D.C. United acquiring assistant coaches, free agent rights, and more: Wednesday Freedom Kicks
Snow is cold and wet. It makes commuting difficult. It’s annoying to scrape off the car or shovel off the driveway. It’s also my favorite part of winter, and apparently more is coming on Friday. This makes me very happy indeed. To the kicks!
DC United sign MLS SuperDraft pick Nathan Crockford (MLS): I forget Tyler Miller is still injured sometimes. I am also very curious to see how this goalkeeper corps plays this season and how much sweeping (if any) they will be doing under Lesesne.
On top of signing a new goalie, United has also filled out some of their assistant coaching positions.
D.C. United has also acquired, but not acted upon, the rights to a young Finnish defensive player. This feels like a Dave Kasper consultation to me.
Eastern Conference: What every team needs in the transfer market (MLS): MLS’ Matt Doyle thinks D.C. United needs more central depth, going so far as suggesting United pick up a defensive midfielder designated player. What do you think?
USWNT’s Ashley Sanchez ‘shocked and heartbroken’ over NWSL trade (Pro Soccer Wire): Me too, Ashley. Me too….
Gio Reyna determined to leave Dortmund in January (ESPN): A reminder that the market for some USMNT players is very high.
Roma fire Jose Mourinho; Daniele De Rossi in as interim (ESPN): I may wallow in despair from time to time as a D.C. United fan, but the chaos in Serie A has me feeling quite at ease here in D.C.
That’s all for today. Send your frostbitten kicks to the comments below!
I too am heartbroken about Ashley Sanchez leaving. Unless we’re using the cash to do something like acquire Putellas or Bonmati, I think this is a bad deal–very bad. Argh! She’s going to do very well with NCC.
I expected Zach Prince. Interested he’d (Lesesne) turn to his USL contacts to fill out the rest of his staff as well beyond Prince. I also wouldn’t be surprised if we see some interesting trialists from the USL in came–you’re talking 3 guys on staff right now who all have a deep USL background.
Regarding the GK signing, Arena said something once I thought was very insightful. He said (as a former GK) that you wanted a lot of GKs in pre-season because in practice they spend so much time diving and jumping (far more than in a game) that there bodies get bruised and worn down–over stressed–which means they perform poorly in preseason games and are worn down for the start of the season. So you wanted extra GKs in preseason to help preserve bodies and “spring in the legs.” I wouldn’t be surprised if we invite a 4th GK in as a trialist.
Regarding Matti Petola–that’s a lot of money just for the rights. I would not be shocked if we have already kicked the tires and started talking to his agent. If he’s seen as more of a CB (probably–the Scandinavian leagues tend to play more direct, more in the air–generally speaking) then this could be a good addition on paper (on grass, we’ll have to see). And this actually doesn’t seem like a Kasper addition to me. A lot of the Scandanavian players we’ve added were from teams we’d played against or had seen in person (the one exception being Erik Sorga).
The Kasper element was a tongue in cheek comment with regard to Kasper’s ability to find and act on MLS rules. Sending some Garber Bucks to another MLS team for the right to buy an out-of-contract player without actually buying said player (at least not yet) feels like something only Kasper would know about. I doubt he had any influence on selecting the player himself.
Now if United goes about selling the rights to someone else for even more (equivalent) Garber Bucks, I’ll firmly believe Kasper is still on board somewhere.
Nashville has definitely traded “discovery rights” before, one example was Deiber Caicedo. So yes I’d consider it a Kasper-like move but it’s not something Mackay would be unfamiliar with. I do hope they end up signing this guy though, he seems like he could have a lot of potential. Representing his country and playing in ECL, while also being among the best in his domestic league, make him a prime candidate for an MLS move.
Estonia is lovely this time of year….
Erik Sorga is Estonian, not Scandinavian.
The Zach Prince signing was pretty much called by everybody. He’s been Lesesne’s right hand man at all stops. I’m a little less enthused about bringing in an assistant from Birmingham. Having some MLS experience on the staff (outside of Prince’s half season with the Red Bulls) would be nice. Instead, it’s looking like a growth project across the board, from lots of the players that are being brought in, the staff, the coach, and the GM. They’re really taking “starting with a blank slate” to heart.
Of interest, or not, Finland is also not Scandinavian. Also, of robust trivia, Estonian, Finnish and Hungarian (ZOLTAN! ZOLTAN!) are Fino-ungarn languages of Asiatic origin. Gotta love the Huns of Hungary.
Also on other topics…..
Ok over beers in EagleBank Club…..
I digress…..
So much for my theory that we had a certain Scandinavian quota to keep full, and that after Palsson departed, Peltola might help fill that. Or that he might be coming to keep Mohanad Jeahze company.
I think a versatile potato should be able to pass themselves off as Scandinavian…
This is very good point…
Yeah, I meant “Baltic/Northern European smaller leagues).
Why would you expect Lesesne to bring people who would probably consider themselves “more qualified”? Plus I’m sure he picks his own staff, unless it’s regular practice for GM to fill their own staff as well. Surprised they let Brillant move on though.
I have 4 invite codes to bluesky available. Does anyone want one? It’s still pretty minimally used by soccer twitter still but Joe Lowery and Matt Doyle (along with others) post daily, but it’s by default a nicer place. I’d love to give one to the districtpress team if they are interested.
While it says that Matti Peltola can play CDM, it looks like most of his playing time has come at CB. Looks like Hibernian fans and some QPR fans have him on their transfer wishlist, so those levels would seem to line up pretty well with MLS. I saw a few people suspecting that he would be a U-22 signing, but I have no idea if that would be the case or not. Hopefully not, but I wouldn’t be too upset about getting a high upside youngster in at CB (to go along with our other high upside youngsters at CB in Tubbs and Akinmboni).
Hibs? I’ll look into it. I hope he has his Heart in it….
I could have the rules interpreted wrong, but if he comes on a free transfer, I don’t think he could even be a U22. From my understanding, the U22 initiative allows for a transfer fee to be paid for the player that would make them a DP, but they don’t make over the DP threshold in terms of salary. If he makes over the DP threshold in salary, and isn’t bought down through TAM, I believe he ends up just being a Young DP, not a U22. Though, if that were the case, it would allow DC to have 3 U22s
Ok, just looked at the roster guidelines, and what it boils down to is:
So, knowing those 3 things, DC probably could make him a U22 for a lower budget charge (assuming he makes less than the max budget), but using the slot on someone that otherwise wouldn’t need the slot seems…wasteful. So I’d think him being a U22 is possible, but more likely than not, not probable
Being a fan of other leagues must be so boring… Pour one out for the rest of the world for being deprived of such rules discussions.
With Nathan Crockford in the fold, it looks like United is up to 25 players on the roster. There’s a lot of positions of need, and overall quality needed in the roster, and fewer spots to add some. I think we’re also at six international players, leaving two open slots. One might go to Peltola. The other might go to the open DP slot.
Of course, United can send some players on loan to Loudoun. Some might get hurt. Additional international slots can be acquired. But we certainly look to be skewing younger with our roster construction. Hopefully Lesesne and his USL-bred staff are good at developing that talent.
A fun aside: Bill Hamid just recently posted that he’s been working out with Norwich and is in “the best shape of his life,” looking for an MLS club. With Miller out for awhile, I held out a slim hope that we might see Bill back on the roster. Nathan Crockford’s signing puts that hope to bed, though. Good luck all the same to Bill in finding a landing spot.
Not sure where you’re getting 6 int’ls. The roster on the website shows 4 (Jeahze, Dájome, Klich, and Rodriguez) — I realize the website roster has been a little problematic in the past (Herrera is listed as a Homegrown player??), and often lagging in including players. Pirani is not listed as an international player. That seems unlikely, though I guess it’s not impossible. I assume he’s in your 6. Who is the 6th? Benteke? I assume he’s not an int’l now, or the site would list him as one, as it does with Klich.
Pirani and Benteke were my other two. Benteke would be the most likely to have acquired a green card. I just never saw any notice that he had, and it doesn’t seem like he’s been in the States THAT long.
A couple good interviews with Griffin Yow out today. He’s beginning to thrive in Westerlo now, and he credits that with the club having a plan for his development. He says that didn’t really exist in DC, where he was mostly told to be patient, and then would get stonewalled if he pushed for more than that.
It’s good to see him joining the ranks of Ian Harkes as homegrowns that never quite lifted off with DC, but took off once they went to Europe. Hopefully Donovan Pines has a similar experience, even though he was able to get pretty regular playing time here.
We don’t really have a ton of homegrown success stories. Two of them were our very first signings, Bill Hamid and Andy Najar. With the young roster, a lot of our success as a club is going to be down to what Troy Lesesne and his staff can get out of Ted Ku-DiPietro, Kristian Fletcher, and Matai Akinmboni, and if Jackson Hopkins and Jeremy Garay can really contribute. And it will also be to what our academy can continue to produce (someone mentioned they saw Graham Jones in one of the first day photos – might he be a homegrown signing for fullback depth?).
Anyway, good for Griffin. I hope he continues to do well.
Excellent news. Paul Arriola was very bullish on Yow. apparently, that has traction now. Yeah, and Ian did great with Dundee United. Makes me wonder how much we stink at developing our players….
I really don’t think we’re very good at it. Bill Hamid and Donovan Pines are basically the only ones we brought forward and could claim principal responsibility for their development. Maybe Najar and Paredes, but that could be chalked up to their own abilities.
I think it’ll start to change when a) we have a reserve/youth team in the MLS circuit again and b) the senior team has a plan of its own that allows room for the up-and-comers to grow into. The old way we “developed” guys involved sending them to distant teams to compete for time against seasoned pros, division be damned. Or we’d shuttle them between Loudoun and us, disrupting both their development and Loudoun’s game planning.
Is it me, or does Gio Reyna simply irritate?