USMNT win despite drama, Spirit lose on the road, and more: Monday Freedom Kicks
Happy Monday y’all. Well…let’s hope the city gets back to some normalcy this week. There was tons of soccer this past weekend, so let’s get to it.
United States starts Gold Cup with big win, ends losing skid (ESPN)
After the terrible week that the USMNT had, including all the drama surrounding Pulisic not being on the team, the USMNT thrash Trinidad & Tobago 5-0 in their opening match of the Gold Cup.
Washington Spirit end road winning streak with 0-2 loss to Portland Thorns (DP)
Not a great game for the Spirit yesterday as they lose on the road in Portland. Jona Giraldez was ruled out last minute due to the birth of his second child.
Takeaways from Loudoun United’s 1st win over Detroit (DP)
I was at Segra on Saturday night to watch my Detroit City take on Loudoun United. It was an entertaining match, and Loudoun win 3-2.
Italy appoint World Cup winner Gennaro Gattuso as new manager (ESPN)
Gatt’s back! He takes over as Italy’s head coach.
DC United took another L on the road, this time at Real Salt Lake.
UFL championship game highlights: DC Defenders beat Michigan Panthers for first title (USA Today)
Not soccer related, but congrats to Audi Field roommates DC Defenders for winning the UFL Championship this weekend. Once again, they got it done at Audi West in St. Louis, beating the MIchigan Panthers and making it 2-for-2 this weekend for DC-area teams over Detroit teams.
Stay dry today.
I would not have bet that the better performance on Sunday would come from the USMNT rather than the Spirit, but that was certainly the case. Trinidad and Tobago were quite bad, but the Gold Cup starters hunted well in packs, got the goals, and showed more hunger than I’ve seen in some time. Morale boosting win that puts them in good position in the group hunt.
The Spirit had almost no feng shui toward goal. The patience comments were interesting from Gonzalez, but I honestly thought it was more about positioning and movement to make for passing structures going forward. Portland are a tough home team, and Coffey is a midfield grand admiral, but this was not the performance you want on CBS.
Credit to Pochettino for not doing anything too cute. Except for maybe starting Freese- he looked kind of hesitant out there. But the reasoning to get a potential GK some real game time is good enough for me. I don’t think he’s threatening Turner.
Jack Mcglynn as a sort of right winger was a little cute, but T&T were unable to really counter any of our weapons, or employ their own much.
It was smart I think. McGlynn could really thrive as an inverted player on the wing. Makes great use of that magnificent left foot.
From the young MLS players, I could see McGlynn, Luna, and Freeman securing spots for the WC roster. Maybe Agyemang — such a physical presence, like Dike, but with more speed — but he’s going to have to start producing. Berhalter’s set pieces are gorgeous, but don’t know if that will be enough.
I think Mcglynn will likely take whatever central spot Berhalter would be vying for.
I do think that Jack is so left footed, he won’t be as effective against a number of opponents on the wing, but it certainly worked fine against T&T. He’s a quality central option, though.
Love that description of Coffey! She was so good at frustrating Spirit’s attempts to move the ball, but they were mostly critical of themselves, and they should have been! Very low-energy performance.
Thanks. Midfield general didn’t seem far enough
On Saturday evening, Old Glory DC visited the Chicago Hounds in the Eastern Conference Semifinal. Old Glory DC lost 27-16. They had the lead 16-10 at the half, but then got shut out in the 2nd half. Very much a tale of two halves. OGDC was dominant in the first half had 73% possession played the half pretty much in Chicago’s half, but only managed to get 9 pts off 3 penalty kicks from all that pressure. Then Chicago scored a try off an interception line break and converted it to go up 10-9. Then as time was expiring in the first half, Chicago’s kick to touch on a penalty didn’t make it touch and Old Glory DC struck quickly to score a try and converted it to go up 16-10 at half. Then Chicago just came firing out of the gates and never looked back. Chicago’s strong defense and 187 tackles with an 87% success rate shows it.
LaLiga Presidnet Javier Tabias wants to “eliminate” the Club World Cup.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/45529862/laliga-president-tebas-wants-club-world-cup-eliminated