Season Preview: The Defense

RB – Namoff, Miller
CB – Jakovic, Peters
CB – Janicki, McTavish
LB – Burch, Wallace

In this article I'm going to go over the current roster spots occupied by the defenders. In 2008 this area of the team was a glaring problem. At one point it was Mctavish and Burch in the central defense. It was not fun to watch. With the departures of Peralta and Martinez, United brought in some new blood, Roger a player with vast experience in the Brazilian leagues and the Copa Libatordes(The Champions League of South America). Unfortunately he was here in DC, in one of the worst winters in recent memory and he decided this wasn't the place he wanted to be, so he left. Fuck him. End of story, he is dead to the Black Foot. They did sign a monster from Croatia, Dejan Jakovic. Dejan played college ball in the States and he holds Canadian citizenship. He played the last year for Red Star Belgrade, making a few appearances. He is projected to be the starter. The Black Foot have never seen him play, so its really hard to evaluate him at this juncture. In our mid-season report card, we should have a much better idea of the kind of footballer he is. Next lets look at our stability on the backline, Bryan Namoff. Bryan has been a solid contributor for as long as I can remember. He distributes out of the back well, he rarely lets his man beat him one on one, and he seems to stay out of card trouble. He is first choice RB every game, no questions asked. Now to the fodder. Oh boy, where do I start on McTavish. I absolutely think this player is not good enough for United. He is late on tackles, he is slow as an Ox, his distribution is inconsistent, and he cant mark on set pieces. He belongs in the USL(United Soccer Leagues), not in the MLS. Hopefully he proves me wrong this year. Now on to Mark Burch. Mark started his DC career with a bang. They put him out on the left and he shined. He was great at putting in these curving, driving crosses, that would create chances for Lucio and Moreno. He seemed to be decent enough at distribution and he was excellent as a set piece specialist. Then flash forward to the playoffs, were down 1-0 to NE, Burch gets a red card on a stupid play. And we lose. Ever since that point, he has been below avg as a defender. He looks slow, he can't tackle, and for some reason his crossing went to shit. There is an old saying, class is permanent, form is temporary. So hopefully mark can nail down that LB spot and return to his old form. The last guy I'm going to talk about is Mark Janicki. We picked mark up from a USL 2 team, Minnesota. He looked pretty good in the games I saw him play last year. He is avg to above avg at marking, he gets rid of the ball when he should, and he seems to be a very good tackler. I think in the end he will beat our Mctavish to pair with the Croatian Monster in the back. Miller, Peters, and Barkledge are complete unknowns at this point, and we will review them in our mid-season report card. Stay tuned for our next article on the midfield.