USMNT Win with Surprising Duo Connection, and More: Wednesday Freedom Kicks
Plenty of kicks for you to feast on this Hump Day, so let’s get to it!
Haji Wright delivers as USMNT beats Australia 2-1, but Christian Pulisic’s injury clouds win– Yahoo
Let’s start with what happened last night in Commerce City, Colorado. The USMNT managed a 2-1 comeback win against a collective Australia side. The means by which they did so will surprise many, as Haji Wright scored two extremely well taken goals, with both assists coming from (checks notes) Christian Roldan?!?! Obviously both their stocks just jumped significantly. On a less positive note, Pulisic did suffer a hamstring injury that merited his removal in the first half. AC Milan will not be pleased, but hopefully, Christian can take this time to reset his body and this issue doesn’t linger.
USMNT eyeing rare Atlanta showcase vs. Portugal and Belgium ahead of World Cup– Yahoo
Not till late March, but certainly a welcome test before the team launches World Cup play.
Encouraging y’all to tune into these podcasts, they’re a fun way to recap a team that, if you’re not actively following at this point, oy vey.
Esme continues to be called up and in contention for playing time with the Lionesses, and richly deserved as her club form has seen a real uptick.
Apparently, The Spirit organization is officially collaborating with MATA in the city to facilitate and encourage fans to take the metro. Do I think this was already largely a thing? Yes, but this is still positive.
Donald has produced this article about DC Power FC from the salt mines, do support his efforts, if you would.
What now? Eastern Conference teams not in the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs– MLS
I do wish there was some way to make our Audi connection pay off in this regard, but I understand that United are very much favorites for The Wooden Spoon, regardless of their chance to stave off that indignity in Atlanta Saturday.
Loudoun United is playoff bound for 1st time in club history– Loudoun Times Mirror
Thought I’d post this as a reminder.
A reporter’s letter to Major League Soccer– Patreon.com
Despite it appearing on this site, this is in fact a free to read open letter to MLS concerning the standards of reporting access and demanding change.
Trump threatens to pull World Cup games from Boston over unrest– ESPN
Let’s hope this partisan sabotage goes nowhere, across the board.
Werder Bremen player apologizes for poo emoji sign after derby win against Hamburg- The Athletic
I don’t subscribe, but I am curious…
And, finally
USWNT Icon Christen Press to Retire at End of 2025 Season– Sports Illustrated
Former USMNT goalkeeper Brad Guzan announces retirement– The Athletic
A pair of retirement announcements worth noting. Guzan ends his career on a bit of a sad note for his long and storied sports journey, but deserves to be remembered as a stalwart pro for club and country. Press of course is also an icon of the national soccer landscape, and will continue to be so in her growing media enterprise she started with another USWNT icon, her wife Tobin Heath.
That’s all I’ve got! One-up me in the comments, and have a great sporting day!
Did want to also mention, the Women’s UEFA Champions League continues today on Paramount+. Lyon and its cadre of Americans take on St Polten at 12:45, and a number of other games get going at 3.
Scrum feeding refereed properly in France after Churchill-inspired law change. I hope these changes in the French Rugby leagues make their way to MLR.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2025/10/14/scrum-feeding-law-enforced-top-14-referee-churchill-france/
Happy to have Goff writing more, and with easier accessibility than his last years at the Post
A win against Atlanta would be our MLS cup of sorts. How they are where they are with the amount of money they’ve spent, compared to what we did, is just hysterical. I wouldn’t bet against them firing Deila to be honest. He’s done a far worse job with a hypothetically better team than either Lesesne or Courtios (admittedly he had more time to screw up too).
Let’s not forget that Atlanta also did this with 4 DPs on their roster for most of the year (acknowledging, of course, that the 4th DP was DC’s…). I know DC was bad this year, but when you look at roster spend and construction, Atlanta and the Galaxy were far, far worse in terms of under-performing
I’ve been thinking about this, and a lot of DC’s players – especially the new ones – had pretty much normal career years for them. Joao Peglow’s stats are about what he put together in Poland and Israel. Luis Barraza did about as well as he did in NYCFC (a few more goals allowed). Kye Rowles played about as well as he did in Scotland. Hosei Kijima did about as well as he did in St. Louis. Brandon Servania had a pretty career typical year. Gabriel Pirani had a similar year to last year, as did Jacob Murrell and even Randall Leal.
We just had some down years from players like Benteke, Herrera, Bartlett, and especially Jared Stroud and Kim Joon Hong. We got inconsistent to bad play in the center of midfield from Matti Peltola and Boris Enow. But mostly, we signed a bunch of USL players, like Jordan Farr, Rida Zouhir, and Derek Dodson while already having Conner Antley on the roster.
The whole Klich Saga, and then moving Ku-DiPietro and switching us to a 3 DP system without signing a third DP and simultaneously closing off $2 million extra in GAM really sealed the season, but we just signed a bunch of players that weren’t up to par. Even if they were performing as expected, it certainly wasn’t enough to be competitive in MLS.
Yeah, going into the season I feel like the general consensus on DC was that if everything clicked and everyone played like they should, we could maybe be a fringe 8 or 9 seed in the playoffs. The expectation for Atlanta and LA were more “win MLS Cup.” DC definitely under performed, but the other 2 essentially completely collapsed
Have we heard anything about the status of Kim Joon Hong? Jordan Farr got the start two games ago, and then was the backup on the bench last week. Is Joon injured? Or is he just really not preferred by Weiler? Either makes sense to me, but for now he still is under contract with DC for the next several years. Should he get another shot? Or is Jordan Farr going to be in the net again against Atlanta?
As far as Ive seen, he hasn’t been listed on the injury report over the last couple of weeks, so it seems like a coach’s decision. But given that Barazza is suspended for the Atlanta game, that would imply that Kim will at least have to be on the bench for that game, if he doesn’t start
Darth Garber has eliminated Laurel Pfahler.
Dissent will not be tolerated.
(I remember how absolutely and delightfully accessible the guys were in the 90s. Home brew with Mark Simpson, beers with Vaudruiel (sp/ sorry bro), hanging with Marco and Jamie, jokes with Harkes at team parties (fan based parties), Tony Sennah getting the call from Herta Berlin, so we ditched Simpson at Sweetwater Centreville and Tony spun my BMW Z3 with me out to route 15 and back (man has that all changed in three decades!)).
I think I spent more time with Wayne than any player for several years, like decade +. Honorable mention to Canouse, Arriola, Hamid, McTavish in this regard.
This author hit it out of the park. Read it and weep. MLS has lost some of its greatest charms.
I was trying very much to appreciate it about ten years ago, towards the last days of RFK. The quality of MLS had gotten pretty good, but everything was still pretty accessible. To say nothing of the benevolent anarchy in the bouncing stands of RFK. I was saying then that it was a Golden Age for fandom, and it was pretty easy to see things becoming more distant as the league continued to grow. If you look back at old highlights of the NFL, and look into the stands, you’ll see what I mean. Everything was a bit less flashy and dirtier, but it was a more even field between players and fans. Same thing if you look at old Premier League highlights.
It’s the tradeoff. Things get better, and get pricier, and the pricey-ness allows it to get better still. But that connection gets watered down and sometimes lost. And, of course, sometimes your team doesn’t keep up its end of the bargain to at least get better as it gets pricier and more distant.
I wish we somehow had bouncy stands at Buzzard Point.
If I recall, in the glorious planning days of Buzzard Point, they were at least giving some lip service on how to make that happen. I’m not sure if, structurally, there would have been any actual safe way to do that, although if they were being creative and really dedicated to making a top-class stadium, they might have found a way. I know it was expensive, and I know the land constraints were very real, and I know that even keeping the team in DC was a win, but it’s all part of the story of the ownership group doing “just enough” and never really going for something great.
Just enough? Like not having a roof over our heads for a couple years?
Stands don’t bounce if no one is there. Management doesn’t seem to grasp this stuff.
while I am into trophies, we have 4 MLS Cup a couple shields and USOC stuff, an Armidillo too.. How many Wooden Spoons have we acquired (assume this year in the tally too….)??????
Kim starts Sunday so we can seize this year’s Wooden Spoon. It is our destiny.
In other times that would cause FIFA to strip the entire tournament from the United States. I guess they really, really want the ticket money and not to piss off Fox and it’s TV money too much.
FIFA has a very high tolerance for autocrats, even ones that haven’t fully cowed their populace. They much prefer dealing with one person in a transactional way than a democratic structure that is incentivized to take the general citizenry’s concerns seriously. It’s less messy, and the autocrat is often a cheaper date than a unified country.
this^^^^^^
Anyone else started way back in May just assuming every game we were going to lose and it was only a question of by how many?
Wins were definitely big surprises. During the worst of Flannigan’s temporary stint, I probably felt as depressed as I’d ever been as a DC United supporter.
I feel a bit better about our chances every game with Weiler in charge, except the Philly game which I have for years assumed is going to be 3-0 or worse.
I’m pretty well convinced that if you rolled out whatever the world’s best team is, put them in DCU jerseys, and made them play any version of Philly, that we would still lose like 5-0
May? The season started in February. FWIW, May was really the only decent month, lots of football, and only two losses (both 2-0), at least before Weiler arrived. .
A DC 2026 pre-season update just dropped: DC will be participating in the Coachella Invitational again, taking place February 7 through 21
It’s a positive, in that it’s not Saudi Arabia. I do miss the Charleston Challenge Cup, but this is fine.
Also whatever competition gave us the Armadillo. We need to do that again
Looks like Lily Yohannes scored in Champions League play for Lyon
Holy moly
https://youtube.com/shorts/Pz7rbvMxBZY?si=p8tFcg7T8o7V-2NO
Alyssa Thompson just registered an assist for Chelsea in the CL, as well
Oh, dang, forgot about The Spirit playing tonight!
https://thedistrictpress.com/2025/10/15/washington-spirit-vs-c-f-monterrey-femenil-champions-cup-preview-time-and-how-to-watch/
And Trinity Rodman came off injured in the first half.
Question for season ticket holders – has the team mailed out renewal emails yet? Haven’t seen one in my inbox and now I’m wondering if I missed it. Thanks.