Two studies in rebuilding collide at BMO Field Saturday afternoon as TFC welcome DC United in their 2014 home opener.
Most Toronto supporters will be intimately familiar with all the (bloody?) big news of the Reds’ offseason but might not be as aware of the transformation attempted in the American capital. DC United were in the argument for worst MLS team of all-time in 2013 so the need to revamp should hardly be surprising and, consequently, their starting line-up debuted seven new faces two weeks ago against Columbus.
Most analysts had been impressed with DC’s offseason and, on paper, it’s easy to see why.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] Sean Franklin, Jeff Parke, and Fabian Espindola are all competent MLS regulars well known to followers of Major League Soccer. Davy Arnaud and Bobby Boswell are getting up there in age, and might have trouble keeping up over an entire season, but have years of experience in the league. Eddie Johnson, the first person to score at BMO Field all those years ago, put himself back into serious U.S. national team consideration with a solid season in Seattle last year before becoming unsettled over contract issues.
Added to some of the better, younger holdovers from a DC squad that finished strong only two seasons ago like keeper Bill Hamid and midfielders Perry Kitchen and Nick DeLeon there was reason to believe that United would be one of the most improved clubs in 2014.
And then they lost 3 – 0 to the Crew. At home. Frankly, it’s the sort of thing you’d expect from Toronto FC.
So now, coming off the high of their season opening win in Seattle, the Reds find themselves in the all too rare position of overwhelming favourites. At this point, home fans are, maybe rightfully, expecting a win. Outside of Champions League matches against Central American minnows, when was the last time that happened?
Home debuts for Jermaine Defoe, Michael Bradley, and Julio Cesar. The return of Dwayne De Rosario to Toronto. Hints of a possible cameo for TFC’s third designated player Gilberto. Heck, the club even announced a pre-game deal on beer. When Tim Lieweke imagined how the transformation of Toronto FC would look in the summer of 2013 it probably wasn’t too dissimilar to this.
Of course, years of hard won cynicism in Hogtown might allow for a careful recalibration.
TFC have only won one game. Yes, DC United haven’t won a league match since August of last year but they’ve had two weeks to prepare for this game and two more weeks to attempt to assemble all those new players into a team. The interminable winter of 2013-14 still won’t completely give up its hold and has left BMO Field’s pitch in rough condition. With the likelihood of more precipitation overnight before the game, how the grass will hold up is an open question.
Finally, if they care to, at some point DC United are going to have to start playing for Ben Olsen’s job.
Only two years ago Olsen was the model for elevating former MLS players to head coaching positions. He was hardly the first, but it’s hard to imagine all of Mike Petke in New York, Carl Robinson in Vancouver, Pablo Mastroeni in Colorado, and, most prominently, Ryan Nelsen in Toronto, if he hadn’t been seen as a success.
Olsen still has the snappy suits but his poster-boy status has been severely diminished since the trend accelerated and, after being given a chance to show that 2013, rather than 2012, was the outlier, he probably can’t afford a slow start to 2014. A loss in an away game against what looks to be a much improved Toronto team isn’t likely to spell his doom but Olsen, and his players, will know that he’s already under pressure after the way United opened their season.
One year ago a match between Toronto FC and DC United might have been the worst you could find in MLS. It was bad enough to prompt the cheeky British football fanzine When Saturday Comes to send a correspondent to the crumbling confines of RFK Stadium to file a featured match report. Now, two rebuilds later, there’s the chance that it could be not only entertaining but meaningful for both clubs as well and a game that fans in other MLS cities are keeping an eye on. To some degree, in Toronto, that’s already a success story.