DC Power lose, Tierna Davidson teas ACL, and more: Thursday Freedom Kicks
Welcome to Thursday, y’all. I’m headed to the Final Four! While I hit the friendly skies, here’s a short set of links:
DC Power loses road match to Dallas Trinity on Chioma Ubogagu free kick (DP)
DC Power fought hard, but a Chioma Ubogagu 1st half free kick goal was the difference in a 1-0 Dallas Trinity win.
USWNT, Gotham FC defender Davidson suffers torn ACL (PSW)
We feared the worst, and it was confirmed yesterday: Tierna Davidson will miss the rest of 2025 with a torn ACL. Incredibly sad for her, but hope she’s back on the field healthy as soon as she can.
MLS Fantasy Focus: Gorgeous Djordje (DP)
Rick gives us the latest winners in MLS Fantasy as well as who you could look to add for this weekend’s matches.
USMNT’s Tyler Adams: Promotion-relegation would improve MLS (ESPN)
Tyler Adams wants MLS to join the USL in setting up promotion-relegation. We’ll see if more players who came up through the league start to speak out in favor of the system used by most of the rest of the world.
Zambia withdraws four NWSL players, citing U.S. travel policy (PSW)
Zambia’s 4 NWSL players – Barbra Banda, Prisca Chilufya, Grace Chanda, and Rachael Kundananji – will not go on international duty because they have concerns about them having issues returning to the United States. Which is, quite frankly, maddening that they have to consider that now.
Can Mauricio Pochettino lead the USMNT to World Cup glory? (SSFC)
I opine on whether Poch is the guy that can take the USMNT to the World Cup title next year. It’s all part of a new hub that SB Nation has set up called Football Frenzy, featuring several articles by yours truly!
Enjoy the weekend.
Re: Zambian players
That’s incredibly depressing, and the world we’re tariffing is gonna love coming here next summer. Oy vey.
Yeah, I keep thinking about all the new international players the Spirit have signed. I’d love to know what the team and league are doing to protect them.
It’s incredible how things are souring toward women in general. Seems that both targeting and exclusion is happening where it counts, and it’s sickening.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/44515026/uk-set-host-2035-women-world-cup-rival-bids-drop-out
US will host 2031. This is gonna be wild. Mens World Cup 2026. Women’s World Cup in summer 2031. Men’s Rugby World Cup in Fall 2031. Women’s Rugby World Cup in Fall 2033.
Loudoun United defeated Viriginia Dream 4-2 last night in the Open Cup.
It was a fun time, too. To put it charitably, it was a light crowd, but it turned into a really good cup matchup, mainly in the second half. Loudoun was up 1-0 at the half, and hadn’t really been tested, but VA Dream scored early in the second half and it ramped up a lot after that. Goals were exchanged, with Loudoun always getting the goal to go ahead every time the Dream tied it up. Ben Mines put Loudoun back up 2-1. Our old friend Pedro Santos had an assist on the first goal and should have had more, Zach Ryan had a brace, Ben Mines had a goal and two assists, the second to put the game away at 4-2 in stoppage time.
There were a couple of testy moments, and Loudoun had to sub on reinforcements in the second half (Zach Ryan came on after the VA Dream goal, and other normal starters came on as well). All in all, it was an enjoyable game to watch. Didn’t provide a cupset, but the amateur team more than held their own.
It was a shame not too many people were there, but I get it. I always have fun going to games like this, but we lucked out being able to go. If it was the Tuesday window of cup games instead of Wednesday, my son would have been at soccer practice instead of going to this with me, later in the week there’s both soccer and his school theater – mid week games during the school year are a tough sell. I wish there was an easy solution for it (that owners would agree to – clearing a few weekends for these would help but leagues don’t want their games moved to midweek either).
For me the issue was 6:30 start time and I had a commitment at 7 that I’d made previously.
I scrolled thru the Youtube video and watched the goals. Pedro Santos still has got it. Nice corner kick service, including the assist on the first goal. Had a hockey assist or two later in the game. Not sure why he’s doing this…
Probably trying to get game time to keep up match fitness.
I was happy to see the Des Moines Menace go down.
I was happy to see the project, but unfortunately, the Menace scored only 3 PK goals, and not one of them should have been allowed to survive VAR review, if that had been available — one offside in the build-up, one handball in the build-up, and last night a total dive by Feilhaber, when the defender stupidly reached out to Benny’s arm after Feilhaber got around him. That was gross. and so unnecessary.
Wild finish in Lewiston ME, as the hometown Portland Hearts of Pine rallied late in extra time. The team was playing it’s second game ever — pretty uneventful except for a couple of great chances for Hearts of Pine in the 63rd minute — great save and then the rebound cleared off the line. In first extra time period, tho, Hearts of Pine’s ‘star’ striker took a completely idiotic 2nd yellow, just bowling over a defender away from the play, but not missed by the officials. Hartford scored off a corner kick on a chaotic sequence — ball was cleared off the line..almost, by a defender. Refs ruled correctly that the ball had crossed the line.
Hearts of Pine looked done, but in the 117th minute, a midfielder delivered a long ball that took a high bounce off the turf field, allowing the striker sub to get past 2 defenders and smartly hit a one time volley to chip the ball somehow over the onrushing Hartford goalie. Portland then won on PKs.
I love Hearts of Pine uniforms. Especially the home one with the dark green and dark blue hoops.
Yeah, it’s great. I picked up a scarf of theirs. And beating Hartford is no small feat.
Between my IRA and USMNT prospects, I think a bottle of scotch will escort me on the golf course this afternoon.
Poch has the challenge of making us respectable. I would love to win it all, but that won’t happen.
I am off to Scotland in May. Leading a column in the 900th Anniversary of Edinburgh. Break out that kilted uniform, Wee Boy. Bringing my host Virginia (KO Distillery, Manassas) Gin and “Bourbon” Whisky. Should I buy today on the way to golf to avoid tariffs on The Commonwealth of Virginia?
Belle Isle Distillery has some nice stuff if you can find any at the ABC.
We’re stuck with Pochettino unless he skips town on his own, so may as well wish him luck. But I am concerned he can’t instill two things the team has been missing since Callaghan’s brief tenure – consistent hustle and a system that works for our best players. It doesn’t have to look beautiful like prime Barca or run everyone ragged like Klopp’s old teams, as long as it makes sense for us. The players don’t really seem to have a high enough soccer IQ to just make it up on their own with limited instruction.
Paraphrasing Bruce A., per Landon’s recollection – a coach is not there to coach effort, that is on the players. They are professional, aren’t they? But agree on not seeing enough coaching on tactics and/or a working system. Then again, how many games has he actually had with his A team? 3? 4? Didn’t the USMNT had better showings when he was using MLS based players? I honestly think that regardless of how much fans believe this is their ‘golden generation’ the truth is that the current squad is lacking, regardless of who coaches them. Sort of like a lesser version of the current Brazil squad, a number of talented individual players but who don’t quite fit as a team.
The Quakes vs United game is highlighted on the league site as its a Sunday match and a clash of 2 MLS originals (though its not the original San Jose franchise that is now in Houston).
https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/matchday-7-what-to-watch-for-in-this-weekend-s-must-watch-matches
https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/san-jose-vs-dc-united-full-circle-moment-awaits-mls-originals