Spirit hire assistant/interim coach, D.C. United adds assistant coaches, and more: Wednesday Freedom Kicks
Good morning and another happy Wednesday to you! The snow continues to melt, thereby reducing the evidence of my laziness when I minimally shoveled the driveway last week. This part of winter though can be particularly dangerous as the snow melts and refreezes into sheets of ice, so stay safe!
Washington Spirit hire Adrián González as assistant coach, interim head (The DP): I’m still suffering from the loss of some fan favorites departing the Spirit this offseason, but I remain optimistic for the future of this team.
D.C. United Appoint Cody Mizell as Head of Goalkeeping (D.C. United): It’s not very often I see allocation money spent for a coach. Cody Mizell spent all is not another goalie added to United’s roster; instead, Mizell has hung up his gameday cleats and is ready to train United’s goalkeepers.
D.C. United Appoint Zach Prince as Assistant Coach (D.C. United): The exodus from the Red Bulls continues as more and more individuals realize an eagle looks cooler on clothing than a pair of bulls.
Ronaldo injured; status for friendly vs. Messi, Inter Miami unknown (ESPN): If we don’t get a Ronaldo vs Messi matchup, I will feel all sorts of apathy on the matter.
Finally, this weekend sees what I consider to be the kickoff to the motorsports year: The Rolex 24 goes green this Saturday. I usually manage to watch 50-70% of this 24-hour race, but I’ll be finding myself preoccupied this weekend, so I need you all to watch it for me and tell me how it goes! If you need someone to root for, I will shamelessly continue to push Jordan Taylor, who left Corvette Racing to rejoin his father’s team and race in the GTP class. I’ll also personally have my eyes on the new Corvette GT3.R debuting this season; the new corvette spec is more accessible and will finally see others outside the traditional Pratt Miller Motorsports team racing the car.
A short kicks today. Send your kicks to the comments below!
My controversial opinion: If it wasn’t associated with an energy drink, the Red Bulls logo (and the name, too) would be excellent.
If it was still a logo associated with the MetroStars, then it would, by default, be inferior.
I’m feeling pretty uneasy about having an entire coaching staff made up of MLS novices (Lesesne and Prince’s period with the Red Bulls notwithstanding). Our GM has never been a GM. Our goalkeeper coach has never been a COACH. Five of the players on our roster have never played a minute in MLS.
They could be bringing a fresh perspective to MLS, but it sure seems more like they’re inexpensive. But regardless, using the most optimistic reading, this whole club will be growing together.
Well not completely tearing it down and building it from the ground up. At least we have some MLS and EPL experience on the roster.
There’s another six players on the roster with less than 1,000 MLS minutes in their careers. (Full disclosure: I’m just assuming this is the case for Ethan Doebbelaere. I’m not fact-checking that.)
Fair. I’m thinking we’re in for a rough year. I just hope the FO gives Lesesne at least 1.5 seasons before they fire him.
Yeah. Despite the lack of experience, I don’t have any reason yet to think that the coaching group won’t gel together. It was pointed out that they’ll be a team, and will be cohesive. And all of Lesesne’s former players seemed to enjoy playing for him, so that bodes well.
The biggest stumbling block is ownership, who have never ever stuck with a plan (unless muddling through with Ben Olsen until the new stadium opens is a plan). They’ve given Lesesne and Mackay three year deals. I’d imagine the coaches will stick around for that long as well. Hopefully Levien and Kaplan give them those three years to build their project (and hopefully there aren’t catastrophic results along the way).
I wouldn’t mind the signing of another kickass player or two, though.
Yep, I understand that. OTOH, it’s going to be a very cohesive and aligned coaching staff. They’ll hit the ground running. They’ll all be familiar with the practice plans, there boss’ terminology and thinking. What we have done is hire a coaching TEAM (Lesesne and his trusted associates).
And yeah, I’d prefer a GK coach who’s been a coach for a while. But I think the deal with Mizell is this: if Crockford doesn’t work out and Miller takes a while to get game sharp, and then either Zamudio or Bono pulls a muscle, we activate Mizell to the roster as the third keeper.
Activating Mizzell was on my mind as well.
If only there was some sort of assistant coach that was associated with the team before Lesesne came that could help with the MLS-level stuff. Maybe someone that used to play for DC could work, who knows the team and the players. Maybe someone…French? Nah, Im sure no one like that could exist
Well, Dave Kasper’s still there if we need anything…
With Chad on speed-dial…..
Mizell….well, officially he’s going to be a very raw coach. But he’s been working with Lesesne for years in some form. So why do we pay a transfer fee? Here’s my thinking: Miller is still out (and when he comes back will need time to get sharp–probably a loan to LU?) So who’s the third GK? Maybe it’s the draftee we just signed. But if he doesn’t impress and need a third GK (because one of the first two gets hurt and Miller isn’t ready yet) than Mizell comes out of retirement (I think we did that with Onstad once).
Glad to see Lesesne now officially has 2 assistants (plus Mizell). That was still less than what Losada and Rooney had–so wish we’d kept “Brilliant Fred.” Oh well. I wonder what training camp invitees are going to Saudi?
Yeah, we precisely did that with Onstad. That’s how both the youngest player in league History (Freddy Adu) and the oldest player in league history (Onstad) were wearing Black and Red at the time of their records.
It might be some creative problem-solving that Mizell would offer, but I can’t imagine that was a reasoning behind bringing him here. I think they needed to pay a transfer because he still had an active contract with NYCFC, and the Pigeons didn’t want to just voluntarily void it from their end of things. It was an easy way for them to pick up $50,000 or whatever.
Except he could retire and his team owes him nothing and then he can come here as a coach. And then if we need to activate him in an emergency (Miller isn’t ready Bono pulls a muscle) we can’t immediately activate Mizell. Instead, they can play hardball with us. So instead we’re then bringing in someone who is new to the coaching staff, new to the team and probably costs us more in transfer money.
I truly think that if Miller was practicing now and fully recovered, just getting sharp, Mizell retires, we pay no transfer money, and he is hired as an assistant.
Sound reasoning. 100%
I feel your pain, Kerry. As another DC United and American Motorsports person on this site, I’ll actually miss most, if not all, of the Rolex 24 coverage this year due to attending a science conference. The fun part with that is that the week-long conference is in Baltimore…and pretty much starts at the same time the AFC championship game does. So I might have an interesting time ahead of me depending on how that game goes
Happy for Zack Prince landing on the DC staff. Loved him as a player with the Battery. Yes the staff does not have a ton of experience, but hopefully now the GM and technical staff will all be on the same page and can grow together.
This level of alignment is what a lot of the commenters here have been asking for. For what it’s worth, the presumptive starters are all very experienced players. As long as Lesesne and the rest of the staff keep the locker room leaders engaged, I think practice and all that will be just fine.
They’re probably going to be out-coached a number of times along the way unfortunately – Arena is at least gone, but we’ll still contend with guys like Martino and Nancy who can humiliate anyone (except seemingly Ben Olsen).