Anticipation

Okay, let's hit all the major bullet points before we move onto the rest of the week:

• DCU defeats Colorado: A nice game. I'm not sure if it was as good as Peter Nowak was making it out to be, but it was a quality effort and the scoreline reflected the relative quality on display. The reffing was, to be kind, inconsistent, but inconsistent reffing is the norm in MLS and, to be honest, the rest of the world as well. DCU needs to overcome reffing at times, and they did here.
• Santino Quaranta: There seems to be a lot of happy talk that Tino is still ready to go. Watching live, it looked like an awkward fall on the pitch, and checking the TiVo where you could see the swelling already, it looked worse. Even if the turn was high enough on the leg that he didn't tear any ligaments in the ankle, that looked fairly bad. I would not be surprised to see him sit against Catolica, regardless of what the early talk is.
• Christian Gomez: His dead ball strike was a thing of beauty. Yes, maybe Cannon gets to that, but maybe not. A beautiful goal that was all about precision execution. He also gets a caution for dissent. I don't know what he said. Maybe it was "So, wait, tackling from behind isn't a foul anymore?" Now he's out a game. According to my TiVo broadcast, there was discussion about disputing the card. I don't think the league will ever, EVER, dispute a yellow for dissent. Nor should they, even if in this case it looks ridiculous.
• Facundo Erpen / The Defense: I still think that Boswell and Erpen should be starting on the back line. Erpen made some nice work stepping in front of balls and playing some clearences, but I counted at least three poor passes in the first 45 minutes. None of them of truly jaw dropping awfulness, but enough that it made me scared. Prideaux and Namoff had one of their better games, and I think Carroll's new offensive pressure can somewhat be attributed to his comfort leaving the defensive third to make a play.
• Lucio Alejo Filomeno: Steve Goff identified the new Argentinian that will be joining United. His stats are not overwhelming, but using the media and phrase of the week...
• "If he's anything like Christian Gomez...": Okay, stop right now. I see similar phrases all over the place, like in the MLS Power Rankings on ESPN. It's true, if Facundo Erpen or Lucia Filomeno bring in a relative talent level and results the way Gomez did, that makes DCU one of the scarier sides moving into the playoffs. But it also sets the bar too high. While some might scoff at using International allocations for depth, I see this as a very good thing. Erpen is not as much of an upgrade as Gomez was so far, but he added much to a defensive line that was only four deep (Namoff, Boswell, Prideaux, Wilson). Similarly, DCU is not deep on the wings, and Filomeno helps out that area. Up top, DCU seems to have plenty of depth, but that relies on treating Freddy as a true forward (and not a CAM) and. Neither Erpen nor Filomeno needs to have the impact of the Christain Gomez to be a success. Remember the Eastern conference championship? Remember how worried everyone was with both Dema and Ryan Nelsen out? This helps address the concern that, in a lose and go home situation, DCU might be full of ineligible players and holes.

There's much more to consider this week, including Catolica Round 2 and the Scoreboard Watchers Picks for Wednesday. Stay tuned.