DC United Tie Real Salt Lake, Earn First Shutout Of Season
by Martin Shatzer on Jun 5, 2025 10:23 PM EDT
in Match Reviews
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In the end, a fairly uneventful 0-0 draw for DC United and Real Salt Lake tonight. Not a boring one, but an uneventful one.
This isn't terrible. Uneventful is something we haven't seen that much this season. No supersub immediately scoring two goals. No second half collapse.
Just a plain old 0-0 draw against the defending champions who had won five straight matches.
This is still something to build off of. United earning their first clean sheet of the year against the league's leading scorers is a major accomplishment.
And Coach Curt Onalfo has to get some credit for this, right? There were plenty of folks questioning the decision to start Troy Perkins over Bill Hamid. And then most of us thought Julius James would be filling in for Carey Talley after the veteran suffered a concussion, but Onalfo instead turned to the newly recovered Dejan Jakovic, who was stepping on the field for the first time since April.
Both decisions paid off. And Onalfo's team was rewarded with a shutout and a point.
After giving up only a penalty kick goal in United's midweek win over RSL, Onalfo turned to Troy Perkins again to shut down the highest scoring offense in the league. In his first MLS start since the 2-0 loss to the Red Bulls on May 1st, Perkins looked confident and competent for the entire match.
Perkins didn't do it alone. The entire backline of Jordan Graye, Devon McTavish, Juan Manuel Pena, and Dejan Jakovic held Real Salt Lake without a shot on target in the first half. Add defensive midfielder Clyde Simms to the mix and you've earned yourselves a shutout.
He may have missed on some shots, but Stephen King sure has fought his way into the starting lineup. And giving up a second rounder for him last month is looking like a pretty good deal right now. King had two shots that didn't miss by much, and he was getting himself in good positions and making opportunistic runs all night. He'll score soon enough.
No United fan wants to hear this, but Andy Najar really didn't have a good match. He created some good chances early on, but also had several giveaways. I really don't want Andy getting in the habit of trying to take on three opponents at once very often. It's rarely going to lead to much.
Santino Quaranta also could have done better. With so many corner kick chances, you would expect that we'd score at least once.
Where was Danny Allsopp? I don't recall him having any shots on target, and he seemed to disappear for the entire second half. I expect more from our #1 forward.
***
Hey don't get me wrong. A win would have been great. It's probably what we deserved. But a point against the league champions is a quality result. A win and a draw in the same week against Real Salt Lake is better than most of us expected going in.
United has just one match left before the World Cup break. It's this Thursday night, it's on ESPN2, and it's against our west coast rivals the Seattle Sounders. A win to maintain our momentium would be pretty darn nice.
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Dead on
Allsop gave up on several balls, including one were the defender completely bothed the trap (toward the end of the first half) and he just fell over and gave up. Play the game, not the drama. Najar also seemed to let all his recent press and success go to his head, sloppy and over ambitious.
A disappointing match from a team that had a lot of chances to score and yet couldn’t do it. Hats off to Perkins for having a great game, he’s looked bad for most of the season. Good to see him calm down.
by dexhandle on Jun 5, 2025 10:42 PM EDT reply actions
Started quick, ended really slowly
United was very brisk from the onset, and were it not for Rimando, would’ve scored early. But once the game settled, both teams were already fatigued. The heat and humidity (I’m not sure how much they had declined since earlier in the evening) probably contributed to that.
I didn’t like the way DC tried to play RSL, though. Salt Lake’s defenders are huge (Beltran being the exception), athletic, and normally pretty smart. But i think some through balls would’ve broken the backline and led to a goal. Instead, we went with crosses and tried to muscle our way past them. Allsopp and Pontius both tried to get around Olave by passing to themselves or plowing forward, which is not gonna happen once the heat drains your quickness. Quaranta’s corners met an RSL head 9/10 times. Again, no surprise, with a tall opposing backline. A better idea would’ve been to take short corners and wait for the box to clear. The few times we were clear of defenders, though, nobody was quick enough to shoot, or they botched it. Stephen King’s miss is a prime example: there were 2-3 other people ball-watching, and then he smacks the ball too hard.
Defensively, though, DC was great. Jakovic was just a little conservative in his distribution, but otherwise looked like he hadn’t missed time at all. Jordan Graye and McTavish were good on the flanks as well. Wallace gets the martyr’s award tonight for blocking Saborio’s shot; I hope he’s all right, because once he left, our left-sided attack sputtered.
by Sunspot on Jun 5, 2025 11:59 PM EDT reply actions
Wallace and Graye
You’re right about Wallace. It was as if Graye didn’t feel as comfortable attacking up the field on the left as he did on the right. United is currently reporting Wallace’s injury as just a bone bruise, but with other tests coming probably tomorrow. Even if he has to miss the trip to Seattle, I’m guessing he’ll be back when the league resumes after the World Cup break.
by Martin Shatzer on Jun 6, 2025 10:45 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Related to the left-sided attack, it seems like Pontius just isn’t comfortable over there. Part of this has to do with Castillo crapping the bed in the time he’s had over there, but if Quaranta can’t get into his position, is moving Pontius to the middle an option worth considering?
They're coming.
by Bald Pollack on Jun 7, 2025 9:15 AM EDT up reply actions
I wouldn’t mess with anything right now. Pontius hasn’t been that bad in my opinion. At the very least, he restricts opposing right backs from going forward much. With more time on the left, he’ll figure out how best to combine with Quaranta and King (which is the best way for Party Boy to get involved, in my opinion). If we’re able to do what we’ve done in this short span with a 17 year old, a guy who just joined the team, and a guy who just came back from injury, I’d expect that our midfield has plenty of room to improve on what have been decent performances of late.
by ChestRockwell on Jun 7, 2025 10:07 AM EDT up reply actions
We don’t really have many people capable of playing high-quality through balls, though. No one in our midfield has that touch to make those kinds of passes consistently, and Rimando is an excellent keeper when it comes to anticipating through balls and is fast enough to come out and clear or smother them. Making matters worse, Allsopp and Quaranta are both at a speed disadvantage against Olave, so even if we did play a good ball in it was going to be tough to win that footrace.
Throw in the fact that Allsopp looked like he was playing through a cold or knock of some sort, and I can see why we didn’t really try many through balls. We’re not really built for it at the moment. Also, I think RSL did a good job of restricting our space in the areas you normally see through balls played from. Warner, Alexandre, and Johnson offered little going forward, but they clogged the middle well and left few gaps between themselves and the RSL back four.
I think our biggest problem was that we lacked energy and conviction up front. There were several balls in the box that, attacked with zeal and hunger, become real chances. Instead, they zipped by untouched because no one in black threw themselves at the ball.
by ChestRockwell on Jun 7, 2025 10:16 AM EDT up reply actions
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