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.

D.C. United officials announced today that PEPCO, a DC-based utility company, would sponsor all of United's evening games as part of a new marketing deal with the team. In exchange for advertising rights to the back of United's jersey, PEPCO will blackout all night games at RFK.

"Fans have been blacking out RFK for years by wearing all black during home playoff games, and now PEPCO adds an additional element to that great tradition," team officials announced today under the glow of flashlights and candles.

Coming to you live from Dallas, er, Frisco... actually, I'm in D.C. and my esteemed colleague, Boris Flores, is at Pizza Hut Park today. Regardless, here's the starting lineup the coaches have decided on today.

Louis Crayton; Bryan Namoff, Gonzalo Peralta, Devon McTavish, Ivan Guerrero; Fred, Clyde Simms, Santino Quaranta, Boyzzz Khumalo; Jaime Moreno, Luciano Emilio.

No Namoff. No Peralta. No Olsen. No Fred. No Moreno. No Emilio. No matter.

Tom Soehn has named his starting lineup for tonight's match in San Jose. These are the men charged with bringing a result back to the Nation's Capital:

Louis Crayton; Gonzalo Martinez, Devon McTavish, Marc Burch, Mike Zaher; Santino Quaranta, Clyde Simms, Rod Dyachenko, Marcelo Gallardo, Ivan Guerrero; and Francis Doe.

D.C. United 2 : 0 Rochester Rhinos
Six Word Novel Recap

Dewar! What's it good for? CONCACAF.

Media, Traditional and OtherwiseThe Washington Times, Harlan Goode: "It took a while for Marc Burch to get going Tuesday night, but once the D.C. United defender did, he was hard to stop. Burch scored goals on two late free kicks, lifting United to a 2-0 win over the USL first-division Rochester Rhinos in the third round of the U.

Since I didn't witness the match myself, the following player ratings are based on excerpts taken from comments written about the game on the Soccer Insider:
1. "For me, Marc Burch was by far the player of the match, and not just because of the 2 goals. Through much of the game, he was among the most active player on the field.

Kickoff is just around the corner and Tom Soehn has named his starting lineup. With a few tired players after a bunch of games during the last month, the coaching staff has decided to rest a few key players. Here's the eleven that will take the field to start against Houston:

Zach Wells; Bryan Namoff, Pat Carroll, Devon McTavish, Marc Burch; Craig Thompson, Clyde Simms, Fred, Ryan Cordeiro; Luciano Emilio, Francis Doe.

Tom Soehn has named his starting lineup for tonight's championship battle against the Battery. The same players who started Saturday's game against New York will take the field, with the only change being Santino Quaranta moving to the middle of thte park and Joe Vide pushing out wide (where they played the second half).

So Moreno is hanging out with Butch and Sundance, and Emilio's hurt, and I'm thinking, "Well, with Crayton in goal and the steadying presence of Bryan Namoff, Peralta and the new infusion of energy from Joe Vide, perhaps we can eek out a goal on a counter while keeping San Jose at nil." Except, of course, we have neither Namoff nor Vide nor Peralta, and Martinez was clearly watching his "Best of Facundo Erpen" highlight reel.

And here.. we... go..

Zach Wells; Bryan Namoff, Devon McTavish, Marc Burch, Gonzalo Martinez; Boyzzz Khumalo, Clyde Simms, Santino Quaranta, Craig Thompson; Luciano Emilio, Ryan Cordeiro

Bench: Louis Crayton, Rod Dyachenko, Francis Doe, Quavas Kirk, Jaime Moreno, Fred, Greg Janicki

And here's what the 4-4-2 will look like:

-----------Cordeiro------------Emilio------------- --------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------Quaranta----------------------- Thompson------------------------------Khumalo ----------------------Simms------------------------- Martinez-----------------------------------Namoff -------------Burch---------McTavish------------- -------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------Wells--------------------------

By definition, the Donnety award goes to the player who has been the biggest disappointment this year. Yes, harsh, I know. But this award's definition could probably be interpreted in a couple different ways. And because I love controversy, of course I will leave that interpretation up to you. Do you give the award to a guy who has played well at times, but hasn't lived up to the hype or to his high salary?

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?

We're about an hour from kickoff and both teams are getting ready for tonight's match. With Santino Quaranta, Marcelo Gallardo, Dan Stratford and Domenic Mediate all nursing injuries or getting rest, Tom Soehn has made a few changes to tonight's lineup. The guys will run out in a 4-5-1 in the following set-up:

Zach Wells; Bryan Namoff, Devon McTavish, Marc Burch, Gonzalo Martinez; Pat Carroll, Clyde Simms, Rod Dyachenko, Fred, Ryan Cordeiro; Luciano Emilio.

Just got finished watching the match immediately following my three hour drive home from Virginia Beach. At least I should say I just got finished watching 81 minutes of the match. I missed the rest thanks to the lights at RFK delaying the match past 10:00 pm. What's with that anyway? That's just embarassing.

In a match where we were missing Emilio, Moreno, Namoff, Fred, Vide, and Peralta, a loss wasn't necessarily surprising. I guess the bright side is that we escaped without any more injuries! Also, I saw tonight that we've got some young players with a lot of heart, and that's got to count for something, even if it didn't earn us any points.

The bad news is that Santino Quaranta will not be dressing tonight. The 23-year old suffered some pretty deep bruises on his ankle and shin Saturday night in LA and will be held out this evening. Bummer.

The good news is that the guys are all feeling pretty positive and will be coming out in a slightly more defensive-oriented posture tonight, running at type of 4-4-1-1.

• If Christian Miles describes something as "courageous" one more time, I'll lose it. I'm definitely adding that to the Christian Miles Drinking Game. One drink for every time he says "courageous", finish your drink when he describes something as amazing when he sounds like he'd rather wear black and listen to Depeche Mode.

An hour from kick-off and United coach Tommy Soehn has announced his line-up. Playing for the second time in three days, the Black-and-Red will field some reserves tonight, but there are some big names in the line-up as well. United is clearly taking this competition seriously. Here are the guys charged with advancing the Black-and-Red to the quarterfinals of the U.

It is a first impressions post, but the match was a story of second impressions. This was a match of reexamination, reconsideration, and perhaps redemption.

The second impressions of Pat Carroll, stranding himself and Zach Wells and allowing Daniel Woodward to chip the ball into the net. After a strong game against Rochester, Carroll was having a perfectly acceptable, but not stellar match, until the paralysis of indecision created the dreaded Big Oops moment.

D.C. United 2 : 3 AtlanteSuperliga, Match Day 2
Six Word Novel Recap

Superliga is done. Play the reserves

Media, Traditional and Otherwise
The Washington Post, Steve Goff: "Luis Gabriel Rey scored twice in the first half and Christian Bermúdez added a second-half strike from beyond the penalty area for Atlante.

After 60 minutes of this match, I was all ready to come on here and say I was wrong about wanting to punt the CCL. A goalless draw would have been a wonderful result. But as is typical with this club, we let up 2 soft goals off of shotty defending. And now we're staring up from the bottom of a fully stacked group.

Just when it appeared that United had found its best starting XI, we have to go and get two players ejected. I guess we all know that players are going to have to sit out a game here and there for disciplinary reasons, but two at once can be brutal. Especially when those two are your highest paid player and most consistent player.

Just about an hour from kickoff here at RFK Stadium and lineups have been submitted for tonight's game. With Marcelo Gallardo and Bryan Namoff unavailable due to their red cards last weekend, here's the squad the coaches have settled on...

D.C. United starters: Zach Wells; Gonzalo Martinez, Gonzalo Peralta, Devon McTavish, Marc Burch; Santino Quaranta, Clyde Simms, Rod Dyachenko, Fred; Jaime Moreno, Luciano Emilio.

Match #13.17 -- Kansas City Wizards
Six Word Novel Preview:
Even on points, a six-point game.
Opponent:
Kansas City Wizards
TV: 2 August 2008, Comcast Sportsnet, DireckKick, MLSLive.tv
Radio: WFED 1050AM, SRN
Previous Meeting:
March 29, 2008 - KC 2 - United 0
The Stakes:

Both teams sit on 22 points in the Eastern Conference, so this game could provide a six-point swing in the standings if either team manages to win.

I considered making the hour drive to RFK on Sunday morning to see the DC Reserves in action, but decided to play an impromptu game of tennis for the first time in 8 years against by brother-in-law. The good news: I still got it. The bad news: The Reserves lost.
But just in reading the summary of the match, there are several juicy tidbits that could have an impact on the first team:
1.

I barely get into the house and it's 1-1 in the Open Cup final. Luciano Emilio scores for DC, and gets hurt. Charleston responds in the 10th minute with a nice finish after some sloppy defending. We have ourselves a match, ladies and gentlemen.
I bet Charleston would've done better in the CONCACAF Champions League than New England did.

We're about an hour from kick-off and Tom Soehn has named his starters for this evening's match. Most notable are Boyzzz Khumalo getting the start up top with Jaime Moreno and Quavas Kirk getting his first League start at right mid. Here's the full squad:

Louis Crayton; Bryan Namoff, Devon McTavish, Marc Burch, Gonzalo Martinez; Quavas Kirk, Clyde Simms, Santino Quaranta, Ivan Guerrero; Boyzzz Khumalo, Jaime Moreno.

I'm a bit late writing this due to numerous festivities that resulted from my sister-in-law's wedding this weekend, not the least of which included a couple of hangovers, so I'll keep my comments brief since several other smarter analysts, wittier writers, and merciless bloggers have already opined on the match.

The D.C. United reserves earned a 1-0 win over the Crew on the strength of a Rodion Dyachenko goal this afternoon in Columbus. Here is the match report, courtesy of the Crew's PR team...

CREW FALL TO D.C. UNITED, 1-0, WEDNESDAY IN RARE, MID-WEEK RESERVE DIVISION MATCH

For Immediate Release: Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Columbus, OH – The Columbus Crew Reserve squad fell to the D.

The big addition to today's 18-man roster is the inclusion of Santino Quaranta to the substitute's bench. Tino hasn't played since the team's 4-1 win over the Galaxy on June 29, when he left the game after just 27 minutes with a hamstring strain.

Here's tonight's starting lineup:

Zach Wells; Bryan Namoff, Devon McTavish, Marc Burch, Gonzalo Martinez; Craig Thompson, Clyde Simms, Jaime Moreno, Fred; Luciano Emilio, Francis Doe.

This was the first non-Open-Cup game of the season that I didn't see either in person or on tv, and that's probably a good one. Because aside from maybe the match at RSL early in the year, this was easily DC's worst performance yet. I should have taken the Fullback approach and prepped for this game with some red wine, or better yet, I should have been taking in the game with my arch nemesis Jose.

D.C. United withstood a strong challenge from the Charleston Battery on Wednesday night at RFK Stadium to claim the U.S. Open Cup by a score of 2-1, the second time in history that the club from the nation's capital has lifted the Dewar Trophy, having also won in 1996.
It didn't take long for the home side to pull ahead, with last year's MLS MVP Luciano Emilio striking just four minutes into the match.

And here.. we... go..

Zach Wells; Bryan Namoff, Devon McTavish, Marc Burch, Gonzalo Martinez; Boyzzz Khumalo, Clyde Simms, Santino Quaranta, Craig Thompson; Luciano Emilio, Ryan Cordeiro

Bench: Louis Crayton, Rod Dyachenko, Francis Doe, Quavas Kirk, Jaime Moreno, Fred, Greg Janicki

And here's what the 4-4-2 will look like:

-----------Cordeiro------------Emilio-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Quaranta-----------------------Thompson------------------------------Khumalo----------------------Simms-------------------------Martinez-----------------------------------Namoff-------------Burch---------McTavish--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Wells--------------------------

With a host of injuries, Coach Tom Soehn has had to make a few adjustments to his usual starting lineup. The team will be sticking to the 4-4-2 it has recently been running out - here's how they'll start this evening:

Zach Wells; Bryan Namoff, Devon McTavish, Marc Burch, Gonzalo Martinez; Craig Thompson, Clyde Simms, Rod Dyachenko, Fred; Luciano Emilio, Jaime Moreno

Subs: James Thorpe, Pat Carroll, Mike Zaher, Ryan Cordeiro, Quavas Kirk, Dane Murphy, Francis Doe.

D.C. United 1 : 2 C.D. Guadalajara
Superliga, Match Day 1
Six Word Novel Recap

Lights go out with United's hopes.

Six Word Novel Literary Criticism of Six Word Novel Recap

That recap is over-dramatic, too sentimental.

Media, Traditional and Otherwise
The Washington Times, John Haydon: ".

Ouch, that was bad. And by that, I mean this, too. Soehn was pretty fired up, and not in a good way. Oh, and he was hoarse, too -- just like on Saturday. When you've given up five goals and been opened up at will over the course of two consecutive matches, and your coach barely has a voice from all the yelling he's been doing on the sidelines, something is amiss, no?