http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHSeGpJ8UN0&feature=player_embedded

I confess, I haven’t been to many DC United games this year, but on Saturday night, I took the neighbor’s daughter (a goalie with her youth team) to meet with some friends from work and watch the game.

For much of the game, at least the first half, the scoreline flattered to deceive.

Montreal was significantly better in the midfield and had significantly more possession. For the entire first half and part of the second half, the only DC players who say much of the ball were our two centerbacks. They played high and with the Montreal midfield pressing, the ball kept coming back to them. Dwayne DeRosario made some creative moves – flicks and back heels – but no one picked up on them, so the ball was just lost. He should have seen earlier that the forwards weren’t on his wavelength and gone for simpler moves focused on keeping the ball.

The first goal was against the run of play and was not generated by DC getting its act together, but rather by a brilliant jinking run by Chris Pontius (see the video above). Pontius played at forward in college and was converted to  an outside midfielder in his first few seasons with DC but now he’s back up top and playing fantastic.

In the second half, we still weren’t keeping possession very well, but with both of Montreal’s star strikers, former Italian internationals Bernardo Corradi and Marco Di Vaio (I was disappointed that Di Vaio didn’t get any minutes) out, they lacked the power and skill to take advantage of the midfield dominance.

DC got two late goals. The first was by reliable fullback Robbie Russell, but the real story was the brilliant free kick from Branco Boskovic to get the assist. The ball was at just the right height and fast, perfect for Russell to slightly redirect into goal. The comparison to Montreal’s corner kicks was illuminating: whereas this one stayed too low for the goalie to risk coming out for it, Montreal’s service into the box was consistently too high, just lumping high arced balls in and hoping DC goalie Bill Hamid couldn’t handle it.

The other story from that was this: that’s all that Boskovic did. He was invisible and you have to think that this contributed to Montreal’s ability to dominate the midfield. If they’d had a predatory striker on the field, this game could have been a lot different.

The final goal game off of late sub, Hamdi Salihi. He might not be worth the money he’s paid, but he can knock in the goals. After some ugly movement around the Impact 18 yard box, he started a nice move and then slipped in front of goal to receive the final pass of the move he started and bury it.

Oh, a special shout out to Nick DeLeon: my neighbor’s little girl thinks you are an awesome player (I and I agree after watching you help create Salihi’s goal).