WASHINGTON -- For several years, D.C. United have been craving regional success to match their perennial status among Major League Soccer's elite. But a trying league campaign and a persistent injury epidemic have forced the Black-and-Red to ponder difficult decisions with the advent of the inaugural CONCACAF Champions League competition.
The capital club owns the most illustrious international record in U.S. soccer history, having tasted both regional and hemispheric success in 1998 at the zenith of its late-1990s glory years. But even though D.C. took part in three of the last four CONCACAF Champions Cup competitions, a string of high-profile letdowns has seen regional honors continue to elude the four-time MLS Cup winners, to the abiding frustration of fans, players and front office alike.
United has amassed a bevy of South American talent for the specific purpose of contending in tournaments like this one, only to see Brazilian attackers Luciano Emilio and Fred, along with Argentinean playmaker Marcelo Gallardo and his compatriot, tall center back Gonzalo Peralta, atop a catalog of injury concerns as group play begins with the visit of Costa Rican side Deportivo Saprissa to RFK Stadium on Tuesday night.
The impact of the long casualty list could clearly be seen on head coach Tom Soehn's lineup in United's last match, a 2-2 home draw against FC Dallas on Saturday. Striker Thabiso Khumalo was originally brought in from lower-division side Pittsburgh Riverhounds to bolster the D.C. reserve squad and had just completed his loan deal the day before, only to find himself starting alongside team captain and all-time league scoring leader Jaime Moreno.
The South African acquitted himself well, but his new coach's frustration was evident as he discussed his roster limitations afterwards.
"It's very difficult right now looking and knowing you have impact players sitting on the bench and having to wait to put them in," said Soehn, who gave Emilio 22 minutes in relief of Khumalo. "There are situations in a game when you want to be reactionary of the situation but you can't. So it's difficult right now and that's why I'm encouraged to get those guys in playing. Hopefully we can push the minutes next time."
Soehn's disappointment is understandable, given the level of talent at issue. Emilio won both MLS Most Valuable Player and Golden Boot honors as league-leading scorer a season ago and leads the squad with 10 goals this year. His participation would dramatically sharpen the Black-and-Red's cutting edge in the attacking end on Tuesday.
The same goes for Gallardo. The highest-paid player in United history, "El Muneco" has missed most of the last two months with sports hernia issues and full fitness remains elusive. Last week he was hit by a case of the flu as well as an ankle complaint, and the coaching staff elected to keep him out of uniform over the weekend with an eye towards having him closer to full speed against Saprissa. The smooth Argentinean is the archetypical South American No. 10 and his vision and composure in the center of the park would be a massive boost against the Costa Rican powerhouse.
Most of the region's other leagues are just working their way into the meat of the domestic schedule. However, MLS is entering the final month of its regular season and United have failed to haul themselves into the upper echelon of the cutthroat Eastern Conference, leaving their playoff hopes at risk and deflecting attention from the significant challenge of qualifying out of the Champions League's formidable Group A.
MLS teams traditionally struggled in the CONCACAF Champions Cup, a tourney which kicked off while the U.S. league was in its preseason stages. But the timing of Champions League offers a different sort of challenge and United, along with fellow MLS representatives Houston Dynamo, are entering uncharted territory as the league tries to balance its roster size and strict salary cap setup with the desire for better results in international play.
"The competition has been expanded and that has brought about a lot of questions. How do we manage this? How do we manage it as a league?" said D.C. general manager Dave Kasper last week. "So I think it's being discussed, ways the league can put teams in a position to succeed. That's being discussed right now and hopefully there will some sort of solution to that. Our immediate goal is to get guys healthy."
All told, D.C. must play 12 matches in the next six weeks and their CONCACAF adventure will have to be juggled with the ongoing demands of MLS play. But the club is open about its larger ambitions of regional ascendancy, and such aspirations require the squad to produce results regardless of the circumstances.
"That's how it's going to be this year," said defender Marc Burch. "We want to be in these tournaments and we're going to be faced with game after game. So the next two months are really, really busy and we're going to try to rest guys and get out of it what we can...We've got to just face the games as they come."
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