Nobody said it was going to be easy.
D.C. United now sit in a most enviable position tied atop Group 4 of the CONCACAF Champions League after their 2-1 win over Waterhouse FC on Tuesday night, but only after taking their lumps against a Jamaican side looking to save any hope of moving into the tournament quarterfinals.
It was the type of resistance the Black-and-Red had expected before the game, but it didn’t make things any easier when the opening whistle blew.
“Through history, the Jamaicans have always been a physical team to deal with, national teams, club teams,” D.C. goalkeeper Bill Hamid said after the game. “They bring out a lot of energy an a lot of bite, especially at home, so it was about weathering that storm for the first 15 or 20 minutes.”
It’s a lesson that Waterhouse’s previous opponents at the National Stadium, Tauro FC, may not have taken into account ahead of a 4-1 shellacking by the hosts, but it was taken well in hand by Hamid and United, who responded to the Jamaicans’ frequent forays forward with a stout defensive effort.
Many aspects of the game were strikingly similar to the two teams’ encounter at RFK Stadium in late August, a 1-0 win for D.C., with Waterhouse outshooting their opponents 24-12 this time around. Only five of those shots came from inside the area, however, and only one of those found the target – left back Demarley Samuels had one of his team’s best chances of the game in the 28th minute, finding himself all alone on the left side of the area, only to put his low drive too close to Hamid, who gobbled it up.
In all, D.C. racked up five blocked shots, and Hamid saved six more. The only goal conceded came from a free kick after the foul that resulted in Taylor Kemp’s pivotal 70th-minute dismissal, an inch-perfect shot by Waterhouse's Hughan Gray to the top corner that gave Hamid no chance.
“Even in the first game, if you watch the highlights, they had a lot of shots from distance, so we knew it was coming, we knew we had to deal with that, and we dealt with it well,” Hamid said. “We blocked a lot of shots, we came up with a lot of plays that kept us in the game, so it was a good performance all around.”
United’s defensive effort was backed up by a brace from Fabian Espindola that sandwiched the halftime interval, and his stunning solo effort for the first caught the eye more than most.
“Unbelievable,” D.C. midfielder Lewis Neal remarked after the game. “He goes through two or three guys and he takes it a little bit too wide on his right foot and I thought, ‘The chance maybe has gone,’ he’s just got to try and get a shot off, but as we know, Fabi this season has been unbelievable, and he pulled an unbelievable, delicate little chip into the far left hand corner.”
It was perhaps the necessary touch of brilliance to settle a gritty, physical battle. And in a game where the opposition had by far the higher quantity of shots, Espindola and D.C. showed that, sometimes, you just need a little bit of quality.
