2023 FIFPRO awards winners, MLS and USL Championship preseason, and more: Tuesday Freedom Kicks
Good morning, everyone! I hope no one is too stressed dealing with the snow but can instead stay inside with a nice, warm beverage while enjoying your soccer news.
Alex Morgan surprisingly named to 2023 FIFPRO World 11 (Pro Soccer Wire)
Every year the FIFPRO voting reveals to us that women’s soccer players really do not watch much women’s soccer. Morgan is a legend, but she scored 3 international goals in the year in question while starting nearly every game.
On the men’s side, MLS star Lionel Messi won The Best FIFA Men’s Player, but no US players made the Best XI.
Closer to home, D.C. United and Loudoun United FC have both started their preseason training and are releasing some welcome back videos. I don’t know how we get from the end of the season to preseason so fast.
I also enjoyed this clip of Audi Field in the snow.
Loons star Emanuel Reynoso has not reported to preseason training camp (Pioneer Press)
Sounds like Minnesota United is having a tough time. Reynoso also failed to show up to preseason last year and was suspended by the league, and the team is still lacking a permanent head coach.
Everton, Forest charged with Premier League financial breaches (ESPN)
Everton could be facing even more discipline than the previous 10-point deduction to their season. both clubs have apparently admitted to “sustaining losses above the permitted thresholds for the assessment period ending 2022-23.”
Ok, that’s it for me. Have a good Tuesday!
A small update from the preseason training photos DC posted: Martin Rodriguez has changed his number from 77 to 14
No one wears Cruyff………..
I’m excited that camp has started. I want to see video of Lesesne in action like we saw with Rooney and Losada–DCU was very good about that. And I wonder who some of the training camp invitees will be–Lesesne being a big part of US soccer should have a bunch of names he’s interested in. I also wonder who will be on the rest of his staff as assistants.
And your point about Morgan..argh! I love her, she’s done a great job raising the visibility of women’s soccer, I like that she’s so successful commercially. But as an international player–for 2 years now she’s been more of a liability than an asset. And it raises a general point which is that globally, people are pretty clueless about women’s soccer. They follow their local teams or leagues. All you need to do is look who ESPN picked as the top 50 women in the world–it’s as if South America and the US don’t exist (unless that player is in Europe). I get that the best teams are in Europe. But I think in terms of league balance and competitiveness, NWSL is the best in the world–the bottom and middle teams in NWSL would beat the bottom and middle teams in Spain, Germany, France, and England.
I’m also interested to see/hear the other members of the coaching staff. Right now I just picture Lesesne out there soloing everything without any help (probably/hopefully not the case).
The Premiership is a joke, beating up on Everton while slow walking the Man City investigation. Man City is the problem. Letting oil barons spend infinite money on the roster is the problem thus destabilizing the fairness of a pro soccer competition is the problem. Not having a salary cap is the problem. Everton is a symptom of the problem.
Props for fact
Did City spend more money than Chelsea? Just truly wondering if it was only City playing unfairly. I mean Chelsea spent $132 million in transfer fees on a single player.
Chelsea is always corrupt
I would say dumb too. Enzo is a really good player but the Chelsea owner spent more on his transfer fee than City did with the combined transfer fees for Erling Haaland and Julian Alvarez (they actually got Julian for $14 million).
This is why Rangers rock!
Oh wait……oops…..
The EPL couldn’t see past the money when the sovereign wealth funds came through. They can set rules on roster construction as much as they want, when these processes become legal matters, there’s no financial fair play when it comes to lawyering up. The gulf states can spend, hell, not just eye watering, but eye shutting amounts of money on legal representation that these footballing bodies cannot compete with.
It should just never have happened.
Goff reporting that DC has sent $75k in GAM to Minnesota for the rights to a 21 year-old Finnish CB/CDM free agent, Matti Peltola. Goff specifically noted that this doesn’t mean that DC will sign him, but they now have the rights within MLS to do so. I don’t know much of the guy, but this seems like it would be the Derrick Williams CB replacement, given that this guy, although young, already has national team experience
I love MLS. Buying the rights to a free agent…
Estonia anyone?
So Doyle has a review article out for what positions each team in the Eastern conference needs for 2024. https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/eastern-conference-what-every-team-needs-in-the-transfer-market It includes a nice dog at Toronto.
Depth in the center of the pitch, while important, wouldn’t be the first thing I’d try to close up (though it looks like that’s what we’re going for). We have a lot of unknowns along the wings with the exception of Herrera. Rodríguez and Jeahze are coming off serious injuries and didn’t play much with a mostly functional team. Santos looks like a liability out wide whether as a left back or left winger (I’d shudder to think what would happen if we tried him as a LWB in a 3-5-2). Stroud might be…fine? I didn’t watch much of St. Louis aside from their hilarious run of gifted goals early in the season. Him being from the RB system hopefully means he knows how to press pretty well. The kids are going to have to step up in a big way.
Yes the wings have me worried as well. Depending on the formation DC’s starting wingers, in my opinion, would be some combination of KDP (if we go solo striker), Fletcher, Stroud, Martinez. Could also throw Hopkins in there too. I don’t really love any of those combos. KDP tended to do better closer to goal and no one else except for Martinez has really shown an ability to beat their defender semi reliably. That’s worrying!
This also assumes Lesesne used a 4-back system so Herrera and Jeahze would likely be the fullbacks.
Another one of the draft picks signed: https://www.dcunited.com/news/d-c-united-sign-university-of-wisconsin-goalkeeper-nathan-crockford
3rd rounder Nathan Crockford, GK from University of Wisconsin. He’s on a one year deal with team options for 2025, 2026, and 2027.