NOTE: The following data is assuming Chicago and Portland miss the playoffs and NY makes them, which I suspect MLS will move heaven and earth, if need be, to ensure happens. We like to think of DC United as “MLS’ flagship” and its “original dynasty” because of all the trophies its won. And in many ways, that’s fairly accurate, especially the part about the original dynasty. But in an odd paradox, United is also one of the worst teams in league history in terms of making the playoffs. After being eliminated this season, United will now miss the playoffs for the fourth straight season. That ties the league’s non-expansion record for consecutive seasons out of the post-season, set by San Jose between 1997 and 2000. The only longer streak of playoff futility is Toronto’s, which has never made the post-season in its 5-year history. Further, United has now missed the playoffs 7 times overall. If you count San Jose 1.0 and Houston as one franchise, United has made the playoffs the FEWEST amount of times among the league’s 10 oldest teams. (The remaining original nine plus Chicago.) Percentage-wise, DCU’s playoff ratio is .562. The only franchises that are worse are San Jose (.500 if you count both incarnations or .250 if you just count 2.0) and expansion teams Portland, Vancouver and Toronto, who are .000. Considering MLS is and always has been a league where its harder to miss the playoffs than make them because so many teams get in, to miss the post-season this often is a remarkable bout of futility. The amazing thing about all this is that despite the playoff futility, United still has won the most trophies in league history at 11 (4 MLS Cups, 4 Supporters’ Shields, 2 Open Cups, 1 CONCACAF Cup). Los Angeles, even if it wins MLS Cup this year, will still be one behind United. What makes this feast-or- famine, all-or-nothing trend even more frustrating/maddening/curious is even if you take away the bounty of trophies won in the dynasty of the first four years, United still has won more trophies – 4 since 99 – than most of the teams in MLS have won… ever. Only LA (9), Chicago (6), Columbus (5) and San Jose I.0/Houston (5 if you count them together) have topped the four DC has win this millennium. Still, for all the talk of “We Win Trophies”, sadly, “We Miss The Playoffs” is just as accurate. Here’s the chart of MLS teams in order of playoff appearances. Code: TEAM PO/Eligible PCT. YEARS MISSED Los Angeles 13/16 .812 2006, 07, 08 New York 12/16 .750 97, 99, 02, 09 Dallas 12/16 .750 03, 04, 08, 09 Chicago 11/14 .785 04, 10, 11 Columbus 11/16 .687 2000, 03, 05, 06, 07 Colorado 11/16 .687 96, 01, 07, 08, 09 Kansas City 10/16 .625 98, 99, 05, 06, 09, 10 New England 10/16 .625 96, 98, 99, 01, 10, 11 DC 9/16 .562 2000, 01, 02, 08, 09, 10, 11 San Jose 7/14 .500 1997, 98, 99, 2000; 2008^, 09, 11 Houston 5/6 .833 2010 Tampa Bay 4/6 .667 98, 01 Salt Lake 4/7 .571 05^, 06, 07 Chivas USA 4/7 .571 05^, 10, 11 Seattle 3/3 1.000 None Miami 3/4 .750 2000 Philadelphia 1/2 .500 2010^ Portland 0/1 .000 2011^ Vancouver 0/1 .000 2011^ Toronto 0/5 .000 2007^, 08, 09, 10, 11 ^ Expansion team
Interesting. I think it's because we are very slow to change. When we are winning, we don't change much, and when we are losing, we don't change things much. Cycle on, cycle off. Too slow to recognize when and where things are going wrong, but sometimes the continuity produces results. Other teams change at a more rapid pace and plunk along in mediocrity, such as NE, Colorado, etc. Other teams change a lot and either strike gold or fool's gold. DC United is like an economy. Tinker tinker boom bust.
well I'm blown that they missed the playoffs but I cant help but feel like this year, though turbulent, was progress. We got Dero under contract, the defense has gotten much better than last year, and when healthy the midfield and offense was clicking. I think a lot of people are forgetting that before we had to scramble the lineup with the pointius injury and national team duties they were arguably playing better than anyone else in the eastern conference.
DC has either been all-conquering or in the toilet. They've had very few years of just being mediocre, which to me is defined as qualifying for the playoffs as a low seed and appropriately getting bounced in the first round. 2003 is about the only year that qualifies as mediocre to me.
Depth is a serious issue here. I remember back in the Marco, Agoos, LLamosa, Jaime days when we would lose all those guys plus some to national callups and the bench guys would come in and not miss a beat. I remember one Revolution game in particular where we just whooped up on them like it was nobody's business. We can't even do that with the first team anymore.
There was a period of time after we acquired DeRo where it was beginning to click. The Canadian national team call-ups forced us to juggle our use of DeRo and led to Jakovic's extended injury absence. Then came Pontius's season-ending injury which put the team into its death-spiral. If Pontius and Jakovic stayed healthy, I think this team qualifies for the playoffs comfortably.
I don't want to get left behind in the outrage contest. Nevertheless, this season has to count as some sort of success. True, DCU did not make the playoffs but they did improve from embarrassing to mediocre, which is a lot harder than one might imagine, even in MLS. The front office found enough players in other teams' dumpsters to emerge from the abyss that was last season. And Bennie imposed just enough order to climb away from the bottom of the league. If one wants to be outraged, however, one should focus on the likelihood that DCU will continue to progress next season. The roster is still weak, particularly once one gets beyond the starting eleven. I think Bennie got about as much as one could from this bunch. Standing pat will mean only regression next season. The path to improvement would seem to include drafting some more talented players, making the right decisions about Davies, Boskovic, and DeRosario (good players but at what price?), and finding some foreign players who can contribute. At the risk of seeming a defeatist, I have a hard time imagining the current front office, regardless of the improvement this season, making the right moves over the offseason. In all three areas, their track record is far from stellar. It's hard not to like Bennie, but I also suspect that serious improvement requires a coach with more experience. I would look in the college ranks, because coaching in MLS is more like coaching in the NCAA than it is in another professional league. I doubt, however, that the current brains trust will look for a better coach, and if they did I doubt whether anyone decent would agree to work for DCU without some changes in the front office.
I just don’t buy injuries and call-ups as an excuse for poor performance when that’s an issue faced by ever team. Look at the Galaxy. Leonardo was their 1st choice centerback opposite Omar Gonzalez and he’s only started 7 games. His back-up, Gregg Berhalter, has played 9 (7 starts). Even Gonzalez missed 4 games. Sean Franklin has missed 6 games (and been forced to play MF some, too.) The reigning MLS GK of the Year has only made 14 starts. Hell, one game they had to use a 3rd string GK and another game a field player had to play a half in goal and both kept a clean sheet. And despite all that, they had the best the defense in the league – by a lot – and one of the stingiest in league history. The midfield and attack has been mix-and-match all season. Juninho (30 starts), Beckham (25), Angel (17), Donovan (21), Barrett (20), Magee (20), Birchall (16), Lopez (14), Stephens (11), Cardozo (8), Cristman (5), Keane (3), Kirovski (1) plus Franklin and Bryan Jordan stated some games in MF as well as RB and I don’t know how many were which. And the Galaxy won the Shield going away. It can be done. Besides, NY had injuries and call-ups, too. So did Houston. You take away DC's injuries and you have to take away their's, too so whom would DC have caught? Like I said, I just don't think injuries and call-ups are a viable excuse when it's an issue faced by every team.
RSL lost Morales and Saborio for how much of the season? It seemed like a lot. Seattle got hit hard too. They both did fine.
Exactly. Dallas lost the reigning MLS MVP. Colorado lost a Best XI forward. Philly lost their starting GK and had to go with a 20-year old rookie. And like LA, Seattle and Salt Lake, all those teams are in the playoffs. Building a team that can handle injuries, call-ups, suspensions and fatigue is part of the deal. Most, if not all, of the teams that did so are in the playoffs. DCU didn't - again - and isn't in the playoffs.
I'm a bit confused by those clinging to the fact that DC United improved from last year is a true measure of success. They were the worst (or second worst ) team in league history. They would have to really go out of their way to not improve. Also the defense didn't improve from last year. 2011: 33 games 51 goals allowed (after 30 games it was 46 goals) 2010: 30 games 47 goals allowed
I remember another away game in LA where seriously like only 3 starters played (not the spine) and we still won easily. There are a few things at play now a days, but despite some evidence to the contrary, I think the difference is Bruce. He knows how to be a leader of men, and he's got years and years of coaching experience. He is the main reason LA is the top team in the league. Ah, but we scored a lot more. That's the improvement. The key now is to put those pieces back together next year with one big upgrade in defense. Combined with all the other young players improving, we should see the GA go down.
To me, the bigger point isn't missing the playoffs THIS year. It's missing the playoffs FOUR straight years, SEVEN of the last 12 and more times overall than ANY OTHER team in the league. Miss the playoffs one year and you can write it off to a lot of easily explainable and understandable things. But miss them year after year and more than all your competitors? In a league that's VERY forgiving in terms of making the post-season? That's an institutional issue. And, it means the institutions within the the organization need to be changed and, ideally, replaced. We all know who those are. We also all know Will Chang lacks either the wisdom to see what needs to be done or the courage to do it and thus those changes won't be made.
Is this right? It occurs to me that we haven't made the playoffs since the jersey lost its stripes. Not that that's the problem ...
Exactly, it is easy to curse some bad luck, but fact is other sides had it as bad or worse. I mean, Los Angeles went to Columbus without Beckham, Keane and had Donovan for about 30 minutes...and still ground out a 0-1 victory.
Is that true? ---- me. If true, someone needs to make more of that little statistic. We tend to think of the bad years as a blip in DC's success (or at least I do), but really, DC has failed to even make the playoffs almost half the time? Jesus ----ing ----tastic ---reaming dammit, now I'm pissed.
Are we destined to be the Sunderland or Blackburn Rovers of MLS? Early glory, fading into continual disappointment?
Dang skippy, it is! (See what I did there?) That United missed the playoffs the last four seasons or from 2000 thru 02 isn't up for debate. Nor is the fact that it adds up to 7 seasons out of the playoffs or that from 2000 till this year is 12 seasons. Ergo, that they've missed the playoffs 7 out of the past 12 seasons is, sadly, most definitely true. As for the second part, about being out of the playoffs more than any other team, that also appears to be true. None of the expansion teams from 05 on have been around more than 7 years and with the exception of Toronto, which is 0-for-5, all have made the playoffs. Therefore DCU has missed the playoffs more than all the expansion teams. That's a fact. That leaves the original other 8 teams plus Chicago. I noted in the chart I posted in the first post of this thread, the years each team has missed the playoffs and unless I missed something in my research, and I double checked it because I was surprised at the conclusion, United has missed the playoffs the most in league history. San Jose has also missed the playoffs 7 times, but three of those are San Jose 2.0, the expansion version. If you had SJ 1.0 to Houston, that organization only missed the playoffs 5 times. That is the point I'm trying to make in all this. This isn't about this season or even last season. It's cumulative and it's bad. The only thing that negates it is that the good is so good. There isn't a lot of middle ground with DC United. As someone noted before in this thread, when they're good, they're very good. But when they're bad, they're really bad and they've been both really good and really bad more than any other team in the league. The team has a manic-depressive history. Hell, the jersey sponsor should be Prozac.
We are the Oakland Raiders of the MLS because no matter our record our fans travel and we like to get into trouble. Think about it.