Looking to extend their winning streak to six games Saturday night, D.C. United were aiming to take advantage of an FC Dallas team that hadn't played in 13 days. They achieved the latter with a goal after just four minutes, then took care of the former with three goals around halftime for a resounding 4-0 win at Pizza Hut Park.
United midfielder Ben Olsen opened his side's account with the first of two goals in the fourth minute. He added a second in first half stoppage time before D.C. got tallies from Christian Gomez in the 47th and Fred in the 50th for their third consecutive win at Pizza Hut Park.
"We have a habit lately of getting an early goal and it's a lot easier to play when you get one early," said D.C. United head coach Tom Soehn. "We had a feeling they might be a little flat for having time off and made sure that in the first 15 minutes, we wanted to set the tempo of the game. I thought we did a good job of that."
With the two goals, Olsen now has two multiple-goal games this season. He had a hat trick in a 4-2 win against the New York Red Bulls on July 10 at RFK Stadium.
"Benny has added a lot of offense this year," Soehn said. "We put him back in the spot where he originally started and he understands how to play that role well. He catches a lot of defenders on the back side. The shots he takes and the chances he creates are from being a veteran."
Olsen had scored the opener against New York on Aug. 22, but then sat out United's win against Toronto FC last weekend. He came off for Domenic Mediate in the 62nd minute. Like Olsen, Luciano Emilio did not play against TFC, also resting an injury. He started against FCD, but with the four-goal bulge, he wasn't given a chance to regain the MLS scoring lead on a night when New York's Juan Pablo Angel and Kansas City's Eddie Johnson each scored their 14th goals, tying the Brazilian.
"He (Emilio) looked good," Soehn said. "Once we had the lead, it was important to save him for the next game. He had a bit of a muscle strain and we want to make sure we rest him. He trained all week and we were just being cautious."
From the start, the Hoops looked like a team that was rusty after a 13-day break between their last game on August 19 in Houston and the United match.
"Sometimes when a team gets time off, it's hard to come back," Soehn said. "Dallas had a little time off and that took away from the crispness that they had. Sometimes it's a harder thing to overcome. We caught them on a day when they weren't that sharp."
However, defender Burch didn't see the Hoops as being flat, at least on one side of the ball.
"I thought offensively they didn't look that flat. They started out pretty quickly and had a couple of through balls they almost capitalized on," he said. "I think defensively, we just played really well. They looked a little slow in the back at the beginning and I think we took advantage of that."
Olsen didn't feel that the FCD team that took the field tonight at all resembled the one that battled United to a 3-3 draw at RFK on July 14, after D.C. jumped out to a three-goal lead early in the second half.
"I don't think we played the real Dallas tonight. You could tell they had some guys coming back from injuries. The Dallas we've seen is a lot better than that tonight. It wasn't a great night for them," Olsen said. "On the other side, we did some good finishing and the times we had our chances, we did pretty well with them and that's the difference sometimes in these games."
Regardless of whether or not the Hoops were indeed flat, the United players are indeed enjoying their current winning streak, which has reached six matches.
"It feels really good to be playing like this," Burch said. "All over the field, people are finishing up front, people in the back are stopping goals and the midfield is keeping possession. Troy (Perkins) is keeping the ball out of the net and everything is going well right now."
Steve Hunt is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
