D.C. starts its season on the right foot with a win at home against the Union

Tai Barbo opened up his scoring tally for the season against his former club Saturday night. Photo Credit: D.C. United

D.C. United entered the 2026 season looking to forget their disastrous 2025 season and look to turn a new leaf under head coach Rene Weiler in his first full season as head coach. D.C. was looking to start the season on the right foot. However, this task would not be easy, as they faced the current Supporter Shield holders Philadelphia Union, to start the season. 

In front of 18,003 fans who gathered at Audi Field in Washington, DC Saturday night to watch the game, D.C. did just that as they beat the Union 1-0 in a hard-fought, physical affair. 

The Game 

D.C. United thought they had broken through in the 8th minute when Gabriel Pirani and Keisuke Kurokawa combined with a quick passing sequence, leaving the Japanese left back wide open. Kurokawa slotted the ball across the box to an incoming Tai Baribo, who had been following the play. Baribo scored. The referee of the game, Guido Gonzalez Jr., determined that Kurokawa left an offside position, deeming the play invalid and calling back the goal. 

Baribo would not be denied and would get his goal in the 23rd minute. The play would start in their own half after Jackson Hopkins intercepted an Indiana Vassilev cross that was headed towards the box. Hopkins played a long through ball that found Pirani, who held possession of the ball while being marked by a Union defender, who laid the ball off to an incoming João Peglow, who took the ball and steamed rolled his way towards the Union goal, leaving them with a 3 on 2 situation and United with the advantage on the attack. Peglow laid the ball off to Baribo, who came trailing the play from midfield. The pass left Baribo one-on-one with Andre Blake, the Israeli international hit the ball one time past Blake into the back of the net to score his first goal as a member of the Black and Red. 

“As a striker, you have to be decisive. He scored the goal. It was the decisive goal. So he did his job,"said Weiler. “I can only say that he did the job with this goal... So what else are we asking for?”

Baribo was enthusiastic with his goal celebration, celebrating his goal in front of the Union fans who made the 140-mile trip from Philadelphia to DC to watch the game.  

“I celebrate first of all, not because it’s against Philadelphia, but because I celebrate with my own fans. For me, every goal is important. It’s not easy to score goals.” Baribo said, “You can see all my goals in the past, even in Philadelphia, in Austria, and Israel. I always celebrate with passion, because it's not easy.”

Philadelphia would try to respond with a goal of their own via a Milan Iloski free kick, which was saved by Sean Johnson, but the ball slipped from Johnson’s hand, and the veteran goalkeeper was able to secure the rebound in the end. 

"We have to vary [our attack]. Otherwise, we are predictable, but we want to be unpredictable," explained Weiler. "We played some diagonal balls, we played some long balls, because they prefer to press us and to have their high [line]. So, that was an option to open the game."

D.C. almost doubled its lead near the end of the first half after a long ball from Lucas Bartlett close to midfield found Hopkins in the box. Hopkins redirected the ball with a volley towards a waiting Baribo inside the box. Baribo hit the ball towards the direction of goal, but the crossbar denied him his second goal of the game.

"Both sides of the ball, they're extremely narrow," said Bartlett. "We kept our right back really tight to us in the back line, which made it really difficult for them to break us down. They stay in one channel, and they try to penetrate in that one channel. They don't really try to switch the field.” He added, "So we knew that Jackson and Peglow were gonna be really good options for us out wide, and we hit them in a couple of good spots. We missed some of the others; it really hurt [Philadelphia] when we found them in open space. We could have capitalized a couple of other times."

In the 59th minute, Bartlett and Ezilekel Alladou were involved in a small tussle, where Alladou shoved the United center back at the end of the play. Some words were exchanged by the players, but Alladou would be shown a red card and given his marching orders, leaving the Union with a man disadvantage for the remainder of the match. 

"I think it was just some words that he had said to me," said Bartlett. "Just an emotional game, and sometimes [obscene] words come out, and the ref made a decision. So yeah, it was an advantage for us."

When asked by the pool reporter about his decision and the reason for showing Alladou a straight red card, Gonzalez said that Alladou “directed an obscene gesture and language at his opponent,” showing the Philly striker the red card for “offensive, insulting, abusive language/actions.” 

United almost doubled their lead once again midway through the second half, after catching Philadelphia’s defense flat-footed on the counterattack after a Union corner kick, as Pirani muscled the ball off his opponent to win a clearance in the midfield, sending the ball in the direction of Peglow, who was darting towards Union territory. Peglow sent a cross into the box to Baribo, whose one-time shot would go past Blake and the right-hand side of the net and out for a goal kick. 

Philadelphia found a goalscoring opportunity in the 71st minute off a Cavan Sullivan corner that found Nathan Harriell, but his header would hit the side netting. 

Despite creating several more goal-scoring chances, Philadelphia could not break D.C.'s defense and kept the result in favor of the home team after 90 minutes. 

"I'm focused on me, I'm focused on D.C. United and how to get this club better every game and to put this club where they deserve on the table," Bairbo said. 

D.C., with this result, is sitting in fourth place in the Eastern Conference with 3 points, while the Union sits in eleventh place with 0 points. 

“Today was just a first step for us, as a group we want to create a solid foundation,” said Johnson. “The beauty of football and the beauty of starting a new season is that it’s a new group. We get to create our own identity and start in a way that reflects the way we put into a game and ultimately want this to be the foundation moving forward.” 

D.C. United now travels to Texas when they face Austin FC at the Q2 Stadium. The game will take place on Sunday, March 1st, with kickoff scheduled for 2:30 pm.