At the end of April, Darrin Smith was the hottest striker in the USL Championship. He started the season on fire with seven goal in seven games. He found gaps in defenses. He scored from tough angles. DCFC’s top signing of 2025 performed up to and maybe beyond expectations. Then, the goals stopped coming. May, then June, and then July went by without any goals. The team slumped along with him. Two wins in nearly four months after a hot start saw DCFC drop place by place down the Eastern Conference table.
Le Rouge has now settled into the sixth spot, helped out significantly by the inability of the teams now below them to pick up wins. For Darrin Smith, the torture finally ended last Friday in North Carolina. He produced a well-taken finish to give DCFC a tough draw against a potential playoff opponent. North Carolina currently holds the third spot, which would put the two teams on course for a re-match in Cary during the first weekend of November.
There is a lot of football to be played before that happens, including a visit by North Carolina FC to Keyworth in October. City’s schedule the rest of the season includes Saturday’s home game against the last place Tampa Bay Rowdies. Games are now becoming “must win” with greater frequency. DCFC has to get into a winning habit, something that has eluded them for four months.
Perhaps the draw in North Carolina will mark the start of an upswing in fortune. It comes on the heels of a win against Indy XI, making it the first time DCFC has taken as many as four points from back to back games since early in the season. Last year around this time, the team caught fire and surged into the playoffs before falling in the first round. Given the recent euphoria surrounding the unveiling of AlumniFi Field, the club will want to take their momentum forward.
The game in North Carolina started reasonably well. DCFC kept possession without really threatening, perhaps hoping to ease into an attacking rhythm. Their hosts didn’t press as much as most other teams until midway through the first half. Ates Diouf lost the ball in his own half of the field. Seconds later Pedro Dolabella fired past Carlos Saldana to give the home team a shock lead.
Danny Dichio had to regroup at halftime and made two changes for the second half. They had the desired effect as City pushed forward. Ryan Williams added more control in midfield and Haruki Yamazaki more energy on the right wing.
The growing influence of Kobe Hernandez-Foster on the team showed again on Smith’s goal. Kobe has a lot of experience. He’s a former US U-17 youth international who played in the 2019 U-17 FIFA World Cup. Wolfsburg of the German Bundesliga signed him in 2021 out of the LA Galaxy Academy. He didn’t make it to the first team there and spent time in the Norwegian top flight before returning to the US and signing with the Birmingham Legion. In just three games with DCFC, he has become a vital piece of the midfield. It’s hard to see Danny Dichio taking him out of the starting lineup the rest of the season. Now, Dichio has to surround him with complementary pieces to maximize the team’s potential.
Williams’ insertion at halftime freed Kobe to push further forward. In the 62nd minute, Michael Bryant found Kobe in a gap behind North Carolina’s midfield with a long pass on the ground that took several opponents out of the play. Kobe turned and two touches later played Darrin Smith the kind of ball he was getting early in the season, between defenders and on the run. He finished like no slump had ever existed, coolly and professionally. This is what DCFC will need more of the rest the season.
The Rowdies come into Saturday’s game on the heels of a 1-1 with Phoenix Rising, a team with roughly the same record as DCFC. Le Rouge will have to show that there are some legs in this mini-run of two games without defeat. They are still just six points from the third spot in the conference, currently held by Loudoun United, but also just five points above the playoff line. The league standings are tightly bunched and putting together two or three wins in a row can give the club a lot of separation from the teams below the playoff line.
