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My D.C. United Preview for ESPN.com

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The MLS season is still a month away but it isn’t too early to start previewing teams.

ESPN.com has started its team previews and my first preview was on D.C. United. The busiest team this off-season, D.C. made some big moves and D.C. has to be considered a top title contender. As I state in the preview, D.C.’s success is not assured. Too many people are taking for granted that Marcelo Gallardo will dominate. I’m not convinced that it’s a foregone conclusion.

Give the preview a read and share your thoughts on it below.

Comments

  1. I just have a couple of words:

    CHICAGO FIRE

    Sorry but I just couldn’t help myself.

    Here’s hoping we get DC again in the 1st round!

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  2. Haig, a couple of bones spurs is a whole lot different than a career ending “eduardo-like” ankle break. Give it up. The season will speak for itself.

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  3. Will DC be good enough to win the Cup, or tri-peat the Shield…? That depends upon many of the issues that Ives brought up.

    But no matter what happens, you know that as sure as Death and Taxes, DC United will frustrate + dominate the Metro Bulls.

    Because no matter how bad DC United seems to do, FC Jersey just seems to pull out all the stops to underperform DCU.

    Feeling it Haig…?

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  4. One or two of the DC fans are making legitimate points. Most are outraged that anyone would question their supremacy and are making up “facts” to justify their self-love.

    As for the reasonable ones: good, but not great, team for the last two years. They could win but were very error-prone in high pressure games, which may put them in the top tier of MLS, but Houston has been the best team. And there’s NO evidence that their signings are any good, just an assumption that DC always signs excellent players, so these guys must be good, which is nonsense. By all legitimate reports, they have not been good. I’m presuming those reports are valid, that the weak Gallardo of the last few years is the one at DC, and that Olsen’s ankle problems are similar to those that caused him to miss a year and a half some time back. None of these are unreasonable. You might disagree with them, but your United fan groupthink is not convincing.

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  5. Interesting that there are about 10 DC United posters fighting with one very spirited DC Basher. Logical arguments (with the results like the the best record in the league 2 years in a row) vs. flaming retorts.

    Haig, you are surrounded like Custer. You are going down fighting, but you are going down!

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  6. A healthy Quaranta is a pretty good option off the bench. Of course, he doesn’t stay healthy due to bad habits, but being waived seems to have had a drastic impact on being a professional and actually staying fit. If he proves anything in camp, it will probably be more than he ever showed for LA or NY last year.

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  7. Not really. DC has a couple of forwards/midfielders (Cesar, Blumer, and a healthy Quaranta) in camp, and all could be signed to our senior roster.

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  8. 4th or 5th east, as things stand now. But I expect to see significant changes. All the happy talk of Veron aside, DC is done making moves for the year.

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  9. Haig,

    Out of curiosity, where do you predict NY will finish this season? A lot of the arguments you’re making against DC (suspect defense, forward who the league will catch up with, lack of quality goalkeeping/midfield play) are exactly the things that I would say are wrong with NY. And that’s based on last year and the lack of any notable additions this year. If you think DC is going to finish no higher than 3rd, then your expectations for NY must be borderline depressing.

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  10. didn’t mean right now and all the facts point to DC being the best team in MLS history, there is no argument there, but this season will speak for itself

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  11. It’s almost 3am in Salzburg, fro. If Ives has any sense he’s asleep, or having an Augerstiner Brau with Lewis and Bell, but in any case ignoring the total meltdown DC fans had on this thread when someone suggested that maybe their team isn’t as good as they think.

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  12. “Because it was held every 2-3 years, duh! GET YOUR facts straight Haig and stop hatin on the hardware.”

    Uh, did you actually read that?

    It was not contested on only one occasion between 1985 and 1995, then only once (1998) since then. I don’t see real tournaments like Libertadores being “skipped” like that, pal. It wasn’t held “every two or three years”– it was held whenever one team decided it needed another competition and persuaded another team to accept some money to play that game.

    That’s why the Interamerican was (and is) regarded to be a joke, and no one gives a damn but self-deluding DC fans.

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  13. Vickery, I’d love to see you provide any source for that, because I was reading every scrap of news at the time and I never heard that explanation. Yes, Vasco would have had to fly an extra 3400 miles, but DC would have had to fly an extra 3900 miles… to go on to play at the Sao Januario in front of a home crowd of 36000, instead of a a few hundred Vasco fans and a mix of DC and Flamengo fans totaling 7000 people at Lockhardt.

    I think you made that up or are otherwise misremembering.

    Also, to show you how much this was an afterthought for Vasco: there’s a sports term in Brazil, o projeto tokio, which refers to the all-out expense and effort a league champion undertakes to immediately win Libertadores and go on to the Intercontinental/WCC. Vasco blew their wad trying to beat Real Madrid in a real tournament. It’s hard to imagine that they took seriously a competition held on the other side of the world two days later, playing a “home” leg in their opponent’s own country.

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