DC United All-Decade Team: Starting Defensive Midfielder

I have to start off by apologizing for my absense from this writing series. MBA classes, evening work functions, and happy hours have kept me away far too long. But let's get back to it now with another position that I expect to be fairly competitive.

Defensive midfielder has always been an important position for this team. Throughout its history, DC United's attacking style has revolved around a star #10 central attacking midfielder, and the occupants of this position didn't tend to contribute too much defensively. So naturally more pressure would fall onto the feet of the central midfielder.

Putting together this list of players was fairly simple when compared to some of the other position lists. There are no Craig Ziadies and David Stokes' on this list. No fringe players who didn't really deserve to be starters. Each player on this list has been among the best defensive midfielders in the league at some point in his career. And yet you could say that each plays the position in a different way. One is still a starter in DC, and the other three have since gone on to bigger things.

And so your nominees for the 2000-2009 team are:

Clyde Simms (2005-2009), 133 matches, 3 goals, 7 assists
Brian Carroll (2004-2007), 121 matches, 2 goals, 11 assists
Dema Kovalenko (2003-2005), 77 matches, 12 goals, 14 assists
Richie Williams (2000, 2002), 55 matches, 0 goals, 5 assists