DCU – as in DC United. As in that travesty Saturday night.

Leaving aside that phantom goal that the Red Bulls scored, there was no reason it should have been allowed to reach that point.

We were pressing and keeping possession throughout the first half while the Red Bulls were more or less content to fight for a draw and try and win this thing at home. But we were just… disconnected.

Players like Nick DeLeon, Andy Najar, and even Branco Boskovic were playing good long and cross field balls to Lionard Pajoy and Chris Pontius.

Pajoy was tending to play the center right channel, between the right sided central defender and the right full back – or at least, that was where he was picking up the long balls sent his way. But when he got those very well placed passes, he had almost no help. No runners from the midfield anywhere near enough to help, forcing him to try and make something out of nothing with at least two defenders on him.

Chris Pontius found himself in the similar situation, except that he was forced to play pretty wide on the left (Nick DeLeon on the right could pinch in a bit more because Andy Najar was playing right back and using his stamina and pace to cover the outside brilliantly, but Pontius, the most important offensive player, had no such luxury and spent most of the match way too far from goal) and so he was too far to even think about shooting.

Pontius missed a PK near the end of the first half, leaving the teams to go into half time scoreless and with DC United having a nasty taste in the mouth after the miss.

We finally scored a goal when, finally, a midfield player bundled into the box to push a loose ball over the line.

Yes, Red Bull struck back, but it should never have come to that. We should have had other goals.

Then, Andy Najar made a bad tackle, earning a yellow, and then compounded it by throwing the ball at the ref, getting himself a second yellow and an ejection.

There was plenty of bad refereeing (though not Najar’s red – he 100% deserved it), but we are close to digging our own grave.

The one good tactical decision was to play Najar at outside back, where his youth and pace let him cover his defensive duties, while also giving him time to play some lovely, accurate long passes and providing a outlet for players on the right. But he’s going to be suspended for the second, deciding game.

It should have been obvious that Pajoy needed help, but I didn’t see any tactical changes or substitutions to help bring Pontius closer goal or to push Boskovic closer to Pajoy.

If we do eke out a win and move on in the playoffs, my bet is that it comes from the work of Perry Kitchen. A defensive midfielder for DC, when we were down a man and needed a goal, he pushed higher up and showed some amazing footwork to hold possession and look for little seams at the edges of the box, skills I didn’t realize he had.

But let’s be honest, unless we can goad Rafa Marquez into getting a red card and making the Red Bulls play a man down, the combined artistry of Thierry Henry and Tim Cahill feeding Kenny Cooper will cut us down before the first half is over.