An ominous burst of lightning screamed directly over RFK Stadium about an hour after another disappointing loss by DC United at RFK Thursday night.

Perhaps an omen, paradoxical or even metaphorical, as the stadium was being tidied up after United’s 2-0 loss to Chicago on a slippery field at the old ballpark.

The match sidestepped the deluge of rain that followed it, but United barely stepped up to the leagues best defense creating only a handful of quality opportunities and squandering away a few others where they could have done better from good positions.

Chicago got goals from former United midfielder Justin Mapp in the 39th minute and a wonderful left footed blast from Cuauhtemoc Blanco just past the hour mark, for his 3rd goal of the season.

United (2-5-0, 6 points) have now lost four of their last five league matches, languishing firmly at the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings.

Blanco quickly earned the wrath of the United faithful nearby, rolling around the wet turf after getting locked up with defender Bryan Namoff and Santino Quaranta in the 6th minute. Blanco did have enough energy however to exchange pleasantries with Namoff after getting up and with Referee Terry Vaughn who correctly abstained from calling a foul on the sequence.

Conversely, Chicago is off to their best start in franchise history winning 5 of their first 7 matches, with a loss and a draw, surpassing their 5-2 start during the 1999 season. They are perfect on the road (3-0-1), having outscored their opponents 7-1.

The Fire have given up only 3 goals all season, one of which was an own goal against Real Salt Lake in their first game of the season.

The Fire also seem to have the right formula against United having lost only once in their last eight matches in all competitions against the league’s most successful franchise. United’s last win came on June 16, 2007, which turned out to be the last game for then Fire coach Dave Sarachan.

“We know whenever we play DC its going to be a good game because we respect them and what they have done throughout the history of the league,” said Chicago Coach Denis Hamlet, who grew up in the Washington, DC area and played his collegiate soccer at George Mason. “They have good players. So we always look forward to coming here; they have a great crowd and our guys get up for the game.”

“It’s the mentality we bring here,” added Chris Rolfe. “When we come here we know it’s going to be a tough game and we prepare for it. It’s a good feeling when we get here; we know we are in for a game, we know we are going to have to compete and we like that.”

United were without two of their top creative influences in midfield in Marcelo Gallardo and Fred due to injury. Jaime Moreno stepped into the attacking midfield role with Franco Niell stepping in up top while Marc Burch replaced Fred on the left flank.

Despite the missing pieces, United carried the play for the bulk of the first half but could not capitalize on any of their forays at goal. They preferred the left side of their attack using Burch as the delivery man for a struggling Luciano Emilio.

It seemed to work early with moderate success as United pinged the ball around crisply but their final touches around the penalty area didn’t match the build-up.

“Oh, it’s very concerning. I asked the guys to come out with the effort and I thought that improved a bit, but still, over 90 minutes it still wasn’t good enough,” said United coach Tom Soehn. “We broke down and good teams are going to punish you. So it’s very concerning. We’ve got to really evaluate and make sure now that we turn this around. It’s getting to a crucial time.”

Clyde Simms’ right footed blast from 28-yards straight in front swerved just wide of the left post in the 15th minute. After striker Luciano Emilio did well to hold the ball in a crowd, he laid the ball calmly back to Simms for the first legitimate threat of the match by either team.

Emilio created just enough space at the top of the penalty area to crack a shot of his own in the 20th minute but it sailed harmlessly over the top from 20-yards.

Chicago sat deep in their defensive third through much of the first stanza playing for the counter attack. They took full advantage of their first chance in the 39th minute, stealing a goal against the run of play to make the score 1-0.

After a quick throw-in by Blanco down the right sideline, Chris Rolfe bent a ball into the box toward Chad Barrett, who out-jumped Bryan Namoff, knocking the ball down into the path of an inexplicably wide open Justin Mapp. Santino Quaranta was late getting to Mapp, who finished the left footed shot with a calm
precision into the lower left corner of the net.

“Chad [Barrett] did a good job of getting on the end of it and knocking it back down. It was just me there. I tried to put it on target and thankfully I was able to,” said Mapp.

“Well, we made a mistake and they punished us. It was a ball played in and I think Santino followed the ball and left his man, and it fell back to Justin [Mapp] and he punished us,” said Soehn. “But it came from a situation where Blanco had too much time to serve that ball. So we broke down. In the first half we didn’t break down much but it only takes one or two to punish you.”

Blanco nearly extended the lead four minutes later, getting the best of Namoff again and serving a near-post ball for Barrett. The ball bounced awkwardly away from Barrett just before he could get a good enough touch on the ball from close range.

The balance of power swung the other direction in the second half with very few sterling moments from the home side despite being down a goal. Rod Dyachenko did put a tester on goal from 20-yards out in the 50th minute however, but the bouncing shot was scooped up cleanly off the wet turf by Jon Busch.

The Fire controlled the next 30-minutes of play, creating a good but fortuitous opportunity nine minutes into the half. Barrett freed Mapp with speed down the left flank as Barrett and his low cross near the 6-yard box bounced off a sliding Dyachenko. The ball bounded perfectly to Barrett, whose blast from less than 12 yards was denied on a superb reaction save from Zach Wells, diving to his left.

Gonzalo Segares slipped behind the United defense on a crafty ball from Mapp but his left footed shot from the left side of the penalty area slipped just wide of the far post in the 59th minute.

United’s fortunes however, ran out three minutes later.

Blanco meandered his way smartly through the sieve that is United’s defense and bent a classy left footed shot from 27-yards out that Wells got a hand on, but not enough to keep the ball from going into the upper right hand corner of the goal to make the score 2-0.

United didn’t give up however as Moreno, who dropped into the attacking midfield role for Gallardo, flicked a header just wide from inside the 6-yard box on a cross from Niell in the 83rd minute.

Two minutes later the Bolivian veteran rose up again to knock another one off the crossbar from 6-yards out near the front post from a corner kick by Marc Burch.

“I don’t know what to think anymore because we work so hard each week,” said Moreno. “I don’t think we were playing so bad, you know, we created chances but we couldn’t put it away. It’s one of those things where you have to make your luck change and the only way to do it is to keep working. We got nothing else to do…We have to turn it around, that’s the only way.”

Scoring Summary:
CHI — Justin Mapp 1 (Chad Barrett 3, Chris Rolfe 2) 38
CHI — Cuauhtemoc Blanco 3 (unassisted) 62

Chicago Fire — Jon Busch, Brandon Prideaux, Diego Gutierrez, Bakary Soumare, Gonzalo Segares, John Thorrington, Cuauhtemoc Blanco, Logan Pause, Justin Mapp (Daniel Woolard 71), Chad Barrett (Andy Herron 66), Chris Rolfe (Stephen King 85),

Substitutes Not Used: Calen Carr, Tomasz Frankowski, Nick Noble, Dasan Robinson

D.C. United — Zach Wells, Bryan Namoff, Gonzalo Martinez, Gonzalo Peralta, Marc Burch, Santino Quaranta (Francis Doe 66), Rod Dyachenko (Quavas Kirk 92+), Clyde Simms, Franco Niell, Luciano Emilio (Dan Stratford 83), Jaime Moreno,

Substitutes Not Used: Jose Carvallo, Ryan Cordeiro, Pat Carroll, Mike Zaher

Misconduct Summary:
DC — Marc Burch (caution; Reckless Foul) 30
DC — Rod Dyachenko (caution; Reckless Foul) 40
DC — Bryan Namoff (caution; Reckless Foul) 73
CHI — Brandon Prideaux (caution; Game Disrepute) 77
CHI — Gonzalo Segares (caution; Game Disrepute) 92

Referee: Terry Vaughn
Referee’s Assistants: Greg Barkey; Bill Dittmar
4th official: Jeff Gontarek
Time of game: 1:51
Attendance: 18,605
Weather: Cloudy -and- 70 degrees