Results tagged “rfkstadium>”

With their chances of making the postseason finally dashed on Saturday night after a heartbreaking 2-2 draw in Kansas City, D.C. United's focus moved from the inconsistency of their on-the-field performance to their arguably much more intriguing off-the-field affairs. Besides a potential coaching change and plenty of questions about a major shake-up in the front office, the more pertinent debate is perhaps the still-looming issue of finding a new home for the club.

              

The cold, blustery and wet conditions at RFK Stadium were nothing short of appropriate for the United States' final World Cup qualifier, really: the fitting backdrop for the conclusion of a road trip which has seen little sunshine for the men's national team. In the light of the car crash which severely injured forward Charlie Davies, most of the 26,243 on hand focused their meditations on one question: would the accident inspire the Americans to perform at the peak of their abilities, or would they simply fall flat in a match that both math and the accident had rendered much less of a priority?

Wire reports now confirm that a fatal early-morning car accident on the GW Parkway did indeed involve U.S. Men's National soccer team forward Charlie Davies. Davies was not behind the wheel at the time of the accident. WTOP reported that the collision, which occurred at about 3:15 a.m., claimed at least one fatality and seriously injured two others. One look at the car involved in the wreck, and it's understandable that Davies' injuries -- which have required hours of surgery -- are being described as "possibly career-threatening." (Although as of 5 p.m., the U.S. Soccer Federation is backing off of that assessment, calling the effect of Davies' injuries on his future "unclear.") Steve Goff's SoccerInsider twitter account first reported the news, and confirmed that Davies, who is still under the knife, did not suffer "life threatening" injuries.

              

Okay, let's just get this out of the way up top: San Juan Jabloteh features a player named Elton John. It's kind of difficult to take that seriously, even for a sport where guys named Banana score goals and participants sport these kinds of hairstyles in a tournament watched by a billion people.

              

Sure, I could be negative. I could tell you that last night was the quietest I've heard RFK Stadium in some time. I could talk about how secondary the reputation of the CONCACAF Champions League appears to be, even for those involved in the competition. I could harp on the poor finishing in the first half of the match, an effort so indicative of numerous D.C. United matches this season -- full of exciting offensive potential, but so little return.

              

When I was but a wee lad, I loved watching the game show Press Your Luck. The most exciting part of the show was watching someone get their last whammy and crapping out -- for whatever reason, it was just far more entertaining to watch someone with thousands of dollars lose their money because they stopped the moving lights on a small red...thing. The tension, it was palpable.

            

For the sparse crowd of United supporters who attended last night's CONCACAF Champions League debacle against Toluca of Mexico at RFK Stadium, it would be easy to attribute the result and the team's incredibly poor performance to fixture congestion.

     

Yes, the D.C. Real World cast meandered its way to RFK Stadium on Saturday night for United's 3-1 win. DCist was there to report on the match, but we also managed to document the reality show's entrance into the stadium. We were surprised when the castmembers were seated in the Barra Brava section of the stadium, certainly the most difficult for a camera crew to shoot in, what with the constant bouncing and all. Highlights of the evening included United supporters booing castmembers for reading chants off a piece of paper (obviously, singing and shouting "D.C. United" or "United" in rhythm is a very difficult thing to commit to memory), and Barra members arguing whether the filming was an annoying distraction from the game or just good PR for the team. The question now: will The Real World acknowledge D.C.'s baseball futility with a trip to Nationals Park?

            

You know that show about the fishermen who leave home for months at a time to come back with big catches, significantly more grizzled faces, and, at times, missing certain people that they left with? Right -- we all know that one. One of the best parts about that program: even though some of the things they go through on the high seas would make the most hardened of individuals tremble, when they get back on land, all the fishermen down a few beers, talk about what a wild, strange trip its been, and hop right back on the ship that could be their collective coffin.

              

Santino Quaranta's emotional evening took center stage -- but there was still the matter of the match itself, a solid 2-0 win for U.S. over a tricky Honduras side last night at a pumping RFK Stadium.

Anyone that follows European football knows that trash talk as seen through the pages of the attention-seeking press is simply part and parcel of the game. Usually, though, claims like, "Rooney: Toffees can gimme hell," "Walcott: Teams are running scared of us," or "SUPER CALEY GO BALLISTIC, CELTIC ARE ATROCIOUS" are simply the media convenient disregard of context in favor of dry sensationalism. On the other hand, the American game, still comparatively in its infancy, has not quite experienced such abortions of media -- of course, us reporters don't have to do much when assistant coaches around the league are spewing out things like this:

It's certainly been a long and winding road for D.C. United's recent addition Thabiso Khumalo. The South African forward was drafted in the 2005 MLS SuperDraft by Chicago - but never saw the field. The man they call "Boyzzz" has subsequently been on a three year odyssey through a veritable tour of second and third division American soccer - stops in Charleston, Wilmington, and Pittsburgh have resulted in varying levels of success: twenty games per year, a few goals here and there, even recognition as one of the best players in USL-2. It's fair to say that the man (who is a co-founder of a non-profit which encourages South African youth, no less) has logged more than his fair share of miles in trying to grab a spot at the top.

The Washington Business Journal filed a brief report on Friday updating the status of the Congressional Bowl, the first college football bowl game ever to be held in the District of Columbia, scheduled for Dec. 20. Within the story about how EagleBank may become the game's sponsor is a piece of unexplained news: the game will now apparently be held at RFK, even though back in July, the ACC said the game would be played at Nationals Park. What happened? Can Nationals Park not easily be configured for a football game? We imagine we'll hear more about this after a press conference planned for Sept. 10. The game should feature Navy playing whichever team ends up in 9th place in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Washington has a ton of good things, but also a lot of problems. One we often hear about is a general lack of customer service in some local businesses — sometimes people are slow, rude, forgetful, or a combination of the three. We've seen it all over, from fancy joints to Mickey D's, but it seems to be worse here than elsewhere on the East Coast. Somebody could make a lot of money by renting...

D.C. United's MLS season is on the line tonight at RFK Stadium (7:30 p.m.). After a dominant regular season that saw United go 10-2-3 at home, they return to RFK for possibly the last time this season. Standing in their way is their playoff nemesis, the Chicago Fire. In 5 total playoff games against the Fire, D.C. has yet to score a goal. United will need to find net if they wish to move on...

Walking into Jammin’ Java Friday night, here’s what I knew about Philly rockers Marah: 1) High Fidelity and About a Boy author Nick Hornby, a man who has documented his musical preferences at least enough for me to know I largely share them, loves on this band so much he devoted one of his book columns in Believer magazine a couple of years ago to their largely unsung magnificence. 1a) Stephen King --Josh Ritter...

MONDAY >> Were you out of town this weekend, wishing you were home soaking in the goodness that was the DAM! Festival? Fear not. Tonight there is one more show, and it happens to be the festival's biggest. The chanteuse to give all other indie chanteuses a run for their money, Cat Power, is taking the 9:30 Club stage with the Dirty Delta Blues, and a little help from openers Childballads. $25 or your...

Harry Jaffe: In writing something of a goodbye column to RFK Stadium, Jaffe recounts the many struggles the District overcame to attract a baseball team. And though plenty of people played important roles, he feels that one deserves extra attention -- former Mayor Anthony Williams. "The hero of the piece has to be Williams, an unpopular mayor who — despite his wandering attention span — kept swinging away at an unpopular crusade to use public...

Despite having to fend off a persistent Chivas Guadalajara attack for most of the game and playing a man down for 50 minutes, United pulled out a 2-1 victory in the first leg of the Copa Nissan Sudamericana home-and-home series. From the get-go the Goats took advantage of quick, incisive passing to carve through the United midfield. Four times in the opening 16 minutes Chivas attackers had a clear line to the goal, yet...

>> D.C. United and Chivas Guadalajara renew their budding rivalry this evening. The match is part of the Copa Nissan Sudamericana, a 34-team invitational tournament featuring the best clubs of South America and several North American teams looking to crash the party. The match could be one of the most entertaining, competitive affairs this season. United aims to atone for their first round exit from the tournament two years ago; they also seek to...

It's hardly the nicest stadium, but RFK Stadium holds a venerable place in Washington sports history. Open since 1962, when it was called District of Columbia Stadium, the venue has hosted two MLB franchises, the Washington Redskins during their glory years, the most successful MLS club ever, international soccer tournaments, concerts, and on and on. It even hosted Team America! Sunday's final Nats home game, a 5-3 win over the Phillies, isn't the last...

FRIDAY: >> Octogenarian fiddler Joe Thompson (at right), said to be the last black traditional string band player, plays a free show at The Kennedy Center's The Millennium Stage with fellow folk musicians Wayne Martin on fiddle and Bob Carlin, a clawhammer style banjoist. 6 p.m. >> Space rockers The Gulf sold out their D.C. show in April, and are coming back to play at the Red and the Black with the Joonies, Twin Earth,...

These are exciting times in Nationals land. The Nats are currently in control of the NL East! We realize that someone without any imagination, or joy in their life, might say that the team has been eliminated from the postseason, and is currently 15 games under .500. To them we would point out that all of the remaining games for the Nationals are against either the Mets or the Phillies, two teams separated by 1.5...

Yesterday afternoon's contest between D.C. United and the New England Revolution carried several levels of significance. With six games remaining for United and most of MLS, teams are becoming increasingly desperate to capture the three point bounty of each remaining game in the scramble for playoff spots. The Revolution came into RFK Stadium as the toughest foe remaining on United's schedule. The game constituted the last time United would face a sure-fire playoff team....

Tom Knott: Once again, Tom Knott has managed to take what seems to be an isolated incident and turn it into evidence that liberalism of any sort is just evil. This week, Knott recounts the badly-handled trial of a Liberian immigrant accused of raping a seven-year-old girl in Montgomery County. Due to some bad decision by the trial judge, the charges were eventually dropped, though the county has stated that it will appeal. Regardless, it's...

Move over, Jason Kreis. In the forty-eighth minute of the twentieth game in the twelfth season of Major League Soccer, D.C. United's Jaime Moreno became the league's all-time leading scorer with a deftly taken penalty kick. Moreno's 109th career goal put the cap on a solid 3-1 victory over Red Bull New York. On an uncharacteristically brisk August evening at RFK Stadium, United surprised the Red Bulls and never looked back. The 18,748 in...

Last night Club America stormed into RFK Stadium intent on claiming a SuperLiga result. Their boisterous contingent of supporters easily outnumbered United fans among the 18,604 in attendance. An early goal from Rod Dyachenko and a team-wide clinic of possession soccer stifled the C.A. attack as well as its supporters. Coach Tom Soehn knew that an early goal would be important in taking control of the game, and his team's focus on energy and...

D.C. United manager Tom Soehn wants to forget about last Saturday’s debacle at previously winless Real Salt Lake. After an opening spell that might have given Soehn flashbacks, an under-strength United helped him do that with a strong final sixty minutes and a 4-1 win over the Colorado Rapids at RFK Stadium. There were plenty of important moments – newcomers Fred and Luciano Emilio's fluid passing movies with playmaker Christian Gomez, Jamaican forward Nicholas...

If you've been to the box suites at RFK Stadium, you may have noticed photos of acts that have played the stadium lining the hallway - U2, New Kids on the Block, the Promise Keepers and so on. But after we finished laughing at the New Kids, one plaque off to the side caught our eye: "Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, site of Olympic football, 19 July-4 August 1996." What? The Olympics were at RFK? There...

As bad as United struggled to open the season, the Houston Dynamo have taken the worst of it. Like United, the Dynamo began the MLS season with high expectations, coming off of CONCACAF Champions' Cup success. Houston also had the auspicious task of defending their MLS Cup. While the Dynamo have been unable to turn their season around, United came into Saturday night's match unbeaten in three games with wins in their last two. Before...