D.C. United coach Ben Olsen admitted he had "a few choice words" for his team after they fell behind 2-0 at halftime en route to a 3-1 loss to Everton FC in Saturday night's international club friendly at RFK Stadium.
"I was extremely disappointed in the performance of some of our players," said Olsen. United went two down in the first sixteen minutes of the match after goals by Everton's Victor Anichebe and Diniyar Bilyaletdinov.
"You don't walk onto this field --or any field--and play 60 or 70 percent." Olsen said. "We've got some guys on this team who don't get it, and that's disappointing." Olsen made five changes at halftime, throwing on Steve Cronin, Perry Kitchen, Ethan White, Conor Shanosky, and Dwayne De Rosario and removing Bill Hamid, Chris Korb, Dejan Jakovic, Andy Najar, and Kurt Morsink. De Rosario paid almost instant dividends, assisting on United's only goal of the game, which was scored by Chris Pontius. Pontius himself was a 36th minute substitute for Josh Wolff, who was forced off with what Steven Goff of The Washington Post reported to be a hamstring tweak.
"It was men against boys there for about 20 minutes," Olsen said, "then our egos kicked in and we started playing better."
After playing three games in seven days (0-2-1), United don't play again until Saturday night, when a West Coast road trip takes them to San Jose to play the Earthquakes, who beat the Black-and-Red 4-2 at RFK on June 11 behind a Steven Lenhart hat trick. Despite the cross-country trip, Olsen said that United won't return to training until Tuesday.
"We need two days off," Olsen said. "I need two days off."