In addition to my love of poetry, bookstores, and politics, I am also a soccer fan. A couple of things happened this weekend. Firstly, the Tampa Bay Rowdies were reborn after more than twenty years in abeyance. They also chalked up a win against Montreal. When I was in junior high, my soccer team’s assistant coach played for the old Rowdies (this was back in the late eighties) and my mother generously took me across the causeway to Tampa for some games.

The other thing that occurred is not so much a single occurrence as an ongoing concern. And that is the failure of DC United to score in open play. In their home opener, they defeated the Columbus Crew 3-1, scoring two goals from open play and one from a penalty kick. Since then, they have depended on the ability of some of their attackers to make solo runs and draw fouls in the box to score from penalties. Needless to say, this is not a long term strategy for success.

The consensus seems to be that DC is lacking that killer, final ball – the creative player who can play that that defense splitting pass that the team’s speedy (at least over short distances) strikers can take advantage of.

Over the offseason, former DC United playing legend and current head coach, Ben Olsen acquired central midfielder Dax McCarty from FC Dallas. It was a good pick up and, except for salary cap space, it came at no cost to DC. Olsen made it known that he was giving McCarty to keys to the midfield and handed him the #10 jersey (the number ten is typically worn by a central attacking midfielder, a team’s creative fulcrum; the classic #10 is called a treqaurtista in Italian because he tends to roam the space between the opponent’s midfield and defense, looking to create opportunities for his strikers).

McCarty is a very good midfielder who has been forcing himself onto the U.S. National Team on the basis of his club performances. But he is not a classic #10. He’s a midfielder organizer or general. Adept at winning the ball from the opposition, keeping possession for his team, and starting attacks, but not the man whose primary job is to play to final pass that directly leads to a goal. Rather a Kaka or Zinedine Zidane, he is closer to a Claudio Reyna or Michael Ballack. Capable of creating the assist, or surging forward and scoring goals, but whose main job is in a deeper midfield role. This is what he did in Dallas, where the #10 role was played David Ferreira and McCarty’s job was to support him and play off him.

What I have seen happen is that McCarty tends to push up and attempt these deft flicks and tricks that don’t come off that well. He has also been given set piece duty and I haven’t been convinced by his delivery. When he has dropped deeper and played the role of the organizer (which I am distinguishing from an offensive playmaker), he has been the player we had hoped for when DC United acquired his services.

But…

There’s always a “but.” DC’s version of the 4-4-2 formation depends on the outside midfielders (usually Chris Pontius on the left and Santino Quaranta/Andy Najar on the right) generating the offense and linking the midfield and attack and delivering that final ball I’ve been talking about. They’ve done a good job, but haven’t provided the solution we the fans have been looking for.

What boggles the mind is that frequently left on the bench is DC’s highest paid player, the thirty year old Montenegrin international, Branko Boskovic. Able (in theory) to play in a free role on the left (meaning that he will tend to roam inside and switch wings frequently, as opposed to playing the traditional outside midfielder’s role of taking the ball to the touchline and crossing it into the box for the strikers) or to play just behind two strikers at the top of a midfield diamond or in a free role behind a lone striker with four midfielders behind him. In these scenarios, Dax McCarty can play like he did in Dallas, passing the ball to Boskovic (playing in a more advance role than McCarty) and making timed runs from a deep position into the opponent’s box to either receive the ball back from Boskovic or to pull defenders out of position to create space for others (which is basically how his highly successful partnership with Ferreira worked).

If Boskovic is not capable of taking on this critical role, it begs the question: what are we paying him for? And if he can’t, Olsen needs to start scouting players to pick up when the transfer window opens in the summer.

New York might be willing to part with Mehdi Ballouchy (though he failed to impress for them playing at the top of a midfield diamond) or – and this is a bit of fantasy fulfillment – AC Milan looks not to be signing the thirty-five Clarence Seedorf to a new contract when his current one expires at the beginning of June. He has long wanted to be given that role behind two strikers and still has the skills to pull it off at the MLS level, if he is willing to close out his career in our nation’s capital.

In the meantime, if Olsen is unwilling to hand the keys to the team’s offense to Boskovic or if he proves incapable of pulling it off, then one of our outside midfielders need to step it up and take responsibility for the attack (probably Pontius; Najar is supremely talented, else he would not have supplanted the veteran Quaranta, but too young; Pontius is comfortable cutting inside and his experience as a striker means that he should also be able to pose a strong enough goal threat to keep defenders honest).

Ok. Back to either poetry or politics soon, I promise.