“We don’t want to play like Colorado or New England, which most of the season sat with eight or nine guys behind the ball. How many people go to watch Colorado or New England play? That’s a problem for our league. We can’t play like we’re a team desperately trying to remain in 14th place in the Premiership…” Kevin Payne, President, DC United.

Courtesy SoccerInsider

“Our market isn’t there yet. They want to see something that is entertaining, and D.C. United has always had a way of playing. Given a choice, we would rather attack than cynically defend. You look at the way Real Salt Lake played when they came here [a 0-0 tie in May] and sat 10 guys behind the ball. You don’t have to do that. Sometimes that is the best way to get a result — if you don’t care about the product, if you don’t care about advertising your league. Long term, who wants to watch that?

There are a lot of games in our league that I can’t watch. The problem in our league isn’t who is or isn’t in the playoffs; it’s that not enough people want to watch our league yet, and we have to convince them that our league is worth watching. I don’t think [playing conservatively] is the way to do it. I recognize there is more than one way to skin a cat. I’m not saying that everyone has to play an attacking style, but that is our style and identity, and we have to be honest with ourselves and say there are sometimes liabilities [such as missing the playoffs] that come with it.

We still have a lot more trophies in our case than everybody else, so I think in the long run, it’s the right thing to do. This league is changing [a smaller percentage of teams will make the playoffs as MLS expands by three over the next two seasons] and we are going to see more of that kind of [defensive] approach: results at any cost.”

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