(photo credit: Nelson Lucindo)
Real Salt Lake versus D.C. United
May 12th, 9pm EST, ESPN +/Newschannel 8
After a bit of a break D.C. United (1-4-2, 5 points) return to action Saturday night looking for their first road win of the 2018 season against Real Salt Lake (3-5-1, 10 points).
It has been an interesting week here in the nation’s capital with the United’s summer transfer gossip mill hitting high gear. The rumored move for Wayne Rooney and possibly Fernando Torres, Carlos Tevez, and Mario Balotelli have increased the interest locally for the side in ways that haven’t been seen in years.
While those moves are certainly of interest what will be more interesting how the club has changed over the past 12 days. Thus far in 2018 results haven’t been kind of to D.C. They enter Saturday’s match with just one win in seven matches and just one point on the road. With their next seven matches away from the DMV coach Ben Olsen’s side will need to find ways to get points in some pretty difficult spots (Seattle, Toronto, Los Angeles, San Jose).
The good news for D.C. is that they will get a little bit of help back in the form of midfielder Paul Arriola. Arriola had missed their last match, a 3-2 loss to the Philadelphia Union, due to a red card suspension. With him back look for him to get about 30 minutes in the second half, either spelling Ulises Segura or Zoltan Stieber in the second half.
Up top Olsen has to be bopeful that the two goal performance against the Union might mean that their scoring woes have come to an end. Midfielders Yamil Asad and Luciano Acosta finally looked comfortable with another in terms of moving the attack into their opponent’s defensive third. United’s first goal courtesy of Stieber showed a little bit of ingenuity that they had lacked for most of the 2018 season.
RSL meanwhile have problems of their own. Defenders David Horst, Demar Phillips, Shawn Barry, Tony Beltran, and midfielder Jordan Allen are all out leaving coach Mike Petke to go deep into their depth chart and into the USL side to find replacements. But center-back Justen Glad will be there and United is going to have their hands full at getting past one of the top defenders in the league. Behind him is goalkeeper Nick Rimando, whose 31 saves are fifth most in the league.
On the opposite side D.C. are going to have their hands full in keeping RSL’s quick midfielders at bay. Jefferson Savarino and Joao Plata have torched opponents down the left and right flanks, giving Albert Rusnak space to exploit inside. Defensive midfielder Chris Durkin is finally getting minutes and thus far hasn’t disappointed. But this will be a new challenge for the U.S. Youth National Team player and will show what sort of progress he has made in adapting as a professional.
Prediction D.C. United 1-Real Salt Lake 1
Real Salt Lake
DC United
