Washington Spirit waive Tanner, Aboukoura up for USL Championship goal of the week, and more: Tuesday Freedom Kicks
Happy Tuesday, everyone! Were any of you able to see the eclipse yesterday? I was stuck in the office in D.C., so I didn’t get a good look at it. I guess there’s always the next one… 20 years from now.
Washington Spirit waives forward Riley Tanner (Washington Spirit)
Tanner, who also plays for the Panama National Team, was drafted in the third-round by Washington Spirit in 2023 but only played in two Challenge Cup matches for the team. Wishing her luck in finding a new club home!
USL Championship Goal of the Week – Week 5 (USL Championship)
Abdellatif Aboukoura’s 25-yard banger for Loudoun United is up for goal of the week. Check out that goal and the other contenders below and vote at the link.
U.S. Soccer breaks ground on new Atlanta HQ, named after Arthur Blank (Pro Soccer Wire)
Notable quote: “Blank, the Home Depot co-founder and owner of Atlanta United and the Atlanta Falcons, donated $50 million last year to ensure U.S. Soccer relocated its HQ from Chicago to Fayette County, Georgia, outside of Atlanta.”
Inter Miami, Columbus’ Champions Cup games make this MLS’s most important week in a while (The Athletic)
The Athletic argues that success by MLS teams in the CONCACAF Champions Cup are an opportunity for the league to measure itself against some of the best in the world.
USA vs. Canada, 2024 SheBelieves Cup Final: Scouting Canada (Stars and Stripes FC)
A closer look at Canada before their match with the USWNT in the She Believes Cup at 7 p.m. tonight. Washington Spirit’s Gabby Carle gets a good review, (and I know she’s looking forward to facing some of her club teammates in a game played on a soccer pitch rather than a pond).
Everton handed further 2-point deduction for financial breaches (ESPN)
I’m always sharing stories about this because it’s just such an odd situation to me that a team can lose points for losing too much money. This puts Everton at eight points deducted this season in total, although they say they will appeal the latest two.
The USWNT is already seeing “great things” from 19-year-old Jaedyn Shaw (Washington Post)
A profile of one of the USWNT’s rising stars. Trust Goff to mention the local angle: Spirit fans still ruefully remember the time a young(er) Shaw trained with the team before the NWSL ruled she had to go through the discovery process to San Diego.
That’s all I have for now. Have a good day!
The EPL is good at punishing the victim. Obviously the only solution is to get bought by an oil oligarch and hope that they are the right kind of oil oligarch. I don’t see how forcing Everton into relegation for doing the right thing by canceling disgusting sponsorships solves anything. It just adds insult to injury.
I hope the whole thing collapses as it’s unsustainable and has become yet another way for odious oil barons to sports-wash their reputation. Become an actual for profit business with a players’ union and a salary cap so someone could actually make some money rather than just punishing fans with relegation.
A few days late, but it’s worth giving Lesesne and Hopkins credit for his inclusion in the starting lineup. It appeared that Peltola was probably a bit too close to the red zone after the international break, and Hopkins gave him a chance to be reintegrated without long term risk, so smart on Lesesne’s part. And Hopkins, this is definitely the best midfield he’s ever had to deal with in a central role. I thought he acclimated after a time appreciably well, and this was the kind of development we obviously didn’t see under Rooney’s management. Good stuff.
Yeah, good for Hopkins for being able to adapt to a different role, and frankly doing better at it. He also had a pretty respectable shot early on that went off the post. With Russell Canouse out indefinitely and Jeremy Garay off to El Paso, it’s good for both Hopkins and the team if he can carve out a place in defensive midfield.
I remember during his initial run under Losada, he was more than happy to get aggressive on the press. Maybe he was miscast as the Gressel replacement.
I simply won’t believe that Wayne Rooney – who thought that Ravel Morrison could be the best midfielder in MLS – got some talent assessment wrong on one of his players!
He won my early eye-test, and then seemed to regress under Rooney (I am not saying Rooney was causative). The eye-test enjoyed his effort the other night.
Since I fried my eyes looking at the eclipse, I will now start giving eye test opinions about Pirani. He’s about to take off…..
For Rio….
The MLSsoccer.com statistics have been a little screwy (I think they switched data providers or something), and weren’t counting secondary assists to start the season, but have gone back and retroactively awarded some. Thus, Pirani DOES have an assist to his credit in his time with DC, passing to Santos who floated a ball in for Benteke on United’s first goal of the season.
There’s so little to give Pirani credit for, I wanted to make sure he got that bit.
I can’t help but think we signed him permanently as a good will gesture to Santos. He wasn’t a McKay signing at all otherwise – bottom tier attacking stats all over the place. He needs to contribute more or he’ll be riding the bench long-term once the team adds some more guys.
Mackay didn’t sign him initially, but he was definitely taking credit for making the loan deal permanent. He said something like Dave Kasper found out about it by reading it in the paper. So, Mackay has made a lot of player acquisitions that worked out really well, but Pirani does go on his record and that has just been a huge bust so far. It could turn around, but… there sure aren’t many signs of it doing that.
It’s especially puzzling how many scouts and minds have looked at Pirani and elevated him. It’s no mean feat to be a starting playmaker for a Brazilian youth team. I just don’t get it
None of us do. I am baffled. MacKay otherwise scores very high on his first season in action.
Regarding Pirani–I agree, so far he’s been a bad fit. The data (from last year and this) says he’s not much of an A-mid. Still, I think he was worth taking a flyer on. He’s young, Brazilian from a good team, on the Brazilian Olympic side, had superb technical skills, is good athletically (not too small, not slight, decent quickness) and is (generally) willing to work off the ball. He’s the kind of player you sign thinking “maybe he can take the next step or two here, we get good value for not much money, and then we sell him for bigger bucks when he goes to Europe.” So far he hasn’t taken that step. And the last match, he probably cost us 2 points as he didn’t close down on Morris.
AM is like the QB of soccer…you think you have the guy with all the right traits to be a star, but they’re missing one critical thing that makes things fall to pieces.
I think it’s more the change of system that requires rethinking Hopkins’ development in terms of the role he’s best suited for. He’s got the long distance passing and shooting to play out there, and him and Gressel share a lack of top speed but a decent amount of ball retention ability. In this system, a player like Stroud is what is needed out wide. Hopkins just needs to attune further to the very different and multifaceted job of being a central midfielder, but glad he’s getting chances.
TL;DR version, it’s not that he can’t replicate Gressel, it’s just better to have him learn CM in Lesesne’s system.
He is a bit slow for the wing. It least that is how I saw it. He does not need the speed as much in central midfield and can use his other assets. Good that the coach realized this and tried him out.
People be wondering why US Soccer didn’t threaten MLS over the US Open Cup…
This is better than campaign financing….
Unfortunately money talks
Tigres also managed a 1-1 draw with Columbus, but then went on to lose in penalties. So, transitively, United is slightly better than Tigres!
From The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/5404511/2024/04/10/mls-roster-rule-changes/
This block quote of the first two paragraphs says it all. Looks like Garber and the owners helping out Miami again….
Garber was already letting them get away with murder, rule changes that everyone can utilize is a positive development. Still a bad aftertaste from this whole situation, but DC should be able to add a whole lot of new DP’s and u-22’s in the rebuild, and I’m fine with that.
Thanks for posting, still don’t feel an Athletic subscription makes sense for me, but good stuff.
I like the Athletic, but they’ve really cut down on the amount of team-specific reporting they used to do for MLS.
Yeah that’s sad….