Photo by Tony Quinn
D.C. United battled to a scrappy 1-1 draw visiting the Chicago Fire Saturday afternoon, securing sole possession of second place in the Eastern Conference and setting up a massive conference semi-final match with the New York Red Bulls.
The draw also allows United to avoid a dreaded one-game playoff with the Houston Dynamo, a game that would’ve been played in God-knows-what-kind of weather Wednesday evening at RFK Stadium. The black and red will instead travel to Harrison, N.J. to face their Atlantic Cup rivals on Saturday evening at Red Bull Arena (8 p.m., NBC Sports Network, Tickets) before returning to RFK the following Wednesday for the return leg of the series (8 p.m., NBC Sports Network, Tickets.)
Patrick Nyarko got things started for Chicago with a phenomenal strike from distance in the 16th minute, giving the Fire an early lead. United pulled even in the second half, though, as often-maligned striker Lionard Pajoy finally learned that one is supposed to put the ball in the net, not four to six feet outside of it. (Let’s hope he remembers that for future reference.) Goalkeeper Bill Hamid secured the draw for United with eight saves, including several in second half stoppage time, and rookie of the year candidate Nick DeLeon made the “Ultimate Sacrifice” in the 91st minute, deflecting a goal-bound shot with his, um, oh, just watch the clip.
So, just how good was United’s regular season? Simply put, the team’s point total from its 2012 campaign is just three points shy of its total from 2010 and 2011 combined. Just two years removed from a historically bad 2010 campaign that saw the club fire its coach mid-season, United finished the year with the third-highest point total in either conference. After losing defending MLS most valuable player Dwayne De Rosario to a knee injury, the club shocked pundits and fans alike by finishing the year on a seven-game unbeaten streak, pulling 17 of 21 available points and leaping from fifth to second place in the table.
Aside from avoiding the one-game playoff game this week, United’s seeding and final point total has other implications—I’m not going to go into the math and rules of all of this, but if the black and red manage to make it to MLS Cup, and anybody other than San Jose is their opponent, the game will be played at RFK Stadium. Even if United happen to crash out of the playoffs, they can still pull for either Kansas City or San Jose to make the finals—if that happens, United would gain an automatic berth in CONCACAF Champions League play, giving them a shot at claiming the regional club championship for North America and the Caribbean.
We’ll be on the road with the club on Saturday evening as United looks to get one step closer to its fifth MLS Cup against a Red Bulls side that—in 17 years—hasn’t won anything. Nothing. No MLS Cups, no U.S. Open Cups, no Champions League titles. The fiery, infernal hell-hole that they play in hasn’t won any awards from the EPA, either. Their stadium, which I once described as “a jewel comfortably ensconced in syringe valley,” will likely be at least half full of United fans who’ll bravely make the trip up Interstate 95 by whatever means necessary—knowing that it’s their moral and civic obligation to support anybody that goes up against New York. Because nobody likes New York.
Nobody.
