D.C. United 2, Houston Dynamo 2 - Post-Match Thoughts & Quotes

When does a tie feel like a loss?

When its at home against a team just one point ahead of you in the standings. When your goalkeeper gives up a soft penalty on a totally unnecessary foul. When your coach appears more depressed than ever before.

That's what happened tonight for DC United in a 2-2 tie with the Houston Dynamo tonight at RFK Stadium. And after the match, Ben Olsen seemed more down than at any other press conference I've attended, and that includes the 4-0 drumming against the New York Red Bulls. He said after the match that the team lacked energy, and certainly didn't play their best game. "Overall, I thought too many of our guys didn't get what they needed to." the coach said.

We know that this young defense is going to make some mistakes this year. Same for Bill Hamid. But does it really need to be this many? When will that stop?

Perry Kitchen, who was riding a reclined bike stretching out his ankle, took it hard on himself and the United defense. "It just sucks because we worked so hard to lose two points at home, and for them to score in the last five minutes or so. Its just a terrible feeling because we worked so hard for 86 minutes or whatnot, to only get one point out of it."

Charlie Davies would also comment on how disappointing it was for the team to give up points at home. "Obviously its not a good feeling. We came in today with the intention of getting three points at home. Thats something we really need to focus on and really make RFK a place where people just can't come in here and get points and get results ... You can tell the guys aren't happy. its not a good feeling where you outplay the team and they score in the last four minutes. We gotta take it to teams when we play here at RFK. We gotta put the pedal to the metal and just go. And then we gave up a bad goal. Its something that we definitely need to improve on."

Dax McCarty, who has apparently been replaced by Josh Wolff as captain, was slightly more optimistic, at least about the offense. "I thought for the most part we played well enough to win. We created a lot in the first half offensively. i thought we were the better team ... You go up two times in the game, give up two goals at the end of the halves, it was a tough one to take. We create plenty of chances. Its frustrating when you create those chances and you don't finish them. We did that tonight and unfortunately we were only able to get two of them. We needed three."