DC United Comes Back to Tie NYCFC 1-1

With five games to go, DC United Coach Troy Lesesne is well aware of his team’s requirements, “Believe me, with only five matches left, every single one of them is going to count and you can see how tight it is.”  United has won two and tied this latest game of the past three, managing to retain the last playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

A good team expects to win at home and tie away, but DC’s record is slightly skewed to away strength with both venues still negative.  There remains a puzzling dilemma, slow starts.  The NYCFC game epitomized this, and Lesesne took responsibility, “The first half what I told the group is I don’t think that I got it right on my end.”

He explained, “I mean really in the first half we were too passive.  We were a little bit too low, and we wanted to be that way because we thought we could be aggressive and go in transition.”  His solution, “Our mentality, though, has to be what it was at the beginning of the second half from the beginning and we’ve said that way too often this year and this is going to be a challenge for the group this coming week.”

He felt that, “This match could have been won by New York City in the first half and it could have been won by us in the second half.”  In reality, NYCFC had the better of play in both halves while DC was nearly equal in the second.

Part of the problem for United is the lack of impactful depth.  Two key players missed the game, Mateusz Klich with accumulated cautions and David Schnegg with an injury.  Conversely, Russell Canouse, who substituted in late, has returned from an early season injury and can be expected to be helpful.

He described the process, “Practically understanding the game, so coming in, obviously there’s a little bit of adjustment just to make sure I gel with the guys because I haven’t been with them all year, but it’s something I’m I would say I’m more used to than anything else because I’ve been doing it my whole life really.  And I had natural instinct to play in that system.”

He also is, “Really excited because I felt like, you know, I fit really well into his style.  That’s what I kind of grew up playing at Hoffenheim.  It was that really high, intense pressing, winning the ball, attacking transition style play.”

To add solid depth, Jackson Hopkins has been training with the team again after an ankle injury.  Boris Enow, despite his ejection in his first game, appeared effective and should become an impact player as he moderates his adjustment to Lesesne’s aggressive approach.

To their credit, every player interviewed believes in the team.  This bodes well as they head into their last five games.  As Lesesne put it simply, “We’ve got five matches left and we’re still in a good position.”

Their next opponent is the Philadelphia Union away on Sunday.