D.C. United entered Sunday's match against Columbus Crew SC at MAPFRE Stadium knowing that a win would earn them the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference and a spot in the Conference Semifinals. A loss, and they'd book a spot in a midweek Knockout Round game, forcing them to earn their spot in the semis.
United head coach Ben Olsen and a fair share of D.C.’s players spent most of the week preaching the significance of the match, while a few others pointed out that teams that have entered the playoffs as a lower seed and rolled through that early play-in game have gone on to big things.
"Does the bye even help us?” asked D.C. attacker Chris Rolfe. "If you get in that play-in game and win, you have momentum that other teams don’t have playing that first home playoff game. I’m not against playing that play-in game.”
Rolfe’s question will soon be answered. After an absolute drubbing at the hands of the Columbus Crew on Sunday afternoon – a 5-0 defeat that set a new mark for the largest margin of victory in series history – United finished their 2015 campaign as the No. 4 seed in the East and will welcome the New England Revolution to RFK Stadium on Wednesday (7:30pm ET | UniMás, TSN2). If their match against Columbus was a figurative must-win, their play-in against New England is a literal one: Win, or go home.
"I take sole responsibility on this one,” Olsen said. "I didn’t prepare this group properly this week. I didn’t prepare them enough tactically and that was evident tonight. This one is on me and the good thing is it doesn’t matter – it’s an ego shot, it’s a punch in the face, but we’ve seen them respond over the past two years in moments like this. My message to this guys is pick your heads up, let’s go catch a flight, get back home, and all focus and mindset goes on New England.”
D.C. looked competitive in the game’s opening quarter hour but slowly ceded control of the match to Crew SC, who never gave it back. D.C. fullback Taylor Kemp has been among United’s most consistent performers all year, but had a rough go of it on Sunday; 25 minutes in, his errant touch landed at the feet of Crew midfielder Mohammed Saeid, who fed Jack McInerney for Columbus' opener.
United gave up Columbus’ second early on in the second half, and from there, the floodgates opened.
“If you’re chasing a game in this league against a team like Columbus, you can potentially eat it,” said Olsen. "It’s that simple. The second half is concerning, but to me the first goal – it was a costly turnover. The second goal was a little soft. I thought our shape – we weren’t disciplined enough in our shape and how we wanted to defend against them and that is solely on me.
“... They’re a very, very tough team to chase. They’re as tough as they come in this league to chase. That’s what happened. And then, at some point we’re saving energy out there and trying to get guys off with cards and make sure we’re getting ourselves ready for Wednesday."
All is not lost for United, but questions will have to be answered about how D.C. – a team that had been on the upswing heading into their matchup against Columbus – bounce back psychologically after such a lopsided defeat. Olsen, whose hand-picked group of MLS veterans was constructed in part for their ability to weather this type of adversity, seemed assured enough after the loss.
"I’m fairly confident,” Olsen said. "You can go two ways with this. It can fuel you, piss you off a little bit as I’m sure most to these guys are feeling right now, or you can put your heads down and let this affect you. I’ve known this crew now for two years and I know there’s enough character and experience in that locker room to understand that in some ways this may be a get out of jail free card. And now we have a new lease against a very good team in New England that has to come to our building, come to RFK where we’ve been pretty successful."
