The Spirit find their coach, Gressel migrates south, and more: Wednesday Freedom Kicks
Good morning! I hope everyone finds themselves above water after yesterday’s reenactment of Noah’s Ark. I write this during the storm, and as power flickers, I need to cut these kicks short, so let’s get to it!
Washington Spirit hire Barcelona Femení coach Jonatan Giráldez (The DP): Alert! a D.C. area soccer team can hire a head coach! Just don’t hold your breath for when Giráldez is expected to arrive (the summer). This hire also teaches me that I am apparently of the age where I can have an impressive coaching résumé, but instead, I just revel in my FIFA 08 D.C. United squad that cemented my faith in the diamond midfield and subbing in a speedy Josh Gros every match to absolutely steamroll the opposing tired legs. All I’m saying is, any vacancies still open should at least give me a glance.
Inter Miami CF Signs Reigning MLS Cup Champion, Versatile USMNT Player Julian Gressel (Inter Miami): This ex-D.C. United player continues his migration back to the east coast. There might be some goals scored down in Miami this year.
Connecticut United join MLS NEXT Pro for 2025 season (MLS): More soccer = yay? This Kicks writer is just confused as to the state of MLS’ lesser division. Teams first had affiliate teams (like the Richmond Kickers). Then teams made their own lower division teams (like Loudoun United), which competed side-by-side with independent teams in the lower divisions. In an effort to contain the talent within the MLS sphere, MLS NEXT Pro is created, whereby all the “City 2” teams can participate. But now more independent teams keep entering this league as well. Until D.C. United actually has their own MLS NEXT Pro team (probably in Baltimore), I can’t bother to figure it all out, but it remains confusing.
Finally, in the “other” football news, I find myself happy for Ann Arbor, MI. I began my post-college life moving there, and learned that when it’s gameday in the town, I should stay home (it took me 1.5 hours one day to detour around traffic that would ordinarily be a 6 minute drive from Meijer to my apartment). While I’m more than thrilled to finally have placed my roots here in the DMV, I know that Ann Arbor, and Michigan as a whole, stole a piece of my heart as an absolutely awesome place to live. #GoBlue
That’s all for this morning. Send your likely-still-saturated kicks to the comments below!
I’m an Ohio kid and Muck Fichigan and all that, but the dirty secret is that Ann Arbor really is a nice town.
Fred Brillant has officially parted ways with DC. Mackay and Lesesne are really going to have a clean slate.
I still have to remark on the fact that Dave Kasper is still here while everyone else is gone. The dude’s ability to survive is unparalleled.
This is why it sucks to not have a real developmental team right now. It really seems like he wanted to continue working for DC but there’s nowhere for him to coach with a new regime making sweeping changes. I don’t blame McKay or Lesesne for wanting a clean slate. Hopefully Brillant gets his chance at climbing the coaching ranks.
Though we were in need of change, we’ve lost a lot of respected people in the past 2 months.
Yeah. I don’t know the nature of Brillant’s departure, but I certainly would have welcomed having him on staff this year.
Good to hear from you Kerry and I hope all is well on the home front. Sorry to hear Brilliant is leaving. I too am confused by the MLS Next approach. Initially it seemed simple–a reserve side for youth and competing against older more experienced USL players wasn’t always a good experience so a league for similar age/experience groups. But increasingly it looks like MLS seeking a way to kill USL or compete with them.
The Connecticut team sounds like vaporware. The lead guy, Swanston, claims to have already put millions of his own money into this effort. Seems unlikely, but anyway he got the city of Bridgeport to approve a waterfront stadium. Not the best use of waterfront property, but if it kickstarts some development I guess it would be OK. Anyway, he says it won’t happen without state support, so I’m going to predict it isn’t happening.
Looks like DC is announcing Troy Lesesne officially today. At least they did a coach search, made a choice, and didn’t have it fall apart at the last minute like they did with Chris Armas and Gonzalo Pineda.
Lesesne and Mackay are two young guys with three year contracts and a blank slate to make the club how they’d like (budget tbd). Hopefully they get to work right away.
The list of players being added to other teams keeps growing. DCU’s dithering on hiring a coach has been damaging. Hopefully, they’ll put together a professional team in more than name only. Given what I’m paying as a STH, it would be a nice perk to watch a team that’s competitive every week.
If United had played a full year with three DPs, then I think they probably would have squeaked into the playoffs. So, if we land a good one, then there’s a chance. A lot of this set up looks like building mostly for the future, though.
HAIL!
Goff with a very good article based in big part on interviews with Lesesne and Mackay. Mackay is almost featured more than Lesesne in this piece–he talks about what he saw in Lesesne and how he saw his experience level. Lesesne does say that he intends for DCU to be “aggressive–very aggressive” and “creative.”
A concern I had from reading it is we don’t seem to be likely to add any high impact players. Or make the playoffs…
Not trying to be so negative already. I get trying to establish a culture of giving the club’s youth an opportunity to succeed. It doesn’t mean we have to rely on all of them suddenly becoming stars to be a successful team overall though.
I’m kind of concerned that ownership is going to pull back on spending. They spent big on Rooney, they spent big on Benteke, they spent on bringing in the likes of Nigel Robertha and Martin Rodriguez. It hasn’t amounted to much in the standings, although one could definitely question how wisely they’ve spent.
Then, reports were that Dome Torrent wasn’t chosen as the coach because of a different salary valuation, rather than he wasn’t philosophically a fit. United has ended up with the youngest GM and a coach making his first full-time MLS gig. I think that pair can certainly be successful, but I think they’re going to be cheap.
Now, there are some positive signs. United has hired an Assistant GM, which I don’t think they’ve had for at least 10 years. They spent $1.3 million on bringing in Gabriel Pirani as a permanent player.
There’s a good chance that they might wait until summer to bring in a third DP. That makes some sense, since we’ll see what kind of a team we’ve got, and a different crop of players will be available then, but it would also save on the owners spending salary for a couple months. I’m happy to give youth the opportunity to make the team theirs, and have been advocating all offseason for a Young DP and two more U-22s to really build out that young core. We’ll see. Still lots of questions to be answered.
The young players — the homegrowns and the draft picks, and even Loudoun guys like Sargis and Zamudio…are not ready for prime-time. Not even close, We don’t have a full starting lineup yet, much less quality playing-time ready depth.
I’m sure they know this, but the interview comments suggest either self-delusion, or trying to massage the message to assuage fans.
No, they can’t. Perhaps they’ll get there, but they lack needed experience. Frankly, some aren’t physically ready for the level yet. Much time needed in the weight room. They will struggle to deal with the physicality, and the lack of depth adds another level of concern. They may not be able to wait until the summer to fill out the roster.
The veterans they have are also not 100% reliable. Birnbaum is tough but gets hurt every year, and he’s the only CB we have that’s MLS-ready. That’s a disaster waiting to happen. Feb. 24 isn’t the end date for building the roster, but they better have some more pieces added by then.
I won’t miss most of the players they let go — but Williams, Najar and Pines were decent and there’s no one to take their place really. Bartlett? A depth piece, which is needed, given Birnbaum’s age and injury history — but they need two more CBs and at least one more fullback (or some depth, if they go with a 4-man back line).
I’d argue that if Jeahze is healthy to start the season then we have an “okay-ish” starting eleven. That hinges on one of Tubbs/Bartlett/Akimboni being ready to partner Birnbaum but I think the rest of the 11 is decent.
Depth is definitely paper thin in most spots, but if Fletcher carries over his Swansea form and Rodriguez is healthy then I like our options up front. Biggest positions of need are definitely CB depth/starter, CDM depth, and FB depth. If Hopkins can fully transition to CM (which I still think is his best spot) then three more signings would put us in better shape than last year.
Well, given that he’s a new coach, implementing a new system and currently working at constructing a roster, I’d say he said the right and logical thing which is to state that the primary goal is to work on the basics as to facilitate good foundation which will hopefully translate into a successful season. I honestly though do hope that we don’t play like the Red Bulls last season because they may have made the playoffs but they were not great to watch. I think with Benteke, Teddy, Gabriel and Rodriguez, we have players that are more technical than many of those who made the RB squad last season so there’s no reason to play that rough style devoid of any flow.
Since he did say we’ll be aggressive…that is at least an improvement over last season. Even when we were doing well results -wise, we were pretty tedious to watch at times, especially during a tied game. There are a couple of guys who hopefully could help make us more direct/threatening – Dajome, KDP, obviously Benteke. We still need wingers/fullbacks other than Herrera.
Well, we have a GM and coach now. The owners hired people to care. Overall, I don’t think we should put all our hopes of glory on them for a season that makes up for previous debacles. Instead, I think we need to give them some patience and time. The owners have put them in a bad spot with negligence in a number of areas that will need to be steadily improved before they are assets. We will need to break the idea that DC is where mediocrity and inefficiency goes to get paid more than it’s worth. I don’t know if Lesesne works out, I don’t know if Mackay will be the one to give this organization what it needs, and I don’t think we should put all the pressure on that. If we’re too desirous for results, and want to go for all immediate fixes, we’ll be a lesser version of Man U, all bluster and no development.
The Redbull style doesn’t fill me with a ton of excitement for winning long term, but it is possible to cheat the market for value in that direction. I just hope there’s some nuance to the play, and that Mackay doesn’t equate freneticism with efficiency. We’ll see, but I think we need to write off a massive feel good season and hope for green shoots instead.
I think you are right. I think we need to be patient now, there will be no magic fix here. I also feel that for the first time, this organization has no real ties to the foundational years of the team. If you think about it, Ben Olsen, joined DCU on its third year of existence and was part of the great late 90s teams, along with Marco and Jaime. Olsen’s presence with the team lasted for around 20 years and he was the unequivocal bridge between the glory years and the new years that came with new owners. You can argue that the mantel of legendary club player moved from Olsen to Hamid while Olsen was coaching, so when Olsen left, we still had Hamid to hold on to (for those of us to whom tradition and history matter). Hamid left but then Rooney, who had played for Olsen in one of the last “good/fun” seasons was here. Now there’s no one. I know Steve is here and he’s been here for almost 10 years but good as he has been for us, he is not Hamid level in terms of historical players. So at least to me, this really now feels like almost a new team with no ties to anything that came before.
Going along with that theme, Mackay has even cleaned out a good number of the homegrowns, like Andy Najar, Chris Durkin, and Donovan Pines, along with Jacob Greene. I think it’s just Birnbaum and Russell Canouse that are left that played for Ben, and perhaps Jeremy Garay was signed right before Ben was fired. (I suppose Yamil Asad could technically return, but that seems unlikely.)
I”m not sure if Pines is gone. Mackay is a negotiator. He didn’t close the door on Pines, only acknowledged that he’s testing the market. Evidently he didn’t sign in England flew back here. Maybe it’s to get his affairs in order. Or maybe the offer wasn’t what he expected. The point is–I won’t be surprised if Pines ends up signing with us before preseason starts.