USWNT W Gold Cup roster, AFCON final set, and more: Thursday Freedom Kicks
Happy Thursday, everyone. We’re approaching Super Bowl weekend, and we’re a little over 2 weeks from the start of the MLS season. So, as you finalize your Sunday plans, here’s the soccer news to get you started.
USWNT W Gold Cup roster named (SSFC)
United Spirits Trinity Rodman and Casey Krueger make the roster, while Andi Sullivan, Aubrey Kingsbury, and Ashley Hatch were omitted.
Haller strike sends Ivory Coast to Cup of Nations final (ESPN)
Ivory Coast, just a week or so removed from thinking they were out in the group stage and their coach stepping down, are now in the Africa Cup of Nations final, where they will face Nigeria, who beat South Africa in a thrilling penalty shootout.
Hosts Qatar beat Iran in thriller to set up Asian Cup final against Jordan (The Guardian)
Qatar are back in the Asian Cup final, where they will defend their title against Jordan after a thrilling victory over Iran.
Coming to MLS Season Pass soon will be a profile on Steven Birbaum. Here’s a snippet from that profile.
Lionel Messi returns for Inter Miami vs. Vissel Kobe (MLS)
Messi was back in the lineup, but Inter Miami ends their world tour with a scoreless draw against Vissel Kobe. It also could cost them Sergio Busquets, who was injured during the match.
I sincerely hope and pray that Christen Press can make it back to the field this season. Returning from 4 surgeries on her knee has been an absolute challenge, but she still has that “relentless optimism” that she will be back soon.
Josef Martínez joins CF Montréal: “I want to reach Wondo” (MLS)
Josef Martinez has signed with CF Montreal, where he hopes to pass Chris Wondolowski’s all-time goal scoring record.
The NFL has a few qualities that MLS apparently should consider imitiating.
“It’s a massive step”: What MLS NEXT Development Grants could mean for youth soccer (MLS)
It was cool to see Bethesda SC, who helped develop Kristian Fletcher, get one of the MLS Next Development Grants.
‘It’s a huge advantage’: Could soccer skills help decide the Super Bowl? (The Guardian)
Tune in on Sunday to see the soccer help the football!
That’s it for today. Enjoy the sunshine.
Here’s another interesting read from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/feb/08/overpaid-stars-and-transfer-flops-why-each-mls-team-should-worry-in-2024
In the writer’s opinion DCU’s biggest worry is chance creation.
I have to agree with that. I think that Pirani was pretty good at linking last year, but not about playing that final dangerous ball. Between Klich, Peltola, and Pirani, I think the middle of the field for DC should be pretty good with retaining possession and combining. And that can maybe result in a line-breaking pass through to Christian Benteke, or popping out to Ku-DiPietro and/or Fletcher to do something with.
I think the bulk of the chance creation is being set up to be crossing from Jeahze, Rodriguez, and I had thought Herrera for Benteke to either put on frame or to knock down to a teammate. If Herrera is really playing a Najar-type role as a center back in a three back system, that might limit his crossing, but I think they’ll still be expecting him to playmake from his position.
The other thing is that – even losing Donovan Pines – Mackay has added a TON of tall players. Tubbs, Peltola, McVey, and Murrell are all 6’4″ to go along with Benteke and Akinmboni. And Steve Birnbaum is a productive header of the ball, too. There’s going to be a lot of targets for Klich (or Herrera or Pirani or whoever) on set pieces.
So yeah, there’s not going to be a lot of chance creation, but there wasn’t really on last year’s team either.
But can we hit free throws down the stretch????
I want to say that Benteke tried something like that as a goal celebration once and his form was… not great.
So, you mention MLS Season Pass. My son and I were poking through what’s up there the other night after redeeming our season ticket-holder pass. One thing that was bothersome was in our goals of the year. Each team has what is theoretically their top 5 goals of the year in a 5 minute-ish video. The first goal for us was Benteke’s bike. Not really an issue there. What bothered us was later in the video – one of our top 5 goals was a Taxi goal.
And, not only was it one of Taxi’s goals – it was the early season goal against Miami where he did the crying-face celebration that seemed to be a call-back to them complaining about his racist outburst the previous year.
My son immediately was like ‘how can they use THAT goal?’ I mean, we’re for sure more clued in to everything than most people, and your average fan probably has little idea about the celebration, probably vaguely remembers that Taxi left on account of racism. But man, did no one from the team have any idea what goals were chosen there? Just crazy to me that they would not only show a Taxi goal but show that one…
Troy Lesesne is saying that the club is interested in adding players, but is up pretty hard against the cap. I suspect that they’re going to sign Graham Jones as a homegrown player. There’s basically no depth at outside back, especially on the right, and they don’t really have the means to get anybody substantial (although why they let Jacob Greene walk is still a mystery). There’s a decent chance they sign Brandon Parrish, too.
Lesesne was also saying the club is using the first three or four weeks as an evaluation period for the players that are there. If someone’s not fitting, they’ll (try to) move them. I’m not sure how that would look, but it’s good that they’re still trying to get the roster into shape. As we’ve known, it’s going to be a process.
I wonder how close to CAP we are.
Just looking at the most recent MLSPA releases, it looks like DC cleared $4,030,604 of base salary.
They still have two senior DPs with cap charges of $651,250 each. They have a Young DP, with a cap charge of $200,000. Add to that the salaries of the returning players, plus Herrera, Bartlett, Stroud, and McVey, you’ve got a salary cap hit of $8,413,080. That’s not counting any raises (although it’s possible Birnbaum took a slight cut to get more years to his extension). We also don’t know the salaries of Garrison Tubbs, Jacob Murrell, or Nathan Crockford, but it’s probably around $300,000 for the three of them.
Now, only the 20 senior roster slots count towards the salary cap, which is $5.1 million, and the teams get a pool of $1.9 million allocation money. So it’s pretty to see how they could be maxed out. Martin Rodriguez is making $1 million. Cristian Dajome is making $900,000. Steve Birnbaum is making $815,000. There are some big contracts that need to produce some big results.
Unfortunately at least to my eye test it looked like Birnbaum has hit his age wall and is starting to go down in quality. That’s just me. Rodriguez…needs to stay uninjured and show he’s worth the money. Dajome is definitely worth it if he can produce like he did last season.
Salary Cap math is pretty opaque, but there’s a disconnect for me here.
The Maximum Salary Budget Charge for a single player is $651,250.
That means the team MUST be using allocation money to pay down those salaries below the max charge. No player can have a larger charge than that. That has to be the starting point for figuring out the cap hit. So, that’s nearly $1 million (about $950k) that you’re totaling in the cap hit which doesn’t exist except for requiring the use of allocation dollars to get lower than that. If you’re correct about a base of $1.9M in allocation, those 3 players eat half of the total, leaving another $950k for other players, or the global total. Mo Jeahze is the only other player who was above the max charge, but by only $8500.
There’s also a huge reservoir of other money. First, there’s TAM — I think that might still exist, tho’ I seem to recall something about that going away? If not, that’s slotted to be $2.4 million this year. Anyway, TAM is meant for acquisition rather than general application — but it can be used for Homegrowns and other new signings above the salary max. The problem is the team doesn’t have the open roster slots to make use of it.
There are other ways to increase GAM. Because DCU missed the playoffs, they will get an additional allocation. There are also allocations based on selling players abroad. Also, the team may have acquired more GAM than they’ve traded away — I have no idea?
I might add that the max salary is seriously outdated, as MLS clubs are now competing with foreign clubs to retain its own players in addition to recruiting players internationally. Under the CBA, the max and minimum salaries get increased 5% a year.
One small point — the cap total in 2023 was $5.2 million, not $5.1 million. It will go higher, but players; wages may also have escalation clauses that would eat up the annual cap increase?
I suspect there are a couple of veterans (one of our GKs–either Bono or Miller, Dajome, Rodriguez, Santos, Jeahze) that Lesesne is viewing as needing to prove they should stay on the roster vs. being moved or replacing with an improvement. For some of them (Santos–if he’s found wanting), it may just be a case of releasing him in order to free up cap room). For others, it might mean selling/loaning them overseas. We could also see some of the guys who didn’t play (Sargis, Stroud) as determining if they stay on the roster or not (though neither would free up much cap room). For others it’s whether they stay up on the Mothership or get loaned to Loudoun. We’ll see.
One of the benefits of having Matti Peltola as a Young DP is that United could potentially bring in two more U-22 players. But they’re kind of precluded by their cap from doing that. So, if Mackay is able to move one or two of those big salaries to bring in some intriguing U-22 prospects (and probably needing to pick up an international slot in the bargain), he will be doing a very good job as GM.
Duncan McGuire’s loan has officially fallen through at Blackburn and his appeals have been denied. He’s rejoining Orlando, who just signed a new DP striker. McGuire is cheap, American, and good. Could we swing a loan for him – with the understanding that he probably makes a transfer abroad in the summer time – and take advantage of Blackburn’s transfer fuckery for a second year in a row?
DC United home of Blackburn Rovers charlie foxtrots.
DCU and Loudoun United news — Jovanny Bolivar scores for Venezuela to equalize against Brazil in the Pre-Olympic qualifying tournament. That’s his 3rd goal of the round. He narrowly misses what might have been a Puskas level wonder-strike a few minutes later, forcing a save from the Brazil keeper (VAR had to look later to see if the ball crossed the line).
Then a minute later, Venezuela countered after a Pirani turnover, and Bolivar had a smart backheel one-touch pass setting up a teammate for what might have been the go-ahead goal, putting Venezuela up to 2-1, and Brazil on the verge of elimination. However, as Bolivar continued towards goal, he was deemed by VAR to have interfered with the play from an offside position…
Bolivar plays in Segunda division in Spain. Did we miss on that one…?
Bolivar also had a nice free kick from distance in the 97th minute, forcing the goalie to push it around the post. Corner kick did nothing. Brazil defeats Venezuela to vault into 2nd place in the final bracket, but have not guaranteed a spot in the Olympics. If they draw against Argentina, and Venezuela defeats 1st place Paraguay, then Brazil, Paraguay and Venezuela will be all be tied at 4 points, with 2 teams going through on a tie-breaker.
Anyway, if they do go through — a win against Argentina, or a draw and a Paraguay draw or win against Venezuela, we might lose Pirani for a game or 2 mid-July depending on when he leaves for a tournament which begins a weak after MLS goes on summer break. Leagues Cup starts when the Olympic tournament starts, so we definitely wouldn’t have Pirani in the Group stage.