D.C. United inched closer to first place in the Eastern Conference on Saturday evening in Columbus by knocking off the Crew 2-0. Fred scored his third goal of the year on a right-footed blast in the second half, which Luciano Emilio followed up 11 minutes later with his league-leading 14th of the year to send United on their way.
Both United head coach Tom Soehn and Crew boss Sigi Schmid said that much of the play in the first half favored the Crew. But the teams went to the locker rooms scoreless, and out of the break the first 25 minutes of the second half belonged to United, and that was all the time that they would need.
"At halftime we made some tactical adjustments that opened up a lot of space for us," said Soehn after the game. "Along with that we were much better with the ball and created some room on the flanks and doing that relaxed some weaknesses of theirs."
Goalkeeper Troy Perkins noticed the difference in the second half, on his way to posting his fifth shutout of the year.
"We came out [of the locker room] a totally different team than the first half and we actually went at them a little bit," said Perkins.
The D.C. goalkeeper made five saves on his way to the shutout, but the bulk of his duties for the night involved picking the many Crew crosses out the air that threatened his net.
"My defenders did pretty well keeping guys out of my lanes," said Perkins, "and any ball that's hung up there for me to get then I'm going."
In league play, United has now won three games in a row, all by shutout. Their last loss in a league game came July 22 to New York; however, United lost 2-0 to the LA Galaxy in David Beckham's first start for the team in the SuperLiga semifinals during the week.
"I always say that defending starts with your forwards. And when they do a good job of making them play predictable, it is easy for everyone else behind," Soehn said. "I think that our performance defensively as a unit has been much better. Anytime you're throwing shutouts, that is important."
With a slim margin separating the teams at the top of the Eastern Conference, the stage is set for some end of the season fireworks, and it can be expected that the teams involved are going to be fighting for every point that they can get.
"We're just trying to get some results going into the end of the season," says defender Devon McTavish. "We've still got a long way to go, there are a lot of games left, but we're trying to progress as the season wears on."
Both United and the New York Red Bulls pulled closer to the New England Revolution on Saturday, remaining tied for second place with 30 points. The Revolution play on Sunday, but then next Wednesday, United and the Red Bulls meet at RFK Stadium, and after a weekend of chasing David Beckham the Red Bulls get to try to contain the league's leading scorer in Emilio.
Nathan Linton is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
