DC United lose, Spirit get radio deal, and more: Thursday Freedom Kicks
Good morning everyone. Sorry that these are a bit late, but I didn’t get home until super late from the DC United match. We start there for the wack result…
Lucas Bartlett got his first goal for the Black-and-Red and a couple other shots hit the crossbar, but the Red Bulls were better on the night and won 4-1 in the Atlantic Cup.
Washington Spirit Announces the Club’s First-Ever Radio Partnership (Spirit)
ESPN630 DC will be the radio home for the Washington Spirit for 13 matches this season, including this weekend’s match against Angel City!
D.C. United, and the rest of MLS, debuted the 2024 Pride pre-match top last night. They’ll wear it through at least this time next month. If you purchase it from MLS Store, use our affiliate link to help support the site!
Fifa council member dials into summit – from prison (The Times)
This is the most Concacaf thing that has happened in quite a while, and it wasn’t even Concacaf that was responsible for it!
Last night’s MLS action was dominated by…a raccoon. Hard to believe that after his home has been scheduled for demolition, Ronnie decided to head a couple hours up I-95 to catch Philadelphia-NYCFC, but that’s 2024 for you.
Over in England, the EPL will vote on scrapping VAR completely starting next season. To keep you in loop with the timeline, England introduces VAR, becomes the worst at using it, and now is trying to convince themselves that they don’t need it. 14 teams need to agree to remove it, so we’ll see if there’s a huge push to scrap reviews completely.
The USL Super League has a new apparel partner: Capelli Sport. 3 teams have already signed with Capelli Sport individually, with more to be added soon.
Finally, this is a very serious request, but Om Arvind has been writing for Managing Madrid for years. He recently went missing and lives here in the DC/Northern Virginia area. See the below from his collegue at Managing Madrid, and if you know anything or see anything, please contact the Fairfax County police. We’re hoping that this is resolved with Om being found safely and sending best wishes to his family and friends.
The match was not as lopsided as the final score. Red Bulls notched a 40-yard wonder lob, two well-executed counterattacks, and a gimme goal after a horrible giveaway in the 92nd minute.
But DC outshot NJRB 22-11 and matched 7 on frame plus one (or two ?) off the woodwork. Ten corners to five and 60% possession.
Granted the first half was statistically even and with a 3-0 lead by minute 57, NJRB collapsed into a defensive shell. But if Red Bull keeper hadn’t come up with three-four great saves (especially against Benteke), the story would have been different.
I continue to be impressed with the team and the job the coach has done, but we do need more bench depth and a couple of key pieces.
On to Miami … with or without Messi.
My frustration continues to be with DC’s defensive organization. I love Klich, but his lack of positional discipline leaves enormous gaps in the center of the field. Maybe that works when Canouse is in midfield, but he’s leaving poor Hopkins high and dry in there. He’s not the only player, but a recurring example. Our wingers and wingbacks continually let opposing attackers turn and run at them with momentum. Not sure why that’s happening either.
Plenty of great teams have shown that you can play a pressing system AND stay organized while doing so (Arsenal and City are the gold standard). Part of that is obviously the quality of players, but it’s also on the coaching staff to spend the hours to drill that organization.
This game worries me, in the sense that it revealed a weakness that other teams can plunge some daggers into if they so choose.
The Redbulls clogged the center with their 4-4-2, and we did not handle it at all well. Any formation you choose to play, the general flow is inevitably going to be, passes outside, passes inside, passes outside, passes inside. Eventually you want to create central shooting opportunities in the box, but that’s generally how you get there. It’s possible to try to play very direct, and that’s what we did generally in this game, almost without thinking. None of those direct passes in the middle worked.
In short, if teams can so easily shutdown central passing, this team setup is in trouble. Our rhythm was shot in this game, Redbulls sat back and absorbed pressure and we did get some shots… when we were down by two goals, and in the end a third.
We could have used width more effectively, but in the end, you always need to be able to pass from outside to in, and we failed.
As far as using the width. DC only really has one effective wing. Sure Dajome was occupying the left wing but….yea…
DC has been able to force play down the right to effect this season, but NJ really said “nope, go ahead and go left, we dare you” and it showed how one-dimensional DC is. I don’t want to draw too much out of this one game, but this one game really highlighted how bad things can get if opposing teams want it to.
Additionally, this game was also a display of doing what the high pressing, high turnover style of play is supposed to generate- clearer moments of opportunity to score. NJ got it done, and had composure in their finishes. This season so far, we have not accomplished that, not really. I worry that Lesesne can’t get us there, and he needs to negate that worry with actual play.
So the RFK Racoons went to Philly?
They did, and they were documented……
;^)
MLSPA released their first salary guide for the year. According to them, Suarez and Alba are both on Max-TAM deals, fwiw.
For DC, Peltola is making $681k base, $757 guaranteed. So he can definitely be bought down if needed
Martin Rodriguez is being guaranteed nearly $1.4 million this year. For what, I’m sure I don’t know.
I canNOT believe Dave Kasper hasn’t been fired yet.
Yeah, he had a similarly high number last year too, so it wasn’t too much of a sticker shock for me. If DC is able to move on from his and Jeahaz’s contracts in the summer, that would surely help a TON in terms of cap space and TAM availability
He was at $1 million last year, so a pretty hefty raise. Assuming that Rodriguez, Santos, Dajome, and Miller aren’t brought back next year, that’s a nice chunk of change. Birnbaum and Jeahze are signed through next year.
As if the raccoon being in Philly wasn’t enough of a blow to DC fans, I saw someone call it “Wayne Raccooney.”
Perhaps he will come home once Buzzard Point becomes less of a straw house.
Gary Smith is out at Nashville: https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/nashville-sc-part-ways-with-gary-smith
After a win, too.