Employees sue San Diego Wave, Andi Sullivan out until 2025, and more: Thursday Freedom Kicks
It’s Thursday, and I’m hoping all of the people in harm’s way of Hurricane Milton are safe and sound. Wednesday had a lot of news to cover, so let’s get into it.
San Diego Wave, NWSL Sued For Team’s “Abusive And Hostile Work Environment” (Defector)
Several Wave employees have sued the team and the NWSL for an abusive and hostile work environment. The article details some things that are absolutely heinous, and the league and club must respond swiftly.
Washington Spirit Midfielder Andi Sullivan to Miss Remainder of 2024 Season with Injury (Spirit)
I hate all of this. Andi Sullivan has a torn ACL and will be out until sometime in 2025. We wish her all the best and hope to see her fully recovered as soon as possible.
Jürgen Klopp: Ex-Liverpool boss takes Red Bull soccer job (ESPN)
Jurgen Klopp is heading up soccer at Red Bull, which will keep him in Germany for the time being. He apparently can leave the job to take the Germany job if it opens up.
This is so random…Ronaldinho has bought into the ownership group of Greenville Triumph and Greenville Liberty. Good for him and great for Greenville!
Hollywood Park and SoFi Stadium awarded 2025 and 2027 Concacaf Nations League Finals (Concacaf)
The 2025 and 2027 Concacaf Nations Leagues Finals will be at SoFi Stadium. That hopefully means the USMNT will see a lot of that stadium over the next 3 years.
2024 22 Under 22 Rankings (MLS)
No DC United players make the cut in the new 22 Under 22 rankings.
Enjoy the day.
Extremely sad about Andi Sullivan. She joins an unnervingly large contingent of elite female players that have been hit with this catastrophic injury. I hope sports science catches up to this issue, cuz it seems if you start a lot of games consistently, this becomes a far too real possibility.
I hate to say it, but if you don’t a scar on your knee, you are not playing enough. It’s almost a not it, but when issue. It’s simply epidemic with the ladies.
I push back on this. It’s true that we can’t fundamentally change how female athletes and their bodies work, but there can certainly be more knowledge and better overall treatment and understanding. Clearly not enough is known yet about the red zone that allows for these injuries this often
Sorry for mistype regarding these ACL tears “not if…it’s when”.
The anatomy sets up more pressure on he joint with ladies vs gents. I am certainly not advocating the ladies shouldn’t play, but if they play enough and hard, ACL tears loom tremendously. There’s a fair amount of literature on this, and I do think we discussed it before on DP or BnRU. It sucks, but very smart folks have not come up with a preventative solution.
I certainly wish her a fast and successful recovery.
I wanted to circle back to a confluence of events and developments that make me wonder- is Pochettino encouraging Gio to come to MLS for playing time? And if so, would he consider it? And if so, would he qualify for u-22 DP status? And if so, where would he likely land in the Byzantine MLS process?
I’m also gonna laugh if, say, Austin has “discovery rights” as some bizarre gamble
Ok, so according to MLS, here is the age-related rule on U22s:
“Age: A Player must be twenty-two years old or younger in the first year he is eligible to play in an MLS game (e.g., not eligible for 2024 if he turns 23 in 2024). A player who signs at age 22 or younger may continue to occupy a U22 Initiative Slot through the year in which he turns 25, provided that for non-Homegrown players, such player is on his initial contract.”
This is a bit contradictory to me, as it seems to indicate that you can sign if you’re 22 (which Gio would be if he came), but you seemingly can’t sign if you turn 23 in the same year, which he would as well. So, a bit unclear there, because it implies that you both can and can’t sign a U22 contract when you are exactly 22. My guess, based on how this is worded, is that he would probably have to be a DP, but he could absolutely be a Young DP, since the age restriction on those is 23, so he’d fully be in the clear there. A Young DP also hits the cap at the same rate that a U22 does, so there’s no real gain or loss there, the only hiccup would be the number of DPs or U22s.
That is interesting. I guess it just discourages teams from cutting the age thing too close
1) He just signed with Miami
2) He’s otherwise going to Chicago
A couple months ago, I discovered that Hayden Sargis has a YouTube channel. He posts new videos every Wednesday. It’s not always the most compelling stuff, but it’s still an interesting look into the life of a soccer player, and especially one that’s kind of on the periphery. For instance, in this latest one, he was saying how he wasn’t rostered for the New England game, and was going to use that time and the few off days after the match to fly back home to California. Then, the day before, he got a call saying he WOULD be rostered, so he had to scratch that trip and go to New England.
He also confirmed in the comments of that video that he’d be playing against the team from Ghana on Saturday. That’s not much of a surprise, but I think it’s the first time I’ve seen a player confirm playing time like that beforehand.
It’s disappointing, but not really surprising to not see any DC players on the 22under22 this year. Pirani, KDP, and Peltola all turned 22 this year so I don’t think they would have been eligible. Of those three, I think Peltola probably had the best overall year but him and KDP have both suffered from being moved to a variety of positions and not placed in their best roles. Pirani had a pretty dreadful middle third of the season and is just now starting to gel with the team.
That really only leaves Akinmboni, Murrell, Hopkins, and Fletcher as eligible for us. If he stays healthy and with DC, then I think Akinmboni has the best shot of those four at jumping up the rankings next year. Seventeen as a CB is just tough and I think Lesesne has done a good job of slowly bringing him in.
Yeah, the youth players haven’t been super impactful, but I’m also not despairing for the future. Everyone you mentioned got some pretty decent playing time this year, and Lesesne didn’t hesitate to put them in, although rarely were any of them penciled-in starters. More to the point, Peltola, Pirani, and KDP seem to have shown some real improvement towards the end of the year. If they can keep improving into next year, that will be a real boon.
You’re right that Akinmboni probably has the best chance of making the list next year, but I am kind of assuming that by this time next season, both Akinmboni and Fletcher will be in Europe. United could sign Graham Jones and/or Gavin Turner from the academy, but it would be a bit of a surprise if they come in and immediately make themselves one of the best 22 young players in MLS. A good surprise, but a surprise nonetheless.
So while it would be great to have some really phenomenal young players, the ones that we do have are pretty solid contributors, and could conceivably be more than that, but after they age past the 22 year old mark.
(Apologies to Jeremy Garay, Hayden Sargis, and Nathan Crockford.)
Oh yeah, we could sign one or two more U-22 players. Maybe they’ll be studs!
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5831618/2024/10/09/us-soccer-staff-cuts/
The first 2 paragraphs:
Ellis and SD Wave are trash. I hear this kind of workplace hostility from people all the time, unfortunately. Hope the lawsuit results in some measure of justice.
Ditto for Jermaine Jones and his “coaching” exploits. He is *not* a big enough name to talk the way he does about himself, and even then, he should be canned for labor law violations.