The Spirit en español, Steven Goff to leave WaPo, and more: Tuesday Freedom Kicks
Happy Tuesday! It’s a gorgeous day with low humidity today so make sure to go outside before the heat returns this week. Anyways, here are your Tuesday Freedom Kicks:
The Washington Spirit have launched a new social media page (among other new initiatives) for the second half the season. Great to see the Spirit engaging more with the Spanish speaking community and tapping into the local Latino market. Vamos Spirit!
Long time soccer reporter, Steven Goff, to leave Washington Post
If you’re like me, you’ve probably read countless match reports and breaks news come from the local reporter over the years. Though in his LinkedIn post he hints at still continuing to work for WaPo in some fashion, this feels like the end of an era for me. Best of luck with your next adventure, Steven!
Real Madrid, other clubs want biennial Club World Cup (ESPN)
Considering that Madrid earned $84 million (!!!) for reaching the semifinals of this brand new tournament, I can see why clubs want the cash cow to keep producing dollar, dollar bills for them. Will we have to wait until 2029 for another CWC or could they scramble one together for 2027?
State of MLS Analytics: July 2025 (American Soccer Analysis)
There’s lies, damned lies, and there’s statistics! Well some MLS teams may feel as though data analytics may not help with team performance (looking at you Portland Timbers who have exactly zero full time staff dedicated to game analytics). But according to this report, more and more MLS teams have at least one full time person dedicated to crunching the numbers. FYI, DC United appears to have 5 staff members in the analytics department.
Atlanta United waives Mateusz Klich
The former DCU DP looks to be on his way back to Poland. He was using one of our DP slots this season. Unclear yet if this opens up that slot for us…
Finally, remember to watch the Spirit’s own Esme Morgan and Sofia Cantore duke it out today as England and Italy duke it out for a spot in the Womens Euro 2025 final!
Goff is still on the reportage beat, as he says that United confirms that Klich’s situation doesn’t change their financial obligations or roster status. Seeing as how he remains a sunk cost, and that United isn’t doing anything this season anyway, I’d be in favor of bringing him back (and then waving him good-bye after this season). He would take up an international slot, but United has two open ones to play with. He’s had a pretty terrible season with Atlanta, but he’s shown that he can play with Benteke. He also serves a better dead ball than anybody else on the roster. He’s one assist away from entering the top 10 in club history in that category. It wouldn’t meaningfully make the team better, but I’d be happy to have him back for the tail end of this season.
Re: this changing nothing mechanically for our roster: What the absolute fuck
I’m not entirely sure about the process of waivers, but I suppose that some other team could claim Klich off of waivers and decide to assume his whole contract. That then should open up a DP slot for DC.
I have no idea if any of this could actually happen, and even if it could, it definitely would not.
I also don’t know if – now that the player is no longer on the team he was traded to – United would be able to use their second buyout on Klich. Again, they wouldn’t, especially this late in a lost season, but it would be nice to get some kind of transparency of MLS roster rules. This season has really confounded me with them.
Bren, it’s simple to understand MLS roster rules:
Miami must win.
Its more like whoever Darth Garber says must win at the moment. It used to be LA Galaxy like when they brought Beckham over and the DP rule was created.
I think from how I understand it, if another MLS team were to claim him off of waivers, it would essentially end up as the same situation we had with Atlanta, where the new team would just pick up the part of the contract that Atlanta was paying him and DC would still have the bulk of his salary.
This is why we should claim him. Even if it means he is forced to bartend in the Ultimate Fan Experience AV Lounge.
Really astonishing how bad this move was for us (and ultimately, Atlanta and Klich himself). And how messy the roster/finances of it are. If it weren’t such a stupid move, I would almost think the league would ban it merely for being a headache to track.
So, (and this ties into the idea maybe we bring him back), I have a theory.
I think, somewhere within the bowels of this team, we pissed Klich off in negotiations, and the move to Atlanta was for distance. We likely wanted to move on from him, and failed, and the owners didn’t even have the decency to buy him out when they could have. That could piss off a proud player. Goff really should have dug into this more, so there’s no reporting behind this.
It certainly seems like there was more to the story, and I would like to hear it at some point.
Yes, right now, it makes no sense. There must be something that we the people don’t know.
When asked if there was anything wrong between Klich and Troy, Goff responded no. Really no information about it otherwise – maybe it was a MacKay maneuver to cook the books for this season or he was told he’d be featured less and professionally asked for a trade.
It is unspeakably bizarre. So DC United.
It’s great to see how many resources DC has put into analytics. It’s rare that they put a lot of resources behind ANYTHING. However, it’s pretty dispiriting that they’ve put so much effort into analytics and are getting… this, in return. Lesesne and Mackay talked about how they had a profile of player they wanted for every position. The players they’ve assembled don’t point to those profiles being especially impactful. The tactics deployed also don’t seem to point to analytics being able to make up for any talent deficits.
Stats aren’t everything and hell you can make stats say anything you want them to say. And sometimes a players stats are that way because they gel with their current team, but won’t gel with the player pool that you have so they may not be as good on your team.
I return to my point that DPs matter.
Kijima might have been an analytics pickup, he’s value. Peglow has shown some stuff. Even Servania has looked like he has a good touch at times. But without DP impact, we’re not competitive. It’s just a tent sack without tent posts.
Nor stakes. There is no foundation.
Wayne came into a team that had a foundation in place and presto! No one could come into this dumpster fire and make an impact.
Yes, the organization has long term rot, but in any given season, the bar is still not THAT high to be competitive. Even this absolute dross of a roster has gotten points. The DP thing is killing us.
No argument there.
Makes you think we’re just looking at spreadsheets all day instead of watching tape. Virtually every other team has gotten “lucky” at *some* point with a few of their value signings/draft picks. Is it luck, or do they have a better handle on the player they’ve acquired and know they’ll make good contributions? Because we’ve hit on pretty much no one. Stroud and Bartlett were looking like great pickups until this year (I’m beginning to think neither of them is healthy given the drop off).
And our sub-DP impact signings have all faired way worse for what we’ve spent. Enow and Peltola are probably two of the lowest performing DMs in the league to see significant minutes. Pirani has struggled to make contributions until recently. Schnegg hustles down the left but can’t connect on any crosses (and is then way out of position on the counter). Peglow can knock the ball around pretty well but has only 5 goal contributions on the year, including two goals in a single game.
We’re too broken right now to really know what’s salvageable.
What’s interesting is that they seem to have relied on analytics in selecting Weiler. Very different than the approach with Lesesne, which allegedly was about a tactical approach.
First, my read (without any more info) is that Klich (who wasn’t playing with Atlanta) asked to be released so he could go back to Poland and end his career there. Thus, I don’t think he’d be amenable to coming back to us. That said, I’d resign him in a heart beat. He provides honest effort. As a holding back (not an A-mid), he can still contribute. Weiler would be familiar with his game.
Second, I’d posted earlier about Goff. All the best to him. But this is terrible news. I doubt the Post will get a journalist assigned to the soccer beat like Goff was. I hope I’m wrong. We’ll see.
Third, having 5 guys on analytics doesn’t mean we’re doing it wrong. But when you have nothing going beyond the academy, no willingness to spend bucks on players–you’ve got problems. In fact. Weiler evidently scored well with analytics–punching above his weight as a coach. MacKay specifically said that analytics influenced the approach to him.