D.C. United and DC Power FC hire new coaches, USL midseason awards, and more: Friday Freedom Kicks
Happy Friday! We’ve got a lot of news for a Friday, including two new head coaches and some trade rumors. There should be even more this weekend, as the Euros and WAFCON continue and are joined by the Copa América Femenina! I recommend today’s match between Spain and Italy for a sneak peak at Washington Spirit’s Sofia Cantore while she tries to help Italy advance to the knock-out rounds.
D.C. United set to hire Swiss coach René Weiler to replace Troy Lesesne (Washington Post $)
In news-you’ve-probably-already-heard, D.C. United’s new coaching hire looks to be René Weiler. We’ll see how he does, but this detail isn’t a confidence booster: “Since July 2009, he has guided eight clubs but just one for more than two years.”
It’s not the only move D.C. are looking to make. They’ve also reportedly made an offer to bring back Griffin Yow.
Unfortunately, Larry Henry at The Athletic reports this deal might be dead in the water.
DC Power hires Omid Namazi as head coach (The DP)
A new head coach for the new season for Power FC. They’ll be looking to Namazi to help them improve on a second-to-last place finish.
From infancy to Messi and beyond, MLS celebrates 30 seasons: What’s next? (USA Today)
At the 30-year mark, Jason Anderson takes a look at the current state of MLS and what could be next for the league.
Cast Your Ballot for the 2025 USL Championship Mid-Season Awards (USL Championship)
Loudoun United’s Ryan Martin and Abdellatif Aboukoura are up for midseason awards. Vote for them at the link above.
Ex-USWNT midfielder Tobin Heath retires: Broken-foot goals, slugs and building new worlds (The Athletic $)
Truly the end of an era. Three years after her last game, Tobin Heath finally announced her retirement from soccer. She was an incredible player to watch, and I’m sorry she couldn’t go out with the fanfare she deserved.
Statement from Atlanta United re: President and Chief Executive Officer Garth Lagerwey
Best wishes to Garth as he fights cancer!
Is the U.S. too hot to handle the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup? (ESPN)
It probably is too hot for a summer tournament here! More reasonable game times (compared to the Club World Cup) would help, but they probably should’ve considered a winter tournament à la Qatar.
Finally, here’s the schedule of games for the weekend.
| Teams | When | Where | Watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| D.C. United vs. LA Galaxy | Sat., July 12 at 10:30 p.m. | Carson, CA | Apple TV |
| Loudoun United FC vs. Pittsburgh Riverhounds | Sun., July 13 at 5 p.m. | Pittsburgh, PA | ESPN+ |
Jason brings up a really interesting point in the argument for the calendar switch that hasn’t really been brought up before in prepping for climate change. As someone with a PhD in Atmospheric Science, I certainly respect that outlook, but I don’t think it’s as simple as that. While places like Houston, for example, are projected to get hotter and wetter summers, which helps the argument here, many of the northern states could be looking at colder, harsher winters to go along with warmer summers. So, while its a good consideration to have, I don’t think it really helps the overall argument of northern teams (and by that I mean anywhere north of like Atlanta) being screwed over by a calendar change.
I could see a calendar change being detrimental for teams like Minnesota, Kansas City, and Chicago’s (possibly Toronto and Montreal, not sure if their climate) ability to recruit foreign talent. When the USMNT played here in St. Paul it was 3 degrees with a -14 wind chill. Can’t see too many players wanting to deal with that when they could go elsewhere and have a better climate. For the rest of the the league I could see it being a bit of a toss up.
I’d certainly add New England, Colorado, and Salt Lake to that list as well, and maybe St. Louis. But even beyond attracting players, I’m thinking more about attracting fans to the stadiums, even in places like DC. Sure, no one really likes doing things when its 100 degrees outside, but that can at least be somewhat mitigated in stadiums by covering stands with roofs to block the sun and allowing for people to bring in water (which needs to be expanded, I’ll admit), but you can’t anywhere as easily mitigate freezing temperatures. Its not like you can tell fans they’re allowed to bring in one 16.9 ounce clear bottle of hot chocolate with them
This would be a crazy out there idea, but Canada does have a domestic league. Might an arrangement where Northern winter affected clubs band together with a more conducive schedule for them, and the rest of the American clubs go European schedule?
This would be a massively complex sea change and affect a number of things, but it might simply not be feasible to go into the climate era we are most assuredly approaching trying to cater to such a large and diverse area of temperatures.
That is a creative solution. Maybe the winners of each play for some sort of Cup.
Huge logistical issues aside, do the powers that be have the strategic foresight and the force of will to identify problems like this and proactively solve them? I don’t have any confidence there.
I am sure it’s gone completely unnoticed, but for years now, I’ve been proposing a ‘sister city’ kind of league. Each MLS team would have a southerly and northerly home. Could be a split season kind of thing, or maybe the records get combined.
The US Men’s Eagles XVs National rugby team takes on Spain in a rematch from last November this weekend. The game is tomorrow night at 7:30 PM EDT and will be streamed on Paramount+.
It’s always nice to have homegrown guys back. I don’t think getting Yow back is really the best move for either the player or the club. A nice transfer – and 35% of that coming back to DC – would probably do better to give more resources to add a player that could potentially be better than Yow.
Would one of the most MLS things ever, if the team were able to refund a third of the cap hit for a transfer, by turning it into allocation money.
I’m sure the there’s more news to drop on this, but if even the tidbits added by this Larry Henry dude are accurate, this smacks of “we don’t have a scouting network, and are reaching for players we know the names of without any other consideration.” It doesn’t seems like the club was quick to respond to some inkling that Yow was homesick and wanted a home return.
Again, this will all be made clearer anon, but I’m ready to froth at this nonsense.
It wold be good to get some actual reporting on this, but I’ve been supposing in my own posts that DC United has no real scouting operation. The players they’ve picked up seem so random, and so far below the levels of players being signed by nearly all the other MLS sides. It seems like they just hear someone is looking to move, and would consider MLS, rather than working on any serious discovery claims.
I heard some parts of this via the Capital City Soccer Show last night and gave it a read. I think we are in for a spicy summer…Weiler does not come across as a guy who will tolerate getting Pogba (or any other fleeting interest) forced on him. And he seems to have some solid ideas on the relationships different people in a sporting organization should have.
https://www.bluewin.ch/en/sport/football/weiler-the-swiss-envy-potential-is-starting-to-get-on-my-nerves-2455458.html
I have two potential takeaways from this:
1) This man has exacting standards for the clubs he coaches, and does not tolerate a ton of nonsenses or perceived amateurism.
2) He did not do any research into DC United’s current nonsense situation.
I’ll go with number 2
Oh, I think they’re both true
Having read the link above, I would pretty much agree.
This may be a real culture shock for some of the players and FO.
Some of those responses, and the number of teams he’s coached in the past few seasons, makes me worried that he may not be someone folks like working with. I know coaches are there to win, but could see him rubbling players and FO the wrong way. I’m always hopeful it’ll work out, this interview dampens that hope for me.
Likely accurate. A short lived coach that tosses stuff around might not be the worst thing around here, but I hope he’s a net positive in his impact, however long he stays. We definitely don’t need any more lasting toxic fallout.
Most of what needs to go right comes from getting a new owner. But that happens rarely in any sport. So the next thing that’s needed is a strong GM that can work well with the bad owner while still setting up a successful organization. So that falls on Ally Mackay. A coach that can work with that GM to implement an organizational philosophy as well as get results on the field is also nice. Lesesne seemed to be pretty good at the first part, but less good at the results part. First impressions of Weiler seem to be that if anything, the opposite might be true.
I don’t really care about having a coach that doesn’t stick around for awhile. Even at their very best, every coach in United history until Curt Onalfo stuck around precisely three years and then moved on. Since Ben Olsen, it’s basically been about a year and a half and then moves on. There’s a lot to fix, and someone who has the temperament and institutional respect (as Weiler’s team-record-for-a-manager reported salary suggests he’ll have) can maybe do a lot towards setting the team to rights. And if he does that, and moves us up the table, and moves on in two years, that’s fine.
Weiler will be well-paid. While he has moved around, he may well want to stick around, if the team will dip into a deeper well of talent than we will have seen in years. And if the organization, while he’s here, will create a well-managed framework, including a real scouting operation and an MLS Next team for well-regarded Academy players. Mean-Weil…we will have to see what his wealth of experience yileds.
Oh I’m positive he will make some enemies in the FO and/or ownership. I’m more hopeful he’ll be ok with the players given his views on wanting the athletes to be more respected. There’s no way he lasts 2 years once he starts publicly questioning the organization’s piss poor decisions.
Weiler is coming for big money (contract-wise). He is now in an ideal negotiating situation–where he can demand acquisitions (maybe a commitment to a DP this year and another next year) and of a certain range of money. That was my read on how things played out with Rooney. Levien wanted Rooney–and he’d only come if the team would commit to two DPs and some other guys he coveted (ie: Morrison!!!).
WashPost dropped an article this afternoon with a late press conference featuring MacKay and silent Levien. Mostly vanilla spew.
Thank you for reading and telling us we don’t have to
I like Troy Lesesne. He was truly a nice person. His heart was in the right place. He embraced being given a big opportunity. I was rooting for him to succeed.
Unfortunately, months ago it was apparent he was not up to the job. Due to lack of experience, he made many coaching mistakes. He would patch one hole only to spring a new leak elsewhere. He also agreed to put in place a team that was worse than last year (and Mackay shares some blame in this).
Goff got it right in the first sentence of his article when he said he wasn’t given much with which to succeed but he didn’t get the most out of what he had.
The new coach will be an adventure we have not seen for a while. He is a seasoned coach with a winning record to go along with his strong views. Our last three coaches had strong views but lacked experience.
Watching what happens in the coming months should be, at the very least, entertaining.
OK, Weiler has to get approved for a work permit. That is supposed to take about 2 weeks. That means he’s coach for about 9 games–10 at the most (July 26 vs. Austin if you’re optimistic). The front office talked about a drive to the playoffs/turn the season around. I don’t think that’s possible in only 9-10 games. We’d have to run the table for that to happen.
My take on what is really happening: the Spirit are outdrawing DCU, the United fan base is shrinking, people outside of DCU (like Donovan and Howard) are talking publicly about how DCU’s ownership should sell. Maybe Weiler will work out well. But I see this as a PR move, as a way of deflecting criticism. Until we invest in a DCU-2 side for our academy grads we’re not a serious effort to be competitive in MLS.