The more things change, the more they stay the same as the saying goes. After it struck me to compare the 2001 DC United team to the 2009 side, I was dumfounded with the similarities between the two teams and the situations they were in. Let’s just hope the results fare a little better this time around.
A lot of people are talking about how this slow start in 2007 reminds them of DC’s abysmal 2000 season. That got me thinking about what we here at Unitedmania were writing about as that appalling season unfolded. This particular editorial was written July 7th of 2000, but it has some relevant thoughts that might be applied to DC United in 2007.
DC’s incredible win this past weekend over Houston brings to mind the old feelings of arrogance that used to waft all through RFK Stadium. No matter what the season or the situation, it seemed like DC could always count on a victory at home. Even in the beginning of the dark ages, that horrific 2000 season, United’s mystical aura of invincibility still commanded respect in RFK, no matter who was coming to town, and no game showed their invincibility more than when they put out the Chicago Fire.
Any conversation about the most talented and successful MLS players in the league’s short history certainly has to begin and end with Jaime Moreno. His joining DC United in 1996 turned an average team into the most successful franchise in league history, and, as last week makes clear, he is still terrorizing defenses while most of his peers are retired.
In an odd twist of MLS fate, this Saturday against Chivas USA will be the second time that expansion teams have played their season-opening matches at home, and as the first time, DC United will again have the dubious honor of being the opponent. And, as in 1998′s season opener against the Miami Fusion, United will go into the 2005 season-opener defending a title on the road against the league’s newest promotional project in a hostile environment.
‘I love the feel of RFK on Opening Day. It feels like victory.’ to paraphrase a wonderful character from Apocalypse Now. (Not that RFK is like napalm, of course, but you get the idea.)
It’s just that there’s just nothing like the excitement of the first day back after a long off-season.
Nope, not April Fools Day, United truly has been in worse situations than this preseason and managed to make the MLS Cup final. Of course talking about a Cup after last year’s debacle and seeing as how every team in MLS has gotten better is reckless to say the least, but you gotta have hope, or what’s the point of playing the games?
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