As the starters were announced my only thought was something DCenters had mentioned about a month ago; this team needs Ben Olsen or Jaime Moreno on the field to win. Tom Soehn had both sitting on the bench hoping to rest them for Tuesday's game in Guadalarja. Yes we were playing injury riddled Toronto, riding a ten game unbeaten streak, and have an organization running a League clinic in how to manage your roster but it still worried me. So in the 14' when Carl Robinson put in the free kick to put Toronto in the lead, 1-0 I began to sweat a little. It was still early and this team has gutted out so many wins down the stretch, I kept telling myself "we'll be alright". As the game continued though it became more and more apparent that United's lackluster performance wasn't changing. The half ends with Toronto up 1-0 and me down with our performance.
The second half begins with Moreno and Olsen on the field and immediately the game changes and my drinking slows. In the 52' Marc Burch hits a laser that knots the game and eighteen minutes later the score is 4-1 with the Black and Red knocking the ball around.
Tom Soehn tells Soccer Insider:
"But like I said, I got after them really hard at halftime, and maybe if we kept the same guys, the response would have been the same. I just think we put more into it."
Yeah well maybe but I'm more inclined to go with Marc Burch's understatement of the year: "We had a bad first half, but we brought those guys [Moreno and Olsen] on and it makes it a little different."
There are so many story lines here let's just hit the highlights:
Moreno gets Career goal #112
Fred pulls groin
Emilio gets 20th goal, drawing him ever-closer to Raul Diaz Arce's club record of 23 tallies and making him Major League Soccer's first 20-goal scorer since 2002.
Picked up two points towards the Supporter's Shield as Chivas ties Chicago
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