D.C. United delivered a nice team victory over the Seattle Sounders earlier this week. Today's game against FC Dallas may not be as easy, and not just because they're well-rested. We matched up really well against the Sounders. They played to our strengths. As Chest pointed out in a comment to our match review, the exact opposite might be true today.
At this point, I think we can start to pick up a trend. United is better at playing narrow teams, because our wide men all have comfort pinching into the middle to overwhelm the other team’s central midfielders. When teams have real width, we suffer.
Bad news: FC Dallas features Marvin Chavez and Brek Shea, two of the better wide men in MLS.
Game time: 7:30 PM
Television: The match won't be aired on local television, but MLSsoccer.com is giving us a free preview weekend of MatchDay Live, so click the link if you can't make it out to RFK Stadium.
Projected starting lineup: Reports from United are that Chris Pontius and Kurt Morsink are both healthy enough to play, but that doesn't mean that either of them will. I think that Ben Olsen will choose to insert Santino Quaranta on the left with Andy Najar remaining on the right so to have his two best defensive positioning wingers. We should expect to see Marc Burch return though after sitting out Wednesday night's match with a hamstring injury. The rest of the lineup could remain unchanged, with Bill Hamid in goal, Dejan Jakovic and Ethan White in central defense, Perry Kitchen at right back, Dax McCarty and Clyde Simms in central midfield, and Charlie Davies and Josh Wolff up top.
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