According to the DC United news source the Soccer Insider Ben Olsen is now considering the option of retirement. As the SI said, the idea was thrown around after last season with his 1 appearance last season.

Olsen is DC United. When you say DC United you think Ben Olsen. One would hope that when Olsen does decide retirement is necessary, he will stay with the club in some capacity.

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Luciano Emilio and DC United have a lot of question marks. (Getty Images)

The 2009 expansion draft is only a week and a half away here. Today we move forward in our look at each club's potential protection lists with DC United. The Black-and-Red are still without a head coach so don't be shocked if somethings here could change depending on who takes over this club.

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The voting for attacking midfielders has gone pretty much as anticipated so far, with heavy support for three fan favorites in Quaranta, Pontius, and Barklage, and an obvious dissatisfaction with Fred and Allen. The only moderate surprise to me has been that Gomez and Szetela are not both closer to the 50/50 mark. Click to continue reading...

The Wizards had 4 goals up for Goal of the Year, and 2 of those goals have made it to the final 10, one from each Davy Arnaud and Claudio Lopez. Arnaud's goal is his blast from the first game of the season against Toronto. Lopez's goal is his shot from midfield that looped in over Donovan Ricketts. Click to continue reading...

It's one of the more pointless awards MLS hands out, but for what it's worth the reigning MLS Goalkeeper of the Year beat out the Chicago Fire's Brian McBride (who may have stopped playing in MLS, but never stopped playing excellent attacking soccer - is he available next year in South Africa?) and D.

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Photo by ISIphotos.com

In one of the easier results to see coming, Seattle Sounders striker Fredy Montero was named MLS Newcomer of the Year. He beat out Sounders teammates Kasey Keller and Freddie Ljungberg for the honor.

Montero scored 12 goals and added seven assists in helping lead the Sounders to the playoffs.

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Photo by ISIphotos.com

In one of the easier results to see coming, Seattle Sounders striker Fredy Montero was named MLS Newcomer of the Year. He beat out Sounders teammates Kasey Keller and Freddie Ljungberg for the honor.

Montero scored 12 goals and added seven assists in helping lead the Sounders to the playoffs.

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Was it just me or was there a veiled barb in there directed at the FO? You know, the part about maybe the coach shouldn't shoulder the blame, maybe the players should, maybe the MANAGEMENT? But Benny couched that by spewing the Payne party line... Click to continue reading...

United goalkeeper Milos Kocic and midfielder Ben Olsen took in the Washington Wizards-Miami Heat game last night at the Verizon Center. Unfortunately, the Wizards lost 93-89 despite Gilbert Arenas' 32 points.

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2009 was a rough season for Ben Olsen and DC United. (Getty Images)

We knew going into 2009 that the calendar for DC United could be a fairly packed one. Possibly Champions League matches, US Open Cup title to defend, summer friendlies, and of course the regular season slate. It turned out to be just the case as DC United played a schedule so packed this year it definitely raised some eyebrows about how little depth MLS clubs really do have.

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WUSA-9 tracked down Ben Olsen on the streets of DC to get his reaction on Tom Soehn's decision to leave D.C. United.

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Year end award nominees are coming out, and while no Wizards players are up the big awards, 3 Wizards are nominated for 2 awards.
Davy Arnaud and Claudio Lopez are both up twice for goal of the year. Arnaud's first blast against Toronto on the opening week of the season is one of his two nominated goals. Click to continue reading...

It was announced yesterday that Fire forward Brian McBride has been nominated as a finalist for the 2009 MLS Comeback Player of the Year award.

McBride, who is competing with D.C. United midfielder Ben Olsen and Chivas USA keeper Zach Thornton for the award, lead the Fire in scoring with seven goals this season despite missing eight weeks with a torn right labrum.

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Goalkeeper of the year -- Nov. 4
Nominees: Kasey Keller (Seattle), Donovan Ricketts (L.A.), Zach Thornton (Chivas USA)
Who will win: Thornton. Veteran might have put up his best year in the league.
Who should win: Thornton. This team overachieved and its MVP is the reason why.
Fair Play Finalists -- Nov. Click to continue reading...

Here's the full list as released today by MLS:

Goalkeeper of the Year
Kasey Keller - Seattle Sounders FC
Donovan Ricketts - Los Angeles Galaxy
Zach Thornton - Chivas USA

Fair Play Finalists - Individual
Kasey Keller - Seattle Sounders FC
Pat Onstad - Houston Dynamo
Steve Ralston - New England Revolution

Comeback Player of the Year
Brian McBride - Chicago Fire
Ben Olsen - D.

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Landon Donovan, Shalrie Joseph and Jeff Cunningham are the finalists for MLS MVP honors and just three of the MLS players identified as finalists for season-ending awards by Major League Soccer.

Donovan is one of several members of the Los Angeles Galaxy to be selected as finalists for honors.

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Hot off the presses from the league front office. Major League Soccer has announced the finalists to their season ending awards today. Only a few shockers jump out at me here with these but I'll get to that in a moment.

Keeper of the Year (to be announced Nov. 4)
Kasey Keller, Seattle
Donovan Ricketts, Los Angeles
Zach Thornton, Chivas USA

Defender of the Year (Nov.

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When posting the 2009 ADRs earlier this week, I asked what jumped out at you. Well here's some questions that jumped out at me:
1. Is Dejan Jakovic really all that good? The biggest surprise for me on the whole was Jakovic's even 3.00 rating. After winning three Benny Awards, you would have thought his rating would be among the best on the team. Click to continue reading...

Let's just post the press release:
Kansas City Wizards goalkeeper Kevin Hartman received MLS Save of the Week honors for the final week of the 2009 MLS regular season for an outstanding save to deny D.C. United's Ben Olsen. Hartman won two MLS Save of the Week awards on the season, taking home the honor in Week 11 and Week 32. Click to continue reading...

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Of all the decisions to be made on head coaching positions in Major League Soccer this off-season, perhaps none is being watched more carefully than the New York Red Bulls' decision on whether to keep Richie Williams as head coach.

Hiring Williams would seem like a no-brainer for a club that watched him take a hopeless team and transform it into a respectable one that posted more points in eight matches (11) than it posted in its first 22 (10).

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Of all the decisions to be made on head coaching positions in Major League Soccer this off-season, perhaps none is being watched more carefully than the New York Red Bulls' decision on whether to keep Richie Williams as head coach.

Hiring Williams would seem like a no-brainer for a club that watched him take a hopeless team and transform it into a respectable one that posted more points in eight matches (11) than it posted in its first 22 (10).

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As always, Mr. Unprecedented Access, Steve Goff, has a sit down with Kevin Payne and Tom Soehn over on his blog. Some big quotes...

"We don't want to play like Colorado or New England, which most of the season sat with eight or nine guys behind the ball. How many people go to watch Colorado or New England play?

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The 6th Annual United Awards Reception isn't the only United Awards Reception going on tonight. Because it's also time to announce the winners of the 2009 Benny Awards!

1. The Richie Award for the most underrated player goes to Bryan Namoff
2. The Nelly Award for the best newcomer goes to Dejan Jakovic
3. The Convey Award for the best rookies goes to Chris Pontius
4. The Donnety Award for the biggest disappointment goes to Danny Szetela
5. The Grosy Award for the ballsiest player goes to Ben Olsen
6. The Freddy Award for the biggest story goes to Chris Pontius and Rodney Wallace
7. The Harkesy Award for the greatest leader goes to Ben Olsen
8. The Popie Award for the best defender goes to Dejan Jakovic
9. The Etchy Award for the team's MVP goes to Dejan Jakovic
10. The Benny Award for the highest ADR rating goes to Chris Pontius

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Goalkeeper Kevin Hartman finished the season in style, ranking 2nd in MLS in saves on the year with 105. His acrobatic recovery to deny a rebound effort from Ben Olsen Saturday has him up for the MLS Save of the Week honor once again. He won the award in Week 11, but has 't captured the "trophy" since. Click to continue reading...

Not surprisingly, Kevin Hartman's diving save on Ben Olsen is up for Save of the Week. It's an absolutely amazing save. Check the save out here. And vote for it here. Click to continue reading...

In what can be conservatively called a Bad season, Kansas City came back to tie D.C. United and kill their chances of moving into the playoffs.

Kansas City started with a different look using Kamara and Zoltan at the same time but kicking Kei off to the wing and leaving Zoltan up top with Josh Wolff; yes an improvement but not by much since Wolff did look slow on a couple of breakaways.

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DC United saw their season come to a close after this weekend with their draw at Kansas City and FC Dallas winning at Seattle. The time has come to decide what the team needs to do next season. This is the second season in a row United has not made the playoffs with winning the Supporter's Shield the 2 years prior.

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The Wizards ended the 2009 season without a playoff berth, but they went out by helping to kill DC United's season. Along with other results around the league, KC's 2-2 draw with DC last night eliminated DC from making the playoffs as well. A late penalty kick by Claudio Lopez proving to be the tying goal. Click to continue reading...

Plenty of fans were saying last night that this match was like a microcosm of our season. I disagree. A microcosm of our season would have included DC United grabbing an early lead and taking it into halftime. It also would have included many chances to go even further ahead, but we would have had multiple goals disallowed and/or our opponent would have scored after some poor officiating. Click to continue reading...

By defintion, the Etchy Award goes to DC United's most valuable player. The winner of the award should be the player who United can least afford to live without, and who gives the team the best chance of winning. I'm going to present this award a bit differently because I want to give you more choices and less bias. Click to continue reading...

Given the unfortunate results of the Chicago/Chivas and Marathon/San Juan matches last night, a WIN for DC United on Saturday has now become all the more crucial. The number of playoff spots at stake just dropped from 3 to 2 with the Fire's victory. What's worse though is that the loss by Chivas USA means that Columbus has now clinched the Supporter's Shield, and therefore will have nothing to play for in their final match against the Revolution on Sunday.

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By now, everyone knows what need to happen tonight - D.C. United needs to win to keep its playoff hopes alive.

The team will have to do it without several key players, as Bryan Namoff (concussion), Josh Wicks (dislocated shoulder, MCL sprain), Santino Quaranta (ruptured plantar plate), Ben Olsen (red card suspension) and Chris Pontius (yellow card accumulation) will all be watching from the sidelines.

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By definition, the Harkesy Award should go to the DC United player who has been the strongest leader for our team this season. On-field leadership is important, but for this award, it isn't everything. And that would be evidenced by the fact that Ben Olsen won the award last year after playing only 15 minutes. Click to continue reading...

Just in case you needed any help getting fired up for Sunday. And if you're looking for further inspiration there's this:
But before we get to Sunday, we'll spend some time on the weekend undercard:
Last week: 1-3
Year to date: 84-116 (.420 or 17 games over blind chance)
REAL SALT LAKE at TORONTO FC. Click to continue reading...

Comcast SportsNet spoke to Jaime Moreno, Santino Quaranta and Ben Olsen about their involvement in ESPN The Magazine's 'The Body Issue.' Apparently, Benny owes his doc a lunch...?

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