After 60 minutes of this match, I was all ready to come on here and say I was wrong about wanting to punt the CCL. A goalless draw would have been a wonderful result. But as is typical with this club, we let up 2 soft goals off of shotty defending. And now we're staring up from the bottom of a fully stacked group. Click to continue reading...

• If Christian Miles describes something as "courageous" one more time, I'll lose it. I'm definitely adding that to the Christian Miles Drinking Game. One drink for every time he says "courageous", finish your drink when he describes something as amazing when he sounds like he'd rather wear black and listen to Depeche Mode.

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The bad news is that Santino Quaranta will not be dressing tonight. The 23-year old suffered some pretty deep bruises on his ankle and shin Saturday night in LA and will be held out this evening. Bummer.

The good news is that the guys are all feeling pretty positive and will be coming out in a slightly more defensive-oriented posture tonight, running at type of 4-4-1-1.

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D.C. United 0 : 2 Saprissa
Six Word Novel Recap

Pity those sent out to fail.

Media, Traditional and OtherwiseThe Washington Times, John Haydon: "Undermanned because of injuries and playing with only 10 men for 50 minutes, D.C. United fell 2-0 to Costa Rican champion Deportivo Saprissa at RFK Stadium on Tuesday night. Click to continue reading...

I was wrong when I suggested earlier that DCU would probably be taking the CCL seriously, since they had rested Emilio and Fred for the Dallas match. Instead we sent out an even weaker team tonight, that included the reappearance of Zach Wells! Goff says it's because Crayton had a sore knee, I'm not so sure. Click to continue reading...

And here.. we... go..

Zach Wells; Bryan Namoff, Devon McTavish, Marc Burch, Gonzalo Martinez; Boyzzz Khumalo, Clyde Simms, Santino Quaranta, Craig Thompson; Luciano Emilio, Ryan Cordeiro

Bench: Louis Crayton, Rod Dyachenko, Francis Doe, Quavas Kirk, Jaime Moreno, Fred, Greg Janicki

And here's what the 4-4-2 will look like:

-----------Cordeiro------------Emilio------------- --------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------Quaranta----------------------- Thompson------------------------------Khumalo ----------------------Simms------------------------- Martinez-----------------------------------Namoff -------------Burch---------McTavish------------- -------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------Wells-------------------------- Click to continue reading...

And here.. we... go..

Zach Wells; Bryan Namoff, Devon McTavish, Marc Burch, Gonzalo Martinez; Boyzzz Khumalo, Clyde Simms, Santino Quaranta, Craig Thompson; Luciano Emilio, Ryan Cordeiro

Bench: Louis Crayton, Rod Dyachenko, Francis Doe, Quavas Kirk, Jaime Moreno, Fred, Greg Janicki

And here's what the 4-4-2 will look like:

-----------Cordeiro------------Emilio-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Quaranta-----------------------Thompson------------------------------Khumalo----------------------Simms-------------------------Martinez-----------------------------------Namoff-------------Burch---------McTavish--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Wells-------------------------- Click to continue reading...

By definition the Convey award goes to the team's Rookie of the Year. But there's a couple of different ways you could interpret that. Do you give the award to the young player who has made the biggest contribution so far this season? Or do you give it to the guy who has the best chance of being a star in the MLS? Click to continue reading...

We're about an hour from kick-off and Tom Soehn has named his starters for this evening's match. Most notable are Boyzzz Khumalo getting the start up top with Jaime Moreno and Quavas Kirk getting his first League start at right mid. Here's the full squad:

Louis Crayton; Bryan Namoff, Devon McTavish, Marc Burch, Gonzalo Martinez; Quavas Kirk, Clyde Simms, Santino Quaranta, Ivan Guerrero; Boyzzz Khumalo, Jaime Moreno.

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So Moreno is hanging out with Butch and Sundance, and Emilio's hurt, and I'm thinking, "Well, with Crayton in goal and the steadying presence of Bryan Namoff, Peralta and the new infusion of energy from Joe Vide, perhaps we can eek out a goal on a counter while keeping San Jose at nil." Except, of course, we have neither Namoff nor Vide nor Peralta, and Martinez was clearly watching his "Best of Facundo Erpen" highlight reel.

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No Namoff. No Peralta. No Olsen. No Fred. No Moreno. No Emilio. No matter.

Tom Soehn has named his starting lineup for tonight's match in San Jose. These are the men charged with bringing a result back to the Nation's Capital:

Louis Crayton; Gonzalo Martinez, Devon McTavish, Marc Burch, Mike Zaher; Santino Quaranta, Clyde Simms, Rod Dyachenko, Marcelo Gallardo, Ivan Guerrero; and Francis Doe.

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Tom Soehn has named his starting lineup for tonight's championship battle against the Battery. The same players who started Saturday's game against New York will take the field, with the only change being Santino Quaranta moving to the middle of thte park and Joe Vide pushing out wide (where they played the second half).

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Prior to D.C. United's victory over the Colorado Rapids I honestly predicted the final score to be, D.C. United 3 – Colorado 0. Now, it's true that I always predict that D.C. United will win 3-0, but for the first time since August 5th of last season I was correct. I owe it all to Quavas Kirk.

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The big news out of the locker room this evening is that Ben Olsen has been named to the 18-man roster for tonight's game. Benny has been training for the last week and a half and is attempting to salvage the season after numerous ankle surgeries over the last nine months. His lone appearance of the season came on June 29, when United beat LA 4-1 and Ben came on as a 75th minute substitute.

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Head Coach Tom Soehn continues to have to deal with player injuries and absences heading into tonight's match with the Revolution. Ivan Guerrero is with the Honduran National Team for their World Cup qualifier in Mexico this evening, while Gonzalo Martinez is serving a one-game suspension for yellow card accumulation.

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We're about an hour from kickoff now, and Head Coach Tom Soehn has named his lineup. The big change is that newcomer Louis Crayton - who was officially signed yesterday - will get the start in goal ahead of Zach Wells.

Here's the full squad: Louis Crayton; Bryan Namoff, Devon McTavish, Marc Burch, Gonzalo Martinez; Fred, Clyde Simms, Santino Quaranta, Ivan Guerrero; Jaime Moreno, Luciano Emilio.

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So the main question posed throughout our series in review of the player acquisitions, departures, and trades made by DC United since the end of last season is whether or not the club is actually better off now than they were last year. Let's review, position by position.

Goalkeepers:
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A couple of quick updates from Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium...

Francis Doe has been dealing with a pretty severe toe infection for the last few weeks and yesterday went to have it checked out. Doe went through a process called debridement, which removes the infected tissue. It's tough to say immediately how long he'll be out, but he'll likely miss at least a couple of weeks while healing.

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Well, it might very well rain on us this evening, but this is attempt number three at trying to play this soccer game so I'm told we're going to do everything we can to get it in before the daylight of Thursdady arrives. Let's hope the rain holds off and we get it in when we're supposed to.

With injuries aplenty, Tom Soehn has made a few changes to tonight's lineup:

Zach Wells; Pat Carroll, Bryan Namoff, Marc Burch, Gonzalo Martinez; Devon McTavish, Clyde Simms, Fred, Craig Thompson; Luciano Emilio, Jaime Moreno.

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Kickoff is just around the corner and Tom Soehn has named his starting lineup. With a few tired players after a bunch of games during the last month, the coaching staff has decided to rest a few key players. Here's the eleven that will take the field to start against Houston:

Zach Wells; Bryan Namoff, Pat Carroll, Devon McTavish, Marc Burch; Craig Thompson, Clyde Simms, Fred, Ryan Cordeiro; Luciano Emilio, Francis Doe.

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Hey folks, I am heading up to Portland, ME for a week-long vacation tomorrow, so I won't be posting quite as much as usual. Don't worry, I'll be sure to let you know my thoughts on Craig Thompson's upcoming signing with Arsenal (he's all we can afford at this point), but otherwise I am going [...] Click to continue reading...

Due to a limited budget, I haven't made it to too many United games this year, but this was a game that I feel was probably much better to watch in person than on tv. Good atmosphere at RFK as always (and the lights stayed on!), but it seemed like less attendance than usual. All in all, a pretty exciting game, including a frantic final 10 minutes that had my usually quiet section standing throughout. Click to continue reading...

meet See, when I ripped Craig Thompson earlier today on the blog I did it to motivate him, not trash him... and it worked too, what with him setting up DC's first goal tonight. Yum, this crow tastes good. Click to continue reading...

The big addition to today's 18-man roster is the inclusion of Santino Quaranta to the substitute's bench. Tino hasn't played since the team's 4-1 win over the Galaxy on June 29, when he left the game after just 27 minutes with a hamstring strain.

Here's tonight's starting lineup:

Zach Wells; Bryan Namoff, Devon McTavish, Marc Burch, Gonzalo Martinez; Craig Thompson, Clyde Simms, Jaime Moreno, Fred; Luciano Emilio, Francis Doe.

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United will look to rebound from its 2-1 loss to Chivas de Guadalajara on Saturday when it faces Atlante FC this evening at RFK Stadium in its second SuperLiga Group A match (8 p.m. ET). The game will be broadcast live on TeleFutura and can also be heard on the radio in english (1050 AM) and spanish (1540 AM).

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Just got finished watching the match immediately following my three hour drive home from Virginia Beach. At least I should say I just got finished watching 81 minutes of the match. I missed the rest thanks to the lights at RFK delaying the match past 10:00 pm. What's with that anyway? That's just embarassing. Click to continue reading...

Quick impressions from the SuperLiga opener at RFK Stadium, a 2-1 win for Chivas over D.C. United:

* Which team was in preseason? If you lined up all 22 players on the field for a sprint across the field, the Chivas players would probably come in first through 11th. They ran fast and played fast. Click to continue reading...

With a host of injuries, Coach Tom Soehn has had to make a few adjustments to his usual starting lineup. The team will be sticking to the 4-4-2 it has recently been running out - here's how they'll start this evening:

Zach Wells; Bryan Namoff, Devon McTavish, Marc Burch, Gonzalo Martinez; Craig Thompson, Clyde Simms, Rod Dyachenko, Fred; Luciano Emilio, Jaime Moreno

Subs: James Thorpe, Pat Carroll, Mike Zaher, Ryan Cordeiro, Quavas Kirk, Dane Murphy, Francis Doe.

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Since I didn't witness the match myself, the following player ratings are based on excerpts taken from comments written about the game on the Soccer Insider:


1. "For me, Marc Burch was by far the player of the match, and not just because of the 2 goals. Through much of the game, he was among the most active player on the field. Click to continue reading...

Yesterday we announced the signing of Craig Thompson to a developmental contract. D.C. United acquired the midfielder from the Houston Dynamo in exchange for a fourth round natural selection in the 2010 Supplemental Draft.

Thompson will be available for selection in tonight's U.S. Open Cup match against the Rochester Rhinos, set for a 7:30 p.

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