Dipsy Do

Okay, so it looks like that rough -- and apparently legal if you take the ref's lack of word for it -- challenge from the Saprissa goalkeeper may have knocked forward Damani Ralph out of today's match with Dallas. Or maybe not. I think he's only listed as questionable, not out.

This means it may be time for Dipsy Selolwane to step up. And for online fans to scream bloody murder if Nate Jaqua starts in front of him again. While the Fire attack is still clearly finding it's legs, I want to go back to the whole Dipsy phenomenon for a minute. The biggest argument for him comes from his leading the team in scoring during the preseason, and his two-goal performance to help the Fire rally from a three-goal deficit to win the CONCACAF Champions Cup quarterfinal.

There are problems with both of these presumptions. First, top striker and all-time Fire goals leader Ante Razov barely played a minute of the preseason. Damani Ralph didn't see a whole heck of a lot of time, either. Looking at preseason lineups, the whole point seemed to be to get Selolwane and Jaqua some quality minutes so that they'd be prepared to come into meaningful games whenever necessary, and that doesn't necessarily mean as a starter.

Second, there's the San Juan Jabloteh game. Yes, Dipsy scored twice, but at the same time, it was against ten men, and the whole team was gunning hard for goals. It's rare that a team lines up from the opening whistle with that kind of firepower loaded for bear. And against ten men, with fresh legs, it's hard to project that performance onto the regular grind of the MLS regular season.

Will Selolwane help the Fire put numbers on the board? Absolutely. Is he some kind of savior for an attack that has been unable to break through in three matches? I doubt it. Getting Ante Razov on track is still going to be where the Fire offense lives and dies, and while Dipsy can help, he plays a somewhat limited role in that effort. I'm actually encouraged by the fact that I have no real feel for the 2004 Fire squad yet, because that sentiment is borne out of a myriad of options and the notion that Dave Sarachan knows how to work through those options until he discovers the inherent character of this year's squad. How quickly we forget Rodrigo Faria as the lone forward to start the season last year.

Elsewhere in MLS, I'm intrigued by this DC-MetroStars match on ESPN2 this afternoon. And it has nothing to do with Freddy Adu. The whole "teacher versus the student" coaching matchup between Fire alums Bob Bradley and Peter Nowak would be compelling even if both skippers didn't have their teams playing attractive soccer. But so far, I have to say that Metro has looked like the team to beat after one and a half matches. Solid in the back, solid in the middle, solid up top. The playing time given to Eddie Gaven and Mike Magee last season has made an obviously positive mark on their development, to the point where they can contribute more steadily from the opening whistle, and the team has considerable depth as a result. Even rookie of the year candidate Ricardo Clark is looking like he may lose his starting role to Mark Lisi, of all people.

In DC, Nowak seems to have done the impossible. He's turned Mike Petke into a solid defender. I watched the DC-LA match last week as the "battle of the overrated backs" matchup between Danny Califf and Petke, and while Califf was his regular oafish self -- wearing the captain's armband, no less -- Petke really seems to have stepped up his game. The team obviously plays well together, a hallmark of the Bradley-Nowak era Fire that has rubbed off on both teams already, and the net result should be an awfully entertaining game, Freddy or no Freddy.