It's taken exactly two games for the good feeling that surrounded D.C. United's season to dissipate. The Black-And-Red fell to the Los Angeles Galaxy 3-1 Sunday night at the Home Depot Center in a match which saw D.C. United head coach Ben Olsen start both of his designated players (Hamdi Salihi and Branko Boskovic) on the bench. Boskovic came on as a second-half substitute, but Salihi stayed on the pine for the whole game, leading to this interesting post-match quote. (Via Steve Goff.)
On the surface, the absence of the big-ticket players was glaring.
"I don’t care what it looks like on the surface," Coach Ben Olsen said.
For their part, both Salihi and Boskovic accepted the decision to drop them from the starting lineup, at least publicly.
But it wasn't all bad for D.C. United as midfielder Nick DeLeon, who was drafted with the 7th overall pick in January's MLS Superdraft, scored a goal of real quality for United's first tally of the year. Welcome to MLS, son.