The generous playoff format of Major League Soccer can keep the worst of teams hanging in there until the season's very end, but surely not even the most optimistic D.C. United fans can think their team still has a chance this season after Saturday's dismal 3-0 home defeat by Chivas USA. Step forward United coach Tom Soehn. To resign? No, rather to insist that with three games remaining, against the league's top three teams (two on the road), his side is still in with a chance.
"At no point are we hanging our heads and saying it can't be done, because it can be done," said Soehn, although he did concede that D.C. had "somehow found a way to make a tough season even more difficult." His midfielder Joe Vide also refused to throw in the towel. "It's a pretty devastating loss," he said accurately, "but we have a few games left and we still have a chance. It's not over."
The opening line to Steven Goff's game report, however, more pertinently reflected the atmosphere in the stadium, where the team missed the opportunity to impress a healthy crowd of over 28,000. "A season that began with soaring expectations for D.C. United struck another low point last night [Saturday]," he wrote.
The team's less optimistic side came across in quotes from midfielder Santino Quaranta ("Every time they went down the field there was a problem, and that's not good."), and goalkeeper Louis Crayton. "Today is the worst day of my football career," said Crayton, who made a rec team error to gift Chivas forward Alecko Eskandarian the first goal of the night.
"Sometimes I didn't know where to go in some situations," Quaranta admitted. A lost player on a lost team.