Washington Spirit , Sergiño Dest tears ACL, and more: Thursday Freedom Kicks
Happy Thursday, everyone. It’s gonna be a hot one today, so fire up that AC and maybe break out the iced coffee while you take in the news from yesterday.
Ratcliffe brace, Bethune assists put Washington Spirit ahead of Chicago Red Stars, 4-2 (DP)
What a performance from the Washington Spirit on the road! Croix Bethune had 3 assists and Brittany Ratcliffe had a late game brace to grab the 4-2 win.
It was gutting to see Sergiño Dest go down with injury a week ago, and now it’s official: he has torn his ACL. He will miss Copa América this summer and likely will not be back until early 2025. He had a message to fans.
Takeaways from Loudoun’s 3-1 loss to Sacramento (DP)
Ryan gives us one last look at Loudoun United’s loss to Sacramento Republic over the weekend. The team hosts Detroit City FC this weekend, so catch me in the stands repping the team from my hometown.
Is your team meeting expectations? Assessing the 2024 MLS season to date (MLS)
DC United is listed here as exceeding expectations, though it hasn’t all been easy for the team.
One thing that could help is having some players. The Black-and-Red has loaned another player out, this time 3rd string goalkeeper Luis Zamudio. Right now, it feels like DCU barely has enough players to fill out the gameday roster, and that’s with everyone healthy, which we clearly are not.
The deal is now done. Manchester City will pay up to $5 million for the 14-year-old Caven Sullivan, and he will receive the largest homegrown deal in MLS history.
McElhenney wants to increase Wrexham stadium capacity to 55K (ESPN)
The Racecourse, the oldest soccer stadium in the world, currently has 12,600 seats. Well, the celebrity owners of Wrexham want to increase the capacity to 55,000. That would be able to fit the entire population of the city (44,785) and still have room for more fans plus away supporters.
Hayes admits WSL title-race is ‘done’ after Liverpool loss (ESPN)
Chelsea lost to Liverpool 4-3 yesterday, and Emma Hayes admitted that she will likely be leaving the Blues for the USWNT later this month having not won a trophy in her final season with the club.
How the NWSL became the world’s most innovative league (The Guardian)
A look from across the pond at how the NWSL is viewed as the world’s most innovative league. A nice perspective to keep in mind when you hear fans say that WNT players should go to Europe to play their club ball.
‘When you’re no longer happy, it’s time’ – Union goalkeeper Blake wants out (Pro Soccer Wire)
Andre Blake is not happy in Philly and apparently wants out after the end of the season. That could really shake up the core of the roster, as he’s still arguably the best goalkeeper in Concacaf.
The coach from Celtic stopped by Audi Field yesterday to promote their friendly against DC United on July 20th. Accompanying him is club legend John Harkes, who’s back in the area coaching!
Here’s an inside look at how the re-education course goes for fans in England who are banned for racist, homophobic, transphobic, or other discrimination.
The 20 best players yet to make a USWNT appearance (Pro Soccer Wire)
Current Spirit player Croix Bethune and former Spirit player Sam Staab make Jason’s list of best players who have not featured for the USWNT.
For those wanting to catch the National Soccer Hall of Fame induction ceremony, it will once again be on Peacock and Telemundo this Saturday.
Longtime Televisa, Univision announcer Paco Villa passes away at 54 (Pro Soccer Wire)
Rest in peace to Paco Villa, a longtime broadcaster for Televisa and Univision. He passed away at 54 due to cancer. He had called matches since 1995, including 7 World Cups and many big time matches for MLS, EPL, Liga MX, and Champions League.
Stay cool out there, y’all.
Blake is spot-on. And frankly, I fear DCU may fall in to that category (except we haven’t reached the level with our academy where we’re selling a player every year or two to Europe for a couple of million).
If Philly loses Andre Blake, then our ability to actually win a game or two against them goes up significantly.
In terms of our number of players, with Zamudio joining Sargis and Garay out on loan, United has 24 players on the first team. But that number includes Russell Canouse (out with long-term recovery), Nathan Crockford (our third round draft pick and now third string GK), and Mohanad Jeahze (just completely on the outs). So we have 21 players to pick a gameday 20 from, but THAT 21 includes players recovering from long-term injury (Miller, Birnbaum, Tubbs, and maaaaaaaaaaaaaybe Rodriguez if we’re being charitable) and some players with current knocks (Antley, Ku-DiPietro). And our team picks up yellow cards at the highest rate in the league.
Adding some more players is an absolute necessity, although it would seem that we are hard up against the cap. Perhaps Canouse being on the injury list can clear up some cap space, and if Mackay can move some of our larger salaries who aren’t among our top contributers (Rodriguez, Jeahze, Dajome come to mind), that would help us to bring in two $500,000 players instead of one $1 million Rodriguez.
It’s likewise a bit disappointing that some of our young players are just seen as surplus and loaned out (thinking mostly of Garay here), and that the young players that are on the squad haven’t really shown too much improvement under Lesesne (with the possible exception of Jackson Hopkins at CM).
This also ties into us “exceeding expectations.” We absolutely are. I expected us to be terrible, and we’ve been far better than that. We’ve had a tough schedule, and have been in every game and often have been the best team. So we’re setting ourselves up fairly well for next year, when Mackay should have a lot of additional resources to work with.
Regarding Lesesne and the young players, I’m willing to give that dynamic some time, plus as Lesesne’s style trickles down into the academy, it will come back in the form of players who have developed a game to his liking from day 1.
To your point on the future of the team, I’m pretty jacked to see what Mackay can do with cap room and a real offseason
Also wondering what you have to do as a professional player with a background to end up this doghoused…
Listening to the latest Pitch Pass kind of dumped a lot of cold water on me regarding our academy, and what the lack of an MLS Next Pro team is doing to our squad, and the perception of young players about their realistic chance at playing time and development.
Great points overall, but I think I’d push back a bit on Dajome not being a top contributor. I think everyone would like to see more goals (or assists) from him for his price point, but based on how this season has gone so far, Lesesne seems to see him as one of the more important parts of the team. He’s essentially turned into the “throw him wherever on the field and he can at least be serviceable” player. Now, whether thats a product of “hes the best available option” or if its a genuine selection on Lesesne’s part is harder to say. But I think its hard to argue he hasn’t been one of the more important parts of the team so far this year
Players like Jeahze, Rodriguez, and to a degree Pirani have all been basically useless this year. Dajome has definitely been better than that, but you’re right that he’s basically the Swiss Army knife on a team that has so many holes in its roster. He won’t be terrible, but he’s not that great, and he’s got a base salary of $900,000. Only Benteke, Klich, and Rodriguez (!) make more than he does. Do we want our fourth-highest paid player to be the guy who can fill in where somebody else is missing, or would it be better to get two $450,000 guys?
Obviously, you can whiff on new signings, but you can also overpay and commit too many of your resources to mediocrity, too.
My thoughts exactly. He hasn’t done much with goals or assists, he’s overpaid. But he’s one of our fastest players, he has embraced the scheme. I have other candidates I’d move before I got to him. His turn will come in the offseason.
Ooh, fun new roster information to play with (especially the contract years)!
https://mlssoccer.app.box.com/s/e8eu9jpgtk09j03ynasb6zpd6hur37yk
A .csv would be a little easier to gonkulate, but I think I can make it work…
Wait Santos isn’t on a TAM deal…