Soccer fans are in for a treat Tuesday night as four-time MLS champion D.C. United visits Harder Stadium to play an exhibition game against UCSB.
UCSB, in appreciation to the fans who made it No. 1 in attendance for NCAA men’s soccer in 2010, is not charging admission to the 7 p.m. game.
The other treat is fans will be able to watch former Gaucho star Chris Pontius and recently acquired forward Charlie Davies play for D.C. United.
Pontius, a third-year midfielder/forward, is fit after recovering from season-ending surgery on a torn hamstring last September. He assisted on a goal in D.C. United’s 3-1 win against the Premier Development League team the Ventura County Fusion on Sunday in Oxnard. (See video; Pontius is No. 13).
Davies (No. 9 in video) is coming back from severe injuries suffered in a traffic accident — ironically, outside of Washington D.C. — that nearly claimed his life back in October of 2009. D.C. United acquired the speedy 24-year-old forward from Boston College on a season-long loan from the French club Sochaux.
Davies has done well in D.C. United’s training camps. In Florida, he scored a couple of goals in matches against the under-20 national teams from Canada and Trinidad and Tobago.
“He proved to us he is on the way back to being the Charlie of old. Now our job — a job we are looking forward to — is dusting the rust off and getting him back to the form we saw several years ago,” D.C. United coach Ben Olsen told the Washington Post.
Before the accident, Davies was a player the U.S. National Team was counting on for the World Cup in South Africa. He had four goals in 17 international appearances.
Davies, whose injuries included a broken tibia and femur, lacerated bladder and bleeding on the brain, told the Post that he’s fine physically and just needs to get back on the field and play against good competition.
“When you spend over a year out of top-level games, it takes a little while to get back into it,” he said during his press conference in Washington last week. “I’m really not that too far off. It’s not just to get back to where I was; the goal is to be better and achieve all the goals I had before.”
A healthy Davies and Pontius hope to rejuvenate a D.C. United offense that set a record for the fewest goal in season last year and finished last in the league standings.
“I am very thankful and grateful to D.C. United for giving me this chance to come here and prove myself again to the American public and to the world that I am back,” said Davies. “I’ve come a long way. It’s been a long and tough road. I am really excited to start a new chapter of my life here.”
