The other young center back gets the recap treatment.
When Jason wrote last year's review on D.C. United's defender Kofi Opare, we were examining a player whose impact in his first season with D.C. was based on CONCACAF Champions League games and Open Cup games. In 2015 however, he managed to work his way into the lineup early, in part because of an injury Steve Birnbaum suffered while playing in a March game against Opare's former team, the LA Galaxy.
Opare's performance gave justification to his hold on one of the starting two center back positions, starting 12 of the following 13 games after the Galaxy game, and part of a defense that allowed one goal or less in 11 of them.