Hi there, so having a child with a 103 degree fever at home? Not at all fun!
D.C. United finds new GM as it attempts to end playoff drought (WaPo): It’s nice, but there’s a few more things left to do organizationally. Athletic ($) and ESPN with more.
Orange Talk – Ben Olsen (Bayou City Soccer): Nice brief chat that does touch upon the differences in his past lives to his current one.
Thomas Rongen gets Hollywood treatment in Taika Waititi’s ‘Next Goal Wins’ (WaPo): The real story gets the big screen storytelling treatment.
Washington Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsburg dominates first-ever NWSL Skills Challenge (WTOP): Jose had the uneviable task of watching soccer in San Diego, give this a read, OK?
Nashville have been consistently good since they entered the league. Getting their assistant GM seems like a safe and smart move. I’m not sure how many Hany Muhktars there are out there to help carry a team, but hopefully Mackay can find one for DC. LOTS of roster decisions still to come. Oh and hiring a coach, of course.
A couple things. Nashville’s coach hire was extremely un-flashy (I don’t think I’ve even seen an interview with Gary Smith since he came back into the league), but he’s done really solid work. Nashville is primarily a tough defensive team, and usually relies on a standout player or two to get their offense. That might remind some people a lot of the Olsen years, so buckle up.
Also, in terms of having a good defense and a standout offensive player, Walker Zimmerman and Hany Mukhtar are fantastic examples. However, Nashville’s other DP signings have been pretty dismal. Ake Loba is going to go down as one of the biggest misses in league history, and according to Wikipedia, their other DPs were Jhonder Cadiz and Randall Leal. Sam Surridge is their current third DP. He may do alright, but his debut half season was far from an outright success. So, in terms of getting a game-changing third DP at DC, it could go really well or it could be a huge flop. United is no real stranger to DPs that are flops, but hasn’t ever really had a DP success along the lines of Mukhtar. So that would be pretty nice if it happens.
Nashville has also not been incredibly successful at international signings, but they’ve done really good work at signing proven MLS players. They’ve gotten some production from the SuperDraft, but that’s primarily just Jack Maher who went #2 overall. Again, there’s a good chance this reminds a lot of people of the Olsen era. Nashville didn’t have much in the way of an academy, so they’ve never really had a track record of bringing along homegrowns into the first team. That’s an “incomplete” from Mackay, and we’ll see what he can do with our academy. From the people that know these things, it seems like there’s really just about two or three players in the academy that would be seriously considered for a homegrown deal right now, and none of them would be that close to contributing. Making one academy signing this offseason would be fine with me, and getting a coach that will help bring along the Akinmbonis, Fletchers, Greenes, Hopkinses, and Garays of the current roster, while building on what Ku-DiPietro, Durkin, and Pines are already doing would be great.
I have no idea how this will go. Mackay’s been given a four year deal, so it’s his ship. He’s also the youngest GM in MLS (which I think Rushton was, too, and Olsen was the youngest manager for a good long while [and perhaps Losada was as well?]). One might read this that more experienced candidates don’t want the job, or feel that they wouldn’t be compensated properly. Ideally it means that Mackay can grow and develop and blossom into somebody good. That kind of thing does happen at DC, although it’s typically due to the special nature of the individual rather than the environment created by the organization, and those talented folks tend to take off for greener pastures when they can. But hey, why not be optimistic here? If nothing else, I’ll bet his accent is fun.
I wanted to make the same points essentially. It seems like the owners have chosen to trod a well-worn path, instead of trying to do something really different. Mackay may work out well, but I won’t say that I’m not disappointed. Nashville’s been a helluva lot better than DC ever since they came into the league, but so much credit has to go to a small core of Dax, McCarty, Leal, Zimmerman and Mukhtar. Hard to replicate, I think.
That said, they’ve made good choices on MLS vets, including Walker Z and Dax, as well as players like Lovitz, Muyl, Sapong and Bunbury. If something silmilar could be done here, we won’t win titles, but we’ll be competitive.
Yeah, I had Mackay behind both Tall and Moreira on my personal wishlist, but that’s mostly due to how the teams play. I know nothing about any of those three men beyond that. So I’m definitely willing to give Mackay a chance. The fact that both Orlando and Columbus are still in the playoffs would have meant that we’d still be gnashing our teeth about having no GM right now, although I doubt (or really hope not) that was the deciding factor in making this hire.
And for what it’s worth, when it comes to trophies, Nashville did make it to the Leagues Cup final, and took Miami to penalty kicks. They hit the Messi buzzsaw, and both goalies had to take PKs. Miami’s made theirs and Nashville’s was saved.
My take on Moreira is if he came here, I think we’d have signed Pareja as our coach. And I think that would be a very good thing.
As for the 3 candidates, it’s really impossible to tell much about Asst. GMs based on the style the teams play. The Asst. GM isn’t going to have a lot of say on that. What we do know is that McKay was previous an agent (so should have a lot of connections, a lot of negotiation experience, a decent sense of MLS rules) but we don’t know about skills at managing an organization’s soccer structure and evaluating coaches.
If it isn’t Scottish, it’s crap……
Posted this on the Friday FK, but the game was Saturday morning ET.
The USA Men’s Eagles XVs closed out the year with a dominant victory over Spain in the final of the La Vila International Rugby Cup. The final score was 42-12. It was also the final international match for the captain of the Men’s Eagles Nate Brakeley who’d announced that he was retiring at the end of this tour of games that ended today.
It was messy by both teams at the start, but as the game continued the Eagles settled down. With as many mistakes as we made early we were fortunate not to be playing one of the tier 1 countries who definitely would’ve punished us for them.
https://eagles.rugby/news/usa-mens-eagles-win-la-vila-international-rugby-cup-with-4212-win-over-spain-20231118
Others have said it well. But I like that he has a player-representative background and has been very active in networking. Player representatives must be good at assessing talent and negotiating contracts, We will see how it works out.
Kasper seems to be out after 20 years at the helm. So as stadium officials were dismantling the Kasper Out signs at Buzzard Point, management had come to the same conclusion.
The Revs just traded $275,000 GAM to Austin for Nick Lima. That doesn’t seem like a ton to pay for an MLS veteran right back who’s still only 29. It seems like Andy Najar wants to move on from DC, and that would leave United with just Ruan and Jacob Greene at right back. It’s not the worst situation, but getting someone like Lima for that price wouldn’t be too bad.
Okay…wtf…was Dest thinking there?
My feelings of superiority are more important than the team?
I’m glad we have this haven to talk about it, this will short circuit the toxic Eurosnobs
Matt Turner goofs, this could be a complete disaster
Berhalter, we’re down a man away in CONCACAF with an aggregate lead, why the fuck are we making this a track meet?
The Fire have said they won’t re-sign Kei Kamara. United has the chance to have a third Kamara play for them!
Would be a great backup for Benteke. Benteke seems to be in great health though, so he might not be happy with the low minutes I’d expect him to get.
He had 5 goals and 2 assists for the Fire last year. In 2022, in Montreal, he had 9 goals and 7 assists in about the same amount of minutes played. He can still put in a goal or two, but I think he’s pretty clearly winding down his career. I’d have a much easier time dismissing him if any of our backup strikers had ever come close to getting 5 goals.
Given that “Own Goal” has been one of our most prolific strikers in the past…. Just a little dyslexic, that’s all.