D.C. United just can’t catch a break these days.
After Hurricane Sandy forced the club to give up its home-field advantage, the club’s decisive Eastern Conference semi-final match was postponed last night due to a freak early November snowstorm that left the pitch at Red Bull Arena unplayable. Despite hours of shoveling, snow-clearing and praying, it just wasn’t meant to be. Instead the game will take place tonight at 7:30 p.m.
The move—which was ultimately made by MLS Executive Vice President Nelson Rodriguez—wasn’t without incident. United Head Coach Ben Olsen, for one, was particularly upset. “I’m baffled,” a clearly agitated Olsen said. “Have you seen the field? It looks fine to me.”
He also expressed concern for the some 700 United fans who’d been bused in for the match, a sentiment echoed by club president Kevin Payne.
“To come up here like this, with a late game,” Payne said, “you’re talking about committing two days for these fans. They’re lying at work, making up excuses, begging for time off, and now we’re asking them to do it again? It’s pretty tough.”
Rodriguez felt there was ultimately no way around the decision. “We considered an earlier start time, we considered postponing to [Thursday] yesterday,” he said. “We even had a discussion about postponement as early as this morning. But we felt felt that the forecast was one that gave us a window and an opportunity to play the game. Unfortunately, nature has a funny way of playing tricks on people and we just couldn’t keep up with it.”
I walked the pitch directly after the tarp was removed some three hours from game time and walked it again about 15 minutes before the game was called, and it seemed fine to me. Shortly before the postponement, Olsen walked some 10 yards onto the field, walked back, turned to me and said: “It’s beautiful. Perfect. Let’s play.” A source close to the team also told DCist that even match referee Mark Geiger (who you’ll remember from Geigergate) wanted to play the match unless the pitch was frozen, which it wasn’t.
The lone holdout, it would seem, was Red Bulls Head Coach Hans Backe. “In a way it would have been a joke. And then it’s all about luck, some individual mistakes or anything that will decide a game,” Backe said. “Still, it’s a semifinal. A conference semifinal, and it has to be more serious.”
Let’s give Backe and Rodriguez the benefit of the doubt here for a second—maybe calling the game was the right decision given the conditions. The timing, though, was the problem. The hundreds of United fans that made the trek north were left with the prospect of coming home and trying to make time—and the excuses—to leave work early and make the trip a second time. Had the decision been made earlier in the day—or week—then maybe those fans’ travails could have been spared.
Still, United’s 700 fans, who (honest to god) may have outnumbered the Red Bulls fans in the arena, remained upbeat. They sang, danced and jumped around for two hours before the game. Even after the announcement, the festivities continued, with chants of “We’re not leaving!” echoing throughout the empty arena. United’s players, for their part, responded in a particularly moving fashion, climbing over ad boards, fences and barriers to reach the upper deck, where they marched through the crowd, greeting fans and singing with them in full voice. It was a scene that, frankly, you wouldn’t see in any other professional sport in the United States, and it’s truly difficult for me to put into words how proud it made me to be a supporter of the club.
So, what now? The game will be played tonight, at 7:30 p.m., and will be broadcast on NBC Sports Network. United, the Red Bulls and MLS have again arranged transport and admission for United fans willing to make the trek, though those spots are rapidly filling. If more become available, I’ll tweet it out and also update you here. Game one of the Eastern Conference Finals, originally slated for Saturday evening, has been pushed back to Sunday. Broadcast details are still being arranged.
UPDATED – A couple of tidbits for you here. All 5 buses that the team provided to move fans up to NJ have been filled, which means about 200-250 United supporters will be making the trek …. Though Hans Backe claimed last night that the field wasn’t heated, I’ve got a Red Bulls media guide from earlier this year that says differently. “Field Dimensions: 120 yards x 75 yards with state-of-the-art underground air, heating and drainage system.” Pretty odd. …. Kick-off for the match is now set for 7:51, still on NBC Sports Network.
Non-game Notes: Dwayne De Rosario wasn’t in the 18-man roster released by the team prior to kickoff, so it’s safe to say that he won’t see any action tonight … Kenny Cooper, who was one of our question marks earlier, was in the starting 11 for New York, and Backe said he doesn’t plan on changing his lineup between now and tomorrow’s match … Daniel Woolard was also in the 18, the first time he’s been selected for a game after a months-long battle with post-concussive effects … Elsewhere in the league, Houston eliminated top-seeded Kansas City and Los Angeles eliminated the top seed in the west, San Jose. If United advance to MLS Cup, it will indeed be hosted at RFK Stadium. Keep your fingers crossed, folks.
