D.C. United welcomed Jamaican side Montego Bay United F.C. to RFK Stadium on Tuesday night as the Black-and-Red looked to stay on course in CONCACAF Champions League play.
Champions league—CCL for short—is essentially the club championship of North America, Central America, and the Caribbean. The tournament is a year-long event; 24 teams from across the region are drawn into eight groups, initially, and the winners of those groups advance to the tournament’s knockout phase later in the year.
The format of the group stage—which ensures that powerful clubs from the U.S. and Mexico aren’t drawn into the same group—makes for some serious mismatches, and Tuesday night’s affair was one of those. United are MLS originals, sitting pretty atop MLS’ Eastern Conference about two-thirds of the way through their campaign. MoBay are regional minnows, an unknown squad that essentially had to carpool to RFK from Jamaica.
Sounds a bit like a Hollywood movie, doesn’t it? One where the Jamaicans would storm out of RFK after a miraculous victory, and United would take a downtrodden march off the pitch after the shock defeat.
But this isn’t Hollywood. If you’re a fan of the underdog story, Tuesday’s encounter probably didn’t do much for you—United rode goals from Miguel Aguilar, Kofi Opare, and Conor Doyle to a comfortable 3-0 victory over Montego Bay, leaving them with a commanding lead atop Group H and pushing their Jamaican opponents to the brink of elimination. A draw in their September 15th match-up with Panamanian side Árabe Unido would put United through to the knockout phase with a match to spare.
“It’s a win,” said United head coach Ben Olsen after the match. “It’s 3-0, I think if we’re getting greedy it should’ve been more than that. I think if that group would have had more minutes under their belts together, maybe some of the final stuff would’ve clicked and that could’ve happened.”
It’s true—the match could’ve ended at 5 or 6-0, but D.C.’s reserve-heavy lineup showed a good deal of rust, especially in the game’s early stages.
D.C.’s breakthrough came in the 37th minute, on a combination between Aguilar and midfielder Michael Farfan. Farfan took a touch at the edge of the area and played a ball through for Aguilar, who fired low and to the ‘keeper’s right from about 12 yards. It was the rookie’s second Champions League goal in under a week, and Farfan’s second assist in that same timeframe.
They’d double their lead in the 71st minute off a poor clearance from Montego Bay, which fell to the feet of Farfan in the box. The former Union midfielder calmly slotted it across the six-yard area to Opare, who lunged and sent the ball into goal. By the time Doyle added a late insurance tally with a well-placed right-footer in the 90th minute, the match had already been decided.
Montego rarely looked competitive in a match that their coach—who formerly coached in MLS at Colorado and Tampa Bay—likened to “being thrown in a frying pan while still learning how to put a 90-minute performance together.”
“I give them credit,” said Olsen. “They came here and gave us everything they have. It was nice to see [head coach] Tim [Hankinson] there on the sidelines—we go way back a long time and I know he’ll get that group [together.] He’s had them for a very, very short time and he’ll get them organized and make them a better team.”
United return to league play this coming Sunday with a massive matchup—an Atlantic Cup clash with the New York Red Bulls, who are hot on their tail and could pull within two points should they manage to topple D.C.
