What: DC United at Atlanta "United" When: Saturday, June 10, 7:30 EDT Where: Mercedes-Benz Stadium, in Atlanta How to watch if not visiting Georgia: MLS Season Pass on Apple TV+ How to listen: 1190 AM, 104.7 FM Forecast: air-conditioned interior of the Arthur Dome Meanwhile, besides the certain somebody transfer news, hot takes, ticket prices, and all else... ... there's some actual soccer to be played! Hotlanta is on a four game steak of ties, two of which were 3-3. They are second in the league in GF - and also second in GA. DC may be without Najar, and the others on the list of usual suspects; Robertha, Jeahze, Ruan. Canouse? Another offensive outburst on the dome turf. Goals from Benteke, Taxi, Ted, and O'Brien as DC wins a wild one 4-3.
I watched us lose the first game in league play from the couch at my dad's in Little Valley, NY, and here I am getting ready to scoot over from Athens, GA with my little girls to catch my first DCU game in person. I might even break out the '97-'98 I got on the cheap and printed with my BigSoccer handle on it. ¡Vamos United!
It think we'll see a 2-2 draw to take a nice point on the road and continue Atlanta's love of kissing their sister.
I watched them “play” on Wednesday. They are absolute trash and Almada. Isolate him and don’t give away free kicks ~ 25 meters from goal and we should be fine.
Tonight's Starting XI 🫡#ATLvDC | @InovaHealth pic.twitter.com/p0Vf9z6Okq— D.C. United (@dcunited) June 10, 2023
...and there is the downside of expecting so much from the goalkeeper as an active member of the backline.
The girls chose the Moreno look. From here it looks like the team is avoiding passing to Greene out on the right.
A team has figured out how to exploit our defensive positioning and is actually finishing the chances they are creating. Very annoying but I expect more teams to play this way. Also, they are doing better than most versus Benteke. We've had chances but not finished. Oh, VAR stinks in every and all circumstances.
Him getting caught out badly was, but that play was abysmal judgement. The ball was headed away from goal and there were defenders in pursuit to contain an attacker in the corner. Also, what does Dajome bring besides speed? His service even when he’s not under pressure looks piss poor. Vancouver can’t be picking up enough of his salary.
Miller’s form has the trajectory of a dive bomber. The guy is playing terribly. First and second goals were abysmal keeping. If Rooney doesn’t bench him, Rooney’s even less of a manager than I thought.
Miller was punished for poor decisions. He wasn't the only reason the team lost. Miller is playing how Rooney will have any goalkeeper play. Any goalkeeper in this system will have to make decisions they aren't always used to making. That mindset apparently leads to goalkeepers playing passing lanes instead of sticking to goalkeeping which should be the priority when in the box. Bono is next up and is a significant step down.
I was unable to watch being out of the country but the stats sheet seems to tell me we played well enough just couldn’t finish. The comments here tell me the defensive end was caught out as well. That’s gonna be a loss every time.
I think that is pretty accurate. I was pretty satisfied at half time with the performance, we seemed to be doing an ok job with containment, but had given up the rather bad Miller goal (that he should not have come out for). The second half it was clear that they could get quick counterattacks, and we had no answer to that.
I wasn't as exasperated with this loss as I've been with others. Atlanta is poor defensively and "could" be exploited by a team with better overall balance. This is where Rooney's developing, but still poor talent evaluation skills, and Kasper's general long standing incompetence came home to roost. What killed DCU was the absolute lack of any effective wingback play. Think back to the end of 2021, DCU had two prototypical wingbacks -- Arriola and Gressel -- one a Nat team player, the other considered the best wingback in MLS. Both are gone for bags of Garberbucks. Arriola left because of Losada, who was dumped 6 games after Arriola left and Gressel was dumped because Rooney decided Jackson Hopkins was a more useful and impactful player. So -- what does DCU have as wingbacks. Najar and Ruan -- both speedy, somewhat crafty, but with legs made of glass. On the left, DCU has Santos -- a smart player with absolutely no wheels who poses no real threat going forward and Jeahze, first injured, then incarcerated and. now just injured (and acquired when DCU intended to play 4 in the back). The backups to those 4 are Greene -- a rookie who needs to spend serious time in the weight room because he can be knocked off the ball with a feather and is quick, but not fast and Samake, who shouldn't be in MLS. Last night, Atlanta knew from the jump that neither Greene nor Santos would figure offensively so it gave free rein to Atlanta's wide players to attack the glacial Santos for pace and the inexperienced Greene. The results were predictable and Miller's poor play just compounded the felony. In this window, DCU should forget about O'Brien. A midfield of Durkin, Klich and Canouse with Palsson in reserve is good enough. What this team needs is one competent, reasonably robust wingback. Then maybe, just maybe, DCU would have a team that could ask multiple questions of a defense. Until then, look for teams as well coached as Atlanta to play the same game plan over and over against a team with absolutely no width.