Krikorian leaves Spirit, Courtois leaves Montreal, and more: Tuesday Freedom Kicks
Happy Tuesday, everyone! We didn’t get quite the Monday gift we were hoping for yesterday, but today is a new day. Here’s some of the news we did get.
Mark Krikorian, who helped shape the Spirit into an NWSL power, steps down (Washington Post $)
Some surprising news from yesterday morning: Mark Krikorian is stepping down as Washington Spirit’s GM and President of Soccer Operations. A longtime soccer coach, he was seen as the source of their success in acquiring young talent and was the one to recommend Tara McKeown’s switch to center back.
USWNT to face Ireland in June friendlies (Stars and Stripes FC)
The friendlies will take place in Commerce City, CO and Cincinnati, OH.
CF Montréal part ways with Laurent Courtois (MLS)
Sharing in large part so I can include this fact from Tom Bogert: “This club has not once in their history had a manager begin a third full season on the job.”
What should be DC United’s third kit inspiration? (The District Press)
Donald’s got some ideas about where D.C. United should look for ideas for their third kit. I’m a cherry blossom fan, personally.
If you have some money left over in your jersey budget, let me direct your attention to this fun one in support of local soccer-related non-profit DC Scores:
NWSL investigating ‘hateful language’ toward Banda at Gotham FC match (Pro Soccer Wire)
Action to protect the players is definitely needed here, especially after the league remained silent when Banda received a wave of racist and transphobic abuse late last year.
That’s all for now. Have a good Tuesday!
Sorry to the news stories presented, I gotta start here instead.
Christian Pulisic, in the context of coming 4th in the CONCACAF nations league, quote: “I mean, of course we’re disappointed. Um, it’s not the end of the world for us, now we have to go and… um, we all have our clubs to focus on and a lot of big things ahead, so, I’m not overly negative about the situation. It’s difficult, we’re not at our best… and that’s it.”
My immediate reaction is Scar out of context. “Run away, Simba.”
What a fucking joke we put so much faith in him to at least care about the national team. What an insult to how the fans are feeling who watched this debacle. Honestly disgraceful.
He also said something mealy mouthed about how he hopes the fans support us still, and even negated the idea that the US should fight harder and be more aggressive, saying something about having better ideas than the opponent. No, you gotta fight, my dude.
I’m so completely livid.
And this is the reason, regardless of how many folks disagree with me, I always point out that Donovan continues to be the US best football player ever. Talent alone isn’t what makes an excellent player, Donovan had fight, pride and passion. Pulisic is often lacking on that department.
I do think Donovan badly damaged his own legacy by going on a sight seeing tour to find himself again during qualifying for 2014, and then expected to come right back for the World Cup. Don’t get me wrong, I would have taken him for sporting reasons, but it was not the act of someone who cared more about the team than himself.
Not in my eyes. Donovan, as I understand, deals with depression. He knew himself enough to know that he needed to take care of his demons. I don’t think anyone should sacrifice their mental stability for anything that isn’t life or death. Donovan had already given a lot to the national team. Klinsmann was an a-s for leaving him out.
If he wanted to take care of his demons, as you say, he should have retired for mental health reasons. Even if the picture you paint is accurate, the optics of going on vacation while qualification wasn’t certain and then being immediately ready to return when it was, that’s not something you should do.
Did you care when Tim Howard took a year off the National Team to spend more time with his family? Jurgen didn’t have a problem with that, he welcomed him back when he was ready to play.
I don’t even remember that, and that’s likely cuz we had other goalkeepers and the timing wasn’t as dreadful nor as damaging.
Without divulging a lot of personal info, I truly believe mental health is the most important thing for anyone, cuz nothing is really possible without it. Donovan shouldn’t have put the team in the situation of having him only being available for the cycle when he felt the pressure off and the scenario appealing. I don’t really buy your framing.
All that said, I would have taken Donovan to the 2014 WC, and started him. That’s cuz Donovan was the lead singer of the band, and you have to forgive a lot to succeed on the field if that’s the case. I remember reading a lot at the time about his disappearance, and it sounded like an existential thing, to be sure, but there’s nothing really to indicate that the depths you’re implying was the case. He advertised where he went and the things he did. That’s not the act of someone too depressed to function. At the time, it sounded like he was grappling with whether he still wanted the sport, and where his place was in all of it. That’s a choice, but I do think it’s fair to criticize when you’re back for the plane ticket.
I think part of the disparity here has got to be just generational differences in the players, and how those players are brought into the National Team. This has got to be the largest set of players that are essentially locked-in to being called up (when healthy) that the US has had probably ever (Pulisic, McKennie, Adams, etc.). These are players that are getting called up because they’re very good at soccer, especially at the club level. They’re not guys that are noteworthy because they play on the national team, they’re noteworthy independent of the national team. That, coupled with the fact that a lot of these guys also went to Europe essentially as soon as they could, and I’d argue were also raised in a time of not particularly high patriotism, means that they’re not necessarily that invested into the national team. Most of them are clearly more concerned with their club teams, the job that they get paid millions of dollars to do, and I honestly can’t really blame them for that.
Klinsman got a lot of crap when he was the coach about using dual-nationals. But in fairness, those guys were players who actively wanted to be part of a national team, and took the steps to get onto one. And I think that’s probably why you got more bite, energy, aggression from them. They wanted to play international soccer. Our current club team stars aren’t that worried about it. In a way, I think calling “lesser” players in could probably get you better results. Guys like Arriola come to mind, who was heartbroken to be left off the team. The man actively left DC United so he could have a better chance of being called up to the world cup, and then he just didn’t, because the Europe-based players who don’t care about the national team get called up instead. That’s the sort of player you’re going to get performances out of. They guys that want to be on the national team and want to prove that they can do it on the international level, regardless if those players are the “best” soccer players or not.
I’m fine with dual internationals, but I still loath thinking back to Timothy Chandler and his play. He was a talented crosser, but an incredibly lazy and unconcerned defender. If ever anyone didn’t give a shit about their impact on the national team vs. their club team, it was that asshole.
That said, most dual internationals have done a good job and cared.
Yeah that’s fair, there’s obviously been some stinkers on both sides of the argument. But I guess the general point is that in the past, the guys on the national team had to try to perform well and care because there wasn’t a huge gap in talent down to the next in line, generally speaking. It might just be time to start looking at players that want to be on the national team as opposed to just the best overall players on paper
Unfortunately, due to the actual depth at a lot of these positions, I don’t know if benching players like Pulisic is actually an effective strategy for better play, and leaving them with their clubs might just create a bigger rift.
It’s too late before the World Cup to really change the personnel in such drastic ways. The only real hope we have is Pochettino changing his attitude and lighting a serious fire under everyone’s ass. As I don’t think that’s likely, I think we’re just screwed.
A YouTuber I watched made an interesting point, that the US has tried to emulate the big sporting powers that they’ve eschewed the national sporting identity, and therefore lost quite a bit. I think if this team ran, fought, got stuck in, and were as hard to play against as the underdogs of the past, we would indeed be better than we’ve been, and possibly than we were in Donovan’s day. But, Pochettino isn’t exactly the person to instill that.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/44397617/ex-fifa-chief-sepp-blatter-michel-platini-cleared-corruption-case
Well, glad that’s all cleared up then. 😉
First, Annie I’m with you on the third jersey and the Cherry Blossoms. And what would be a nice touch would be to include a kite on the jersey. Why? The National Kite Festival used to be a big part of the Cherry Blossom Festival. And the National Park Service is no longer hosting it–evidently it’s perceived as wasteful and inefficient. The Cherry Blossom Festival has taken it over for now but it’s no longer a national event (where the NPS encouraged other kite festivals around the country). This was something uniquely DC that was part of our Cherry Blossom experience.
And yeah, Montreal just sucks as an organization. That’s one of the reasons DCU isn’t rock bottom in terms of ownership.
Regarding the state of the USMNT, I think there are a bunch of things going on here. I don’t think the Klinsman dual-national thinking (they “wanted” to be on the team) is completely accurate. In fact, that’s part of the criticism that Donovan had of many of them. I think the US is too dependent on some kind of playmaker/scheme so if Luna/Reyna isn’t on the field we either hope someone creates a goal with some nice skill. We don’t break down packed defenses well–too slow and ponderous. We don’t counter well (though we could). We don’t do well on set pieces. So we have to depend on a #10 to hit thru-balls or create chances with their passing.
Briefly on the playmaker point, I just think the other personnel we have requires it. We have some good strikers, some speedy dribblers, some quality central midfielders, but they’re not the best at unlocking themselves or each other. One playmaker does alleviate that situation. That’s not really the issue.
I think Jermaine Jones and Earnie Stewart were standout dual-nationals who clearly had tremendous fight in them when they wore the jersey, and maybe I’d add Thomas Dooley to that list, but that was also just how they always played.I don’t think I’d say that about others, Fabian Johnson, John Brooks, CCV, Chandler, Regis, Balogun, Green, and maybe even Jedi and Dest never seemed to exhibit that level of fight, but maybe it’s also personality.
I think it’s partly because the US in recent history has been one of the dominant powers in CONCACAF and people have forgotten that before 1990 we hadn’t gone to a world cup since 1950. The players today don’t have the experience of the US having to battle to be considered a dominant power in CONCACAF. They don’t necessarily feel the need to prove themselves when they put on the red, white, and blue.
Brooks and Johnson I thought started out quite well but definitely failed to demonstrate their best as time went on… I’m not willing to write off some of those current names (perhaps except for CCV simply because I think he’s overrated) yet. We do need better leadership on the field. Ream very well might fall off a cliff in athletic abilities shortly so I don’t think we can rely on him to provide that.
Guys!! And ladies…!
If you wanna see some serious filth, check out this filthy assist from Kristian Fletcher with the US U20s in Marbella.
https://x.com/usynt/status/1904278003162517665?s=46&t=MzqxyiFLS_dpe6CyEI0b8Q
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/44410096/nwsl-new-franchise-bos-nation-renamed-boston-legacy-fc