D.C. United and Chivas USA met Sunday evening at RFK Stadium in a battle of two of Major League Soccer’s hottest sides.
United entered the match winners of three of their last four; Chivas took the pitch at RFK having won four in a row. D.C. would emerge victorious, riding an Eddie Johnson penalty kick, Perry Kitchen strike and Luis Silva insurance tally to victory in front of an energetic crowd of 13,732.
Given United’s consistently strong play and recent run of form, it may be time to stop drawing comparisons between this season and D.C.’s dreadful 2013 campaign, but let’s do it one more time for fun: Sunday’s win was United’s tenth of the year. Just over halfway through their season, the black-and-red have won over three times as many games as they did in all of 2013.
Not too shabby.
Highlights:
The Good: Eddie Johnson
This is overdue. The oft-discussed forward had easily his best game of the year, notching a goal and an assist – and just as importantly, contributing off the ball with some strong defensive work and hold-up play.
EJ’s play has steadily improved over the past several matches, and after the match on Sunday evening the former Seattle Sounder spoke about having a renewed sense of focus now that his exclusion from Jurgen Klinsmann’s 30-man initial World Cup roster is firmly in the rear view.
“I feel like the team and I are just getting familiar with our understanding on the field,” Johnson told DCist. “It’s been frustrating obviously trying to create those understandings on the field. We all have individual goals, and clearly one of mine was to go to the World Cup. You go one, two, three, four, five games without scoring and you start to put a lot more pressure on yourself.
“Once that whole World Cup thing was behind me, I could focus on really creating something special, and that’s what the coaches brought me here for in the off-season.”
“I think it’s important for Eddie to have people behind him,” added United head coach Ben Olsen. “It’s important for the fans to get behind him because he is in a lot of ways as good as it gets in this league. He has the ability to score, hold the ball up, technically he’s sound, he has good pace.
The Bad: We’ll pass on this one this week. In reality, D.C. didn’t do anything particularly poorly on Sunday, so there’s not much to write about anyways. Don’t worry, I’ll still be lurking in the shadows next week, waiting eagerly for the opportunity to pass judgement on somebody.
Moment of the Match: Perry Kitchen’s 60th minute goal
Kitchen is perhaps United’s most underappreciated piece, so it’s nice to see him get on the scoresheet every now and then. Perry’s strike last night was his third of the season, this coming from a player who had only scored two goals in his previous three seasons combined.
“It’s great, in a season you need [those sorts of contributions] if you want to make playoffs,” reflected Olsen. “You need contributions from guys other than Fabian [Espindola], Eddie [Johnson], [Chris] Rolfe and [ Nick] Deleon. Davy [Arnaud] needs to chip in a couple, you need backs to chip in, but Perry’s proven he can help us out with that stuff.”
The Rest: The win draws United to within a single point of conference-leading Kansas City with a game in hand … It’s been quite a week for United goalkeeper Bill Hamid, who on Sunday became the first homegrown player in MLS history to hit 100 caps. This after getting an all-star nod earlier in the week, his first. “Benny came up and told me prior to training,” Hamid said of the honor. “He told me to keep it quiet. I had no idea but he told me when I was getting my ankle taped. Gave me a high five, said congratulations. I got a little emotional and [United trainer] Goodie kept asking me “What’s going on, bro” and I played it off. I think he thought I was having a baby or something. … D.C. will travel on Wednesday evening to Jacksonville, Florida for their weekend friendly with English side Fulham FC before returning to the district to welcome Toronto FC the following Wednesday.
