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Howdy everyone! I'm writing up the typical Wednesday roster predictions from the beach in South Carolina, still basking in the glow of the United States' 1-0 victory over Jamaica last night. Should be a fairly typical roster, the whole team is getting healthy and with no league games being played, what could possibly happen?
As we all know, Dwayne De Rosario got hurt playing for the Canadian National Team, in a 2-0 loss to Panama. This continues the Canadian team's hatred of D.C. United players, with Dejan Jakovic having been injured twice recently while serving on international duty. De Rosario will have an MRI either today or Thursday to determine the extent of the injury to his MCL; he could be out anywhere from 10 days to five weeks.
The question for Ben Olsen is simple: what now? Does he try to slot someone into the De Rosario spot and continue as they have been playing? Or does he take this injury and make wholesale changes to the way that the team plays?
Ben Olsen is seemingly going to adapt and use the best players that he currently has, and not simply to try replace DeRo in the current setup. My lineup is the same starting lineup that D.C. United ran out in practice today. It returns Jakovic and Marcelo Saragosa to the bench, moves Chris Pontius back to the front line, and features the return of Robbie Russell to the starting 11. In the place of the Saragosa comes Branko Boskovic, who can hopefully provide that creative spark in the absence of De Rosario. Boskovic has historical success against the New England Revolution, including the now mythical Brankostock, so hopefully that luck can continue.
Before DeRo's injury, the team was almost completely healthy for the first time in months. The two exceptions to that are Daniel Woolard, still suffering from post-concussion effects, and Stephen King, who recently underwent hernia surgery. Robbie Russell is training with the first team and Maicon Santos seems to be participating in practice as well. The returns of these players complicates the bench prospects for this game. I see it being Joe Willis, Dejan Jakovic, Mike Chabala, Marcelo Saragosa, Lewis Neal, Josh Wolff, and Hamdi Salihi
What do you all see from United this weekend?