For most of the season, D.C. United players and coaches steadfastly declined to discuss other teams or their place in the table, preferring to maintain an inward focus as the squad labored to fix its own shortcomings.
"We don't even look at the standings right now," said head coach Tom Soehn at the beginning of June. "We're worried about ourselves, making sure that we continue in the right direction. When you do that, the results take care of themselves."
Those results have indeed taken care of themselves, in the form of a five-game unbeaten streak, and as their tumultuous spring has faded in the rearview mirror, an improving United have turned a keen eye towards the rest of the league. The postseason might be months away, but there's a growing urgency around RFK Stadium as the team hunts for the points needed to continue climbing up the Eastern Conference ranks.
"We got a long home stretch and we're definitely trying to get maximum points out of this stretch," said midfielder Clyde Simms after Sunday's win against San Jose. "We're down in the standings right now and fortunately we had some results go our way yesterday, and so we're looking to get three [points] to try to move up."
As Simms' words indicate, Soehn has called his squad's attention to the schedule quirk that balances United's current homestand with an array of road matches from August until October.
"We're definitely looking at other results around the league," added Simms. "But the biggest thing is worrying about ourselves and trying to get maximum points, especially being at home for so long. With all these home games, obviously we're going to have away games later on so we try to get maximum points now and then move on from there."
Soehn has continued a tactic used by his predecessor, Peter Nowak, chopping the protracted MLS campaign into smaller segments to help distill his team's concentration, laying out specific goals and priorities during those periods. It's also helped the Black-and-Red turn the page on their awful start to 2008.
"We basically looked at the first third of the season and know we didn't do a good enough job," said Soehn. "We know we can't change that, we can only look forward and make sure that now in the next third we do a much better job and make sure we take care of the games we need to. But again, it's still about our performance on a daily basis: are we doing enough in training to make sure that we're consistently getting better? That's been the focus."
Therein lies much of the dissatisfaction with Sunday's win, which featured plenty of attacking success but also more of the ill-advised mistakes -- particularly in the defensive end -- that could prove fatal in the high-stakes occasions to come.
"As long as we're winning, as long as it's not costing the team, it's always a benefit," said defender Devon McTavish, who's witnessed United's fall meltdowns in the past. "But we still need to get that shutout. We still need to keep them from getting in the back of our net, because when it comes to crunch time you're not going to be able to win 3-2. You're going to have win 1-0, 2-0. We still need to fix that."
This weekend's visit by David Beckham and the free-scoring L.A. Galaxy offers another significant barometer for D.C.'s progress. A win would push United to the .500 mark for the first time since early April, and propel the club into July's SuperLiga competition on a high. Plus, with ABC broadcasting the game to a national network audience as an appetizer for the UEFA European Championships final immediately afterwards, it's difficult to imagine a June league match that could offer more of a "crunch time" situation.
"They're playing well right now and they have some good attacking options," said Simms of the Western Conference leaders. "It's going to be a day game, it's going to hot. I think the key will be to keep the ball ... we do that and it's going to be a tough one -- you waste a lot more energy defending than attacking, so if we keep the ball and make them run around a little bit, make their attacking options a little tired, then I think we can do well next Sunday."
Charles Boehm is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
