DCU 1, NYRB 1 (United Advances on Aggregate)

That will not beat Ningland. Play like that next Sunday, be down by three by halftime.

Facundo Erpen, jeebus, what was that? He's always been good for one stunning brainfart a game, but he fit an entire season's worth into last night's game. And it wasn't him alone: Gros' worse game of the year and easily Freddy's worse game of the year. When the team isn't playing well, Carroll gets the yips and short-passes and slow-passes. Olsen, who was my motm last week, reverted to ref-baiting.

We were speculating in 232 that United's slow start might have been a strategy:  Let New York, with the impetus and urgency of a goal deficit, burn their adrenelin out in the first twenty minutes. Maybe it was the strategy, but United never recovered. Yes, they got the barest result necessary to advance and yes, they responded to New York's goal when the stank of shootout seemed an inevitability (and a lucky one at that), but in a game in which New York was there to be routed New York was the better team. Without Youri Djorkaeff and without for much of the game Markus Schopp. (And the Post article has a quote from Arena to the effect that New York surrendered the goal because they were confident of scoring a second and lost defensive concentration.)

Thank goodness for the Keeper of the Year and the Defender of the Year and He Who Had Better Be MVP:

Because without Perkins in the air and Boswell in the middle and Gomez making something out of seemingly nothing, that would have been one embarassingly craptacular crash.

UPDATE ONE: Lots of good links and good analysis over at DCenters.

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UPDATE TWO: Holy crap! Mike Wise, Post columnist, says "it is time to go another direction next season:"

What kills Nowak's chances are the same character traits that will eventually lead to his departure in Washington: his inflexibility and inability to change strategies and preparation. His intolerance for fatigue. He refused to give Jaime Moreno and other worn-down United players a needed rest earlier this season. By the time some of his beat-up and beleaguered players got some time off, they were already physically shot.

He's not saying anything any one else hasn't said, though he IS the first to actually call for the divorce that I've seen.

Is it hyperbolic to call next Sunday's game v Ningland the most critical game regarding the future relationship between Peter Nowak and DC United? Ningland stomps, Nowak gone (and not by his decision)?

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NOT DCU BUT SOCCER NONETHELESS UPDATE THREE: News snark from Uncle Fiver (you do subscribe, yes?):

And after losing to Greece at basketball, Europe at golf and Japan at eating, the USA will set themselves up for another fall by entering next year's Copa America for the first time since 1995.

Snort.