D.C. United defeats Loudoun United 5-1 in preseason friendly

D.C. United continued its preseason preparations today with a 5-1 win behind closed doors over Loudoun United, their USL Championship affiliate. Ola Kamara and Frederic Brillant scored in the first half, while some combination of trialists, academy players, or other players who aren’t under contract added three more in the final 20 minutes.

Hernán Losada chose a team that, injuries and bureaucratic hold-ups aside, is probably his strongest available team on paper. Last week’s tie with Greenville Triumph saw United mix things up, but today’s starters would all be reasonable bets to be on the field at kickoff if the season were to start next week:

Loudoun, for their part, took a similar approach, though a handful of their top players have been training with D.C. instead over the past few weeks.

While the opening exchanges of the game are a complete mystery to anyone that wasn’t in the building for the game, the MLS United opened the scoring in the 19th minute when Julian Gressel and Yamil Asad combined to set Ola Kamara up for what sounds like an easy finish:

While we’ll have to imagine that goal for the time being, we do have a much better look at the Black-and-Red making it 2-0. A 30th minute corner from Edison Flores curled perfectly for Frederic Brillant, who rose up amid some traffic to head home:

At the halftime break, Losada made just one change, bringing Moses Nyeman in for Russell Canouse. At the hour mark, United made four more changes, with Jon Kempin getting half an hour in goal while Kimarni Smith, Yordy Reyna, and Adrien Perez made up a new front three.

D.C. scored a third goal in the 72nd minute. After the game, United’s own post-match piece noted that Adrien Perez got an assist, so that’s good.

If you scored the third goal in today’s D.C. United - Loudoun United match, please contact Black and Red United to tell us about what happened.

Loudoun got on the board late, with attacker Kairou Amoustapha doing something that we can’t describe due to lack of information to get the ball over the line in the 84th minute. While we’re on the topic, check out our piece on Amoustapha’s wild journey just to get to the U.S. from last season.

The Black-and-Red didn’t take long to push their lead back up to three goals, though all we can tell you is that it happened in the 87th minute:

DCU made it 5-1 just before full time, though again no word on who scored. Good job trialist/academy kid/rando!

D.C. United’s preseason schedule will continue on Wednesday, March 31, when they’ll take a short drive up I-95 to take on the Philadelphia Union at Subaru Park at 3pm. Loudoun, meanwhile, is next in action on April 3 at 2pm, when they’ll play Union II at Segra Field.

Box Score

Preseason - Game 2
D.C. United 5 (Kamara 19, Brillant 30, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 72, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 87, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 90)
Loudoun United 1 (Amoustapha 83)

Lineups:
DCU (3421**): Chris Seitz (Jon Kempin 60); Brendan Hines-Ike, Frederic Brillant, Donovan Pines; Julian Gressel, Russell Canouse (Moses Nyeman 46), Junior Moreno, Joseph Mora; Yamil Asad (Kimarni Smith 60), Edison Flores (Yordy Reyna 60); Ola Kamara (Adrien Perez 60)

(We also know, since the club says three goals were scored by unsigned players, that other subs were made, but we don’t know who came off or when those subs happened)

Loudoun (4231**): Jermaine Fordah (Keegan Meyer 30); Trialist, Wahab Ackwei, Timmy Mehl, Robby Dambrot (Gaoussou Samaké 30); Trialist, Jeremy Garay; Kairou Amoustapha, Massimo Ferrin, Tyler Gabarra (Ted Ku-DiPietro 30); Samson Sergi

**We guess! It could be something else!

Bookings:
DCU - ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Loudoun - ¯\_(ツ)_/¯