An American's View from Washington
By Pivo
July 30 2005
Good crowd. A very motivated DC United starts almost all its starters. A Chelsea team playing for pride if anything starts most of its starters.
First 30 minutes, DC takes it to Chelsea, creating several dangerous attacks, a couple of which would have been goals if not for wayward finishing. Meanwhile, the Chelsea counterattacks produced little as the DC defenders shut down Drogba & Co.
Around the 35th minute, the unthinkable happened. DC took the lead. DC forced a corner with a wicked shot, and from the corner, defender Bobby Boswell ran through the defense to redirect the ball with a glancing header into the corner. DC 1 Chelsea 0. I mention Boswell's name simply because he is a first year player, and he shut down everything that Chelsea threw at him. An impressive outing for someone who might be headed to the EPL some day.......
After the goal, Chelsea woke up, and DC played like a dog that finally catches the squirrel but doesn't know what to do with it. Chelsea pressed the offensive end, and 5 minutes later a Shaun Wright-Phillips flick freed Joe Cole on the right. Cole picked out Damian Duff who slammed home Cole's cross off the volley into the side netting from a very tight angle. A stunning, thunderous goal. Some DC fans applauded the quality of the strike. DC 1 Chelsea 1.
2nd half. Both squads empty their bench, leaving 1 or 2 starters in. Play at this point degraded into sloppiness. Very few combinations, very few dangerous forays into the other team's box. The highlight of the half was Freddy Adu, who played like he was on try outs for Chelsea. He ran at defenders, putting on moves that left a defender or two on their rear.
I didn't know he was *that* advanced. Yikes. So, your Freddy Adu update is that he can give Chelsea's reserves fits. (I think Freddy is coming your way eventually.)
In whatever minute, somebody fed Hernan Crespo with a fine through ball, and Crespo knows how to finish off 1 v keepers. DC 1 Chelsea 2. What made this goal special is that Crespo was offsides by at least 3 yards. My seat was in line with the play, and Crespo could have received the ball, taken a coffee break, and still have enough time to go at goal.
Why was the offside not called? Because we discovered our linesman was 20 yards behind the play out of breath. The mother****** literally spent the second half out of position to make any calls. I've never seen an official wilt from lack of fitness like that. Unbelievable.
Anyway, Chelsea got a good workout, DC gained some confidence, and it seemed everybody left happy.
My man of the match--Bobby Boswell.
Chelsea's man of the match--nobody really shined, but then nobody really had to. If pressed, I'll go with Duff for the quality of his goal.
Chelsea (4-3-3) Cech (Cudicini h-t); Johnson (Ferriera h-t), Gallas (Huth h-t), Terry (c) (Carvalho h-t), Bridge (Gérémi h-t); J Cole (Diarra h-t), Tiago (Gudjohnsen 57), Jaroik (Lampard h-t (c)); Wright-Phillips (C Cole h-t), Drogba (Crespo h-t), Duff (Robben h-t).
DC Utd (3-5-2) Rimando (Perkins h-t); Prideaux, Boswell, Wilson (Namoff 61); Gros, Carroll, Gomez (Adu h-t), Olsen (Sims 62), Kovalenko; Moreno (c), Quaranta (Walker 76).