It's early June, and - thank you, MLS scheduling gods - D.C. United will face the Columbus Crew for the third and final time this year in MLS play this weekend. But I've already spent too much of your time showing you past videos of the Black-and-Red playing the Black & Gold. Luckily, there's a twist with Saturday's meeting: a new location. As you all well know, this one will go down as the back half of a double-header at FedExField in Landover, Md., following Spain's World Cup tuneup against El Salvador.
My overriding memory of that game in 2009 is the sun and heat - and yelling at security to call the paramedics for a guy near me who was clearly suffering from one or more of alcohol poisoning and heat stroke (which they finally did, thankfully). But watching the highlights above (and the longer, but lower quality version below), the following things jump out at me:
- Hey, United survived a half against the likes of Raul and Gonzalo Higuain and Kaka and Arjen Robben and holy cow that Madrid side was freaking stacked.
- Hey, in hindsight, this probably should have served as a warning that Tommy Soehn's 3-man defense (Janicki-Jakovic-Burch to start this game) probably wasn't suited to a counter-attacking team with speed and finishing ability. Not that it would matter in any major trophy finals or anything.
- Pretty cool to see Jaime Moreno, Christian Gomez and Luciano Emilio all in the starting XI - even if they don't get much time in the highlights against the likes of Real Madrid's stars.
What do you remember most about this game? Let us know in the comments.