First Impressions - DCU 3 : 1 NYRB (US Open Cup)

First, some reader interaction

Before first impressions, a quick answer to a question (you can skip to the "Impressions" section if you're impatient). Commenter DCNats asked "why should we play our reserves in the playoffs of a cup tournament?" He think perhaps resting the players during the regular season makes more sense. This is an excellent question to ask if you're trying to get familiar with this crazy world of MLS and US Soccer, so I'm going to take this space to answer his question.

Yes, the US Open Cup is a tournament worth winning. But in my mind, for DC United, it's the third highest priority. Their first priority right now should be to finish with the best regular season record in MLS, thus earning the Supporter's Shield. The Supporter's Shield will qualify DC United for International play next year. Yes, DC has a lead over FC Dallas for this title, but 8 points with 9 games left to play is not secure. So DC needs to take the rest of the regular season games seriously.

DC's secondary objective is to qualify for the playoffs in order to win the MLS Cup. Playoff qualification is pretty much assured at this point, so we don't need to worry about that.

The US Open Cup is the third most important concern. See, the most important trophy is the MLS Cup. The Supporter's Shield may not be as prestigous as the US Open Cup or MLS Cup, but it gurantees International Play, which makes it very important if perhaps not as presitgous. The US Open Cup is, at this point, a vanity title. A cool one, a very awesome accomplishment, but not as important at the other two goals. So resting regulars in US Open Cup games, provided it isn't the final (when the trophy is on the line) makes good sense. Right now, the regular season games are more important for DC. At least, that's how I view it.

Impressions

Which is why tonight's victory over the Red Bulls was a wonderful thing. Starters Christian Gomez and Freddy Adu got a full amount of rest. Jamie Moreno and Ben Olsen only worked 30 minutes. Eskandarian was subbed out as well. Fortunately, Jamil Walker decides to put on the Jamil Walker Show and get two goals, and Rod Dyachenko teases us with what might be in the future by sending a ball over to Josh Gros for a goal. Great. DC stays in the US Open Cup hunt (and the chance for the, dare I say it, Triple?). DC rests its starters ahead of Saturday's game against LA. This is a pretty good result for all involved. Kudos to Nowak for being willing to sit some guys, even as Bruce Arena (oh yeah, we beat Bruce at RFK, how nice is that?) trotted out his main weapons (Djorkaeff, Guevarra, Buddle) and first team line-up. A good win.

I'll let one of my compatriots take the full debrief for this game, since due to work concerns I had to follow the game through the exclusive MLSLIVE.TV video feed. Yeah, that one, the one that never happened. I've said some nice things about this service, but tonight tested my patience. Thank you for at least getting Tony over the audio feed. But c'mon people. That wasn't nice.