DC United draws Chicago, Naomi Girma injured, and more: Monday Freedom Kicks
Happy Monday, folks. Let’s cycle right into the news from the weekend, starting in Chicago:
INSANE bicycle kick: Jacob Murrell saves DC United in stoppage time (MLS)
DC United draw 2-2 with the Chicago Fire after Jacob Murrell has a ridiculous bicycle kick to level things in the 6th minute of second half stoppage.
USWNT defender Girma injured on Chelsea debut (PSW)
Naomi Girma made her Chelsea debut, but had to sub off early after her calf that was injured didn’t feel right. Hoping it was just a precaution.
The Spirit First Look was this weekend, and it was a great time! I was only able to go out for a while due to work, but I’m so so proud that the Hey Spirits crew was a huge part of the program!
Can’t be happier for Annie, André, and Ella for all the work they put in and seeing it recognized on this level!
San Diego FC had their inaugural home match, but the joy of seeing their new team for the first time was overshadowed by the embarrassment of repeatedly doing The Chant. They need to take the steps right now to ensure it never happens again.
The Houston Dynamo played Inter Miami, but Lionel Messi didn’t make the trip. That prompted this message to fans:
Let’s have a good week.
That really sucks for San Diego. I wonder if PRO and MLS will have to go the FIFA route, of 1st time warning issued, 2nd time play is stopped and players sent to their locker rooms, and a 3rd time the match can be abandoned. I think that’d be a little steep, but it might be what’s needed to get that chant to stop.
I think this is going to be a larger issue. Here’s why: Mexico has tried to crack down on this with some degree of success (I said “some”). I think for a variety of reasons, San Diego has a lot of “fans” who will attend games who really aren’t strong fans of the team. They’re Mexican fans of Hirving Lozano. Or they Mexicans glad to pick up a decent match. But my point is that I think a significant percentage of the fans for San Diego engaged in this chant don’t care about the team. They don’t care about if the match is stopped. Or the fans get shut out. Or the match abandoned.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6168153/2025/03/02/time-wasting-law-change-football/
Interesting. I wonder if this different sanction for an infraction might result in tighter enforcement of the rule.
I’m just wondering how much it’ll be enforced.
It is open for gamesmanship (fake injury while holding the ball, for a cheap and cynical example)
I may have missed it, but can we talk more about that first Chicago goal? I think to many of us, the way that Chicago boxed our keeper out seemed like an obvious foul. But the commentators in real time didn’t seem concerned, and the MLS recap show didn’t call it out. I know the ref waited for it to be reviewed, so guessing we’re missing an interpretation here, but hoping someone here is a ref and can explain why the pick was ok.
It wasn’t just a pick it was moving screen like in basketball (where it’s an offensive foul).
My view on it was even if what the Chicago player did wasn’t explicitly a foul or foul-worthy, he was still influencing the play from an offsides position, so it should have been called back for that. Regardless if there’s contact or not, he’s still offside and he’s still impacting the play in some way. I’ve seen plenty of goals called back for less “influence” than what he had
To me, it’s just a plain foul when based on the game and how it actually plays out. You cannot prevent the goalie from moving from a five foot square by boxing them out and containing them with your full torso and both arms. That’s bullshit. The only reason it wasn’t called is because DC United isn’t viewed as enough of an entity to worry if we’re being screwed. That’s why no commentary will say anything about it, hell, they barely mention Benteke and his goals.
Absolutely. I’ll clarify to say that I think it was also a foul, but just wanted to note that it should have been called back for offsides regardless if the foul was actually there or not.
The offsides angle is an interesting one — Bamba was certainly influencing play at the outset, but did Elliott make contact with the ball when he tried to head it on to Cuypers? If Elliott clearly did, then maybe Bamba’s position becomes offside. I’m unclear if he’s offside, if Elliott didn’t touch it. He’s allowed to be there during the corner kick. Does it become offside the moment Cuypers touches the ball? At that point, even if Bamba is ahead of the play (is he? — Cuypers was nearly at the goal line himself), he’s no longer influencing the play. He already pushed Kim back into the goal, before Cuypers gets there.
I’m more interested in seeing that sort of play just ruled foul play. As I wrote on Saturday night, as a Tottenham Spurs®️ fan, I seethed as week after week, opposing teams manhandled Spurs’ slight goalie Guilhermo Vicario on corner kicks, resulting in goal after goal. Refs refused to call a foul on any of the plays. Certainly players have a right to be there, but they’re not trying to play the ball. They’re either just trying to screen Vicario to keep him from playing the ball, or even physically hip-checking him, backing him into the goal.
For me, that’s a clear foul, or it should be. In contrast, If the goalie is able to get up into the air, and then crashes into an attacking player who is trying to play the ball, for some reason refs will always call a foul on the attacking player. I think that’s all ass backwards.
I have two takes on it. First of all, Bamba wasn’t “playing the ball” so his movement was clearly interference. If he’s legitimately playing the ball, he can screen the keeper. But he isn’t playing the ball. Second, he was offside. You can make either call and that goal doesn’t stand.
I personally think it was definitely a foul and shouldn’t stand, but to play devil’s advocate.
Bamba’s original screen of Kim, where he extends his arm, happens when the ball is first played in from the corner kick. At this time, he is not offside because you can’t be offside on a corner. Then the question is if he obstructs Kim after Elliot has glanced the ball onwards. It happens so fast that it’s hard to determine when the screen ends but an argument can be made that he doesn’t move to obstruct Kim during/after the flick.
I personally think that Bamba 100% obstructs Kim and Chicago benefits from his being offside. But Kim needs to do a better job of selling this in the future or he’s going to keep getting bullied.
So Messi is yet to suit up at Buzzard Point. Will DC United give me free tickets?
Kudos to Houston on the gesture.
Forget Messi. DCU ought to give you free tickets for calling our home “Buzzard Point” — correcting a huge branding mistake.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/44092955/mls-power-rankings-no-lionel-messi-no-problem-inter-miami-goes-no-1
Megan Swanick of ESPN has DCU moved up to 25th from 28th in her power rankings after week 2.
Matt Doyle says that Murrell’s bicycle kick should be a contender for goal of the year.
https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/wilfried-zaha-delivers-san-jose-s-seismic-shift-more-from-matchday-2
Also, duh.
Jacob Murrell is recognized as one of the top young players for week 2:
https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/young-players-who-stepped-up-on-matchday-2
Plus he gets the Energy Moment of the Matchday:
https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/jacob-murrell-s-acrobatics-rescue-dc-united-energy-moment-of-the-matchday
Our next two games are against teams that are winless (actually have 0 points) after two. This might engender hope in some, for me, it’s simple: We need to beat one of them. SKC or Montreal. If we cannot, I don’t think this squad can play the catch up game they would almost certainly be playing when the games start coming thick and fast.
We need to get three points, both mathematically and for morale. Even draws likely don’t do us much good. We gotta go for it.
Lucas Bartlett’s 19 year old brother plays for SKC. Brace yourself for the Bartlett Derby!
Don’t distract me with these fun pleasantries, 😂. Seriously, though, I think we’re in really bad shape if we can’t get to at least five points with a win under our belt after these four games. These are pickups. I fear we’re over the barrel if we can’t get going.
Agreed. We were THIS CLOSE to picking up just one point against Toronto and Chicago. That’s not good.
We’ve also gone nearly a calendar year without keeping a clean sheet, and our only home win since last April was against Nashville, one of the worst teams last year.
I want to add something else about the DCU match and the two goals we game up. First one, my thoughts are below–it should have been whistled “no goal” for either a foul against the keeper by Bamba or offside on Bamba. The second goal, Peltola is ball watching. It literally stops tracks Cuypers allowing a tap in. OK, I get, early in the season players are rusty, you expect some sloppiness. But one of the most basic things for a CB is: run with the guy you’re assigned to on a corner or free kick in the box because you have to figure that the players the CBs are assigned to are targets for any corner or free kick. That failure by Peltola (and he was off Cuypers by about 6 feet) wasn’t just about a step. He blew that badly.
I think DCU can compete this year with a couple of “if’s”. Benteke needs to stay healthy. Our GK needs to show he’s ready for prime time (some good signs of that). And our defense doesn’t have to set records but we can’t be as sloppy as we were last year. Fewer goals in transition, fewer goals when someone goes to sleep (ala Peltola on the second Cuypers score). So far, we’re off to a bad start this season in that regard.
I’d note that Peltola was playing as a DM at the time, and that bleeds into my larger point. I don’t know how you can play a 4-2-3-1 and not protect your backline better than this. Our double pivot has been pathetic at it.
On the other hand, of the four goals we’ve allowed, only 1 has been from open play. But yeah, Peltola and Servania were basically solely responsible for at least two of those goals.
For the second goal, it looked to me like Peltola thought that he had passed Cuypers onto Rowles. Which would have been an okay play if Peltola had moved closer to the goal to free Rowles up to step backwards. Either way, they clearly need more drilling on set pieces.
Peltola wasn’t playing CB, and I think he was expecting Rowles to slide over to Cuypers. Instead Rowles did nothing on that play — didn’t even help Kim avoid yet another screen.
Still, I agree that Peltola shouldn’t have left his marking on Cuypers.
I have to admit that Chris Brady, Chicago’s goalie, making Team of the Week makes sense. I think he single handedly kept DCU from winning the game there at the end sans Benteke’s missed PK.
https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/team-of-the-matchday-luis-suarez-emil-forsberg-answer-the-call
I went through and compiled a bunch of stats on our SuperDraft picks (from 2000 onwards). Jacob Murrell has the most goals scored and most goal contributions from a SuperDraft pick since… Steve Birnbaum in 2014.
The question on my mind is whether Murrell is on a Patrick Mullins trajectory, or whether he might end up more like Pontius. If my addition wasn’t too sloppy, Mullins had 16 goal involvements for DCU, and Pontius had 48.
It’s obviously too early to really tell, but I think he’ll probably be closer to Pontius just because he’s already shown that he can play in multiple positions.
Strictly going by goal involvements though, Mullins was decent value. He played less than 50 games for us so 16 contributions isn’t too shabby. He just had the misfortune to be replaced by Mattocks (whose speed better fit Bennyball) and then when Rooney came he didn’t have the versatility to be kept compared to Mattocks.
Instant Replay didn’t review the first Chicago goal or the pk.
Source?
I was sure the PK was being reviewed, based on what the ref was doing. A clear handball, but I think it should have been a red card. Not necessarily clear DOGSO, but such a blatant handball foul to stop a shooting chance that it should just be a red card.
Instant Replay = Matt Doyle on YouTube reviewing controversial calls from the weekend. I didn’t mean the VAR. Simon Borg used to do it. And Calen Carr used to join Matt Doyle, but so far this season its just Matt Doyle.
https://youtu.be/nuav4I0GBMs?si=KReedGji00OjZB1w
It’s Andrew Wiebe now. And he mostly takes suggestions on what to review from comments on twitter. I need to remember to ping him on Bluesky next week.