United Comes to Life in Second Half to Secure Win

D.C. United 4, Toronto FC 1

D.C. United's longest-serving veterans, Ben Olsen and Jaime Moreno, sat on the bench for 45 minutes last night, while MLS's best team improbably fell behind the league's worst.

The pair entered the game at halftime, and within two minutes a snoozing attack wiped the sleep out of its eyes, rolled out of bed and came alive.

After being greeted with enthusiastic ovations from an announced crowd of 25,174, Moreno and Olsen immediately created a dangerous chance, with Olsen heading Moreno's cross back in front of the goal to Christian Gomez. The latter's bicycle kick fizzled, but it was a sign of things to come. Forty-five minutes later, a re-energized United side had the sort of overwhelming victory that the teams' records would have suggested.

That 4-1 win over Toronto FC extended first-place United's unbeaten streak to 11 games, guaranteeing the club one of the top two seeds in the Eastern Conference's playoffs and providing a boost of momentum during its busiest stretch of the season.

"Those are our leaders; when you get your leaders out there, that's what you expect," defender Bobby Boswell said. "It's tough even for me to explain the little things that they do and bring, but it's just something you feel when you're out there. When you score four goals in a half, it's obvious something's different."

As Boswell also pointed out, Olsen and Moreno were hardly the only factors behind the awakening, which wiped away a 1-0 halftime deficit. There was also a tactical change, with United avoiding the congested middle of the Toronto defense and carving into its flanks.

"Plus, it helped the fact we got our [behinds] chewed out at halftime," goalkeeper Troy Perkins said.

There were plenty of others who contributed, often in spectacular fashion. United's first goal came in the 52nd minute, when Fred left the ball for charging left back Marc Burch, who unleashed a rocket that seemed destined to smash through the netting. It was the first career goal for Burch, whom teammates and coaches have encouraged to be more aggressive in attack.

"He does that all the time in training; he hits bombs," Perkins said. "Finally he hits one [in a game], and look what happens."

Five minutes later, Fred was at it again on the left side, crossing up goalkeeper Kenny Stamatopoulos with a right-footed shot into the far corner of the net. Moreno served as a decoy on that goal, running past Fred as he carried the ball forward, but within 10 minutes the league's all-time leading scorer got a chance of his own. Moreno received the ball from Clyde Simms as Toronto's defenders pleaded for an offside call, and jammed the ball past helpless Stamatopoulos.

With the Toronto net seeming to grow wider by the minute, United tacked on another highlight-reel goal when Christian Gomez's free kick clanged off the cross bar. It dropped to Luciano Emilio, who began celebrating his roundhouse left-footed volley even before it lodged in the back of the net. The tally was Emilio's 20th of the season; he became the first MLS player to reach that mark since 2002.

With yesterday's game sandwiched between two Copa Sudamericana meetings with Mexican power CD Chivas Guadalajara, Coach Tom Soehn trotted out a starting 11 missing several veterans, including Olsen, Moreno and the injured Bryan Namoff.

"It's a fine line, with playing so many games, resting guys and finding which pieces that are going to work together," Soehn said. "Some days it works, and some days it doesn't. Thankfully, today we were able to inject some key guys who changed the flow of the game. Having said that, the guys we took out, after addressing things at halftime they might have come out and sparked us as well, because we talked about a lot of things."

Namoff, who left Wednesday's Sudamericana game with a left quadriceps contusion, did not dress. He said he could have played, and expects to be available for Tuesday's rematch with Chivas.

The rebuilt lineup came out sluggish against a Toronto team that hadn't scored a road goal since July 7, a span of nearly 400 minutes. That ended in the 14th minute on a Carl Robinson free kick; Perkins took two steps to his left and was unable to recover when Robinson tucked the ball into the far corner.

By the second half, that goal no longer mattered. United received some bad news in the closing moments when Fred limped off the field with a groin strain. He will accompany the team to Mexico but said he was not sure whether he would be able to play.