AFCON field set, Manchester United partners with Snapdragon, and more: Thursday Freedom Kicks
Happy Thursday, y’all. Hopefully fall can continue to move in and set up shop here, so while I pine for hoodie season, here’s the news from yesterday…
Afcon 2023 qualifiers: Premier League stars Mbeumo and Onana help Cameroon qualify as line-up is completed (BBC)
The Africa Cup of Nations field is set as Cameroon is one of the last teams to qualify. The teams that will make up the field: Algeria, Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, DR Congo, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast (hosts), Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, and Zambia.
Man United announce U.S. tech brand as new shirt sponsor (ESPN)
Snapdragon will adorn Manchester United jerseys beginning next season as the new front jersey sponsor for the team.
Hey Spirits podcast episode: Instinctual Sauce (with Paige Metayer) (DP)
Paige Metayer is the special guest on the latest Hey Spirits!
Future of Women’s Football: ‘Milestone £1m transfer in 2024’ (Sky Sports)
Could we see a $1 million transfer next year in women’s soccer? Sky Sports takes a deep dive at the growing transfer market.
LaLiga sponsors Welsh village team with world’s longest name (ESPN)
Clwb Pêl Droed Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch Football Club has a new sponsor, and it’s a league: La Liga. La Liga’s new logo will adorn their jerseys and be featured on signage throughout the town that carries the 2nd longest name in the world.
Average top-flight manager tenure across Europe less than 16 months, says Uefa (BBC)
Here today, gone tomorrow. UEFA says that most managers in Europe barely last 16 months on the job. That’s a ton of turnover.
That’s it for today…enjoy your Thursday!
Test
Man, Its been weird not being able to post. I was getting nonce’d.
If you need a fix, try to post. Add user name. Add email. Add the districtpress.com. Do reCAPTCHA dance. Bingo
I got nonced again. “Nonce is invalid.”
We should have a “contact us” link. Help!
You just need to refresh the browser tab and then repost the comment.
ok, will try
I find that the system rejects my first attempted post, but a second time pressing the button works.
It is really erratic. I may just retire
I’ve been trying to post multiple times (I”ll try again) and it was “Noonce invalid” for me each time. If you don’t see my other post in 20 seconds, I got “noonced” again.
Hello, District Press. This is a problem. If this goes through, it was hopefully fixed. Hugs.
It boggles my mind that there hasn’t been a million pound transfer for a female player in England yet. I’d pay a million for Rodman or Smith in a heartbeat.
I think we’ll see this change soon–too much money coming in to the Women’s game in Europe. I heard Lyon offered $400k Euros for Bonmati’ last year.
Here’s the sad reality though. Make a list of the top 25 women in the world. And I don’t think there is a single US woman on that list. I think Smith and Rodman have tremendous talent. But right now, the top women’s teams are in Europe and the top players as well.
I’d say in terms of raw materials that you can’t pick up later, Rodman and Smith are tremendous. As far as understanding the nuances of high level soccer, they’d both benefit from being in Europe, and are young enough to learn that side of the game. Teams collectively are thinking about the game and tactical details far better than our USWNT collective, no doubt. That doesn’t mean that Smith and Rodman aren’t elite talents in that echelon
Strange story about Paul Pogba testing positive for testosterone when he was… an unused substitute for Juventus against Udinese?? Anyway, at 30, a player who was instrumental in winning a World Cup in 2018 is now likely done. Very unusual trajectory all around.
Bring him to DC!!
Um, no
I think turning a blind eye to his inconsistency, his injury plagued career, and his tendency to do something flashy over protecting the team shape in key moments, as well as the enormous resources he would take up, where is this desire to have him here come from?
I’d venture to guess it was a joke lol
Pogba’s just one in a long line of players with all the technical attributes to be among the best ever, but lacking in mental fortitude or focus.