When FC Dallas played D.C. United in Washington on July 14, they were down 3-0 with 40 minutes to play. On that occasion, the Hoops fought back to grab a 3-3 tie.
Saturday night, they had spotted United a four-goal lead after 50 minutes at Pizza Hut Park. But there was to be no such comeback a second time, as the visitors eased to the 4-0 victory.
Head coach Steve Morrow's post-match meeting with the media was short and sweet, likely his shortest such dialogue of the year.
"Obviously we are disappointed," he said. "We had a bad night. They put the ball in the back of the net and we didn't. There's nothing more to say."
The Hoops players were equally dismayed.
"It's a little embarrassing obviously," said left back Chris Gbandi. "In spurts, we played well but all four goals were because of mental mistakes. We have had quite a few games like that this year. You give a team like D.C. opportunities like that and they will take advantage of it."
"My thought is that we played like complete crap," said center back Clarence Goodson. "We got four goals scored on us and that's inexcusable. We've got to do a better job of clearing the ball. They scored four goals on bad clearances. It was bad and we played like crap. We had a week off and should have been rested. This sort of thing shouldn't happen."
FCD surrendered a pair of first-half goals to United midfielder Ben Olsen and at the break found themselves down 2-0. D.C. added two more just after the half, from Christian Gomez in the 47th minute and Fred in the 50th.
"It was just not good enough from every player tonight," second-year midfielder Dax McCarty said. "We gave up a bad goal in the first few minutes and that set the stage for the rest of the night for us. We've had our troubles starting games off and I don't know why other teams do better at that than us but it just wasn't good enough.
"The overall effort wasn't there tonight and if we're a team looking to win MLS Cup, this is definitely not the way to be going into the playoffs. We need to go back to the drawing board and get things together for Tuesday."
The Hoops last played on August 19, when they fell 1-0 at Houston but Morrow wasn't ready to chalk up Saturday's defeat to rust.
"I thought we started well with good intensity and a good level," he said. "Throughout the game, I don't think we played horribly. But they scored the goals and we didn't. We had our chances and didn't put them away."
However, Morrow was concerned about surrendering four goals for the second time this season.
"I'm always concerned when we give up goals," he said. "I thought we gave up very four bad goals tonight and am disappointed."
One of the lone highlights for the evening was the FCD debut of Brazilian midfielder Denilson, who made his MLS debut in the 55th minute when he came on for fellow countryman Ricardinho.
"I think it was tough coming into this situation when we were 4-0 down," Morrow said about Denilson's performance. "But I thought he did some good stuff."
Even though United outshot FCD 12-9, Morrow still didn't feel that his side did a bad job of creating chances.
"I thought we had chances to score," he said. "We had a couple when we were 1-0 down. Had we put those away, it would have been a different game. You give up goals, it's always going to be a mental decline."
FCD's best chance of the match came in the 36th minute when Carlos Ruiz shot one toward the right post, an effort that was saved by D.C. goalkeeper Troy Perkins. To his credit, Ruiz hustled to get the rebound and found Juan Toja straight out from goal but his shot was blocked on the line by D.C.'s Bobby Boswell.
"People are probably going to get mad at me for saying this but we get too crazy after a win and get way too down after losses around here," Gbandi said. "It was a bad loss. We have had bad losses this season but you have people walking around not talking to each other after this one.
"This season is a long season and it all depends on how well we bounce back from losses. The last few times, we haven't bounced back from them very well. We can't get that down when we lose because every time we win a game around here, we feel like we won the World Cup," Gbandi continued. "Overall, we just have to take this in stride. D.C. is a good team and we got our butts kicked but I don't think we played that badly."
On Tuesday, FCD will face the USL First Division's Seattle Sounders in a Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup semifinal at Qwest Field in Seattle. The Hoops return to league play next Saturday when they play host to Toronto FC at Pizza Hut Park.
Steve Hunt is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
