bulls, unfortunately, are good this year. You may remember them defeating a Messi-less Inter Miami 4-0 at home. They’re so good I thought they probably had a good chance against Miami on the road even with Messi back and playing this weekend…and they did lead 1-0 at the half…but as you probably heard, yeah, they lost 6-2. Messi, five assists and a goal. Yikes. Well, it happens to the best of us. Good thing DC isn’t playing Miami on the road!
Oh wait, right after the NYRB game, DC goes on the road to play, yeah, Inter Miami. That’s looking like a tough one. But who knows, anything could happen. DC’s players will be hyped up to play the GOAT. And who knows, maybe Messi will decide to retire the day before and join a minor-league baseball team or something.