D.C. United vs. New England: 3 things to watch in Eastern Conference Knockout Round

The 2015 MLS Cup Playoffs kick off Wednesday with fourth-place D.C. United hosting fifth-place New England Revolution in a wild-card knockout match.

Since the New York Red Bulls and the Columbus Crew finished first and second respectively, these two sides earned a bye in the first round of the playoffs. Meanwhile, the Montreal Impact prepares for its own wild-card knockout game against Toronto FC on Thursday.

With a spot in the Eastern Conference semifinals on the line, here are three things to watch for Wednesday night at RFK Stadium:

Stop-start eagles take on streaky Revs

On paper, these two teams are built similarly and match up fairly evenly as a result - both sides are built around a healthy core of MLS regulars, drafted and developed in-house, and in their mid-20s. New England boasts a few U.S. international talents like Jermaine Jones and Lee Nguyen, but D.C. has proven MLS quality across the board, too.

But when looking at the way these two sides made it to the MLS postseason, there's a rather glaring difference: D.C. United has been consistently inconsistent all year long, while the Revs tend to get hot and cold over long stretches of the year.

D.C. United would win a few, then subsequently drop the same amount of games in losses or draws, over and over, all year long, with little variation. Conversely, New England is a streaky team, losing five games in a row from weeks 17 to 21, then winning six games in a row in weeks 24 to 29.

So, the question fans must ask is which team is on pace for a win? New England lost or drew four of its last five games, but won the final game of the season; D.C. won two in a row, then dropped its last game. If season-long trends can predict the outcome, New England is on track for victory.

It's a battle fought in midfield

The strength of both these teams lie in the midfield, where New England boasts the brunt of its quality, and D.C. tends to focus its efforts in. As such, keep an eye out for some key battles in midfield for this fixture.

Nguyen is the creative force for the Revs, and D.C. bruiser Perry Kitchen will have a job in keeping Nguyen under wraps. Jones likes to push forward and help the attack, but Kitchen will have help beside him in Finnish midfielder Markus Halsti, another strong defensive midfielder with good physicality.

Where D.C. needs to be careful is not losing the battle out wide, where its two wingers, Chris Pontius and Chris Rolfe, try to expose space to find the striker duo of Alvaro Saborio and Fabian Espindola. If New England can win the midfield battle and shut out D.C.'s winger duo, there's not much that United's forward pairing can do on its own.

Speaking of strikers ...

... Don't expect many goals from either side

Of the teams in the East that made the playoffs, D.C. United and the New England Revolution are the two lowest-scoring sides; the Revs hit the back of the net 48 times last year, and United only accounted for 43 goals, second-lowest in the entire conference.

Saborio and Espindola are a decent pairing for D.C., and the Revs tend to pick one of Charlie Davies or Juan Agudelo to start, so when it comes to pure goal-scoring threats, there aren't as many on this field as there will be later in the evening, when the Seattle Sounders take on the LA Galaxy in the West.

Expect a game played in fine margins and low scorelines, perhaps ending in penalties between two evenly-matched teams.