Here’s a bit of Major League Soccer-related conventional wisdom: win most of your home games and average at least one point on the road, and you’ll be in the playoffs come November.
In recent years, D.C. United seems to have forgotten that formula, losing at home—often in heartbreaking fashion. Over the past couple of campaigns, the Black and Red have been downright awful at RFK Stadium, going 7-16-9 while watching its attendance numbers dwindle in return.
This season, however, has been a completely different story. With a home record of 7-1-2, DCU has already matched its win total from the previous two campaigns and is making the venerable stadium a fortress once again. The club continued its winning ways on Saturday evening, trouncing the Montreal Impact 3-0 in front of its largest (and sweatiest) crowd of the year—18,032 people.
The victory—combined with a Sporting Kansas City Loss and Red Bull tie—allowed United to reclaim sole possession of first place in the Eastern Conference.
“It’s great,” midfielder Chris Pontius said after the match when asked about his side’s home performance. “It’s the one thing for our fans and this organization, every one of our goals this year is to take back RFK and make it a fortress to play against us this year, and I think we’ve done that. “
Pontius himself would provide the most thrilling moment of the match. As the first half drew to a close, United found itself goal-less despite a thoroughly dominant performance. Pontius would control the ball some 40 yards from goal, fighting off three Montreal defenders while making a weaving, left-to-right run towards goal—and then firing an angled strike from 12 yards out into the far corner for his ninth goal of the year.
“Your brain is going a hundred miles an hour when you are going at that speed and you have to make split-second decisions. I made the right decision on the goal,” he said. “[The goal] was huge. It’s always a killer to get a goal before halftime. You saw what it did to us up in New York.”
Despite all of United’s lineup changes throughout the current MLS campaign—Joe Willis, Emiliano Dudar, Nick DeLeon and Danny Cruz all found themselves with starting spots at one time or another—the starting 11 that head coach Ben Olsen put on the field was his best all year. Incidentally, it’s actually quite close to the starting lineup that most United fans expected to see all year long—the one notable exception being the exclusion of Hamdi Salihi. Olsen even found a way to squeeze the newly re-signed Branko Boskovic into the lineup—a move that would pay dividends in the second half.
Bosko’s picture perfect set piece delivery early in the second half would find Robbie Russell, and the veteran would head home his first goal for the black and red. Russell was pleased with his goal, but seemed more focused on helping his club keep yet another clean sheet: “It’s always great to get your first goal for a new club,” said the United defender. “It means a lot to me. It’s just me building my own reputation and building my own love of D.C. United. This club means a lot to me. But I’ll still take that zero over the goal.”
By the time the rain started falling at RFK late in the second half, the game was all but over. United would find the net once more, as striker Hamdi Salihi would bury a rebound inside the box to put the game well out of reach.
United’s goals remain clear. “We always say if we win at home then we find the road to be a playoff team,” Pontius shared after the match. “So, we are winning at home and we are doing all right on the road as well. We need to get a couple more results on the road and boost ourselves and create the gap between us and some of the top teams in the East.”
United’s July looks nearly empty—the club will travel to Houston on July 15 for its next match, and will play at Columbus the following week. We won’t see them at RFK in a league match until early August. If you need your DCU fix before then, though, you’ll have your opportunity on July 28 when the club takes on French powerhouse Paris Saint-Germain.
One thing is for sure—if United keeps its current form, we’ll have to stop talking about the team as a playoff possibility and start talking about it as a cup contender.
