Photo Credit: D.C. United
A football campaign an often take it toll. The consistent grind of matches, practice, travel, and whatever creative things assistant coach Chad Ashton can do to cause pain and exhaustion. But every once in a while the players get the chance to take it easy and enjoy the life of a professional footballer. If it so happens that hundreds of supporters can join them well then that is just an added perk.
Last Thursday night D.C. United’s Luciano Acosta, Lloyd Sam, and Steve Birnbaum got just such an opportunity. The D.C. trio joined supporters group the Screaming Eagles at Maketto in the H Street Corridor of Washington D.C. for the unveiling of the SGs clothing line. The Screaming Eagles partnered with clothing manufacturer Mitchell and Ness to create a series of T-Shirts, Sweaters, and Scarves catered to the Eagles motto of, “All Welcome, All United.”
“It is so awesome,” said Birnbaum. “It is so cool that Screaming Eagles and Mitchell and Ness got together to create something that is about being inclusive and being unified is fantastic. Also getting the chance to hang out with the fans in a casual setting is great.”
“It has been fun,” said Sam. “I got a couple of new pieces from the shoot [all three players did a photo shoot prior to the event. Doing an event like this is definitely a perk but even if I wasn’t a player I would have come anyways. But it has been cool with the unity stuff and all that. But it has been good so far.”
Of course the week off also brought on World Cup Qualification matches something that was not lost upon Birnbaum and Sam, both of whom have featured for the United States and Ghana internationally. “Getting a result in Honduras was a huge for us. I think we are in a good position and the guys are doing great,” said Birnbaum who ended up watching the Costa Rica match at home and the Honduras match at a local restaurant in D.C. “It is not really in Ghana’s hands right now and we have to hope for a result to get to the World Cup. But we are in a tough situation and we have to wait for the results to go our way.”
D.C. United
