2009 Wishes Mid-Year Review

The year is over half over already, and that means time to look at my Wishes for 2009 and how they've done so far.

1. Ground breaking on the stadium - The mall is down now and we actually have some renderings, but we still have not seen an official ground breaking for the building of the stadium. Hopefully we see ground breaking soon, or 2011 is going to be a bigger stretch than it already is.

2. 10-15 goal scorer for the Wizards - The Wizards may actually pull this one off this year. Josh Wolff is the current team leader with 6 goals a little over half way through the season. Of course the majority of the Wizards goals have come from 3 players (Wolff 6, Davy Arnaud 5, Claudio Lopez 4). That's 15 of the Wizards 19 goals this season. Hopefully Wolff is able to hit the 10 goal mark, but hopefully the rest of the team picks up the scoring a little bit.

3. US qualifies for World Cup 2010 - The US is certainly in a good position to qualify. Currently in second place half way through the Hexagional with 10 points, the US definitely has an inside track to qualifying. Sixteen points will likely be enough for the US to be off to South Africa for the World Cup. That means in the US's remaining 5 games (@ Mexico, vs El Salvador, @ TnT, @ Honduras, vs Costa Rica) the US needs 2 wins to probably qualify for the World Cup. Not an easy task, but certainly doable, especially if the US play as they did in the last few games of the Confederations Cup.

4. US does well at the Confederations Cup - If you'd have told me at the beginning of the year that the US would finish second at the tournament, I would have been estatic. And while I am very happy with the performance in the second half of the tournament, seeing how the US finished second is disappointing. Sure it was Brazil in the final, but up 2-0 you would hope the US could hold on. Still, though, a big win over Spain in the semifinals, and a nice win over Egypt are two good things to take from the competition heading back into World Cup qualifying.

5. Some Silverware - The Wizards are out of SuperLiga and the US Open Cup, meaning their only chances for silverware is winning the Supporter's Shield or MLS Cup. Right now the Wizards don't look likely to win either of those, but hopefully the Wizards turn it around.

6. Lopez has a 2009 season like the end of the 2008 season - Maybe not exactly as I'd wanted. His stats have been decent enough, scoring 5 goals in all competitions and tied for the team lead in assists with 4. Still his actual play hasn't been the greatest. With the way the season is going, though, Lopez is on his way to 10 goals and 8 assits, which honestly wouldn't be a horrible season from the Argentine.

7. A blowout home win - Hasn't happened yet. We were close against New England at home earlier this season, when I honestly didn't feel like New England ever really threatened, especially after they went down a man. But I still want a blow out. I want to see at least a 3 goal win at home this season.