Smoked by the Fire

DC United was completely blown out of Audi Field last Saturday eveing (June 7) by the Chicago Fire, 7-1.

It was international week, and multiple DC players were on national team duty, in particular Rowles, Herrera and Peltola. DC started a makeshift lineup of

Barraza in goal

Schnegg, Tubbs, Bartlett, Antley in defense

Kijima, Servania, Pirani, Zouhir, Stroud in midfield

Murrell in forward

Subs: Leal for Zouhir (halftime), Badji for Murrell (57th), Gavin Turnerfor Stroud (66th), Dodson for Antley (80th), Barajas for Pirani (80th).

Maren Haile-Selassie opened the scoring for Chicago in the 8th minute. Jonathan Bamba outran the DC defense (which happened frequently) to score in the 23rd minute. Tom Barlow scored in the 30th and 44th minutes. It was 4-0 at halftime.

Philip Zinckernagel hit a nice shot from outside the box in the 56th minute to stretch the lead to 5-0. The one bright moment for DC came in the 60th minute when Badji caught Chicago goalie Jeff Gal taking too long getting rid of a back pass and poached the ball for an easy goal, making it 5-1. However, Barlow completed his hat trick in the 65th minute, and Chicago's Brian Gutierrez finished the scoring just a few sesconds into second half stoppage time.

A night to forget. Shortly before halftime, fans began chanting something that sounded like "Salvoytee". I was wondering who that was when it dawned on me that they were chanting "Sell the team!", aimed at DC majority owner Jason Levien. Another chant said less than complimentary things about Levien.

DC travels to Utah next Saturday to play Real Salt Lake at 930pm Eastern.