Match Reports

DC United Disappointed Despite Victory

After losing to Pachuca 2-0 in Mexico, United needed at least a two goal margin of victory, and fell just short in winning 2-1 in the return leg at RFK tonight. After Pachuca took the lead in the 76th minute, United substitutes Rod Dyachenko and Franco Niell each scored in the final five minutes to give United the disappointing victory that fell one goal short.

Coach Tommy Soehn was clearly bitterly disappointed after the match for failing to find that first goal early in the match when the team created plenty of good opportunities. But, even more galling was a clear penalty kick that wasn’t called for United when Fred was brought down in the 56th minute.

Soehn felt that on top of the early missed chances, the missed call was a huge mistake that turned the match. “We’re disappointed. We had a plan and we thought we executed it very well. Unfortunately, we didn’t finish our chances early and that put us behind the eight ball. But, our guys fought and made it very difficult for them. We knew how to close them down and they did a great job of that. The one thing we couldn’t account for is some of the calls that were made that were game changers. In these big games, for an official to blow a penalty call like that is a game changer. Absolutely. I watched it in the locker room and that’s a PK anywhere in the world. It’s disappointing as our guys deserved better."

The play in question started when Jaime Moreno jumped on a mistake by Julio Manzur to collect a loose ball at the top of the Pachuca penalty box. Closed down quickly, Moreno laid the ball back for Gallardo, who slipped it perfectly into Fred bursting in on goal. Lopez was clearly beaten and obviously clipped Fred from behind bringing him down heavily, yet Salvadoran referee, Jose Aguilar refused to make the call.

However, as Soehn mentioned, United put themselves in the soup by failing to finish some glorious opportunities in the first half when they dominated the game. Pachuca clearly came in to the match willing to concede some possession and do just enough to advance. But their bend, but not break mentality nearly cost them as DC repeatedly hammered at their goal throughout the first 45 minutes.

Emilio in particular had a rough night and had the most egregious missed chances of the match for the home side. In the 28th minute, right back Devon McTavish got on the end of a lovely overlap and struck a perfect cross to Emilio at the near post, unfortunately his angled shot whistled just wide of the far post.

Then again in the 43rd minute Jaime Moreno slipped a lovely through ball in to last year’s MLS golden boot winner streaking into the box, but he inexplicably took three touches allowing a Pachuca defender time to sweep the ball away without a shot.

When asked about Emilio and the missed chances early in the match afterwards, Soehn pointed out that goal scoring can be such fickle thing in soccer. “It happens. We had other chances as well. Sometimes you get in streaks where you’re scoring and sometimes you don’t. You have to credit our opponents for closing down some of those and putting pressure on us. Again we had some real clear chances that we failed to put away and it came back to bite us.”

At the start of the second half, Pachuca took control of the game and had some great chances chances of their own to put the game away, but DC hung tough and was fortunate to see Juan Carlos Cacho blow a few open shots for the visitors that arguably were better looks on goal than the few Emilio had missed.

After the missed call on the PK and with time running down, DC was forced to gamble and brought in Marc Burch for Santino Quaranta, and Franco Niell for McTavish. The substitutions had an immediate impact and swung the momentum back towards DC, but again United just could not get the ball into the net despite great chances.

In the 65th minute, Burch swung in a glorious cross right to Emilio in front of goal, but his header was brilliantly saved by Calero, who sprawled to barely slap it away. Then in the 69th minute, Moreno laid the ball back for Niell, but Manzur stretched a toe into the way just enough so his shot was deflected over the bar.

However, with United pressing so hard for the goals they needed to advance, one mistake crushed their chances. In the 76th minute, Emilio laid back a woeful ball that missed Gallardo by yards and led to a classic counterattack that Alvarez finished easily.

United refused to give up and finally broke through for the consolation win with the insertion of Rod Dyachenko for Moreno with ten minutes left in the match.

United scored to tie the match in the 84th minute when Namoff sent a long pass to Fred up the right side, where he burst clean past left back Fausto Pinto and got to the endline. Able to look up, he picked out Dyachenko at the penalty spot and slid a perfect pass in for him to hammer into the back of the net.

The winner came in the 90th minute again from Dyachenko as he looped a perfect chip over the defense to Fred charging on goal, but as he’s closed down, he slips it over to Niell in the center of the box where he picked out the lower corner with precision for the disappointing 2-1 win.

Soehn was very complimentary of his reserve players and the way they came in and made a difference. “We’ve always talked about this as a team effort. You have 28 guys on your roster and everybody at some point impacts the game. I said this before the game. That each of the 18 [on game day roster] can impact this game in a big way and we need 18 guys to show up today. So we got that. They energized us and got the goals. We’ve got a deep team and we’re going to continue to use it. They all work hard and they all deserve time at some point when they’re needed.”

One final insult to add to the pile was United being robbed by a mere two minutes of stoppage time at the end of the match. Considering three goals scored and six substitutions made in the second half, two minutes was more than a little sparse, and was especially cruel as DC had so much momentum at that point in the match.

However, Soehn took note of some positives that were apparent from this match. “We have a talented group. I think defensively they didn’t have a lot of answers for the way we adjusted [from the first game to this one]. Give our guys credit for learning something new in the course of a few days in how to break them down, and they are not an easy team to break down.”

The team also should be pleased that the defense was clearly able to handle the pressure of possibly the most dangerous attacking group in the entire region. The goals Pachuca scored were remarkable efforts and considering the overall result, the series was a lot closer than the first game seemed to imply.

The heartbreaking win does mean that continues United its incredible undefeated streak against Mexican sides in RFK. The team is 5-0-4 at home against Mexican teams in all competitions dating back to the formation of the team.

United now concentrates on MLS, returning to action against Real Salt Lake on Saturday, and are at home next Thursday against the Columbus Crew. The team doesn’t have another outside tournament until the Open Cup and Superliga which will be played in July.

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