WASHINGTON - Shortly before the halftime whistle of D.C. United’s encounter with Sporting Kansas City on Saturday evening, Perry Kitchen gobbled up a turnover near the center stripe.
The midfielder picked his head up and swung in a picture-perfect cross to teammate Chris Pontius at the edge of the KC penalty area.
Pontius chested the 40-yard ball down with ease and used his next touch to find Jairo Arrieta at the penalty spot for an easy finish. It was a difficult assist which Pontius made look relatively easy – a reminder of the talent that had many eyeing the UC Santa Barbara graduate as a potential US national team contributor before a series of hamstring injuries derailed those ambitions for the better part of the past two years.
“He was very dangerous tonight when we put him up top,” said United head coach Ben Olsen. "His ability to run the channels has helped us out and we wanted to exploit that in the second half – he does a great job of that.
“He looks like he’s getting his speed back as well, which is really nice. That takes a while, but he looked like he had some juice there towards the end.”
Pontius has enjoyed a resurgence in recent weeks: He scored the game-winner against the LA Galaxy a month back and has generally looked a bit more like the player that made the 2012 MLS Best XI squad.
On Saturday, the winger put himself in dangerous spots with regularity, in particular on United’s only goal of the evening, which was canceled out by Dom Dwyer's equalizer barely a minute later.
“I see Perry get some room and I make the run – he puts an unbelievable ball on my chest,” Pontius said afterwards. “I thought for a second about hitting it with my left foot, off of the bounce, but it short-hopped me. I saw Jairo to my right and flicked it back to him with my right. It was a great finish.”
Pontius’ speed — at one time perhaps his most dangerous feature — has been slow to return since missing almost half of the 2013 season and nearly all of 2014 while recovering from hamstring and nerve surgery. Against Sporting on Saturday evening, Pontius exploited a favorable matchup against SKC defender Jalil Anibaba to carve out the space necessary to contribute.
“I feel like I’m able to run past people again, whereas before – after a year off, it doesn’t come back in a month. As much as you’d love for it to do that, it just [doesn’t],” he said. “The confidence, making runs off the ball, how you read the game, it’s just a bit slow. I think I’m getting there but I still think I have a ways to go. I’ll keep working on it.”
After a few promising opportunities to win the match went begging, United will have to be content to see Saturday’s result as the latest promising signpost on Pontius’ road back to top form.
“There’s always more work to do, for everyone,” said Pontius. “You fade in and out of being confident, you go through rough patches where you aren’t finishing quite as well as you’d like. I’d like to still be a bit more creative around the box and get more shots off. There’s still a lot more I’d like to improve on.”
