The quest to add lucky No. 13 to the D.C. United trophy case begins tonight. In a competition designed to distinguish the greatest men's soccer club at any level in the United States, the black-and-red will face the Richmond Kickers on the road tonight. The winner of this match will move on to face the winner of the Philadelphia Union vs. the Rochester Rhinos.
Game time: 7:00 PM
Television: None. If you can't head down south on weeknight to attend the match, your best bet will be to follow along on Twitter and here in the GameThread comments as our own Benuski will be reporting live on site from the press box (assuming of course that southern Virginia has WiFi, I'm not quite sure).
Projected starting lineup: We're pretty confident that Joe Willis will start in goal, and that the back line will consist of Daniel Woolard, Emiliano Dudar, Ethan White, and Chris Korb. The rest of the lineup is highly debatable though. I'm predicting Nick DeLeon and Andy Najar on the wings, with Stephen King and Perry Kitchen in the middle, and with Maicon Santos and Josh Wolff up top.
Prediction: Maybe I'm overly optimistic, hopefully I'm not, but barring some kind of disastrous mistake, I just don't see a lower-level club scoring on Dudar/White/Willis. Nor do I see a lower-level club shutting out MFS. I'm predicting a slow start for a lineup that isn't really used to playing together, but United pulling away 2-0 in the second half.
What are you drinking? Newcastle
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