If it's bad when a team loses a game, is it worse if they don't know why? D.C. United, on the wrong end of a 2-0 result Sunday against the Colorado Rapids, looked lost and listless for long stretches on the field and were at a loss to explain why after the game.
"I'll be honest with you, I don't know what we are missing," said Jaime Moreno, who played only the second half due to a nagging knee injury. "We talk a lot about what we need to do, we do have good practices, it is just that we need to bring our 'A' game to games like this."
Midfielder Santino Quaranta was likewise bewildered with United's lack of effectiveness.
"We worked so hard all week and then I don't even know what to say about today," said Quaranta. "I was bad; personally, my performance was very bad today. I can't speak on behalf of the guys, but we work so hard and we have the right mentality going in and we're not clicking on the field."
United head coach Tom Soehn was disappointed with his entire team's effort.
"It is very troubling -- we took two weeks and addressed so many different things to be a harder team to play against, especially having a better road mentality," said Soehn. "On the day you look at individual performances and we were just bad all over the field. I can't think of one guy that did well."
The statistics show a game that was thoroughly dominated by the home team. United were outshot 17-5, gave up 10 corner kicks while earning only half that many, committed 13 fouls and, most importantly, gave up two second-half goals.
But despite the domination by the Rapids' offense, Soehn does not believe the fault lies with his defense.
"It is not just the back line; it is breaking down before that," said Soehn. "We were giving away the ball continuously, setting them up for counterattacks. The backline actually held us together for a while in bad situations, but when you keep so much pressure on your backline, eventually, they are going to break down."
Quaranta knows that team chemistry cannot explain what is wrong with United.
"It seems like everything is in place but we just seem like we are let down by each other on the field," said Quaranta. "There's no fighting or anything going on like that -- it's a good group here, but we just can't figure it out right now. And that's scary."
Soehn hinted that if the on-field performance did not improve that he would be willing to make wholesale changes in his lineup.
"You have to have a better mentality and we are going to work darn hard to develop that," said Soehn. "Or at least find the combination of guys who are going to go out there and give you everything they have."
Moreno felt that the team's effort and willingness to fight might be one factor missing from their play.
"Sometimes soccer is not going to be pretty; we just need to battle and win second balls and all that kind of stuff that makes a big difference for a team," said Moreno. "It just seems like we are going up and down right now, which is not good, and we just need to figure out how to fix it."
Soehn agreed, feeling that his team played without passion on the day.
"You can talk about tactics, formation all you want but if we don't show up we aren't going to do well, period," said Soehn. "So we are going to be hard not only on our players but on our staff to make sure that we change that."
Regardless of the reasons for their loss today, United knows what lies ahead for them.
"We have a lot of work to do, period," said Soehn.
Geoffrey Urland is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
