Even a team with a strong history such as DC United can still upset the unique chemistry that underlies its long term success. This year Coach Tom Soehn has had the difficult task of integrating an unusually large number of talented young players into an aging, but still competent squad.

Under the stress of normal league play, DC United could expect a smooth integration and a successful season featuring steady growth and improvement. However, the addition of many mid-week games has had a triple whammy effect.

Soehn has stated on several occasions that he and his staff are very happy when they have the rare extended period of practice without games in order to better train the team. What he is getting at is the fact that a compressed schedule not only creates fatigue problems which require greater player rotation, but also leaves less time to bring the team together to forge a desired style.

The team can’t get a rhythm if the music of varied opponents keeps changing. This dynamic accounts for the all too common phenomenon of a team’s playing down to the level of an opponent. When a team plays down, it is because it is not as certain as it should be of its own rhythm.

On the other hand, a team can play up to a superior opponent for significant parts of a game because that opponent sets the overall rhythm of play at a high level.

Soehn has struggled in his attempts to find a rhythm because he has yet to find the best way to integrate new players. He had early success when injuries forced United to play two rookies who exceeded expectations. That success may have given him a false sense of confidence in the ability of those youngsters, and others to follow, to fit into the style he wished to see.

The tasks of a winger in any strong team are relatively straightforward and emphasize maintaining width with sufficient variety to keep a defense honest. Chris Pontius and Rodney Wallace stepped into those roles and performed them by the book, with minimal flair and simple competence.

Their example showed the way for the more centrally oriented wingers like Fred and Tino Quaranta to adjust to the basic team rhythm instead of favoring their own skill set. The overall team style was thus reinforced and early success followed.

However, as the busy schedule bore down on the players and staff, Soehn found himself having to make constant adjustments. There is a fine line between being flexible and losing the beat. Jazz is not easily played well.

The emergence of several good young players was a godsend for DC United, but brought new players to the band and ultimately threw off the overall rhythm. In any group effort there is a tipping point where the introduction of new blood stops being a blessing and becomes a destabilizer.

There is no right or wrong in that, it is a simple fact of human interaction, and the best of coaches recognize it before it becomes a problem. The best solution is to always keep a sufficient cadre of those already steeped in the team’s culture on the field, filling in with newcomers a few at a time.

Instead, many coaches play their strongest squad in the games they deem most important and play many reserves in those less favored. The culture is thereby transmitted mostly in practices and only marginally in the few games where reserves are few enough to comfortably adapt.

In summary, DC United chose to win early with starters (with the exception of the pleasant Wallace/Pontius surprise) and lost valuable integration time. The team has lost its rhythm as it alternates between stronger and lesser squads.

This was on display in the second half on Wednesday as direction of play fell significantly to Bryan Namoff who was playing his usual right defender position with frequent overlaps to support the attack. A team with a sense of its own style needs very little verbal and hand gesture direction, especially from the back when on attack.

There is still time to shift to a better balanced mix of players but it comes with real risk. The pressure of needed wins both on Saturday at Chicago and on Wednesday in the Open Cup Final versus Seattle will force Soehn to optimize his roster for two straight closely placed games.

That crisis may force him to use a mix twice in a row and present him a corresponding opportunity to set a pattern of mixed strength which should have been adopted sooner. There is precious little time left to get it right.

Tino Quaranta, a veteran at 24, was pleased with the mixture of talent on display, “When you have a lot of athleticism, the youth, the width is gonna be there. It was really disciplined for being a younger team.”

That discipline flows from an understanding among all the players that, “This is a really deep team. It shows. We’ve really got some good talent.” Every player interviewed noted that Soehn has emphasized his own belief that the team is competent and confident, top to bottom.

Bryan Namoff saw it at the last practice, “We were definitely really sharp the day before in training. It was great to kinda use that to keep it flowing to the next day. When you knock the ball around, you can just tell, there’s a good chemistry there.”

The team’s attitude carried forward and in the game fed on itself, “As confidence starts to build the more you are able to possess the ball”, Namoff explained. However, with youth comes a corresponding loss of perspective.

Brandon Barklage, who scored his first professional goal to seal United’s victory, provided a great deal of the energy early on only to realize that he had lost focus and position. He had the wisdom to adjust, “Once I got reins on myself, I felt a lot better.”

Dallas did a reasonable job of absorbing United’s attacks and began to assert themselves after about 30 minutes. Quaranta echoed what others had observed, “We put a lot into the first 30 minutes. I thought we lost hold of the game that last 15 minutes of the first half.”

His explanation of the loss of DC control was simple, “It dropped off toward the half with fatigue.” He noted that Soehn refocused the team in the locker room, “Then we came out in the second half and right off the get-go took the game back —– That was the talk at half-time.”

Chris Pontius, who has played well on the wing early in the season and played forward in this game, had a similar view of play, “You want to get the ball to the forwards, then to the side. That will eventually expose their defense — When you do that, you use a lot of your energy. We’ve got to manage that a little bit better.”

Barklage emphasized that the formation had a role in how the team played, “Especially with this 3-5-2, we can really expose their flanks on the weak side. With Tino or Fred or whoever we put out there, if we get them the ball they’re gonna run at the defense or put great crosses in. We try to do that a lot, switch the point of attack.”

The positive experience may well carry forward into the Eastern Conference game against the Red Bulls in New Jersey on Sunday. The team’s elders know that they must produce and have been shown the way.

It starts in practice, “Now the starting 11, every week they gotta show that they deserve it. It’s such a healthy thing for the team,” explained Andrew Jacobsen.

The rookie is fresh off foreign experience in France where he learned that, “Every player was as confident as can be.” In regard to the strong midfielders now starting for United, that means, “If I want to get on the field, I have to do what they can do. I don’t have much of an option.

“When you have such great players in the middle like Christian and Ben and Clyde and all the forwards, it’s hard not to go down the center but now we finally have great players on the width now so the other team has to pick their poison. If they want to take away the middle we’ll beat them on the outside.”

Match Facts

Scoring Summary:
DC — Fred 1 (Chris Pontius 1) 21
DC — Brandon Barklage 1 (Santino Quaranta ) 6

Lineups:
FC Dallas — Ray Burse, Michael Dello-Russo, George John (Aaron Pitchkolan 8), Drew Moor, Daniel Torres, Pablo Ricchetti, Alvaro Sanchez (Bruno Guarda 90), Eric Avila, Dave van den Bergh (David Ferreira 73), Jeff Cunningham (Kenny Cooper 71), Peri Marosevic,
Substitutes Not Used: Dax McCarty, Dario Sala, Blake Wagner

D.C. United — Milos Kocic, Bryan Namoff (Dejan Jakovic 62), Greg Janicki, Marc Burch, Thabiso Khumalo, Brandon Barklage, Andrew Jacobson, Devon McTavish, Fred (Rodney Wallace 61), Chris Pontius (Jaime Moreno 73), Santino Quaranta (Anthony Peters 82),
Substitutes Not Used: John DiRaimondo, Luciano Emilio, Josh Wicks

Statistical Summary:
D.C. United / FC Dallas
Total shots: 17 (Santino Quaranta 5) 11 (Drew Moor 3)
Shots on goal: 7 (Marc Burch 2,
Santino Quaranta 2) 4 (4 tied with 1)
Fouls: 14 (Andrew Jacobson 3,
Rodney Wallace 3) 12 (4 tied with 2)
Offsides: 4 (Santino Quaranta 3) 3 (Jeff Cunningham 3)
Corner kicks: 8 (Brandon Barklage 4,
Thabiso Khumalo 4) 7 (Dave van den Bergh 4)
Saves: 4 (Milos Kocic 4) 5 (Ray Burse 5)

Misconduct Summary:

Referee: Jeff Gontarek
Referee’s Assistants: Jason Cullum; Matthew Kreitzer
4th official: Terrence Andrews
Time of game: 1:49
Attendance: 5,163
Weather: Cloudy -and- 55 degrees