DC United's Ben Olsen is as sick of that Dick's Sporting Goods Commercial as you and I and all of us are. "I'm willing to give them the money back they paid me for the commercial if they would stop playing it," Olsen said.  "I wish they would stop playing it because it's ruining my soccer [...]

United fans who took in last night's game at Momo's Sports Bar on U Street received a surprise when Ben Olsen and housemate Zach Wells, along with Rod Dyachenko, showed up to watch the guys take on the Revolution. Thanks to Sarah Baker for snapping and sharing the shot above.

In addition to playing a little full field 11v11 in today's training session, the guys also participated in a competitive (very competitive) game of team handball. The photo above fully captures the joy, passion and passing ability that were on display at the RFK Training Fields this morning. Team Red went up early, but Team Yellow came from behind to win 3-2 on a goal by Marc Burch (goals are scored by heading the ball out of the air and into the back of the net).

DC takes off the month of July from MLS games, except now they have the makeup game with Houston three days after the Super Liga game in DC. Good choice on the makeup date.
Great to see Ben Olsen play last Sunday, the standing ovation that he received when entering the game shows how the fans feel about him.

Bill pointed me to this post on BigSoccer from a Red Bulls fan.

Ben Olsen is to DCU what Babe Ruth is the the Yankees.

While it's great to see Olsen getting respect from a Red Bulls fan, the analogy betrays a lack of understanding of the history of both DC United and the New York Yankees.

According to this post on BehindTheBadge.com Ben Olsen's older brother, Jeremy is playing in the reserves.
Here is an excerpt:

Best by injuries in recent weeks, United's coaching staff has called upon the elder Olsen - who has been in D.C. for much of the summer helping Ben remodel his house - to suit up for tomorrow morning's reserve game.

By definition, the Grosy Award goes to the player with the most cajones. In general, the nominees for this award are players who aren't afraid to play through injury and leave it all on the field. The award's namesake Josh Gros was famous for his work rate, and his career with DC United has seemingly ended way too soon, thanks to the numerous concussions he'd received throughout his time here.

Steve Goff of the Washington Post, is currently reporting on a rumor we posted last week regarding Ben Olsen retiring. Click here for his report.

A few things to add to the game report from the 4-1 decision in RFK:

- Ben Olsen was moved by the outpouring of support from United fans, saying in the locker room he was getting choked up thinking about it. The Barra Brava had a giant tribute with the banner "HEART OF A LION.

The news that Ben Olsen would be out 4-8 weeks, just days after his inspirational return to the pitch, is naturally heartbreaking. But after discussing his Dick's sporting Goods commercial, we wondered how he felt he would be after his surgery. Would he still have the moves that he casually announced to Brian Ching and Christian Gomez?

On the heels of Ben Olsen's older brother Jeremy's United debut yesterday in the reserves 4-2 loss to Kansas City, here are a couple photos (courtesy of Matt Mathai). If you missed the interview with Benny about his brother the night before, here it is.

Hey y'all. I was the guest blogger for The Red Card, the Chicago Tribune's soccer blog. It seems that Luis is on holiday and in between interesting people like Leslie Osborne and Ben Olsen, he decided to let me sully the good name of the venerable Windy City publication. Nice!
If you want to see what I have to say about blogging go here.

Welcome to yet another edition of TvT, FBF's weekly gaze across the width and breadth of the futboling landscape--or at least the parts that are currently piquing my interest. Tickle DC United is back in camp--finally! After losing some key pieces of the team (Gomez, BobbyBoswell.com/blog, Perkins, Carroll-the-elder, Gros), missing out on Veron, but then bringing in a whole horde of

Tickle Michael Bradley can't stop scoring goals in the Eredivisie. Seeing as how I'd recently finished my campaign to win the Fizzy Soda Pop League for Wednesday in the friendly confines of FIFA 08 (neutered Wii version), I decided to pop in on Mr. Bradley and his compatriots and give them a go. After a couple of ineffective matches sporting a 4-4-2 and then a classically Dutch 4-3-3, I

If you didn't catch the opening minutes of The Nooner on ABC yesterday you missed one of the most phenomenal player tributes by the fans that I've ever seen in American sports. I'm no Ben Olsen fan (Captain Caveman has always been a thorn in the Metro side) but I do respect the amount of reverence that the DC United faithful have for him.

Jack Bell rails at the preference of some for all things English.
My gripe about American announcers, however, is that too many of them are tied up in the insular soccer structure of the U.S. to have any independent opinions. It was painful to hear John Harkes try to be objective about DC United when commenting on their match versus the LA Galaxy.

Head Coach Tom Soehn continues to have to deal with player injuries and absences heading into tonight's match with the Revolution. Ivan Guerrero is with the Honduran National Team for their World Cup qualifier in Mexico this evening, while Gonzalo Martinez is serving a one-game suspension for yellow card accumulation.

Benny Olsen asked me to share news of the birth of his first child with his extended United family.

Ruby Lou Olsen was born last night at 9:30 p.m. Weighing in at eight pounds and two ounces, Ruby and her mother, Meghan, are now resting comfortably at Sibley Memorial Hospital.

On behalf of the staff and United fans, we are so happy for Benny and his family and share in the excitement.

Episode 5 of VW's six-part 'Road to MLS Cup' series once again stars Ben Olsen and Louis Crayton. Benny, in particular, has a couple of key lines...

MLS 2008 Lifestyle Photo Shoot: Twellman and Olsen
You be the judge.
P.S. Might be a nice side gig considering they're both injured.

This is a shot of Ben being Ben from last year's Celebrity Golf Tournament. The club and its non-profit arm, United for D.C., have put on the annual event for each of the past six years and will continue the golf tournament this summer at Old Hickory Golf Club in Woodbridge, VA. The big day is Monday, June 23, so take a vacation day or call in sick - just make sure you get there.

An introduction, Part I: Ben Olsen is known as a very stylish guy. Some might say too stylish. He has a very unique look - one all his own. On a given day he might wear jean shorts, a sleeveless tee and chucks. Another day might bring an old, ratty t-shirt and a pair of designer jeans complemented with a winter hat.

So the (Black-and-)Red hot D.C. United are set to face the LA Galaxy this Sunday at 12:00 noon. Anticipation is already high for the League's glamor match-up between the most successful team in American professional soccer history and a team that suits up one of the most famous men on the planet.

I missed the match entirely. Wound up going shopping with Mrs. Shatz in advance of our Ocean City trip. First full-team match that I've missed all year.
But we did get some answers to the questions that I posed yesterday:
Does [Soehn] choose to start the highly paid Quavas Kirk in this match, or keep using him only in the safety of the Reserve division?

D.C. United faces Club Deportivo Marathon for the first time in its history tonight at Estadio Olimpico in a game that will be broadcast live on Fox Soccer Channel (10 p.m. ET). The Black-and-Red hope to rebound from a Group A opening 2-0 loss to Deportivo Saprissa last week at RFK Stadium. Cruz Azul, who lost to Marathon in Honduras last week 2-0, defeated Saprissa 4-0 last night in Mexico.

Discuss.

Ben Olsen may be done for the season, done for good. Olsen has a bad ankle situation right now. I think he must have broke it when he was chasing his kid outside of Dick's Sporting Goods the day his son put on that Beckham jersey. See below:

Well anyway, rumors are going around that former Manchester City striker Darren Huckerby could be coming to to fill the Ben Olsen role.

I'll admit that my cynical nature makes me want to discount this win. Surely 4-1 is a misleading scoreline? Surely L.A. isn't that good a team? Surely there must be some way to spin this as closer than it appeared?

Each objection to taking this game as a statement game is answered. United clearly created chances to deserve four goals, if not more.

The big news out of the locker room this evening is that Ben Olsen has been named to the 18-man roster for tonight's game. Benny has been training for the last week and a half and is attempting to salvage the season after numerous ankle surgeries over the last nine months. His lone appearance of the season came on June 29, when United beat LA 4-1 and Ben came on as a 75th minute substitute.

I have got to get out of this habit of only posting post game reports... I was there last night, and I was fairly pleased. I say fairly because there were some stupid passes in the midfield, and some questionable play by certain players (I'm looking your way Emilio), and because we SHOULD get three [.

It didn't take Eddie Pope long to get a new job after retiring from playing in Major League Soccer. One of the greatest defenders to play in the league has taken a job. Eddie Pope was introduced as the director for player relations for the MLS Players Union.

I think Pope will be good for the players.

Via the Goffblog, we present Ben Olsen's tortured, gruesome metaphor for how he is going to have an impact on United's season . . . "The procedure involves taking blood and spinning the blood so the good healing blood is seperated from the other parts of the blood. Then that blood is going to be injected through some unknown way into my bone to stimulate bone and cartilage healing.

According to Steven Goff at the Washington Post D.C. United has once again traded the rights of an out of contract player, this time veteran defender Greg Vanney, to the Los Angeles Galaxy. Vanney returns to the club with which he spent the first six seasons of his career. In return, United has obtained 19 year old midfielder, Quavas Kirk.

There's a lot I'd like to get to over the next few days, but before that, let's talk about the wonderful world of management-labor relations. Suppose you've been a decent performer at your job over the last half-decade, receiving the occasional intra-company award. Now, your big firm is doing a huge PR offensive, and they want to showcase the fine quality of the workers they have, so you suddenly find yourself with your CEO on a national cable outlet's morning business show.

Remember when we gave you a glimpse of Ben Olsen as actor?

Well, United's longtime midfielder was it again this week, moving from television to the stage (Arena Stage, to be exact) this past Monday evening. Benny was one of more than 30 cast members - made up of prominent congressman, athletes, coaches and TV personalities - to take the stage in the 16th Annual Arena Stage Benefit to support Community Engagement.

Another primetime clash in the eastern conference tonight. The big boys of Chicago against the boys who should be big of DC. Both clubs are in opposite ends of the spectrum here going into week number seven of the 2008 campaign. The one thing that may be going for the homeside is the fact that they [.

Washington Post columnist Mike Wise is obviously a big fan of Behind the Badge - he liked our name so much that he took it and created a video segment on washingtonpost.com, titled Behind the Column. Pretty clever, Mike (we cannot, in fact, confirm that Mike Wise's video segment was created after the launch of Behind The Badge, but.

A few keys to the Galaxy-United game, plus a few quotes on sundry tangents:
- Health: Give the Galaxy the edge here. They have a short injury list, while Domenic Mediate is expected to join Ben Olsen in missing this one for United. Also, to the surprise of absolutely no one, United waived forward Franco Niell, who never answered the question of how someone so short can fall down so often.

Great things all around today. I don't really even know where to start.

• A comprehensive 4-1 win over the top team in the Western Conference.
• The unbeaten streak extended to six games (5-0-1).
• A third place spot in the Eastern Conference.
• Jaime Moreno's MLS Best 118th all-time goal.

Well, that was an uncomfortable temperature for a truly entertaining game. But, that's what you get when ABC wants the game at 12. I just hope the ratings were worth having the game played on the surface of the sun. Where to begin? Oh, I know. Greater than the win, or the [...]