In this year’s first edition of the Atlantic Cup against the archrival New York Red Bulls, D.C. United delivered their best and most satisfying performance of the season, riding first-half goals by Alvaro Saborio and Patrick Nyarko to a rousing 2-0 victory at RFK Stadium on Friday night.

Before a raucous crowd of 19,632, the Black and Red thoroughly dominated the proceedings with an unusually fluid passing game, clinical finishing, aggressive pressing, and a superb outing from backup goalkeeper Travis Worra, who snuffed out a salvo of New York chances in the first half to essentially take the fight out of the visitors.

Indeed, the contest was so one-sided, Red Bulls captain Dax McCarty was moved to contrition afterwards. “I want to apologize to our fans for our performance,” he said. “It’s one of the most embarrassing performances I’ve been a part of.”

For United, on the other hand, it was a “statement game” (as defender Sean Franklin put it) that gave encouraging signs of potential a third of the way through what has thus far been a maddeningly inconsistent campaign.

“I’m pleased,” head coach Ben Olsen said, “but the message is that this is what we can do. But we can’t wait until it’s New York in a packed house and a week after a loss.”

“Having fight, having more energy, having the right mentality about the game, that’s what we had today. Up until this point, there’s been some good halves and some good encouraging play. We are evolving to the team we expected we’d be.”

After notching a crucial three points, the Black and Red (3-4-4, 5th in MLS’ Eastern Conference) will seek to carry momentum onto the road, as they face the Philadelphia Union and Sporting Kansas City before returning to RFK to host the Seattle Sounders on June 1.