CHESTER, Pa. – Playing their third game in a little more than a week and facing a side desperate to stop their early season free fall, Sunday evening’s encounter with the Philadelphia Union was always going to be an uphill battle for D.C. United at PPL Park.
The Black and Red entered the encounter unbeaten in their past eight matches, two points clear atop the Eastern Conference and tied with FC Dallas for the Supporters’ Shield lead. But they also entered it leggy, having ground out a victory against Orlando City SC just days earlier.
Several key contributors – Davy Arnaud, Sean Franklin and Chris Pontius – started the match on the bench, with United head coach Ben Olsen opting for a setup featuring Michael Farfan and Miguel Aguilar out wide and Finnish defensive midfielder Markus Halsti in Arnaud’s spot.
The result was a United side that looked a bit rusty, one a hungry Union side on a five-game winless streak was all too happy to take advantage of.
"I don’t think it was a great performance,” Olsen said after the match. "They earned that win tonight. They were the better team tonight in a lot of aspects.”
Despite that, United very nearly managed to extract a result from the match.
Though Olsen certainly heaped most of the blame for the loss on his own side’s performance – and Philadelphia’s as well – he also couldn’t help but wonder if referee Alan Kelly hadn’t improperly altered the course of the match by waving off a United goal in the 65th minute.
On the play, D.C. defender Taylor Kemp swung a free kick into the penalty area, where second-half sub Pontius was making a run from 16 yards out. Pontius eventually met the service at the top of the 6-yard box to head it home. Kelly, positioned directly behind the play, whistled it dead immediately for a foul.
“Yeah, we looked a little off, but then we score, for my money, a legitimate goal on the road and it gets called back,” Olsen said.
Olsen also rued the loss of forward Luis Silva, who entered the match in the 65th minute but quickly pulled up lame with an apparent left hamstring injury.
Though the severity of Silva’s knock is still to be determined, it’s a frustrating break for a player who only recently recovered from a multitude of similar hamstring issues.
"Even after [the disallowed goal] we’re in good shape to gut out a win or a tie and then Silva comes off and we’re down a man,” Olsen said. "I feel for [Luis]. Nobody wants to have a setback and, certainly nobody wants to have another setback after that. … We have got to find out what’s going on here. It cost us tonight. Certainly looked like a hamstring to me – we have to do a better job of getting him healthy somehow."
Despite the disallowed goal and the host of other factors affecting United on Sunday, the mood in a quiet postgame locker room was the same: Philadelphia deserved the result.
"They had a pretty simple plan,” Halsti told MLSsoccer.com. “They had big guys up top and they do what they do, winning the second balls and fighting a lot. They just had more chances than us today – they deserved to win.
"They were better than us today."
