It is rare when a team coming off the worst season in club history comes into a new year riding a wave of confidence, but D.C. United has a reason to feel good about 2011, and a reason to feel confident about making 2010 a distant memory.
D.C. was awful last year. The worst team in the league, D.C. fired first-year coach Curt Onalfo and watched a toothless offense and leaky defense crawl to the finish line. What few realized was that the upcoming off-season would offer the kind of dramatic makeover the club badly needed after two years without a playoff appearance.
First came Dax McCarty, the type of creative central midfielder the club hadn’t had since Marco Etcheverry’s jheri curl roamed RFK Stadium. Then came U.S. Under-20 captain Perry Kitchen, who many considered the best prospect in the draft, but who slipped to D.C. at No. 3 overall in the 2011 MLS Draft.
Then came the third and most important of the major additions. Charlie Davies has yet to play first team soccer since recovering from the car accident that nearly took his life, but he has made enough progress to impress D.C. United management and complete a loan that could produce one of the league’s most important moves of the winter.
That trio forms the nucleus of a young and talented D.C. squad that already had some promising pieces in place. MLS Rookie of the year Andy Najar, goalkeeper Bill Hamid and forward/midfielder Chris Pontius combine with Davies, McCarty and Kitchen to give D.C. the best collection of young talent in MLS.
Ultimately though, it is another youngster who is key to the team’s success. Head coach Ben Olsen, the youngest coach in MLS at 33, brings little coaching experience but he does bring the credibility that comes with being one of the best leaders in D.C. United’s history. He will be hoping to enjoy the type of success enjoyed by former D.C. head coach Peter Nowak, who led D.C. to the 2004 MLS Cup title in his first year as a head coach.
Olsen gained some valuable experience while serving as interim head coach last season. He will need every bit of that experience to blend together a team with so many new faces. Assistant coach, and stand-in goalkeeper Pat Onstad should help provide some leadership after retiring from the Houston Dynamo, joining Olsen’s coaching staff, and then coming out of retirement to cover for D.C. United’s injured goalkeepers.
The new-look D.C. roster will feature an offense that should be miles better than the one that produced a league-worst 21 goals in 30 games last season. A potential trio of distributors in McCarty, Najar and Boskovic should provide a boat-load of service for forwards like Davies and Pontius.
The real question is whether the defense can improve dramatically from 2010, when D.C. surrendered the fourth-most goals in the league. Kitchen is seen as a difference-making centerback, and teaming with Canadian Dejan Jackovic should help him adjust to the pro ranks, but it can’t be forgotten that he’s just 19.
That’s what must be remembered about the 2011 version of D.C. United. While the new additions should help D.C. climb out of the Eastern Conference cellar, and jump into the thick of the playoff race, this group’s best days are likely to come after 2011. D.C. should be fun to watch, and U.S. national team fans will be able to see the likes of Davies and Kitchen as they develop, but this season will be about developing the young nucleus that just might return D.C. United to its championship-winning ways in the coming years.
D.C. UNITED
KEY LOSSES: Jaime Moreno, Troy Perkins, Rodney Wallace, Julius James
NEW ARRIVALS: Charlie Davies, Dax McCarty, Perry Kitchen, Josh Wolff, Joseph Ngwenya, Pat Onstad.
BIGGEST QUESTION: Can Charlie Davies be the Davies of old? D.C. United badly needed a striker it could count on for a big goal total. Enter Davies, who is still working his way back from a fatal car accident almost a year and a half ago. If he can show that burst and finishing ability that had him on the fast track to European stardom before the tragedy, he could be a favorite for MLS Newcomer of the Year.
X-FACTOR: Chris Pontius. While Davies, Andy Najar and Dax McCarty are getting plenty of the pre-season attention with D.C., it is Pontus who two years ago had the makings of a truly dynamic attacking player. Whether at forward or on the left flank, Pontius could thrive in a suddenly dangerous D.C. attack.
OUTLOOK: D.C. endured the worst season in the club’s history last year and as bad as things got, the off-season has been the opposite. D.C. landed a gift in Dax McCarty, a future national team defender in Perry Kitchen and then the potential crown jewel in Charlie Davies. With a healthy Chris Pontius and more mature Andy Najar and Bill Hamid, as well as a full season of Designated Player Branko Boskovic, D.C. United stands poised to not only return to the playoffs, but also make some post-season noise in Ben Olsen’s first season as head coach.
Ives Galarcep is a senior writer for FoxSoccer.com covering Major League Soccer and the U.S. national team.
