DC-You mighty

The sidebars that Eric Wynalda contributes to the espn.com previews are edited by someone else, but I interviewed Eric to get his observations.

It's not hard - Eric is machine-gun like with his opinions. He has a lot of them, generally hits the target and isn't afraid of doing damage.

When he was talking about DC United, though, it didn't surprise me that he criticized Peter Nowak wearing out his players. I'd observed United go from a good team to a tired-looking team last year myself.

When he was in Los Angeles with the national team, I asked Troy Perkins about why his squad faltered in the closing half of the season. His response, while not as barbed in its rebuke of Nowak as Eric's take, wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement, either, though Troy didn't mention the former coach directly.

"I think we just had some injuries that we were struggling with with our attackers. We kind of relied too much on certain guys to do the job for us. We were cutting corners and I think it bit us in the butt a little bit. Plus, it was just learning about how to keep momentum and how to win games, even though it was tough. I think we just burned ourselves out. We did too much too fast and in the long run it hurt us."

I'm not sure I'd pick DC to win MLS Cup, but the team definitely looks to be a beast in the East.