Fighting Talker

DC v. Colorado, 3 p.m. Sunday on Telefutura and CSN

DC arrives in Denver Commerce City looking to win in Colorado for the first time in eight visits and eight years. Will this be the year?? Umm, maybe.

Is DC a better team man-for-man than Colorado, yes. That said, can DC go into altitude with an attacking trio over 30 and keep up with Colorado in terms of fitness? That’s the key question. Looking at the predicted lineup shown at right, we see that Fred may slide back in to the left wing and Stratford returns beside Simms. I am fine with Stratford, start #1 was always going to be a learning experience rather than a coronation of the new Patrick Vieira.

I am less thrilled at seeing Fred go right back into the lineup in place of Burch, who was outstanding off the bench against RSL. I really really like Burch on the outside of a 3-5-2 because he stays wide and actually can put in dangerous crosses (as we all saw again on Saturday). Also, how confident are we that Fred can handle the defensive responsibilities that come with Terry Cooke racing at (and by?) him for 90 minutes?

Assuming this lineup is correct, I am curious to see what Colorado does on the attack. Will Cooke be so advanced as to be almost a second forward? Or will Cooke stay wide as he and Gomez ping through balls in the direction of 5-9 Scottish forward Tom McManus from distance. If it’s the latter, than I expect DC to have few struggles. If it’s the former, they’ll need to lean on Simms and Stratford a lot to clean up any messes created by the usual assortment of Peralta giveaways and Martinez getting caught upfield.

For all the talk of how good Colorado apparantly is, let’s not forget they’re only 2-3 with one of those wins coming over Los Angeles and one of the losses coming to San Jose. I think DC begins to get the ball rolling downhill here.

Prediction: 3-1 DC