DCU Alumni Movement, USOC Quaterfinal, VAR Expansion, and more; Thursday Freedom Kicks
Happy Thursday everyone. I tried to come up with something pithy and funny for an intro, but DCU and the Spirit, and the world writ large didn’t give me much to work with today. We’ve got a lot of DCU alumni movement, a waterlogged USOC quarterfinal, and a lot more. Let’s
DC United Alumni On the Move
Several DCU alumni are on the move in the transfer window.
At this point I’ve given up trying to make sense of MLS’s rule decisions. Logically, one would think Klich’s return to Poland would free up DCU’s DP spot. Alas it’s not to be.
Miller States His Case (Bolton Wanderers)
Former DC United All Star Tyler Miller has a new gig after signing a one year deal with Bolton Wanderers in League One. I hope Bolton fans are prepared for some interesting adventures if Miller wanders off his line when he goes into sweeper mode.
A DC United legend will ply his craft in the USL Championship for the Vegas Lights. (You mean you don’t remember Tommy McNamara’s glorious few week tenure with the Black and Red between the Chivas Dispersal Draft and his selection by NYCFC in the Expansion draft? I didn’t at first either and had to look it up.”
It really seemed like Mother Nature really didn’t want this quarterfinal to be played. (Given the participants, I’m ok with it.) Torrential downpours postponed the first attempt at playing. Tonight bad weather delayed the start of the match. Ultimately, the Union moved past the Energy Drinks to the Open Cup Semifinals.
Tim Weah says ex-players criticizing USMNT are … evil? (Pro Soccer Wire)
Weah’s overall point about the potentially disingenuous nature of some of the pundit comments is well taken. However, I feel like it’s going to get lost in the focus on what reads to me as a poor word choice when viewed in the overall context of his comments. We can expect a fully rational mature response to this right?
NWSL teams hit $75 million in sponsorship revenue in a dozen seasons: report (Marketing Brew)
While the growth in sponsorship revenue for the NWSL is encouraging, the fact the top three clubs Angel City, Kansas City, and San Diego account for nearly half of that money is a bit worrisome.
PSG fight back to beat Spurs on penalties in Super Cup (Reuters)
PSG win on penalties become the first French team to lift the Super Cup after Spurs surrender a two goal lead with five minutes remaining.
VAR might rule on yellow cards in future – Webb (The BBC)
I’m not necessarily a fan of current replay applications in sports, so I find this somewhat worrisome.
From the World Cup logo to new club crests, soccer designs are losing an edge (The Guardian)
I can’t say I disagree with the points raised here. Its refreshing when teams actually get it and have a unique crest that they haven’t focus grouped all the creativity out of. I was pleasantly surprised to see comments from former DC United creative director Ben Mahler in the piece, who according to his website was involved in some of the more memorable branding for the club in recent years.
Until next week, stay safe everyone.
Interesting article about design and graphic arts with sports.
I think that Pablo Maurer was involved in the writing of this one (which would definitely explain the inclusion of Ben Mahler). I hope so, because this story is exactly in his wheelhouse. And if so, congrats to him on getting some work!
Can confirm that he was involved in this. He seems to be doing some stuff for the Guardian on the side currently, but hopefully that leads to a more permanent gig there. I’m not 100% sure, but I think the guy that actually brought Pablo to the Athletic is now at the Guardian, so that’s probably where the connection comes in
Glad to see him back at it. I find stories like this really fascinating.
A good read in the Athletic ($), while Prem focused, still resonates–there’s way too much soccer being played these days. In addition to the toll on the players, it talks about the lack of anticipation for new seasons when it all bleeds together through new tournaments that fill the gaps: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6536142/2025/08/14/premier-league-future/
That’s a deep cut with the Tommy McNamara connection!
From the sponsorship deal article, I’m surprised that Rodman isn’t on the list of players with the most sponsorships. However, I’m sure her deal with Adidas is worth a good amount. Side note; you can tell Ali Riley knows how to hustle considering she was a journey woman defender for many years but has 11 sponsorships and is the most sponsored player in the NWSL.
Yeah, I can’t imagine why Klich no longer being employed by MLS would mean he STILL occupies a DP slot for DC. The most obvious thing is that DC just doesn’t want to fill that slot this year (which is fine with me). But man, this continues to be the year that MLS rules just stopped making any kind of sense to me.
Jason seems to think the league is less than inclined to give us a free spot when the owners refused to buy him out properly. Wouldn’t want to bend the rules, goodness knows no one else in the league does (cough, Miami).
That seems incredibly dumb. I’d expect something like that from United, voluntarily hamstringing itself. But also at the time that DC traded Klich to Atlanta, there was still only one buyout allowed per team, and United had used theirs on Steve Birnbaum for 2025 (even though he retired the year before which is its own source of unfathomableness).
I believe one of the few things revealed at the time that option of a buyout was in fact available to them.
If I remember correctly, the second buyout wasn’t available specifically at the time they traded him…but the team should have known (and probably did know) that the second buy-out rule was coming soon, so they could have chosen to wait a few days to do whatever it is they wanted to do with him. And once they traded him, they could no longer do the buyout. If Atlanta had sold Klich to Poland instead of waiving him, we might have had the DP spot return, but because of waivers he’s still technically on MLS payroll, so no DP spot return for us
This might be it. Like Randall Leal was placed on waivers, which is how we got him, but then once we did, Nashville bought out the amount of his contract that they were on the hook for. We couldn’t buy out Klich because he was traded to Atlanta.
Yep, this. If he was transferred outside MLS, that, in theory, would have gotten rid of his whole contract. But because he was waived, the team is still on the hook for paying him. I think we can all admit that the whole situation was handled poorly on DC’s end (or at least could have been handled better), but from what we’ve learned, what has happened with his roster designation seems to make sense within MLS rules, even if it is weird
So just one more additional reason to hate Atlanta then.
Happy Red Bulls Eliminated From Another Trophy Day to all who celebrate!
Donald reporting on BlueSky that during the DC Press Conference today, Flannigan confirmed that Weiler will be coaching the team in Montreal this weekend. He led practice today as well. Visa issues should now be fully resolved. Maybe that means we might actually sign some new players soon (wishful thinking, I know…)
DC United made it Facebook official. It’s just that easy!
Seriously doubt we bring anyone in, but it’s nice to have a real step towards next season. I hope to catch the replay since I’ll be in the road when we’re playing.