A somber silence hung heavy over D.C. United's locker room in the aftermath of Saturday's 3-3 tie with FC Dallas at RFK Stadium, as the Black-and-Red tried to come to grips with the most demoralizing draw imaginable.
"It's just annoying," said midfielder Brian Carroll. "I'm so frustrated, and I'm going to be for a while."
Up 3-0 and seemingly cruising after 47 minutes, United proceeded to melt down in spectacular fashion as Dallas took a stranglehold on the match, reeling off three unanswered goals in front of a stunned RFK Stadium crowd.
"We're an experienced team - we shouldn't play like that," said D.C. head coach Tom Soehn. "We played like young kids. We put ourselves in too many situations where we were setting ourselves up to fail instead of getting organized and compacting. A few guys didn't have good performances."
D.C.'s players and coaches alike were quick to point that they'd hardly done enough to earn that commanding three-goal lead in the first place.
"I think the whole game, we were living on the edge," said Carroll. "They were playing a pretty good game and we just happened to go up 2-0 in the first half. I thought we started out really strong in the second half and once we got that third goal, we took our foot off the gas a little bit."
That surprising loss of composure allowed FCD to dictate the game's pace and while the Hoops' swashbuckling approach did give United plenty of good opportunities at the other end, the Black-and-Red could not take advantage and eventually paid the price.
"We had a lot of chances, and I'm disappointed in the fact that we turned it into a track meet instead of being smart and disciplined," said Soehn. "Because they had to chase the game and they were going to take chances and it was going to give us opportunities -- we didn't manage the game well and I think that's what I'm most disappointed about."
After Carlos Ruiz headed past Troy Perkins to give his side some hope, an increasingly jittery United reeled off a string of defensive errors which were well and truly punished by FCD All-Star Juan Toja, who grabbed two goals in the late going. Afterward, Perkins took responsibility for the blunders that the Colombian preyed upon.
"We could have been up 6-0 and still not kept it," said Perkins. "The way the game was going, we couldn't keep the ball very well and with two mistakes on my end, it happens. I'll take the blame for this one."
In another blow for United, captain Jaime Moreno will miss at least a week of action after limping off with a strained hamstring in the 54th minute, forcing him to watch the Dallas comeback from the bench.
"We got too comfortable, I think, with 3-0 and we've got to give them credit - they never stopped working and they never stopped believing," said the Bolivian international. "They came at us and we just totally lacked that concentration. That can't happen again."
The result takes the luster off another strong performance from Luciano Emilio, who tallied his third multi-goal game in a United uniform. The Brazilian striker has now scored 10 league goals this season.
"Any time you score there's some personal satisfaction you can take away from that, but obviously the most important thing is the result and even though it's a tie, it feels like a loss," he said. "It's very frustrating because we're trying to gain points. This is a game that we've got to forget about and move forward."
Charles Boehm is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
