The Sounders traded with the Vancouver Whitecaps to earn the No. 1 overall pick in the draft and used it to select defender Marc Burch, who spent the past five seasons with D.C. United. Terms of the trade with Vancouver were not released and are expected to be made public by the clubs later on Monday.

I can understand protecting Charlie Davies if you've got a rumor of trade interest that you think might enable you to significantly improve the team1. I can even plunge past the mystifying decision to protect a well-past-it Simms if a pay-cut or trade are on the horizon.

But Korb and Woolard?

Goff's version of the protected list is out, so I thought I'd stir from my hibernation1 to do some comparisons. (Revisit my list in four parts by hitting the links highlighted in the sidebar.)

• On both lists: Willis, Jakovic, De Rosario, Kitchen, McDonald, Pontius, Quaranta, Wolff
• Goff also protects: Korb, Woolard, King
• I also protect: Boskovic, Brettschneider, da Luz

We're in alignment on a number of points beyond the obvious (De Rosario, Kitchen, Pontius).

In the first three parts of this series, I worked my way through the thick weeds of the roster, pruning and purging. On the far side, I arrived with the roster sorted into the following categories...

• PROTECT: De Rosario, Jakovic, Kitchen, Pontius
• EXPOSE: Barklage, Burch, Cronin, Davies, Korb, McTavish, Morsink, Ngwenya, Woolard, Zayner
• BUBBLE: Boskovic, Brettschneider, da Luz, King, McDonald, Quaranta, Simms, Willis, Wolff
• N/A: Hamid, Najar, Shanosky, White

Four of the twenty-seven players on the roster don't need to be sheltered from the rapacious grasp of L'Impact de Montreal by virtue of their being home grown talents.

In Parts I and II we looked at the first two-thirds of United's roster in an attempt to compile preliminary lists of players to PROTECT, players to EXPOSE, players on the BUBBLE, and players who didn't have to be protected (N/A) for the expansion draft at the end of November that will stock L'Impact's stables for 2012.

Can't fault the second half effort1. Can't fault the entertainment value. Can't argue we didn't deserve to crash out either. Heroic last-ditch efforts aside, it was over the last four games that the ghost was well and truly given up, not this one match that sealed the deal.

Talking points?

You want me to recant? To say that Wednesday's Reaction Post was a mistake?

Keep waiting.

I suppose if I were going to be really cynical, I'd point out that our first team could absolutely dominate the MLS Reserve League[1]. I'm not going to go there. I'm going to give United credit for finishing chances, for learning their lessons from last time around, and for generally answering the challenge Olsen laid down.

I give up. Honestly.
How can you love a team, desperate for points in the playoff race, that takes a 2-0 lead at home to one of the worst teams in the league and conspires through a combination of catastrophic defending, a complete inability to retain possession, and, most damningly, sheer gutlessness in the face of adversity, to throw away two points?

Guess what? United are a middle of the road club. They slot in somewhere between the also-rans like Chivas and the league elites like Seattle. Hard to find these last couple of results shocking when you put things in that perspective, is it? Nor was it surprising to see United struggle offensively in their first game without their second most influential attacking player1.

Listen.

I sat down at the keyboard last night and stared at the screen. Nothing. I just couldn't get jazzed to write a reaction piece. Some of that was because I could copy and paste many of my prior talking points. Some was because the match was pretty dull.

But the main reason was because the result was so infuriatingly predictable.

Busy couple of weeks, busy weekend. All conspiring to keep my post production low, and that means...Grab Bag time.

Better Up Top

Those damnable "local blackouts" applied, leaving me with only the Match Day Live condensed version of the United vs. Quakes tilt. Obviously, I feel pretty unqualified to deal in minutiae as a result, but that won't keep me from making the one obvious observation: De Rosario needs to be up top.

DC United at FC Dallas: Dallas Heat Shows No Home Field Advantage
The extreme heat and humidity in Saturday night's contest was extremely evident on the faces of the players of both teams. FC Dallas was coming off a disappointing effort on the road at Real Salt Lake that we profiled earlier this week.

Philadelphia Union at DC United
Saturday night's contest was an exciting one, at least on paper leading up to the match, as it put the Eastern Conference leading Philadelphia Union on the road at DC United, who were excited to show off their new acquisition, MLS All-Star Dwayne DeRosario.

Midweek swaps saw two new faces appear in Ben Olsen's starting eleven. Unfortunately, the DJ was playing the same sorry tune when it came to the match itself. Good moments going forward, patchy periods of possession, and, of course, the inevitable defensive comedy routines. You'd think we'd have worn out that record by now.

So I was part of the way though prepping a series of posts on probable moves for DC United in the summer transfer window when...

McBoom!

De Boom!

Boom goes my post series.

Hmmm. The best laid plans of mice and fullbacks, eh? Instead of tossing out the whole thing, let me just post what would have been the key conclusions in that series and look at how the moves for De Rosario and McDonald address (or don't address) what I saw as the outstanding needs for United at the midway point.

Ah, youth. It has its pleasures and it has its pain.

Oh boy does it ever have its pain.

The young defense has had its teething troubles this season, and I was shocked that they managed to shut out LA last week on the road. Looks like they just deferred the inevitable. Three rooks and a USL guy arrayed ahead of a second-year keeper isn't anybody's recipe for consistency.

Join the guys as they look back at DC United's last two matches, including the win against Seattle and the draw against FC Dallas. The boys also look ahead to Colorado and talk about the rest of the league.

Philadelphia Union at D.C. United - Gamethread - U.S. Open Cup Qualification Play-In Round

Union starting XI: Mondragon, Harvey, Valdes, Califf, Harvey, Nakazawa, Carroll, M. Farfan, Daniel, Le Toux, Ruiz
Union bench: Holder, McInerney, Pfeffer, Richter, Agorsor, Torres, Mwanga
D.

Includes when it was called the CONCACAF Champions Cup. Qualifying games like the ones Colorado and LA played in the 90s are not included. However, the preliminary round games that are a part of the new Champions League are included (as they're considered part of the final tournament).
Alltime Records
GP W L D Pts GF GA GD DC United 40 16 14 10 58 64 58 6 Houston 22 7 8 7 28 28 31 -3 Columbus 18 8 7 3 27 25 26 -1 Chicago 11 6 3 2 20 18 14 4 Los Angeles 14 5 5 4 19 20 24 -4 San Jose 8 5 3 0 15 10 12 -2 Real Salt Lake 6 4 1 1 13 17 11 6 Toronto 10 3 3 4 13 8 10 -2 Kansas City 8 3 3 2 11 9 11 -2 Seattle 8 2 5 1 7 8 12 -4 New England 6 1 4 1 4 4 12 -8 New York 2 0 1 1 1 3 4 -1 Chivas USA 2 0 1 1 1 1 3 -2
This season, Colorado and Dallas will make their debuts in the competition.

United picked up midfielder/defender Perry Kitchen, fullback Chris Korb, and goalkeeper Joe Willis in the 2011 MLS SuperDraft. There are a number of points I'm curious about in relation to these picks, but the most interesting tactical talking point seems to be what Olsen's going to do with all those central midfielders.