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D.C. celebrates stunning 3-2 win against Red Bulls

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                                                             Photo by ISIphotos.com

BY DYLAN BUTLER

Three times in their first four games, D.C. United squandered a lead and dropped valuable points. Coach Tom Soehn preached about the importance of playing a complete game and his team heeded his words in a shocking come-from-behind 3-2 win against the rival Red Bulls Sunday at Giants Stadium.

"It's funny," Soehn said. "We said it's a 90-minute game and we waited until the last three minutes to step it up. It was a gutty performance."

Luciano Emilio struck for the game-tying goal in the 90th minute and 1:42 later, Chris Pontius struck for the dramatic winner in the first of three minutes of stoppage time.

D.C. was understandably ecstatic about leaving the Meadowlands with three points, considering they had conceded two goals in a six-minute span to fall behind 2-1 with a little less than a quarter hour remaining.

However, while New York will rue a missed chance to close out the game, so, too, did United, which took a 1-0 lead into the locker room at halftime thanks to Rodney Wallace's first career MLS goal in the 21st minute. 

"I missed a chance, we hit the crossbar and you're looking at a game that could be 3-0 at halftime," Santino Quaranta said. "When you let a team like New York hang around, they have a lot of weapons — Juan Pablo (Angel) is phenomenal. We showed a lot of heart and character and that's all you can ask of the team."

The Red Bulls made a tactical change to open the second half, making a double substitution, bringing on Jorge Rojas and switching to three defenders. Admittedly, D.C. didn't deal well with the change and suddenly found themselves trailing 2-1 when Rojas set up both Juan Pablo Angel's tying goal and Dane Richards' go-ahead goal in the 74th minute.

Soehn, too, made a key substitution, bringing in Thabiso (Boyzzz) Khumalo for Wallace in the 81st minute.

"We wanted to win the game and do whatever we can to get points," Soehn said. "Boyzzz carried a lot of energy for us, (Brandon) Barklage came in and we started to play a little soccer at the end. It caught them by surprise."

Mission accomplished.

"It's huge," Pontius said. "Obviously, everone knows it wasn't the prettiest game, but if you could manage to get 'Ws' on the board, that's what this league is about. Three points here is huge."

Comments

  1. Yeah kbd, both pretty depressing. For what it’s worth, as much as I like to see DCU in pain, my first priority is still to soccer, U.S. soccer, and MLS as a whole, and I wrote to Maryland politicians expressing my support for a DCU stadium

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  2. PolishPete:

    You could not possibly have been sitting underneath the DCU supporters, because the Red Bulls do not sell tickets in those sections.

    Unless they allowed one fan to sit there. But all the seats were covered, otherwise.

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  3. For whatever reason, I watched it on MSG while recording it on Telefutura.

    And MSG bails on me at the ..what? 87th minute – classic up-yours attitude on soccer.

    (btw – although I live in NY, I’ve always had an attraction to DC United – the movement the holding etc etc)

    So, when I turn to telefutura it all becomes ok – the clouds part and 2 goals in 2 mins and I happily go outside and continue doing my yard work.

    Trust me – I want to like Red Bulls – got a hat, jersey..go to 2-3 games a year. But, what a trainwreck!

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  4. The game sucked between two sucky teams. And you guys are really hilarious, smacking on about attendance. Both of you are sorry.

    At least you RB fans can claim:

    3 words:

    Red Bull Arena!

    and 3 more words:

    RFK sucks _ _ _ _ _ _ !

    (It really does. I can’t think of anything worse. Well, other than, Giants Stadium)

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  5. The St. Louis United banner was good from ESC.

    The “Dallas has more fans” chant from DCU’s supporters was better. My high school drew more people to soccer games than NY’s pathetic MLS team.

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  6. haha only DC United fans and New York fans get into an argument 3 comments deep.

    Why did DC United get lucky? New York was lucky they weren’t losing 3-0 at halftime. New York definitely outplayed DC in the second half, but the game wasn’t *gifted* to DC. The last two goals DC scored weren’t own goals by New York, DC just showed more heart and put the ball where it needed to be.

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  7. well u think you outsing ESC ,and you didnt i was right under you guys Bavara Bitches at least 20 min at the end of the first half and all you could hear was ESC…ohh wait i forgot that You only sing when you winning,and on another note I THINK YOU GUYS LOST A BANNER ….and another one EAGLES was save by the ring ( I mean state tropers),

    cheers

    PolishPete

    NYCF/ESC

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  8. Fair enough, Scott A. I guess the amount of depression suffered by the fans as a result of the issues we both cite is in the same vicinity.

    But, again, I’d still rather move to St. Louis than be named after an energy drink ; ). Seriously though- I actually find it demeaning to the sport, not just the team or the MLS.

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  9. kbd I’m not sure I understand. You used humor to rip my team, I used humor back at you to rip your team, and then you accused me of not catching the humor. If the fact that a corporation deems the franchise valuable enough to invest in with a gleaming new stadium and naming rights is fair game to make fun of for you, surely the fact that your franchise can’t find a home is fair game for me

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  10. Stop bitching metroscum….its funny that all ya have on us is the “St Louis” thing…even if we move to Fargo…we will continue to out support you. Would it hurt you guys to bring a couple friends to the game?

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  11. Scott A:

    Maybe you didn’t catch the humor? Sorry, maybe I should have put a little smiley there. I wasn’t actually criticizing the franchise, just making a very commonly used joke. I am well aware of our own terrific (sarcasm- I would have put a smiley, but they don’t have any for that) situation, so I obviously know that we have no grounds to SERIOUSLY rip on other teams.

    And if I WERE to rip on the Bulls, I would have to look no farther than the fact that you are named after an Austrian energy drink company. I would much prefer to move to St. Louis than suffer that awful fate.

    But let’s no go there 😉

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  12. kbd nonono. The name is actually much shorter: it’s Red Bull New York. And we will play at Red Bull Arena. Pretty concise and simple really. Also, you see, it’s very very near to NYC and certainly well within the metropolitan area. Your team, on the other hand, is not wanted by any of three states or districts and looks to be moving outside of the metropolitan area (not just out of the district). So pretty rich you ripping on the name and location 🙂

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  13. MasterShake:

    What are you talking about? They outsang ESC all game.

    And when we move to St. Louis, you have top promise to change your official name to Red Bull New York MetroStar Red Bulls of Harrison, New Jersey.

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  14. I have no idea how DC United will end up this season. I suspect it’s a transition year with players like Jaime Moreno, Christian Gomez, Ben Olsen and maybe even Luciano Emilio spending their last seasons in Washington while a host of younger players (Jakovic, Wallace, Pontius, Kocic, and Barklage, maybe Quaranta) get ready to be fulltime starters or team stars. It does look like it’s a team that works hard, doesn’t quit but doesn’t have the elegant South American game of the best DCU teams.

    I’ll say this: scoring 2 goals in the last 3 minutes to pull the win out is the kind of result that can have a big impact with a young team (or a group of young players). We’ll see if that’s the case here.

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  15. they didn’t show any heart. the only reason they won is because our team sucks.

    DC is still classless and their fans only sung when the score was 3-2. Pathetic. Cant wait till St.Louis United rolls around.

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  16. becuase DC scum got the most lucky any team in this league has ever gotten, and red bull lost worse than they ever have before. That doesn’t happen every game that is why. 😉

    GOD I HATE DC

    Reply

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