Spirit lose in NWSL Final, DC Power lose, and more: Monday Freedom Kicks
Ugh. The pain of this past Saturday night still stings. Let’s just jump right into it:
Washington Spirit defeated by Gotham FC 1-0 in NWSL Championship match (DP)
The Spirit once again fall short in the NWSL Final, losing 1-0 to Gotham. This one really hurts, but hopefully the team can learn from it and come back even stronger next season.
DC Power laments poor performance in home loss to Carolina Ascent (DP)
DC Power had their chance to move up in the table, but had a poor outing in a 1-0 home loss.
Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC claim first USL Championship title in shootout vs. FC Tulsa (USL)
Pittsburgh Riverhounds get their first ever title by beating FC Tulsa on the road in the USL Championship Final.
Subaru Park stunner! New York City FC oust Philadelphia Union (MLS)
The Supporters’ Shield winners are out of the MLS Cup Playoffs. The conference finals:
Inter Miami vs. NYCFC
Either San Diego FC vs. Vancouver Whitecaps or Vancouver Whitecaps vs. Minnesota United
Matai Akinmboni on life at AFC Bournemouth (Daily Echo)
We catch up with the former DCU homegrown as he navigates life in Bournemouth.
Ticket prices suppressing fan excitement for World Cup (SSFC)
I talked to some fans who have seen their excitement for the World Cup fade because they’ve been priced out of the tournament.
Opinion: Holding the NWSL Championship at a neutral site is short-sighted (Hudson River Blue)
Should the NWSL Final be held at the home of the highest remaining seed?
Carter-Vickers to miss rest of season with Achilles injury (PSW)
Cameron Carter-Vickers sees his hope of making the World Cup roster all but disappear as he will miss the rest of the season for Celtic.
Now that qualifying is all but done and the World Cup draw is a week and a half away, we look at what’s next for the co-hosts.
MLS scales back ‘Rooney Rule,’ alters hiring policies (ESPN)
This is a terrible change in policy for MLS, because now there will be no accountability and the door will shut for some very talented people.
Statement from the Canadian Premier League regarding Valour FC (CPL)
Valour FC is going under, and the CPL has lost a club in a vital part of the country.
Enjoy the day, everyone.
Very nice story about Matai. I do wonder if DC tries to bring in Mikel Akinmboni in the near future.
One small smidgeon of a silver lining from the loss to Gotham: i wonder if it encourages Rodman to re-sign with the Spirit. She talked about how this season feels like a loss, how much the entire team really expected to win and now feels drained. OK, ok, that’s right after the game. But I think if the Spirit had won, she’d be more likely to feel like “this is a good send-off, a good time for me to head overseas!” Combined with the WPL is playing right now (so it’s not like she’d sign and then have a couple of months of rest). I think that she may just feel like she needs some months to regroup, rest, get centered and then attack the next season. So if NWSL can get their act together and make their offer more competitive…
Good to see the update on Akinmboni. He strikes me as very level-headed for a 19 year-old. And while we’re talking about CBs, that’s terrible news about Carter-Vickers.
Trinity did make some comment along the lines of being back next year, although that should hardly be taken as definitive in the immediate aftermath of a really hard loss. But it was still better than, “I’m out.”
Maybe she’ll be back in DC with the DC Power?
That would be a coups for DC Power and the USL Super League
Looks like the Crew will be losing Wilfred Nancy as head coach. He seems to be on his way to Scotland to coach Celtic. That’s gonna be a big hit for them.
It was already shaping up to be a pivotal off season for them before this. Now it’s probably going to require a total reset. I had the thought that they could bring back Courtois, since he was in charge of their 2nd team during part of Nancy’s reign, but they’re not going to get the same buy-in even if he knows how to run the same system. In any case, they haven’t replenished their talent and are probably losing Arfsten soon too.
Yeah they certainly lost a bit after they let Cucho go, and while still pretty decent this year, they didn’t seem to ever get back to that magic they had a couple years ago. I think they’ll still end up being fine, but I can’t really see them getting back to the juggernaut they were over the past few years
Incredibly rare occurrence in the Everton vs Man U game happening now as Everton DM, Gueye, gets a red card for lashing out with his arm at Michael Keane, his teammate who plays CB. Straight red for violent conduct, but it’s pretty freaking rare to get that for “friendly fire.”
You know, I always kinda wondered what would happen in a situation like that. And now I know. Seems unthinkable that DCU hasn’t somehow managed to have that happen to them yet in recent years. I could totally see Bartlett accidentally kicking Schnegg in the head or something
I believe I might have seen it happen once before in my entire soccer viewing career, but I don’t even remember the instance or who was involved.
It’s definitely not unprecedented, just incredibly unlikely
I seem to recall two DCU situations that didn’t involve reds but were somewhat similar. I remember Bobby Convey being shoved to the ground by a teammate who wasn’t “playing well with others.” And then Stoichkov did something in a game (I’m not talking about the studs to the shin of the AU player) against a teammate when with United.
Btw, didn’t want to jinx my EPL club, but Everton won the damn game. The red was about 13 minutes in, the goal about 27, the game ended 1-0 after 90+4.
This is at Old Trafford in Manchester, mind you