On the positive side of things, D.C. United ended their two-game road trip at FC Dallas on Saturday with a 2-2 draw. That gave the Red-and-Black four of a possible six points away from RFK Stadium. While head coach Tom Soehn and his players aren't happy to come away with anything less than six, they now head back to the nation's capital to begin a five-game homestand on Wednesday against Kansas City.
"I still think we showed signs of having a lot of games, especially in the first half," Soehn said. "We weren't really knocking the ball around the way we wanted to. We were a little too direct."
About three minutes before halftime, Soehn wasn't pleased with his club's performance and summoned veteran Jaime Moreno from his bench to solidify things a bit. The move paid off as United tied things up at 1-1 two minutes later.
"I called for Jaime (Moreno) to come in to try to settle the game down and to add some soccer to it," Soehn said. "I felt like there was a lot of space to expose them and we didn't do a good enough job. Jaime adds a better soccer IQ when he comes in with possession. He knows when to slow down and when to play fast. So he actually added a lot when he came in."
The United coach saw some of the improvement he was seeking, but in the end, his club still didn't come away with the full three points.
"We talked a lot at halftime about keeping the ball a little bit better and swinging it from side-to-side, which we didn't do, but I do think we showed signs of tired legs," Soehn said. "When you go up a man, you want to finish the game off. I think everybody is pretty disappointed that we didn't come away with three."
In the 57th minute, D.C. got a break when FCD defender Daniel Torres was sent off for tackling Santino Quaranta from behind inside the box.
"I know he got him from behind," Soehn said. "I always wait to comment on stuff until I watch the video. From where I was sitting, it looked like he got him and impeded the shot. I'll watch the video and have a better feeling of where he's at."
Quaranta also chimed in on the PK that he drew, which was subsequently converted by Moreno.
"No, he (Torres) hit me," he said. "I should have scored. I was just waiting for him to hit me. I knew he was going to score the penalty. I thought it was a penalty. He was behind me. He wasn't in front of me, so that's a penalty, right? That's an obvious ruling, right? If he's behind me and not in front of me, he trips me and I go down."
On both FCD goals, United defender Julius James was involved, something Soehn addressed in his postgame remarks.
"The first one, I think Josh (Wicks) just needs to hold his line and let Julius (James) see that play out when a forward has pressure on him," the D.C. coach said. "Especially if he's on his left foot, he's going to have a hard time finishing that off. If Josh holds his ground, I think we come out of that OK. (Jeff) Cunningham is a handful when he's isolated one-on-one and he's going to cause problems."
In the end, Soehn found some positives from Saturday's deadlock.
"We've had a lot of points on the road so we're disappointed because this is probably the first time where we got a point on the road when we were up a man," he said. "But I still give credit to the guys. We were down twice and fought our way back to get the result. The last two road games, we've gotten four points and now we've got a stretch of five games at home. We need to take care of business. I feel like we're in control of our own destiny. We're going to take care of business at home."
Quaranta agreed. "I thought we'd have two more points tonight, especially with them playing 10 men," he said. "It's a good effort. It's four points in our last two games on the road, but in this one, we feel like we needed three. Overall, we're happy to get a point but in the end, we've got to do better."
Steve Hunt is a contributor to MLSnet.com.
