Kerolin departs NC Courage, Neymar courted by MLS teams, and more: Thursday Freedom Kicks
Happy Thursday, everyone. It’s been a busy week, but not a lot on the links from yesterday. We start with one of the bigger stories:
Kerolin is a free agent. The NC Courage announced her departure from the club, but where will the former MVP head?
Neymar in talks with three MLS teams over possible move (ESPN)
The Chicago Fire, along with two other mystery MLS teams, are in talks to try and bring Neymar to the league. We’ll see if one of those teams succeeds.
Hey Spirits episode: Stop trying to make “schedule footprint” happen + lots of Spirit news (DP)
There’s a new Hey Spirits episode out, and it was a good one! Definitely check it out!
USMNT: Ferreira, Neal, Tolkin all depart January camp (PSW)
Jesus Ferreira, Jalen Neal, and John Tolkin are all leaving the USMNT for various reasons. It’s possible that replacements could be called in for the team ahead of two friendlies over the next week.
Hannah Adler’s Journey to Stardom: 2x Female Beach Soccer Player of the Year (AFXI)
A great story about U.S. Soccer’s Female Beach Soccer Player of the Year and her journey to becoming one of the great players on sand.
Ryan Reynolds, Rob McElhenney part of group buying Colombian soccer club La Equidad (The Athletic)
La Equidad will soon become a part of the Wrexham family as Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney are part of a group buying the Colombian club.
Enjoy the day, y’all.
There’s been a lot of stuff going on with DC United’s preseason.
Goff’s article from yesterday about signing Hearts’ Kye Rowles and a list of DC’s training camp roster:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2025/01/15/dc-united-kye-rowles/
Goff’s article from the day before about signing Nashville’s Costa Rican Randall Leal, with Nashville on the hook for the great bulk of his salary. Seems like they got Kliched.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2025/01/14/dc-united-randall-leal/
Plus, lots of noise about how MLS is about to allow more player sales (or trades for cash) between teams. Here’s an article about it from ProSoccerWire:
https://prosoccerwire.usatoday.com/story/sports/mls/2025/01/14/mls-cash-based-internal-transfer-system/77692888007/
I think it’s a bad idea for San Diego to make De Bruyne the center of their team for fitness reasons.
Imagine how much worse I’m guffawing at those courting Neymar?
Maybe they can convince him to use the league as prep for Brazil’a world cup campaign? Kind of insane for him to be asking for more than the GOAT himself.
I don’t even know if that carrot would give Neymar the discipline, or just the constitutional ability, to stay fit. He just doesn’t play! And it’s been a long time since he was truly dynamic
And as for the paycheck, you know Neymar just wants to cash in one more time while nursing out his contract with some boo boo
Mystery team for Neymar?
I wonder if they wear pink?
If someone wants to corner the market on reselling used jerseys of whatever team Neymar signs with in MLS, and focus on fans from other teams that want to wear them ironically when the signing is a disaster- your time is coming
I haven’t gotten a chance to watch this myself yet, but if you can’t get enough of Hal Hershfelt and want to see her interviewed by Sam Mewis (who is consistently excellent at this sort of thing), here’s a 37 minute video for you!
https://youtu.be/8363RFRer6M?si=kMqgebHos5gbZQHD
Finally got to watch it today, and I regret to inform y’all that Hal is cooler than all of us
11 years ago today we traded the #1 pick to the Union who took Andre Blake for the #2 pick that we drafted Birnbaum with.
We did have Bill Hamid 11 years ago, so, fair enough