Premier League teammates brawl, Fubo TV and NBC at a standoff, and more: Tuesday Freedom Kicks
Morning folks! I am slowly recovering emotionally from the devastating loss against Gotham on Saturday. I ended up watching from Denizens in Maryland and I was impressed by how packed the place was an hour before kickoff. The place was in a nervous but excited mood prior to the start of the game. Unfortunately, the crowd ended up leaving in disappointment (including myself). I ended up coping by reading every single op-ed and think piece about the game. What did you all do to cope with the loss?
Anyways, here are your Tuesday Freedom Kicks:
Why the Premier League Is Blacked Out on Fubo This Weekend (SI)
I don’t know how many of you experienced this, but I had a bit of a Premier League black out this weekend because of the dispute between Fubo TV and NBC. In the age of streaming, I feel like this happens far too often. I wish I could’ve watched the Manchester United vs Everton game today because…
Everton beat Man United despite bizarre Idrissa Gueye red card (ESPN)
…one of the strangest red cards I’ve ever heard of happened today. (Though this is not the first time two teammates have come to blows during a Premier League match…)
Columbus Crew finalizing agreement for Wilfried Nancy to join Celtic FC (Columbus Dispatch)
A major blow for the Crew.
Dave Johnson Reflects on Legendary Broadcasting Career (One Football)
Stumbled upon this little Q&A that Dave Johnson had. Of course they had to say “It’s in the net!” at least once in this article.
Rowdies Announce Roster Decisions for 2026 Season (Tampa Bay Rowdies)
Bill Hamid had his contract extension declined. At 34, he is still “young” in terms of keepers, who generally can play well into their late 30s. Will he decide to hang up his boots or continue the journey elsewhere?
Spirit coach Gonzalez admits mistake with late Hershfelt sub (PSW)
My opinion? Adrian doesn’t need to apologize. Hal was having a marquee game. She probably thought she could keep playing. In a game of margins, though, this injury came at the worst moment and sometimes that’s just sports.
Why Trinity Rodman should make the move to Europe — and get paid what she’s worth (Yahoo Sports)
Our former WaPo soccer beat reporter, Steven Goff, weighs in on what he thinks Trin should do.
NWSL Championship: Trinity Rodman’s quiet potential final game shows the inconsistencies of star power (CBS Sports)
Even more takes on Trin, the Spirit, etc. I’ve been reading these all weekend, guys…
Spirit’s doomed 6 minutes (The Athletic)
If you’re ready for it, here is a breakdown of those fateful 6 minutes that completely changed the game.
NO COMMON LANGUAGE? NO PROBLEM: WASHINGTON SPIRIT PROVE SOCCER HAS NO LANGUAGE BARRIER (NWSL)
A light hearted Spirit palette cleanser. Side-note: this reminds me of my college futsal team where we had players from all over the world. We had players from Portugal, Angola, Netherlands, South Korea, Uzbekistan, and more. Communicating wasn’t always easy but we all understood the word “goal!”.
Wales legend Fishlock extends Seattle Reign stay until 2026 (ESPN)
Fishlock is one of three players left who played in the inaugural NWSL season back in 2013. The others are Alyssa Naeher, who is out of contract with the Chicago Stars and yet to resign, and Sydney Leroux, who plays for Angel City but spent all of this season out on an excused absence.
Gotham FC honored with Key to New York City after NWSL triumph (USA Today)
Eric Adams presented the key to the city to Gotham at a celebration held at NYC town hall yesterday. 2025 NWSL Championship MVP (and former Spirit player), Rose Lavelle, was presented with something a little different…
Nothing has officially been reported yet, but it looks like Kysha Sylla is headed back to France with OL Lyonnes. Per Jason Anderson, the Spirit need to sort out their international slots as they have 10 lots for 12 players (and two of those slots expire at the end of this year). What other international Spirits make way to fit the roster rules?
A heartfelt letter penned by Michele Kang for the grieving Spirit fans.
Audi 2025 MLS Cup Playoffs: Conference Final matchups & key info (MLS)
The MLS Conference Finals are set after San Diego FC defeated Minnesota United 1-0 last night. I caught a bit of the game and San Diego looked dominate. They become only the second expansion side ever to reach a conference final.
And some good news: the US Deaf Women’s National Team won the Gold medal at the Deaflympics in Tokyo yesterday!
That’s all from me folks! Remember to take that extra long lunch today to watch Champions League 😉
Hey, Dennis, the link to the Fubo article goes to the Everton recap.
Whoops! Thanks for the heads up. Should be fixed now!
I disagree strongly on the Gonzalez/Hal thing.
You gotta take it out of her hands, and much sooner than she’s like.
Hal had an incandescent game before Lavelle fucked her ankle up. She’s an incredible competitor. But Gonzalez had two excellent and distinct options on the bench to maintain levels in Abiodun and Miura, and instead froze while Gotham got confidence and eventually the moment they needed to complete their game plan. He’s right to apologize. His responsibility.
Fair. He did have Abiodun who is more than capable of filling in for Hal.
Gonzalez is absolutely a player’s coach. But he blew this one (and he admitted it). This changed the momentum at a time when they had Gotham back on their heels. Hal would have said she could play if she was missing a leg. And in situations like that, you admire her grit and tell her to take a seat. Heck, he could have put in Metayer and moved Bernal to DM (though I still think Abiodun was the best choice).
Plus, a point I made in an earlier post–one of the big edges that the Spirit had over almost every team the last half to the season was their depth. So use it. He coached this match like someone who only had confidence in about 13 players. You’ve got Gotham on their back heels, put in fresh legs and make them run even more, stretch the field.
I sorta wondered if he was even thinking of the game at all at that point might have just been worried about Hal for a long time, then unsure toward the end as she was bucking to return.
In any case, very bad choice.
If Nancy turns Celtic around from the disastrous form they’ve been in this season, it’s great for the reputation of MLS coaches.
Bill Hamid is actually 35 years old, as of today. Happy birthday, Bill!
I would imagine that he’ll be looking around for another team, but it does sort of seem like the end is coming up kind of quickly for our favorite goalie.
Such a puzzle as to what happened to/with Hamid. He had the athletic ability to have a MUCH more successful career. Even after things went badly for him in Scandinavia.
I don’t think the issue was physical ability. I’ve probably written about this before, but I think he lost something in Europe. Maybe it was just confidence, but he seemed to play differently…much more…nervously? It left him more vulnerable to mistakes but also less effective as a shot-stopper..
I don’t know if it’s exactly that. When he came back to DC from Denmark, he was lights out for those remaining games of that season, and still quite good the next year too.
But yeah, I always thought he was better than Sean Johnson for instance, and while Johnson never went on to Europe or anything, he had a pretty steady career in the national team picture and has continued to put together some pretty top-level seasons, even including this last one. And he’s slightly older than Bill. I’m glad we got as much time with Hamid as we did, but you sometimes see calls to bring him back, and that just shouldn’t happen.
Troy Perkins was also ruined by going to Scandinavia.
Drew Skundrich has announced this morning that he is retiring, so he won’t be back at Loudoun next year
Ryan Keefer came across an article out of Romania last night, indicating that Weiler is there scouting players. Specifically, he was looking at Louis Munteanu, a striker that seems to be a fringe player for the Romanian National Team. The article indicates that he seemingly did pretty well last year, but is now returning from an injury. Seems like the team also wants around $10M for him. Would imagine if that’s the kind of transfer number DC is looking at, Benteke is probably not getting his option picked up. The Romanian article can be seen here:
https://www.gsp.ro/fotbal/liga-1/louis-munteanu-rene-weiler-transfer-dc-united-cfr-cluj-871447.html
Has any completely unknown DP ever worked out for DC United?
Taxi seemed like a decent pickup, in terms of production at least…until he turned out to be a terrible person.
Generally agree with you though. We’ve had some unknown gems that were like TAM level players (Zoltan comes to mind, he was pretty good all things considered), but yeah, the DPs we’ve had that weren’t known commodities beforehand have generally been lackluster
I wouldn’t call him a complete unknown, even if none of us have ever heard of him. A very productive striker at a club which has become one of the top 2 or 3 teams in Romania, regularly playing in Europe.
Just watched a highlight video of Munteanu, and he looks like he has some nice skills. He seems to have a very good touch, good pace and quickness in the box, and can retain possession. I definitely agree that if we’re getting him, then Benteke is gone (although I kind of suspect Benteke is gone regardless). He has 24 goals in 45 games for his club (and 2 in 4 for the Romanian national team), so that’s a pretty decent rate. From the video, a lot of his goals seemed to be the product of beating defenders to balls in the box and good placement rather than booming, dramatic shots. He also took a lot of PKs. He’s 23 and so he can still develop further, although it is a shame that he would just miss out on a Young DP classification.
I think he would be a fine player to get, although he wouldn’t be likely to be able to single-handedly win us games like Benteke. He’s going to need to be joined by a couple of other strong attacking options, which we need to be looking at anyway. Munteanu, coupled with a playmaking CAM and a dynamic right winger could be a really nice look for the club. Just need to make it happen. $10 million seems like an overpay (he transferred two seasons ago for 2 million Euros), but if you’re going to overpay, he seems like a decent bet. And given the state of the club, we’re likely going to need to overpay for any player of decent quality that’s under 32.
I hadn’t looked up any highlights, so that’s good to know. The article does say that his current team has some debt they need to deal with, so we might be able to get him for cheaper, but apparently other teams (I think it was OL that was mentioned) are also looking at him, which will probably drive the price back up. But it does seem like he could, in theory, be a decent get, if we give him the help he would need.
I just don’t have the confidence that DC will put together a team where guys like him can grow into stars. Pirani, Peglow, Peltola and even Rowles are all complementary pieces (I’d even dare to throw Hopkins in there), all asked to be the most important person on their part of the pitch at various points. I think any of them could be all-stars if there was a real vision in team building. There’s just not enough magic between them or from a legitimately great player to make it work. Benteke was great for a year until injuries and the general lack of talent around him finally caught up.
I think Weiler might be able to make some players better than Wayne Rooney or Troy Lesesne were (see Jackson Hopkins, and possibly Matti Peltola). And yes, those players you mentioned have some quality that can look better with a few genuine stars to play with. We also need to get another top center back and a very good goalie. Adding five top players in a single window is easy to do, right?
How to get those stars? Thankfully we have the smartest footballing mind that Jason Levien and Steve Kaplan have ever seen as our general manager!
It sure would help if they “decided” who isn’t coming back already. We were eliminated ages ago, the list should’ve been ready as soon as they left the locker room from the last game.
New reports out of Romania claim that DC have made a $7M offer for Munteanu. The offer is apparently decent for his current team, but there’s disagreement on his salary ($70k per week being offered, he wants $100k per week). I think $100k per week would put him above Benteke in terms of salary, so this seems like quite the commitment if it ends up getting over the line.
Follow-up report to this report now saying that the team does not want to sell him for anything less than 10M Euros
About Goff’s take on Rodman… I don’t know enough about the women’s game to have a really well-informed opinion about the relative merits of playing in Europe vs. NWSL, though I suspect European football is likely on a rapid upwards trajectory. The money available there is compelling — though I wonder if money is an issue for her? I don’t know if her father is helpful that way, and he famously opposed a lawsuit for nearly a million in child support, claiming he had no money…but dude earned about $30 million.
Then, there’s this:
Yes, playing Champions League sounds impressive — it is broadcast globally, etc — but it’s not the same as the men’s tourney. Also, Goff made much of her chronic back issues. I don’t know how the schedule would compare, but Europe sounds a bit more grueling, no? If it ends up shortening her career, it would be a bad bet financially, I imagine.
On women’s soccer in Europe: a lot depends upon how many other teams/leagues take it serious. Spain is a great example–Barcelona and that’s about it. There is value to going overseas because many of the fields/stadia/training facilities are better than anything in NWSL. And until recently, the UEFA competitions showed much more tactical flexibility than you saw in NWSL (though that is now changing).
I do think that the Euro press really doesn’t follow and credit the NWSL. And if Rodman signed with a top club in England or France and then proceeded to dominate, it would open a lot of eyes. If you think I’m wrong, just look at the women’s Ballon d’or list–the NWSL names are mostly from other countries.
I think Rodman, right now, doesn’t feel ready for a new challenge. I think she wants to walk away for 2 months, get healthy, and do a re-boot. I don’t know if a top English or Spanish team will pay her millions and say “see you at the end of our season.” Ironically, if the Spirit had won the Championship, I think she’d feel “there, I’m a champion in this league–time to try something else.” I think she’s going to feel like her challenge here is incomplete and she’s such a competitor, that will gnaw at her. I just hope NWSL makes it really really hard for her to turn down a Spirit offer–by coming up with a DP exception. Raising the salary cap by $500k for next year isn’t going to be enough I think to make a Spirit offer competitive with a higher English or French offer.