Rise and shine!
Wow, it has been a busy couple of weeks for soccer news, some great and some… not so great.
According to a statement from D.C. United, Nigel Robertha was cleared by MLS to rejoin team activities yesterday. Both he and Taxi Fountas were placed on administrative leave this past Friday. First reported by The Athletic, Fountas allegedly used racial slurs against Robertha.
Griffin Yow will be on the sidelines for Westerlo for a while after suffering a knee injury during training. While the full extent of Yow’s injury isn’t known, the club is anticipating he will be out for about three months.
D.C. United heads to Stade Saputo to face CF Montréal tomorrow for Leagues Cup at 7:30 pm ET. The Black-and-Red will take on Pumas UNAM on Saturday, July 29 at Audi Field.
Casey Phair becomes the youngest player ever to compete in the Women’s World Cup at 16 years old. From New Jersey, Phair made her World Cup debut for South Korea against Colombia.
BBC has apologized for a harmful question posed to Morocco’s team captain during a press conference on the sexual orientation of team members.
That’s all from me, have a great day!
As I was walking into the office today, I passed someone wearing a Trinity Rodman t-shirt. Seems like a good omen.
The past couple of days, woah. That Robertha returned sure seems to be a real slam against Fountas. It seems to confirm that there are witnesses to what Robertha claims Taxi said. And it also indicates that the aggression against a teammate was perceived as either justified or not appropriate to punish.
Sorry to hear about Yow. I hope he has success overseas.
DCU needs to bring its “A” game against Montreal. Not only is Montreal tough in Montreal, but they looked good in the first game of this Cup Competition.
Well, we beat Montreal in Montreal thanks to a goal from [checks notes]
…ah, shit.
Pablo Maurer just dropped an explainer at The Athletic. A couple of important, factual notes from that article:
Such wonderful news [/sarcasm]. No conclusive evidence, everybody unhappy, aggression was nerf-weapon grade and tells us little about the nature of the incident. Paradoxically, this may make it harder for DCU to unload Fountas, since they probably won’t have legal cause to dissolve his contract and outside interest in his services will be even lower now.
I think I just want it to be March 2024 already. The rest of this season is only going to bring angst, at best, for fans.
I think all it really tells us is Robertha kept his head, and Taxi isn’t racist when he thinks he’ll be caught.
Many European countries have laws restricting certain pro-fascist speech, and it seems that an unfortunate side effect of these laws is that it has trained European racists on how not to get caught. Always be aware of your audience, and keep it cool when the normies are listening. I bet he’s been using slurs on the field his whole career.
Good call. It does make you wonder if the league has any reason not to let United skirt the provisions to effectively get rid of him. If Miami get unlimited DP’s to satisfy Messi’s entourage, we should be able to purge this cancer from our midst.
I’m not surprised they’ve been shopping him. Even before last year’s incident, he had gotten really snippy with his own teammates when they made a bad pass or took a shot instead of giving him the ball. It continued this year (though more subdued). Except now Benteke is clearly the boss up top.
Who else sees us crashing out of the Leagues Cup and not making MLS playoffs? I think this franchise is jinxed at this point.
The New England game certainly feels like a watershed moment, and I wouldn’t be terribly surprised to see both of these things happen. If Gabriel Pirani comes in and hits the ground running, and if Eric Davis is an offensive upgrade at left back, and if we cut ties with Taxi quickly and can find a new DP by the end of this window… things might be okay.
That’s a lot of ifs. It also relies on Benteke rediscovering his scoring touch, someone to come back and pick up Taxi’s scoring load (Robertha, Dajome, Ku-DiPietro, Fletcher?), and Hines-Ike and Birnbaum to pick up the slack of Palsson’s departure without missing a step.
Going into this season, I wasn’t really expecting to make the playoffs, so missing out on them wouldn’t exactly be a disappointment. Outside of Ku-DiPietro (and I guess Pines might count), not seeing any of the homegrowns really make any strides forward is a disappointment, though.
Jackson Hopkins got recalled from Loudoun. It would be a great time for him to step up.
Hopefully, the time away did him well, I think he was way too in his head. But, the one I want to see back is Teddy, I would be less concerned about the likely, and merited, Taxi exit if TKDP was healthy enough to play.
Jinxed? I don’t think the Fates are responsible for this unstable franchise.
I have been making the assumption, since Leagues Cup was first announced, that DC would not be making any significant sort of run in it. To the extent that I look at the scheduling and have thought that it seems really unfair for a sizable segment of teams to just…not have ANY games at all for like 3 weeks if they don’t make it out of the group stage. I feel like that’s a bad design for something taking place during the season and (barring injuries) gives a really big advantage to certain teams.
Feeling the same way. I think Rooney will prioritize keeping the team healthy enough for the league. Expecting to see lots of B+ ish lineups, with the young guys getting significant minutes, but plenty of veteran presence.
Two games for Alex Bono!
I am actually happy about this. I like what I have seen from Bono so far, sometimes it is good to just watch old-fashion goal keeping and not have to wonder if our distribution specialist will get caught too far away from his net.
Yeah, Bono’s been rock solid in all of his appearances. Happy for him to get more time!
I thought I’d do a long post today about the state of the club, now that Fountas is toast, and Palsson and O’Brien are going. However, it occurs to me that someone else should do that, publicly and with the purpose of showing fans there is a future for this club.
Levien. He needs to talk now about Rooney’s future or lack thereof, and everything else that needs to happen. Sadly, I don’t think he will, because he doesn’t actually care. If this man has plants, he spends a ton to keep them from dying after not watering them for months. We can sit here all day and bicker about what the club should or shouldn’t do, but ultimately, it’s up to the ownership group.
And this may put any chance this has of getting likes in jeopardy, but I don’t know if simply firing Kasper is enough. I can hear many of you saying “it’s a start,” yeah, of what? What has actually been started and nurtured to fruition under this ownership group? I personally think Kasper needs to be just some MLS Byzantine knowledge guy in the basement rather than in charge of anything, as new blood takes over, but this is bad, and I don’t know if we really accomplish anything until we align the club around some values and principles. I don’t see Levien championing any.
This all flies in the face of his track record with Swansea!
…oh wait, no it doesn’t. A lot of truth here.
Pablo posted a new story on the Athletic with some new details on the incident:
Apparently, the slur occurred during the game against the Revs while the two were arguing. Benteke had to separate them, but no one actually heard the slur used. Accusation was made in the dressing room after the game, and that is when the rest of the altercation happened.
Before all of this happened, DC had apparently been shopping Taxi to other teams, and continues to do so.
The team also expects a much quicker investigation than the last time.
Wow Atlas FC’s social media team screwed the pooch and quoted Joseph Goebels, Hitler’s propaganda mouthpiece, complaining about the VAR ruling on NYCFC’s goal that won their Leagues Cup match 1-0. https://theathletic.com/4717352/2023/07/24/atlas-fc-joseph-goebbels-twitter-apology/
Class 101: Intro to Media Relations. Rule #1: Never quote Joseph Goebbels if you want to retain credibility.