Last night’s game was a little uncomfortable.

Not because I still have feelings for the DC United’s opponent, Chivas.

But because the Red & Black’s performance was not good.

They lined up with an unusual formation. Ostensibly, it was no doubt intended to be a midfield diamond with two wide players, a defensive midfielder and a trequartista at the tip of the diamond. In practice, it got a little more complicated.

On the right, youthful Honduran phenom Andy Najar played a good game. He provided some real width to the team and drew the foul that produced DC’s first goal off the ensuing set piece.

On the left, right footed Santino Quaranta played pretty narrow, staying closer to the center than to the sideline.

One of the strikers, Josh Wolff, actually played pretty deep and spent much of the game close to the trequartista, Dwayne DeRosario.

This essentially left Charlie Davies as the lone striker, which is not actually a problem. He’s got a quick first step to accelerate past defenders and can be lethal inside the box, with great ball control to dribble in tight areas.

But with, in effect, two attacking midfielders playing in the same areas, it left some gaps between the defensive midfielder – Clyde Simms – and the rest of the midfield. It also put a great deal of burden on Simms to protect the backline.

Neither Wolff nor DeRo nor Quaranta put in much defensive work (though Najar did yeoman’s work, tracking back to help the fullback and harrying opposing attackers coming down the right.

Also, when Simms or the defense won the ball, there was often too much distance between them and a player able to move the ball further forward.

Consequently, we saw a long of ball hoofed up the field towards Davies. Even that wouldn’t have been so bad if they had been balls hit with pace over the top, allowing Davies to use his speed to get behind the defenders and latch onto it. But they hit them high and slow and the shorter Davies is not going to win many headers in the open field against a big, burly defender.

When they tried to move the opposition around, rather than forming triangles in the midfield, which means that the player in possession will always have an outlet to pass the ball, they would try highlight reel cross field passes that the winger had a 50-50 chance, at best of being able to reach, win, and control.

The reason you play the formation set out is to play possession soccer. You have players in Quaranta, Najar, DeRo, and Wolff who are able to dribble the ball and pass the ball around, probing for an opening. They play defense from the front by keeping the ball away from the opposition.

But if you play long balls, then the defensive players must shoulder their burden alone. Not only that, but you a ceding a lot of possession to the opposition, who can attack and tire out your players by making them chase the ball.

It’s not surprise that first ball came from a too rare period of players holding the ball and running at the opposition rather than launching it towards the goal and hoping a teammate finds it. Najar ran at the defense and forced them to foul him, gifting DC a critical free kick.

Finally, after Chivas pulled a goal back to reach 2-1, Coach Olsen pulled off both natural strikers (though not at once), with attacking midfielder, DeRo, moved to striker.

The players he put on the field made sense: Stephen King, a central midfielder who can move up an attack, but will also hang deeper to help out the defense; and Austin de la Luz, a left footed midfielder who could provide some width on the left side.

But it should have been Quaranta and just one of the strikers taken off.

Also, it only makes sense, once again, if you are going to try to keep the ball and play for possession. Make quick, short passes to make the opposition chase you and allow you to keep the ball with little effort.

But they hadn’t been doing that all game.

So when Chivas scored to draw level, United had little in the way of options to claw ahead for a win.

Yes, we won a penalty kick, which was saved. But it wasn’t DeRosario’s fault for not burying that. He should never have been forced in that situation. If Davies were still on the field, he would surely have scored that PK. Or if we’d played like we’re supposed to, we should have been able to finish the game at 2-1.

[sigh]