USMNT win, Alyssa Naeher wins Player of Year, and more: MLK Day Freedom Kicks
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” The words of Martin Luther King, Jr. resonate today even more than ever. As we pause to celebrate his memory, his legacy, and his work, let’s strive to continue to make his dream realized. It’s also Inauguration Day, but MLK Day is too important to set aside.
2025 January Friendly, USA 3-1 Venezuela: USMNT start off the New Year in Style (SSFC)
The USMNT got their 2025 off to a great start with a 3-1 win over Venezuela. They’re back on the field again on Wednesday.
USWNT’s Naeher named 2024 U.S. Soccer Female Player of the Year (PSW)
Alyssa Naeher is the U.S. Soccer Female Player of the Year, as she becomes just the second goalkeeper to win the award!
Ruben Amorim: We are being worst Man United team in history (ESPN)
Manchester United is, according to their manager, the worst team in the club’s history. They got a long way to go to right the ship.
Cole Palmer: Made in the Caribbean (BBC)
An interesting look at Cole Palmer and his St. Kitts & Nevis roots.
Enjoy the holiday, everyone.
Full throated endorsement of your MLK Jr. message. May his legacy never be forgotten nor washed away.
Goff reporting that DC United traded away an international roster slot. Hooray….
I continue to hope that they will deploy GAM to buy down Klich’s contract to below DP level. and take away that tag, so they can free up a DP slot. But, unless someone else gets a green card — Peltola? — they will need another international slot to get a foreign DP. Of course, they could bring back a US player from Europe.
If I understand what Goff printed earlier, we can’t buy down a player we don’t have anymore, whether that’s for writing off the contract or just getting it below DP level.
And we can infer from other news that the club likely knew that straight up buying him out would be an option, which the fans weren’t aware of at that time.
What I’m saying is, these owners would rather let the FO contort Klich’s status into an abomination than spending less than they sold Akinmboni for to make the team competitive.
Unless he’s written something newer and different than what I saw, Goff was reporting that the new 2 buyouts rule doesn’t apply to Klich…because buyout applies to a mutual termination of the contract by both parties…or if the contract is at an end (i.e., waived). That’s not this. Klich’s contract continues. I have asked Goff about the difference between a buyout and a buy down, but haven’t seen any response, other than to repost his post about the buyout rule, which is not what I was asking about.
However, as I read the DP rules and buy down rule again, there is a weird term in rules for DP and U22s, even before the change, which applies if the team trades a DP or U22. and as I reread it and think it through, it may prohibit shedding the DP label:
If a team wants to buy down a DP deal with GAM, it can but it can, but…
If Klich were on the team, it could remove DP that way, but is this different?
As I think about it, it may be that using GAM to shed the DP label, may also be a way to escape being “responsible for some or all future out of pocket costs.” That is, it would be using GAM to pay off the DP overage which clubs normally assume by signing a DP player above the salary maximum.
I can see why there would be a rule to limit gaming the out of pocket rules for a DP, but that principle weirdly would only apply if the team trades the player. Otherwise, it could use GAM to remove the label and thus NOT be responsible for “out of pocket costs.” I think — unless that’s just a roster Garberbucks trick, where the team still pays the salary portion above the league max, but frees up the slot, thereby effectively having an extra DP ? (See, e.g., Inter Miami?)
So, I’m still wondering if it means something different — that a team couldn’t just erase the label, at least not without also employing a mechanism to cease being “responsible for out of pocket costs.” In other words, could it use the GAM to get below the level where that rule applies — could they use the leagues money to get him to a level where the team is no longer responsible for any “out of pocket costs.” It’s unclear to me that the rule prohibits that. Such a prohibition would seem to be inconsistent with the availability of GAM, if the team still has the player on its roster. But maybe not — maybe teams still have to pay out of pocket costs in both cases?
It’s just weird that a DP would have to remain a DP somewhere, if he’s traded, but as to a DP player on the roster, a club could unilaterally scrub that with GAM. Why can’t a team do that with a ghost roster spot when it trades the DP?
Astrophysicists probably think MLS roster rules are more complex than the stuff they study.
Actually the rules are simple:
-Miami can do anything they want with full league support
-Everyone else can go pound sand