…was c–p.

Utter c–p.

This season is going to end badly. Even worse, I have to ask whether Benny Olsen is the right man for the job? He’s been a loyal and dedicated servant to the team. He was a key player for the 2004 squad that won the title and during his whole career, he’s bled the red & black of DC United. But you have to question his decisions.

Perry Kitchen, an up and coming centerback (and last year’s first draft pick) who can also slot in at outside back, was overrun in a defensive midfield. Of course, maybe he’d have done better with some help. No one playing in front of him provided much help or protection. And the defense behind him looked atrocious.

There was an attacking quintet of Hamid Salihi up top, Dwayne ‘DeRo’ DeRosario as a support striker, Branco Boskovic in a central attacking midfield role, Chris Pontius on the left, and Andy Najar on the right.

Impressive on paper, but simply not enough defense to help protect the backline and, despite their impressive credentials, these guys couldn’t hold possession if their life had depended on it.

And I’m looking at you Boskovic. You are around for cultured left foot and guile. If you can’t help us keep possession and create chances, what have we been paying you for the last two seasons?

Pontius had the best chance of the match, but almost never saw the ball.

Najar was a livewire who fought like heck but who displayed the decision making of someone much younger. He’s still a kid, but it’s time for him to start to show more maturity. This is his third season as a professional. He shouldn’t be consistently giving away possession with poorly thought out passes and crosses anymore.

And Salihi was a non-factor. All my worst fears were proved true. He could still come good, but we needed a fighter who would drop back a little and help out a team that was being overrun and he didn’t do that.

I’m not convinced by Kitchen as a defensive midfielder, but I’ll also withhold judgement (he did play a couple of nice passes to start attacks). But he is definitely a pretty stationary kind of midfielder. Which is fine. He stays deep, breaks up play, and gets the ball to another player who will bring it upfield into the attack. But Boskovic is not the kind of active runner that you need to pair with someone like Kitchen in midfield. We let Clyde Simms go, but he was someone you could pair with Boskovic, because he was a more aggressive kind of defensive midfielder, who would buzz around the field more and move the ball up more. You don’t just need a defensive midfielder paired with a more attacking midfielder. You also need a passer paired with a runner (this is for two man central midfields, like in the 4-4-1-1 we seemed to be playing). Neither Kitchen nor Boskovic are runners. Consequently, Kansas City’s midfield ran circles around us.

The one huge plus was the amazing play of goalkeeper Bill Hamid. He’s already gotten selected for the National Team on a couple of occasions and if he can keep this level of play up for the entire season, he’ll be going to a better team next year. But if we can sort out of the rest of the squad, then he can also carry us far this year.

But is Olsen the man who can do that? When we needed leadership at the back, he left our big new defensive signing, the veteran Emiliano Dudar, on the bench. And isn’t Dudar supposed to be that guy who will give our backline the leadership we need? So why was he on the bench? Even if you didn’t want to start him, because he’s not fully match fit or because the chemistry isn’t all there, when you saw the opposition marching through our defense like the cliched and proverbial swiss cheese, wouldn’t he have been worth a try?

And when we needed to improve possession, why did you replace Boskovic with an aging striker?

It’s just one game and obviously, the coach knows things that I don’t. But he’s been given the time to rebuild and he has done just that. Now, he needs to start winning.