Our first recipient in the inaugural Benny Awards is Clyde Simms, who won the Richie Award with 53% of the vote. I thought this award would be much closer with heavy competition from Bryan Namoff early on, but Simmsy eventually pulled away for the victory.

In a bit of a surprise, the Nelly Award for the biggest contribution from a newcomer went to Louis Crayton. Click to continue reading...

In my last post, I claimed that Tom Soehn had an ADR this year of 3.11. What does that mean? Is that good or bad?

Well as readers of this blog know, I've been passing down player ratings of either "Top Shelf", "Call", or "Rail" to players after every match. I've also been tracking those ratings over the course of the year, and displayed all of them here. Click to continue reading...

By definition, the Popie Award goes to the DC United defender of the year. I think this category is pretty self explanatory. The award's namesake Eddie Pope was the MLS Defender of the Year in 1997, and anchored our team in central defense from 1996 to 2002. Pope remains a member of the MLS All-Time Best XI. Click to continue reading...

It seems like everyone in the stadium knew that this was a must-win game for DC United, except for anybody wearing black. What ever happened to being "hard to play against"? Wasn't that always Soehn's philosophy? This team was fairly easy to play against last night, making bad passes all over the field, including one that probably cost us all hopes of continuing our season. Click to continue reading...

Flight from LA to Honduras: 11 hours
Flight from Honduras to DC: 8 hours
Flight from DC to Dallas: 6 hours

So DC United has spent over 24 hours on airplanes in the last week. And those are three separate days in the past week that we did not have an opportunity to practice. I don't mean to make excuses, but it's hard to believe that a team playing in this situation really has a fair chance. Click to continue reading...

Coming to you live from Dallas, er, Frisco... actually, I'm in D.C. and my esteemed colleague, Boris Flores, is at Pizza Hut Park today. Regardless, here's the starting lineup the coaches have decided on today.

Louis Crayton; Bryan Namoff, Gonzalo Peralta, Devon McTavish, Ivan Guerrero; Fred, Clyde Simms, Santino Quaranta, Boyzzz Khumalo; Jaime Moreno, Luciano Emilio.

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Admit it. You wrote off the Los Angeles Galaxy, didn't you?

Bruce Arena took over too late to fix the problems this season, you figured. David Beckham is worn down from too much travel, and Landon Donovan can't do it alone. You're not even sure who's playing in goal for the Galaxy now -- the young prospect is hurt, the guy with the big hair didn't look so hot, and they just called up this guy from the USL.

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• 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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Time for tonight's Matchday 2 action in the CONCACAF Champions LeagueMarathón 0-0 DC United 23'UNAM 1-0 LA Firpo 25'Joe Public 1-3 OlimpiaMontreal Impact 0-0 Atlante 1936: Marathón should be up 2-0. Chávez on the right plays in Martínez with a beautiful pass, Martínez rounds Crayton, but his shot is deflected by Burch's toe onto the near post. Click to continue reading...

All of these are courtesy of BehindTheBadge.com so go there where you will find a plethora of quotes from United players such as Clyde Simms, Louis Crayton and coach Tom Soehn. And Click Here for a bunch of articles about tonight's match.
"Lucigol" Emilio on Honduran TV

"We haven't really done much coming off the LA game so we just wanted to get some touches – obviously, it's a different ball that we play with – so, we need to get used to the ball again" - Clyde Simms.

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The team held its final training session at Estadio Olimpic before tomorrow's match against CD Marathon (Fox Soccer Channel, 10 p.m. ET). Tom Soehn and his staff ran the team through a long warm-up and then some possession and finishing drills. The field looks pretty decent, though the grass is exceptionally thick.

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Well after 12-plus hours of travel, we've finally arrived in Honduras. It was a long day to be sure. Everyone gathered at the team hotel this evening upon arrival for dinner - meeting Louis Crayton, Luciano Emilio, Fred and Boyzzz Khumalo who had come a day early to make sure their visas were in order.

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As frustrating as it was to watch this team on a roller coaster ride that had its share of ups and downs the past few months, I would trade the past three weeks for that roller coaster. I'm not going to argue that we deserved to win this match, because clearly we didn't, but it sure made it hard for us to have a chance when we suffered from the worst display of officiating that we've seen all year. Click to continue reading...

We're about an hour from kickoff and starting lineups have been named. Here's United's:

Louis Crayton; Bryan Namoff, Devon McTavish, Marc Burch, Gonzalo Martinez; Fred, Clyde Simms, Santino Quaranta, Ivan Guerrero; Boyzzz Khumalo, Luciano Emilio.

And here's the 4-42:

--------------Emilio------------Khumalo-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Quaranta----------------------Guerrero--------------------------------------Fred-----------------------Simms------------------------Martinez-----------------------------------Namoff-------------Burch---------McTavish-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Crayton----------------------- Click to continue reading...

The Galaxy enter today's home game (8:00 pm PDT - FSC) in the grip of a club-record 12 game winless streak, taking just six points from the 36 on offer. They sit at the bottom of the Western Conference on 26 points, four points out of the last Western playoff spot. It's been over 100 days since the team's last win and it is the first time since mid-July that both Landon Donovan and David Beckham will be playing together in front of the Home Depot Center crowd.

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Winless for more than three months and in dire need of maximum points to avoid falling out of the playoff race altogether, the Los Angeles Galaxy cruised to a 5-2 victory over D.C. United on Saturday night - capped by a Landon Donovan hattrick - and instantly vaulted themselves back into postseason contention. 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...

A tie at home against a lesser Western Conference opponent certainly should feel like a loss. Somehow for me though, this one doesn't. Maybe it's because we outplayed Dallas, to the point where I think we really deserved the win. This felt like it should have ended at 2-1. Oh well. I guess we'll just have to steal back those extra two points when we play them again on the road in two weeks. Click to continue reading...

This is a frustrating way to drop two points that were well within grasp. United had a 2-1 lead, and looked marginally the better side. Still, Dallas was finding moments of slicing through the defense, and so it was that Eric Avila slipped down the left side of the defense and send the ball outside of the diving Crayton to Rocha, and United found themselves settling for one point instead of taking all three.

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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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For United, there are seven games - and a possible 21 points - left in this year's edition of Major League Soccer's regular season. The team sits tied for fourth place with the New York Red Bulls and is 11 points back from first place Columbus, nine behind New England (who have played one more game) and six behind Chicago.

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DC United is going to Africa. Instead of their usual shopping in Latin America, the club has gone in a different direction as of late. At the start of the season they signed Francis Doe (Libria) and a month ago they signed keeper Louis Crayton (Liberia). Now they are set to bring on two more Africans [. Click to continue reading...

By definition, the Nelly Award goes to the player who is new to the team this year and has made the most significant positive impact. The award's namesake Ryan Nelsen emerged as a star defender in the MLS shortly after joining the team, and served as United's captain during the 2004 championship run. Click to continue reading...

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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D.C. United withstood a strong challenge from the Charleston Battery on Wednesday night at RFK Stadium to claim the U.S. Open Cup by a score of 2-1, the second time in history that the club from the nation's capital has lifted the Dewar Trophy, having also won in 1996.

It didn't take long for the home side to pull ahead, with last year's MLS MVP Luciano Emilio striking just four minutes into the match. Click to continue reading...

Here is your first moving picture taste of the post-game festivities following United's win over the Battery. Comments from Tom Soehn, Bryan Namoff, Clyde Simms, Louis Crayton and Santino Quaranta on the win and some unbelievable footage from the field celebration. We'll hit you with a full-on Access United tomorrow, but we didn't want you to wake up Thursday morning without something to enjoy.

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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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Actually, I won't be home to fire up the grill and cook up some tasty burgers or skewers for anybody today... but it sure does sound good.

Some teams deserve a day off today based on performances from the weekend. Others deserve extra work for their own putrid effort.


1. Columbus (12-6-4). Click to continue reading...

Who ever said that 0-0 matches aren't exciting? That had to be the most competitive match between these two clubs in a couple years. Usually we dominate these matches, and the last one against the Red Bulls should be thrown out, but I can't think of a time we've ever played them to a scoreless draw. Click to continue reading...

I predict that this match will be an easy pessimist/optimist test for our fans out there. And since I try to stay away from equivocation, let me come out and make the optimistic case. D.C. United owned the majority of this match, but didn't totally dominate it. There was about five minutes in the first half, and the last ten minutes, when things looked dicey for the home side.

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Kickoff is about an hour away. Tommy's main changes come in the back line tonight, as he shuffles a few guys around, while Santino Quaranta moves from the attacking midfield spot to the right flank. Here's what they'll look like at the first whistle:

Louis Crayton; Gonzalo Martinez, Bryan Namoff, Devon McTavish, Marc Burch; Santino Quaranta, Clyde Simms, Joe Vide, Ivan Guerrero; Jaime Moreno, Luciano Emilio

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

------------Moreno-----------Emilio------------------------------------------------------------------------Guerrero--------------------------------Quaranta---------------Vide----------Simms----------------Burch-------------------------------------Martinez------------McTavish--------Burch-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Crayton------------------------ Click to continue reading...

The Red Bulls will finally be injury free when New York takes the field vs. DC United on Saturday night at RFK (7:30p, FSC). The Red Bulls have lifted themselves into the playoff mix by picking up nine points at home over the last three Sundays, but if New York is to solidify its hold on a playoff spot, RBNY must figure out how to get the maximum points on the road. Click to continue reading...