Horan apologizes, Birnbaum out for a few weeks, and more: Friday Freedom Kicks
Happy Friday! Did you know that it is just one week until the start of the MLS season? And one month until the start of the NWSL season? Exciting times.
USWNT’s Lindsey Horan apologizes for “poorly expressed” comments (The Athletic)
Of course, she didn’t say much about what it was she actually meant when calling U.S. fans “not smart.”
Steven Birnbaum to miss the start of D.C. United’s season after knee injury (Washington Post)
Birnbaum had knee surgery last week and is expected to be out for a few weeks.
D.C. United reveals 2024 primary jersey, introduces Guidehouse as front jersey sponsor (The District Press)
It’s here at last: the new D.C. United home jersey! I like it! It’s got a lot of fun stuff going on. Click over for some of Donald’s thoughts.
MLS new kits 2024: Tracking all of the looks (Pro Soccer Wire)
With the start of a new season just a week away, kit reveals are coming fast and furious. Here’s an ongoing compilation of what’s come out so far for reference.
Loudoun United FC sign Jacob Erlandson through 2024 (Loudoun United)
Erlandson, a defender, was a 2022 MLS SuperDraft pick by the Columbus Crew, and he’s a MAC alumnus, which I for one love to see.
An MLS exec commented on Wednesday’s news about Inter Miami’s roster rules violation:
Wayne Rooney confirms boxing talks, but focused on management (ESPN)
Can’t say this is where I pictured his career heading. (To be fair, it sounds like he’s not really interested in boxing.)
USMNT drops to 13th in FIFA world rankings (Stars and Stripes FC)
As this article points out, this puts them one spot above Colombia, who they’ll be playing at FedEx Field in June.
That’s it for now. I’ll leave you with Caitlin Clark’s record-breaking 3-pointer from last night. Have a good weekend!
Any guesses to what our opening day lineup looks like? I’m assuming Benteke and TKD up top, Miller in goal and then….?
Miller is still recovering from his surgery. Here’s my guess.
Benteke
Rodriguez – Pirani – Ku-DiPietro
Klich – Peltola
Jeahze – McVey – Akinmboni – Herrera
Bono
There’s a big question of whether they’ll go with a four man backline or a three centerback set up. With Birnbaum and Tubbs hurt, I think they’ll do a traditional four man backline. But who knows!
I think you’re likely very close, except I would be surprised, maybe even dismayed, to see TKD not on his favored left wing. He’s going to cut inside. Whether that means Rodriguez moves to the right, or if Hopkins gets a chance to show off his crossing abilities, I don’t know. TKD should be on the left, though
I feel like Ku has mostly played on the right or centrally for us. I could be wrong.
I mostly see him pushing up to be closer to a second forward, partnering with Benteke anyway.
We’ll have a partially better idea after the Dallas preseason match. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Antley starting in the middle with McVey. Antley is a veteran, he can play CB. I also am leaning to the scheme that Lesesne played with the NYRB (a 4-2-2-2 variation). So that would mean Jeahze-McVey-Antley-Herrera, Klich-Peltola, Rodriguez-Pirani, Benteke-TKDP. If Canouse wasn’t gimpy, I think we’d see Peltola sliding in to the backline. And Bono of course in goal.
I think a 4-2-2 will be close to what we get as well. Just a little unbalanced, since Pirani is more of a central player and Rodriguez is a winger. I think Ku will likely be pushing up to be more of a second striker with Benteke.
Mostly I feel a little confounded trying to push our roster into any sort of traditional formation.
If it is a 4-2-2-2, I think Joe has it right. I’d be a bit concerned if that is the formation due to our lack of fullback depth. Width comes from the fullback position in that formation, so if Lesesne is married to that and is a bit rigid about it, we’ll struggle with substitutes, let alone injuries
I wrote about this last night. I’m guessing that the Birnbaum injury has a lot to do with picking up Antley now. I would definitely expect him to start. As between Herrera and Antley, I won’t predict but if it’s a 4 man back line, one will be at RB and one at CB.
Horan’s “apology” strikes me as being totally about PR. I think her original statements were from the heart. Maybe not well phrased but true to her sentiments and how she sees things. And that seems to me to be a honest reflection of Horan’s mindset and combativeness plus the result of the feedback post-WC. I think she felt a lot of the post-WC comments were BS.
I like the new DCU kit. But I’d love a really serious commitment to the cherry blossom look given what the cherry blossoms mean to DC, how they truly unite people (everyone from the DC area is walking the Tidal Basin during that time). I also like the new sponsor. Glad we are away from XTC. And Guidehouse is a sponsor that reflects DC–it’s not like having FedEx or PizzaHut or some national/international brand that has no strong ties locally.
It will be interesting to see how Miami’s roster plays out. And they’ve had two key losses to personnel in preseason.
Finally, it’s easy to obsess about DCU’s roster and injuries. And if Canouse (plus Birnbaum) are out for a couple of weeks, that’s a gut punch. That said, I bet if you look at what shape we were in going in to 2002 and 2001 for sure (and possibly 2003), this is probably the healthiest we’ve been to start a season in a bunch of years. I wonder if that’s just random or there is something to that–maybe better off-season conditioning, the nature of our preseason (warm dry weather plus teams that don’t have a rep of playing physically–like an MLS or USL opponent)? Maybe fewer long-term injuries from the year before? Or we cut a lot of the roster and of course would only sign guys able to contribute from Day One (rather than someone starting out injured). I’m just guessing.
I pretty much don’t care in situations like this whether the original statement was a truthful admission, and the apology is PR. It’s the act of humbling oneself a little after a gaffe that counts. She can still believe that most of the comments were stupid, but she should and did apologize for saying it.
https://worldsoccertalk.com/tv/mls-and-apple-make-mls-season-pass-budget-cuts-20240215-WST-489728.html
World soccer talk has a frankly frightening article about MLS budget cuts with respect to MLS Season Pass Productions. 18 commentators have been straight up cut and anyone returning is taking a 33% pay cut!! They did note that 8 new broadcasters will be brought in (including the likes of Giovani Savarese).
The gist of the article was that MLS and Apple both realized they way overshot their projected budget and this is aimed at being a course-correction. Can’t remember who’s head of production, but this seems a like a major faux pas.
Sounds like a charlie foxtrot
Also mentioned is that MLS didn’t hit an incentive threshold for paid subscribers. Maybe they bank on hitting that number with a full season of Messi?
On a related note, has anyone heard of T-Mobile is offering the pass this season? One can hope.
Fox Sports has announced which MLR games they will be broadcasting during the regular MLR season.
Fox Sports to air 18 Major League Rugby matches in 2024 – Major League Rugby
OGDC will be televised on April 26 At Utah on FS1 at 9 PM, May 4th VS Miami (expansion team) on FS2 at 6 PM, and June 14th At Dallas on FS2 at 8:30 PM.
The US U-20 Men’s Rugby will play a 2 game series against Canada in Canada to see who goes to the U-20 Rugby World Cup this summer.
https://eagles.rugby/news/south-africa-and-scotland-to-host-world-rugby-u20-competitions-in-2024-202427
I’ll say, I actually quite like this year’s new jersey. I always appreciate when the team actually leans into the “Black and Red” and we get a significant amount of red on it. Its not my favorite jersey they’ve ever had, but its solid and much better than the last one.
That being said though, dear lord the price of jerseys has gotten so far out of hand. There’s actually a couple of other jerseys that got revealed over the last couple of days that I wouldn’t mind having (Charlotte and Minnesota), but $100 for a replica jersey (or even worse, a customized or authentic one) is just nuts. I feel like they would actually sell more jerseys overall, and probably make more profit, if they just brought the price down to a more reasonable amount.
Agreed all around.
Yeah, I’ll want to see it in person to be sure but it looks great. But yeah, those prices…
Of course, if you really wanted to waste money, the shop still has a 2022 Flores marble jersey up there for 120.
What bugs me is the youth ones are up to $115 this year. My kid has outgrown those, but it still bums me out that people have to spend that much on a jersey the kid might outgrow before the season is out. I’ve kept a bunch of my son’s jerseys from when he was little, and I never had to pay that much until he started wearing the adult sizes (that was a sad day for the wallet outside of the fan merch too). I for sure wouldn’t have bought as many as I did for him if they cost that much.
I never ended up getting the Marble jersey. I always said that if it went on a decent sale, I’d pick one up. But it just…hasn’t…ever. Even the players that aren’t still around. I’d gladly pick up a Gressel one if it was like $60 or something. But Im not dropping $120 on a 2 year old jersey for a player thats not even on the team.
I’m in a place where if I wanted a new jersey, even a customized authentic one, I could afford it easily enough. But I just cannot justify it. And we’re at a point now that so many people are going to be priced out of getting any kind of jersey at all. Which is not what you want for branding. If you want to make the argument that the authentic versions should be expensive for whatever reason, sure, that’s fine. But I wear enough Adidas clothing otherwise to know that there’s no reason the replica jerseys can’t be like $60 normally.
It’s on sale right now for $90, in the Clearance section.
Marshall’s, from the season that shall not be named (Alsopp), home and away long and short sleeved $15 each. VW logo and all…..
I have several jerseys from Scotland Premier, none of them were over $80 shipped. In fact, go look up jerseys from around the world and notice that they don’t come close to MLS prices. In general, this league is looking less and less attractive to me.
Darth Garber is watching.
I just built a mighty snowman nearly 12 inches tall on the roof of my car. His life was very short, alas, as he slid off the roof and onto the windshield within about 15 minutes of his creation. I don’t think anyone inside the Beltway got much more than traces of snow on grassy surfaces and cars.
Unlike the suicidal snowman I’d like to know what DC’s lineup looks like as we play Dallas in the final warm-up for the season kickoff next weekend.
Meanwhile, some guy named Jason Anderson wrote about some guy named Griffin Yow who seems to be doing well playing soccer in Belgium. Hmmm… those names seem familiar.
https://prosoccerwire.usatoday.com/2024/02/16/yow-goal-westerlo-video-standard-liege-usmnt/
Looks like we’re starting the season with replacement refs as PRO voted against tentative CBA.
https://theathletic.com/5282405/2024/02/17/mls-referees-strike-lockout/
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/39544837/mls-set-begin-stand-refs-cba-dispute-goes-on
Visiting my folks, told my dad the news. He was pretty Johnny on the spot with “not the old refs! How will we ever live without them!” Dripping with sarcasm, he was.
As for my own take, refs can very easily be worse, and opening games are wide open for controversy and hard nosed play. I hope no games get out of control, or someone gets hurt due to inexperience.
As previously posted, this league is looking less and les attractive to me.
Darth Garber thanked me for being a loyal ATM droid….
Dallas beats DCU 2-0 with a goal and assist from Paul Arriola. Sigh!
I know it’s just preseason, but I am getting baaaad vibes about this season.
At least some good news for United: Will Bruin just announced his retirement. He won’t be scoring any more goals against DC.
Own Goal is lurking, however….
Looks like the MLS/USSF feud over the Open Cup is coming to a head with the MLS calling the USSF’s bluff that they won’t go nuclear on the MLS sanctioning. They’re basically being clear that they’re not participating and the USL teams have been told it’s expected to be cancelled instead of holding it without the MLS teams.
https://hudsonriverblue.com/mls-said-to-be-holding-the-us-open-cup-hostage/
Like I have said, this league is looking less and less attractive.
Darth Garber will create a decline-to-participate-trophy and award to each MLS team to fill their dusty trophy cases.