Washington Spirit rumors, MLS players to watch in transfer window, and more: Friday Freedom Kicks
Happy Friday, everyone! I want to start by saying thank you to everyone who reached out to volunteer to help with Freedom Kicks. Keeping the site running is a labor of love for us, and we really appreciate the willingness from our readers to help out and step up. (Commenters and regular readers, we love you too!)
Now, let’s get to the Kicks! I’ve got a few different things spotlighting local players today, as well as some silly season content.
Washington Spirit coach Giraldez reportedly in talks over OL Lyonnes move (Pro Soccer Wire)
TV3 in Catalonia reported yesterday that Jona Giráldez is “more than likely” going to be leaving Washington for Olympique Lyon Lyonnes, another team owned by Michele Kang, and L’Equipe has confirmed these reports. After all the fanfare surrounding his hire last year, immediately sending him off to France is going to raise a lot of questions about Kang’s priorities.
News from Liga MX Femenil: Is Lizbeth “The Magician” Ovalle headed to the Washington Spirit? (All for XI)
Some signing rumors for the summer trade window. Ovalle would be a very good pick-up for the Spirit, but they would have to do some international slot juggling to both sign her and bring back Ouleye Sarr from injury.
MLS players to watch during the summer transfer window (Givemesport)
I don’t expect any of these players will be heading to DC, but we can speculate!
How Loudoun United’s Abdellatif Aboukoura became the USL Championship’s next breakout star (USL Championship)
Abdellatif Aboukoura talks about his offseason training while visiting family in Dubai and how it helped him and Loudoun United have a breakout season.
Tara McKeown spoke with Sam Mewis on the Women’s Game about her transition to playing center back for the USWNT, missing her sister’s wedding for a Spirit playoff match, and how she defends against some of the best forwards in the league.
Sunland Park’s Luis Barraza’s time finally arrives as No. 1 keeper for DC United (El Paso Times)
Luis Barraza spoke with his hometown paper about his path to DC and becoming the starting goalkeeper.
Late Gabriel Pirani goal salvages 1-1 draw for DC United (The DP)
In case you missed it, D.C. United finally broke their scoreless streak in their mid-week match against New England.
Five DC Power Football Club Players Called Up to Respective National Teams (DC Power FC)
DC Power may not be the biggest (or best) women’s team in the city, but they have plenty to boast about, with five players called to international duty during the current friendlies window. (No need to ask how many the Spirit have. This isn’t a contest!)
Finally, here’s the schedule of events for the weekend. It’s another big Saturday, with D.C. United, Loudoun United, and DC Power FC all playing that evening.
| Teams | When | Where | Watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| DC Defenders vs. St. Louis Battlehawks | Fri., May 30 at 8:30 p.m. ET | Washington, DC | Fox |
| Loudoun United FC vs. Louisville City FC | Sat., May 31 at 6 p.m. ET | Leesburg, VA | ESPN+ |
| Old Glory DC vs. RFC Los Angeles | Sat., May 31 at 6 p.m. ET | Boyds, MD | ESPN+ |
| DC Power FC vs. Lexington SC | Sat., May 31 at 7 p.m. ET | Lexington, KY | Peacock |
| D.C. United vs. FC Cincinnati | Sat., May 31 at 7:30 p.m. ET | Cincinnati, OH | Apple TV |
As I said in the comment section Andre’s piece, I truly would think it a shitty move by Kang to transfer Giraldez away. This smacks of “getting a good manager of your primary restaurant to open the franchise location” thinking, and it’s shitty to do in sports in a multi club model. Maybe Giraldez is open to this, but I doubt there was a door knock from him. If she can’t get a good coach for Lyonnes, how does she find a suitable replacement for the Spirit? Bad form.
From a reputation standpoint, it’s bad news all around. From a sporting perspective, as long as Adrian Gonzalez stays and gets the same level of support, we should be ok. He did a great job in what was supposed to be a “keeping the seat warm” role. I’d expect the ladies to continue performing well (and perhaps even improving if Gonzalez sees things differently from a defensive perspective).
I’ve seen others say in the past that Kang should buy DC United. I’ve always been against that idea, and this really solidifies that. She’s ambitious and seems to care, sure, but moving successful players or coaches to other teams you own, in addition to completely changing the Spirit’s color scheme (which in fairness, I like the new colors better. Red white and blue are just too overdone in US sports, regardless of how well it may fit the area. But I’d be pissed if some new owner came into DC and changed the team colors to Purple and Orange or something), just really doesn’t sit well with me. It’s really starting to look like the Man City/Red Bull set up.
Also, awesome that you’re highlighting Tara’s Women’s Game interview. Sam Mewis is crazy talented at this media thing, upbeat and energetic yet exceedingly savvy and incisive in getting the real scoop- her interview with Lily Yohannes basically broke Lily’s USWNT leanings a year in advance with a well placed question. Great way to get insight into players!
So do we think we can pull Abdellatif Aboukoura up to DCU?
Does he want to come here? Do we have the talent to help him shine with us relative to the defenders he’ll be playing against?
I know he’s come up in discussion on here recently, but Goff shared a bit of insight on Barajas in the replies of a Bluesky thread before Wednesday’s game. Someone asked him what the deal is with Barajas and why he isn’t getting any minutes. This was Goff’s response:
“There shouldn’t have been any expectation of him playing much, if any. He was a short-term, free loan after Chivas couldn’t persuade anyone to pay them a fee. Playing time is earned in training, and he clearly hasn’t impressed. Young player, future TBD.”
That definitely makes it seem like he’ll be on the way out after the loan expires, and won’t be coming back. Definitely doesn’t seem warranting of one of the U22 spots, at least.
Yeah. I think he’s got potential. He performed very well in USL (which Troy and Ally clearly like), and Chivas paid $4 million to get him from RSL. It would be great to be able to tuck him away and develop him, but a) extending his loan or acquiring him outright would be prohibitively expensive, and b) United doesn’t really have any mechanism to develop young players, nor does it have a recent history of successfully developing young players.
If he had showed better, I think it would have made some sense to sign him as a U-22 player. As it stands, it would certainly make more sense to send him back when his loan is up.
Goff mentions that Hakim Karamoko is being loaned to Loudoun. In Troy’s last press conference, he mentioned that Murrell was the only healthy #9 on the roster, which did seem kind of like Karamoko erasure. At any rate, the move makes sense. United should have an MLS Next PRO team which is where Karamoko would be getting minutes, but without that, Loudoun is the next best option. He wasn’t making the roster, even with Murrell being the only guy. Kristian Fletcher is playing as the backup #9.
Of course, the news is that there’s also no real timetable for Christian Benteke’s return. Badji should be back before long, but still.
Speaking of, United will be missing Fletcher along with Rowles, Peltola, Herrera, and Enow due to international call ups and none of them will be here for the Chicago game. Badji might be back, but there’s no backup for Murrell then. We’re also looking at a DM pairing of Servania and Kijima.
Still kind of astonishing that a team as trash as we are will be missing five players due to international call ups. That’s not even counting Joon, who has gotten call ups in the past.
I’d be willing to bet he gets called back up to fill the bench at some point in the not-to-distant future. For his own sake and Loudoun’s I hope he gets to stay a while though.
My brain has been completely broken re. MLS roster mechanisms this year. When the window opens up, I know we don’t have a lot of GAM, but we could still theoretically acquire a player from within MLS for straight cash, right? The way that Colorado got Ted Ku-DiPietro. Maybe none of those players that GiveMeSport mentions will find their way here, but theoretically we could be going after somebody.
That is correct, yes. Though, if it it takes a lot of cash, they may still need the GAM to buy down that player if they don’t want him to be a DP
It would seem like that would be something they’d care more about next year.
Sometimes I look at our roster, and realize that a distressingly high number of players are locked in for next year, or should have their options picked up. It makes it kind of hard to see where improvement will come from.
The good news is that United should have at least one DP slot open with Klich’s contract finally running out. They may sign another DP in the summer (may or may not be Pogba), but if they don’t, that’s two DP slots available. And given the increasing length of Benteke’s injury absence, I’m coming around more on the idea of not picking up his option (I’m not there yet, just daydreaming). The cast of characters that we have on the roster are all kind of decent supporting cast players, but without any difference makers. There’s just Benteke, and he’s injured.
So we could have three difference makers in addition to this roster next year, and I would also be of the opinion that we decline Pirani’s option, which would allow us to sign two more U-22 players too. They’re not necessarily difference makers, but they could have some good upside in talent (Marc Machado just wrote a Substack about this). It is up to Mackay to hit on all of those new signings, but it could get us back to respectability pretty quickly. In addition to the potential quality of those signings, they could theoretically serve as force multipliers to guys like Peglow and Kijima. We also NEED to have MLS Next PRO up and functioning by next year. That’s the biggest key to any of it. None of our young guys (or older guys either, except for maybe Benteke winning the Golden Boot) have shown much improvement under the current regime. Being able for guys like Karamoko, Turner, Barajas, and others to get those competitive minutes is invaluable. Maybe only one of them would pan out, but that’s more than the zero that are panning out currently. It also provides a definite pathway for development, which could allow us to sign the Aboukoura’s of the world. Maybe even some of our deeper draft picks could come good.
Sigh.
I would just like to be good.
So I tagged Andrew Wiebe Wednesday night on X asking about the tackle on Enow in the 23′. He looked at it on Instant Replay on YouTube yesterday and thinks its a straight red all day long as does most of the comments section on the video.
I’m still shocked that VAR didn’t even recommend a second look. It’s one thing if its recommended and the ref decides to stick with his call, but how does that not even get reviewed?
I’m not planning on doing a match thread for this, but if anyone is interested/needs some background noise, the USWNT U-23s (including Washington’s Makenna Morris) are playing Germany at 12:30. Available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/tbw_Vq3hfuQ
Makenna started at right back. US up 1-0 at the half.
Sorry I’ve been bouncing between meetings and unable to watch.
Riley Tiernan coming on, seems kinda mean to Germany. I’ve been extremely impressed by her in NWSL
Although I will say, Germany are just tough. Impressive to have gotten that positive game state, but they make it so difficult
Looks like Chloe Ricketts won’t see the field this game. Goodness, this age group is deep
Germany with a very impressive score to tie it up. Think it’s deserved, will be interesting to see how it finishes
US seem to have struggled to contain the right side of their defense without McKenna Morris. So, success for her?
US lost a lot of feng shui going forward with the substitutes, not good enough passing progression
But, long diagonal from Jordan Bug finds Evelyn Shaw’s masterful finish
Chloe’s with the U-20s, who were playing Guyana this afternoon. They won 8-0, but Chloe indeed did not see the field.
Oh, wow, got my wire crossed. Also, that’s still crazy depth
MLS All Star voting is open: https://www.mlssoccer.com/allstar/2025/vote/
Sadly I can’t really think of any DCU player who deserves to be an all star.
Pirani made the bench for Team of the Matchday: https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/team-of-the-matchday-atlanta-united-philadelphia-union-boosted-by-late-game-drama-md16