CONCACAF Champions' Cup: DCU 3 - 2 Olimpia; DCU win 7-3 on aggregate
Las night, I was standing on the Dupont Circle Metro platform when I saw a man wearing a DC United jersey, DCU scarf, and bearing an umbrella.
"Is the match against Olimpia tonight?" I asked him.
"Yes, at seven," he answered me, in Latino-accented English. The train pulled up, and he pointed at the carriages: "See how many people are going?"
Sure enough, the Red Line was full of the Red and Black. Knots of young DCU fans standing in the center of the car, chatting to each other. [One of them bore an uncanny resemblance to someone I used to know, but it would have been extremely weird to have asked "say, are you so-and-so's sister?" out of nowhere on the Red Line. . . ] Olimpia fans, in their Olimpia kit, chatting quietly in Spanish. No Tube hooligans, these--but they were on their way to a rainy RFK to watch the match.
I skipped the match, having forgotten my own rain gear. I tried to get it on the radio, but while I can receive minor-league hockey games from Quebec, I can't seem to pull any stations that have DCU matches. Christian Laettner, get us some radio time!
So, I had to settle for the newspaper reports. WaPo's Steven Goff covered the 3-2 win, but only in conventional American soccer style. The better story ran in Tegucigalpa's El Heraldo. I've translated it below, pretty freely. Those of you who read Spanish might want to read the article itself, but I've tried to give the flavor of what football writing in the rest of the hemisphere sounds like:
IT WAS A LATE REACTION, VERY LATE
Emotion and good football have taken the Copa Bimbo [Champions' Cup]. After two rounds there are already teams which are thought to be firm candidates to take the title. The Whites [i.e., Olimpia] arrived with a better attitude to RFK, on which snow fell until a certain hour of the night, and, later, an intermittent rain. But none of that hurt Olimpia more than Olimpia itself.
At the very least, in the first half, they [Olimpia] were not the team that fell behind, and they made the necessary effort to scare DC after gaining the advantage with Thomas' penalty-kick goal.
Barahona was fouled by Namoff in the area, and the returning Thomas had the cold-bloodedness necessary to put DC on notice that Olimpia was then not the same team that DC had faced in Tegucigalpa.
DC quickly realized that things were going to be difficult for them, and as a result made it 1-1 with Luciano Emilio. The biggest headache for the Whites, their ex-goalscorer and best foreigner of recent years, tied the match with a masterful play in which he tore himself away from three defenders and afterwards went right by Noel.
The first half was played with a parity which Cristian Gomez's witchcraft did not wait long to shatter. Disequilibrium! Barely two minutes of play had elapsed in the second half when Gomez converted a penalty kick brought on by a foul on Olsen by Figueroa.
Espinoza tried to breathe some life into his squad and with the arrival of substitutes Walter Lopez and Jose Pacini, was able to to achieve some degree of mobility forward across three-quarters of the pitch. Pacini made it 2-2 after pass from Wilson which couldn't have been better: He halted, surrounded by three defenders, filtered through to the open space, and the Whites' number 19 finished the job with a deft touch through the legs of the goalkeeper Perkins.
Before that, Walter Lopez had missed an easy chance on a high deflection. DC's goal was open, but he failed to convert. Maynor Figueroa committed yet another unnecessary foul, this time at midfield, and with that, won himself a trip to the showers.
To that numerical inferiority was added the goal-scoring efficacy of Luciano Emilio, who made it 3-2 after toying with Nahun Avila and finishing with a light touch to the far post which was guarded by Noel Valladares.
This was the end of Olimpia's dream, which ended much better than many thought it might have ended after the 4-1 result in Tegucigalpa. Olimpia had more smarts, more courage, but only as a late reaction.
* * *
"Is the match against Olimpia tonight?" I asked him.
"Yes, at seven," he answered me, in Latino-accented English. The train pulled up, and he pointed at the carriages: "See how many people are going?"
Sure enough, the Red Line was full of the Red and Black. Knots of young DCU fans standing in the center of the car, chatting to each other. [One of them bore an uncanny resemblance to someone I used to know, but it would have been extremely weird to have asked "say, are you so-and-so's sister?" out of nowhere on the Red Line. . . ] Olimpia fans, in their Olimpia kit, chatting quietly in Spanish. No Tube hooligans, these--but they were on their way to a rainy RFK to watch the match.
I skipped the match, having forgotten my own rain gear. I tried to get it on the radio, but while I can receive minor-league hockey games from Quebec, I can't seem to pull any stations that have DCU matches. Christian Laettner, get us some radio time!
So, I had to settle for the newspaper reports. WaPo's Steven Goff covered the 3-2 win, but only in conventional American soccer style. The better story ran in Tegucigalpa's El Heraldo. I've translated it below, pretty freely. Those of you who read Spanish might want to read the article itself, but I've tried to give the flavor of what football writing in the rest of the hemisphere sounds like:
IT WAS A LATE REACTION, VERY LATE
Emotion and good football have taken the Copa Bimbo [Champions' Cup]. After two rounds there are already teams which are thought to be firm candidates to take the title. The Whites [i.e., Olimpia] arrived with a better attitude to RFK, on which snow fell until a certain hour of the night, and, later, an intermittent rain. But none of that hurt Olimpia more than Olimpia itself.
At the very least, in the first half, they [Olimpia] were not the team that fell behind, and they made the necessary effort to scare DC after gaining the advantage with Thomas' penalty-kick goal.
Barahona was fouled by Namoff in the area, and the returning Thomas had the cold-bloodedness necessary to put DC on notice that Olimpia was then not the same team that DC had faced in Tegucigalpa.
DC quickly realized that things were going to be difficult for them, and as a result made it 1-1 with Luciano Emilio. The biggest headache for the Whites, their ex-goalscorer and best foreigner of recent years, tied the match with a masterful play in which he tore himself away from three defenders and afterwards went right by Noel.
The first half was played with a parity which Cristian Gomez's witchcraft did not wait long to shatter. Disequilibrium! Barely two minutes of play had elapsed in the second half when Gomez converted a penalty kick brought on by a foul on Olsen by Figueroa.
Espinoza tried to breathe some life into his squad and with the arrival of substitutes Walter Lopez and Jose Pacini, was able to to achieve some degree of mobility forward across three-quarters of the pitch. Pacini made it 2-2 after pass from Wilson which couldn't have been better: He halted, surrounded by three defenders, filtered through to the open space, and the Whites' number 19 finished the job with a deft touch through the legs of the goalkeeper Perkins.
Before that, Walter Lopez had missed an easy chance on a high deflection. DC's goal was open, but he failed to convert. Maynor Figueroa committed yet another unnecessary foul, this time at midfield, and with that, won himself a trip to the showers.
To that numerical inferiority was added the goal-scoring efficacy of Luciano Emilio, who made it 3-2 after toying with Nahun Avila and finishing with a light touch to the far post which was guarded by Noel Valladares.
This was the end of Olimpia's dream, which ended much better than many thought it might have ended after the 4-1 result in Tegucigalpa. Olimpia had more smarts, more courage, but only as a late reaction.
* * *