Steve Birnbaum and Patrick Mullins. Photo by Pablo Iglesias Maurer
It took 31 games, but D.C. United finally have their first winning streak of 2016.
United followed up last weekend’s 4-1 thrashing of Orlando City SC with a 3-0 victory over Columbus Crew SC on Wednesday night, bringing them just a bit closer to a playoff berth. The two teams played a forgettable first half of soccer before United came alive, netting a trio of goals late in the second stanza.
With just three regular season games remaining, United sit four points above the playoff line. They’re unbeaten in eight consecutive home matches, and have lost just once in eleven games.
The Highlights:
The Good: United have finally started playing consistently good soccer. D.C.’s fans have never really been sure which team they’ll get this year. United have blown teams out and gotten blown out. They’ve blown late leads, and stormed back to victory. They’ve at times looked like cellar-dwellars and others like a throwback to more entertaining, dominant sides of years past.
But on Wednesday evening, and on last Saturday as well, United finally looked like a team capable of not only qualifying for the playoffs, but making a run in them as well.
And they are playing with an urgency that’s been lacking all year. D.C.’s match against the Crew was by no means a must win, but looking at their remaining schedule, it was perhaps their most important match, a home game against a relatively weak opponent—exactly the kind of match United have failed to show up for in years past. Instead, D.C. dealt with Columbus’ first-half pressure masterfully. Out-possessed 2 to 1, United absorbed the Crew’s pressure in the opening 45 and bit back opportunistically in the second half. They were deservedly rewarded with the win.
The Bad: United’s attendance woes. An announced crowd of just over 12,000 was there to see D.C.’s victory last night, though the actual attendance was much lower. Yes, mid-week games are never well-attended, and many were probably scared away by the weather, but this is a recurring theme at this point.
United have hovered near the bottom of the MLS attendance table all year; their average figure of 16,490 was buoyed a bit by last weekend’s crowd of over 25,000, but still ranks 17th out of 20 MLS teams. It’s an issue many figure will be resolved when D.C. move into their new digs at Buzzard Point, but United will still have to find a way to put an entertaining product on the field. Recent squads haven’t exactly been rife with big names and joyful soccer, and fans have often stayed away in response to that.
The Rest: Playoff qualification is by no means assured at this point, as D.C. will still need results against a strong Toronto FC side this weekend and will close their 2016 with match-ups against NYCFC and Orlando City, neither of which are a gimme … After injuring his knee against Orlando, Marcelo Sarvas will miss 3-4 weeks, further complicating United’s playoff prognosis … Last night marked Ben Olsen’s 50th home victory as a head coach.
