Preview: Nashville SC at DC United
DC comes off a bye rested and...we'll see about ready
DC United finally had a bye week and not a moment too soon. After two straight losses, including a 1-7 humiliation at home against the Chicago Fire, DC had four clear needs, in order of importance:
Get more players healthy, especially DC’s two best attacking players, Christian Benteke and Peglow
Guatemala to fail to get out of the Gold Cup group stage so that Aaron Herrera would be back
No new injuries
Rest for players like David Schnegg, Lucas Bartlett, Brandon Servania, and others whose level of play seemed to decline as they played a lot of minutes
Well…2 for 4 ain’t bad, I guess?
Kim Joon Hong and Jackson Hopkins are off the injury report, but more importantly Benteke and Peglow are questionable. Troy Lesesne was hopeful on Thursday that they would be available, but the pattern with him is guys with so much time off always come back on the bench.
One other returnee who could actually start is Matti Peltola, who played two games at centerback for Finland in the group stages of the European U-21 Championships. Finland finished fourth in the group (no shame in that given the other teams were the Netherlands, Denmark, and Ukraine) and their last match was June 18th, so I assume he’s been back in DC for a while.
Aaron Herrera started all three games for Guatemala, and unfortunately (for DC) they advanced to the knockout round. Next, they’ve got a tough matchup against Canada, so if Canada takes care of business then hopefully Herrera will be back for the July 5th game against Atlanta.
The team often doesn’t announce injuries that occur in practice, so we won’t know the true situation until the gameday roster is released an hour before the game, but we already have heard that Kristian Fletcher tore his ACL. This is bad for DC United but just extremely terrible news for Fletcher personally. He’s got a long recovery and may not have a spot in MLS waiting for him when he’s back. Best wishes to him for his recovery!
Finally, Fidel Barajas’s loan is over. Jaime Moreno’s #99 goes back to waiting for a more deserving player.
Predicted Lineup
This is one of those situations where the team might get significantly stronger after subs are made, to the point I almost wondered if a guy like Pirani should be held back so he can come on with “the first team”.
Backup goalkeeper: Kim Joon Hong
Defensive backups: Matti Peltola, Jackson Hopkins, Derek Dodson
Offensive backups: Christian Benteke, Peglow, Hosei Kijima, Jared Stroud, Jacob Murrell
International duty: Aaron Herrera
Injured: Lukas MacNaughton, Kristian Fletcher
Not Selected: Jordan Farr, Rida Zouhir, Gavin Turner
The Opposition: Nashville SC
Nashville is a tough opponent. They are third in the Eastern Conference in points with a strong all-around performance on both offense and defense. They’re also on a huge unbeaten run and haven't lost since April 19. That’s 12 games unbeaten with 8 wins and 4 draws.
That said, one of those draws was at home against DC United in a listless 0-0 affair where the two sides combined for only 0.8 xg. With Benteke and Pirani injured, DC was starting Jacob Murrell and Rida Zouhir on the attacking line. Nashville tried to sneak past the game by resting starters, most notably forward Sam Surridge. Still, they started Hany Muktar but couldn’t generate much offense and had to settle for what surely was a disappointing draw.
At any rate, right now the standout player has to be Surridge, a player I’ve never rated but who is proving me wrong by leading the Golden Boot race by two goals with 15. Four of those were penalties, but he’s still third in the league in goals per 90 minutes behind Philadelphia’s Tai Baribo and Vancouver’s Brian White. Surridge had a hat trick against New England on Wednesday.
Former MLS MVP Hany Muktar is also continuing his rebound season with 8 goals and 5 assists. He’s 7th in the league in raw G+A, though lower if you adjust for minutes played.
Those two guys are the danger men. In the last five games, Nashville has scored 11 goals. Nine of them were scored by Surridge and the other two were scored by Muktar.
For DC fans, the other player who has to be mentioned is fullback Andy Najar, who recently made the MLS All-Star team. He’s got one goal and six assists this year, although that’s a bit weird when you look closer: five of the six assists have come in two games and both of those were against the Chicago Fire. So he has one goal and one assist against everyone else. Regardless, he’s playing tons of minutes, and we all know that when he’s healthy, Najar is both a menace and a joy to watch play.
A final player to note that longtime DC fans will remember is Joe Willis, who played for DC back in 2013. At age 36 he’s having his typical good if not great season.
The timing of the game slightly favors DC, who is coming off a bye week whereas Nashville had a midweek match (a 3-2 win over New England) where Muktar went 90 minutes and Surridge went 85. Helpfully for DC, Nashville’s DP centerback Walker Zimmerman and Jacob Shaffelburg (a spot starter at right midfield) are at the Gold Cup with the USA and Canada respectively. Zimmerman is very good in the air, so he could be real loss if Christian Benteke can play significant minutes, but I’ll believe that when I see it.
Nashville’s most important absence is probably central midfielder Eddi Tagseth is suspended due to yellow card accumulation. If you remember my preview of the first Nashville game, Tagseth is one half of the central midfield pairing (along with Patrick Yazbeck) who some credit with Nashville’s reinvigoration this season. DC looks much better when its central midfield can control the game, something that only happens, alas, against bad central midfielders, so…we’ll see.
One other oddity of this game is that DC is traveling to Nashville in a week and a half to play them in the Open Cup quarterfinals. I don’t think that really matters for this match, but if DC could win only one of these games, it would probably be better to win that one. Whatever. Obviously they could easily lose both.
What I’m Looking For
At this point there’s only so much we can learn about DC until Christian Benteke gets back on the field, but certainly against a somewhat weakened midfield I’d like to see DC be able to move the ball up to the forward line and for players like Gabriel Pirani and/or Randall Leal to help generate some decent chances out of possession.
Otherwise, the big question is clearly can Benteke and Peglow play any minutes and, if so, will they come out firing or need some time to regain their form?