DC United’s Young Players’ Dynamic Attack Brings 2-1 Win Over Kansas City

DC United coach Troy Lesesne’s vision for his team showed early signs of fulfillment through their combination of young players with some critical seasoned veterans.  While two new acquisitions, Joao Peglow and Hosei Kijima, were particularly effective, the entire team has benefited from their enthusiastic play.

The coach feels that.  “The last five, six seasons for DC United, the energy and the momentum hasn’t been where it needs to be.  And so, we feel a tremendous responsibility as a staff and this group of players to start to turn that energy around and make the energy be a little more contagious from a positive side.”

The game showed the progress that he was hoping for, “I thought it was a really good performance tonight.  The group keeps pushing and I thought we deserved all three points.  At the beginning of this year, you can see us continuing to build and add different pieces to the puzzle not only individually, but as a team. And so, we’re open to continue to replicate performances like tonight and I think we’ve been pretty consistent over the three weeks.”

Following Christian Benteke’s penalty kick to tie the game in the 60^th minute, the two rookies combined as Peglow fed Kijima for the winning goal in the 68^th minute.  Lesesne praised Peglow’s performance, “He’s absolutely a fantastic player and we saw that all through preseason. We were really happy when we were able to sign him because we thought that he could have these types of performances that he had tonight.  He’s just involved in everything that’s creative that we do and we start to get him around guys like Gabby Pirani and Hosei Kijima and Christian Benteke.  I think we’re going to be fun to watch as we keep building.”

Two veteran wide defenders provide overlapping attacking as David Schnegg especially impressed the coach, “I thought he was very, very good tonight and we know what Aaron (Herrera) does on the opposite side of the field. Our goal is to be able to provide that on both sides, and tonight we did that with Aaron, Schnegg, Peglow, and Jacob (Murrell) when he came on.”

In contrast with the modern tendency to emphasize building from the back, both teams chose more direct play, creating a night of the long ball.  This arose from the mutually aggressive defensive play.  Lesesne observed, “Sometimes when you’re under pressure, you play a little bit more direct.  But I mean, for us, we’re always going to look for the deepest target possible and that’s how we create chances and create the most dangerous chances – – – We’re going to play whenever that’s on.”

His choice of tactics reflects the value of the team’s top scorer, “To start with Christian, he’s still the focal point and we want it that way.”  Still, the coach knows he needs balance, “The more that we have contributions outside of Christian, the better it’s going to go for this team to win more matches.”

For the future, he is optimistic, “This is one of the best attacks I’ve seen over the course of my time here and hopefully we will have more of those and really proud of the way that the group was able to see out the result tonight.”

United takes on Montreal Saturday at Audi field continuing to open the season against teams similarly concerned with making the playoffs.  It is important that they get points now before the top contenders appear on their schedule.