D.C. United entered their encounter with Sporting Kansas City on Saturday evening on a roll—the club were unbeaten in their past six matches, riding a 16-game unbeaten home streak (across all competitions.) After the best start in club history, a win on Saturday would give them sole possession of first place in Major League Soccer’s Eastern Conference.
Sporting entered the match with far more pedestrian goals. Trapped in the middle of a badly congested Western Conference—at game time, eight clubs found themselves within four points of conference-leading FC Dallas—Sporting were just looking to climb into playoff position.
The two teams shared the spoils on Saturday, playing an entertaining 1-1 draw in front of 16,221 fans at RFK Stadium. Costa Rican forward Jairo Arrieta’s first-half goal was wiped away almost immediately by a Dom Dwyer strike just a few minutes later.
The result leaves United tied atop the east heading into their mid-week matchup with Orlando City SC.
Let’s take a look at some highlights:
The Good: Chris Pontius. The 2012 MLS Best XI midfielder looked a bit like his old self on Saturday night, which is saying a lot—Pontius missed nearly all of 2013 and ’14 while recovering from a series of hamstring and nerve issues and has looked a step off ever since, failing to recapture the speed and agility, which at one point had many considering him as a potential U.S. national team contributor.
Against Sporting, Pontius used his pace to take advantage of a series of mismatches. On United’s goal, he brought down a 40-yard cross with his chest and without hesitation found Arrieta at the penalty spot; it’s the type of control and spatial awareness he’s sometimes lacked in recent outings.
“I feel like I’m able to run past people again, whereas before—after a year off, it doesn’t come back in a month,” Pontius told DCist after the match. “As much as you’d love for it to do that, it just [doesn’t]. The confidence, making runs off the ball, how you read the game, it’s just a bit slow. I think I’m getting there but I still think I have a ways to go. I’ll keep working on it.”
The Bad: More dropped home points. United are making a habit of blowing leads at home, not good in a league where road results are exceedingly tough to come by and teams largely depend on home matches to accumulate points. Though the side’s now 17-game home unbeaten run is impressive, it includes a bevy of draws, and in MLS, a draw is hardly considered a satisfactory home result.
They said it:
DC United head coach Ben Olsen: “It’s a game of two halves and in the first half they looked hungry and surprised us a little bit with their tactics. We prepared for them to be much more aggressive, in their usual manner, but credit to them for slowing the game down and making it tough for us to break them down. I think it took a little bit of our energy and hunger away, but a lot of that [their tactics] didn’t change in the second half. We just looked more alive in the second half. “
DCU midfielder Chris Pontius: “Just giving up the goal five minutes after that is tough; you figure at that point you will go in to halftime 1-0 up. It was a weird first half. I have never seen Kansas City sit back like that. Then in the second half I think the game opened up a bit more and we had more chances, but we just weren’t able to put them away.”
The rest: United were without forward Fabian Espindola for the match, as he continued to recover from a knee injury suffered in United’s victory over Columbus a week prior … United captain Bobby Boswell made his 300th MLS appearance on Saturday. It’s a testament to his durability: the former Houston Dynamo center back needed just nine seasons to reach the mark … United’s next match is a doozie: a mid-week tilt against Brazilian legend Kaká (and his Orlando City teammates.) The home match starts at 8 p.m. & will be nationally televised on ESPN2.
