Spirit Continue Rodman Contract Talks, Benteke Speculation, USMNT Friendly Announced, and More: Wednesday Freedom Kicks
Hope everyone is enjoying having an excuse for indoor activities, cuz this is as real as a winter gets in the DMV. I was pleasantly surprised I could do a winter themed featured image, though I suspect it was probably designed for Christmas. We can see it twice, though.
Washington Spirit’s new soccer exec says club need to get ‘creative’ with Trinity Rodman contract-CBS
The plot thickens. Or, at least, is a going in a way I personally didn’t expect.
Michelle Kang had the window of opportunity to move Trin on to one of her other soccer franchises, namely OL Lyonnes and The London City Lionesses. It was right there. While this article does not quote her, she apparently was not kidding when she said she hired Haley Carter to lead the front office with the immediate assignment to keep Trinity Rodman at The Spirit. And while that likely has a lot to do with the personal ambition to create an NWSL legacy that includes winning the final of the playoffs, rather than falling two seasons in a row at the final hurdle, it is notable that Kang didn’t nix that assignment at this juncture.
D.C. United’s Christian Benteke gets free agent contract update with Minnesota United rumor-The Sporting News
Eesh. While DC United has moved on from stalwart goal scorer and leader Christian Benteke, Minnesota United are rumored to have interest in that ridiculous aerial ability for a team that does a lot more aerial balls than most. While I believe Benteke is the sort of character who would decline to celebrate a goal against his former club, the idea of Kye Rowles preventing him from putting one in on a cross or set piece is, well, it’s funny.
Offseason Files: Catching up with forward João Peglow– DC United
Hey, the org made some offseason content! It’s obviously way more important that they start making some promising offseason moves to rebuild this wreck, but hey, there’s a United related thing in the google search, so I’m posting it.
Exclusive: USMNT secures second-to-last World Cup tuneup opponent — a major test awaits in Charlotte– Yahoo
US Soccer has announced yet another very strong program that the US will play in the run up to the Summer tournament, namely the Senegalese National Team. That means that friendlies against Belgium, Portugal, Senegal and Germany are now in the bag. While it’s a good idea to mentally prepare the chosen squad with some stiff competition, I’m a little concerned about four of them back to back. I’d have considered a layup team, just for a bit of confidence building, but what do I know.
‘A different type of game’: USMNT veterans on how to handle World Cup pressure– The Guardian
A possible interest piece. No Alexi Lalas, don’t worry.
USMNT strikers Folarin Balogun, Ricardo Pepi score Champions League goals – The Athletic
The article is behind a paywall. The extended highlights of our stars scoring is free on youtube. Just saying.
USA Soccercast, Episode 166: Reacting to the World Cup Draw– Stars and Stripes FC
Rounding out our USMNT section is a link that leads to Donald breaking down the World Cup Draw on his podcast. Check it out!
And the grim reaper is pointing at Northern MLS venues next, as the league plans on moving closer to the UEFA calendar.
Police raid Argentine soccer clubs and AFA as part of investigation into alleged money laundering– AP
A development in the home country of Lionel Messi and the reigning World Cup Champions. Surely much more to follow.
Sources: New top-tier USL proposes $55K minimum salary– ESPN
The players association is likely also very much interested in some sort of healthcare guarantee, as well, but this does show how far soccer profitability and investment has come in the US. Don’t believe me? Peruse this article listing some of the MLS salaries in 2005 from Sports Business Journal, and behold what full time pro athletes accepted, including Clint Dempsey.
Inter Miami’s Lionel Messi wins MLS MVP for 2nd straight year– ESPN
His disembodied ghost will probably win it, as well. Landon Donovan is the only other player to win it twice, though Messi is the first consecutive recipient.
That’s all I’ve got! One-up me in the comments, and have a great sporting day!
Perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of Benteke potentially going to Minnesota is one of the players that would become his teammate — Julian Gressel. You know, that guy that’s really good at crosses. That could be a really dangerous combination. Can you imagine if we had someone at DC that could have crossed to Benteke like that guy?
The bard was a long suffering DC United supporter.
Brilliant!
This club has made so many unforced errors on so many different levels. I breath a sigh of relief that my two season tickets no longer are billed to my credit card, especially at Christmas time.
Goff reporting that DC’s efforts to re-sign Fletcher have failed. He will officially not be coming back.
Not surprising at all, even before Fletcher said his goodbyes. We’ve been cheapskates with our young players since Chris Odoi-Atsem had his rookie option declined so the team could save a few grand on his developmental deal. *Ted KDP aside, who we immediately sent away
Fletcher wasn’t really ready to be a contributor on a struggling team, nor was this a good environment for him to grow in.
The one reason I thought it would make sense for Fletcher to stick around DC was because he was recovering from that bad injury. United was at least a team that he knew, and knew him, and he would have been his hometown. Once he recovered, he would have had the opportunity to show off in hopes of securing a move away.
Instead, he’ll be moving on to a new place, and having to make a first impression coming off that injury. I hope it works out for him.
The other issue is what impression does DC United make on potential home-growns?
Dumpster fire
In this day and age, pay and playing time is all well and good, but I think modern players are gonna go: What else you got?
This is the extra and infrastructure quality that the club has invested in. It’s facilities, training practices, tactical identity, whatever ways they show the player that they will be focused on and valued.
Levien and Kaplan’s negligence will continue to hamstring our recruitment attempts, even from our own academy.
I have said this before. The negotiations were probably low ball offers. Benteke will scores goals next season. The question is how many? With a bad team he was scoring goals with little help. For Kristian, he is better off going elsewhere. DCU should have helped him along like Hopkins. Hopkins had a long term injury, too. They both have playing time with the USMNT youth teams. Fletcher has been loaned overseas twice. I think Swansea wanted to keep him but DCU kept him. As mentioned earlier, Fletcher will become a trialist somewhere to get on a team to show he has recovered from his injury before he gets signed. If they had kept him and played him a little bit, I bet they could have made some money selling him on.
How come there is no news about DCU signings? They need a goalie among other things.
I don’t think Swansea made an offer to keep Fletcher, although he did perform well there for their U21s.
I’ve been a little surprised that DC has been able to sign Gavin Turner and Oscar Avilez. The biggest thing these days would seem to be having a demonstrable pipeline to successfully make the leap from academy player to pro, and to develop as a player. The DC homegrown players have actually done pretty well in securing moves to Europe, but most of them have been for pretty low amounts. It’s very difficult to point to players that have improved markedly while with United.
Obviously, the biggest thing here would be an MLS Next PRO team, which would also help develop draft picks too (say, we have the #1 draft pick!). Ownership had said that an announcement about an agreement with a Next PRO team was imminent. That was months ago. And they don’t even really need to team up with an existing club. They could just start a team WHILE they work on getting infrastructure established in Baltimore. But they don’t.
Yeah silly, that would mean they have to hire staff for another team! Can’t be doing that when your fans are being so stingy with their ticket purchases!
If only that could be offset by developing a homegrown player and selling them on for a big profit, of which you’d get to keep 100%. It’d be cool if that was a reality.
Honestly, though, what does this all have to do with real estate?
– Jason Levien
Sure would be. Even better if this were a talent-rich area. Too bad…
Speaking of free agency and local talent:
Matt Doyle goes through the free agent last in tiers. After the top 10, who have more star appeal, he lists.a dozen a players he sees as depth pieces that could help in MLS. One is Rockville, MD native, Jon Bell who played at UMBC, and was with Seattle. He struggled to break into MLS after college, but eventually made it with NE Revs. Capped one time (maybe 2x?) by Jamaica. Got selected by St. Louis in the Expansion draft, but didn’t get much playing time there. Wound up in Seattle the last 2 years. He might welcome a return home.
I’m biased as a UMBC alum, but personally I think he’d be a great depth pickup.
BC United. Make it thing?
Not that I’m at all in favor of trying to bring him in, but San Diego sent Luca de La Torre back to Celta Vigo. He seems too good to be bouncing back and forth between teams on loan, yet not such a game-changer that many teams would spend so highly on him.
He’d be an incredibly valuable TAM player, but an ineffective use of a DP slot that we cannot afford
Joe Willis had his option declined by Nashville, but he’s signed a new deal with them. Willis was pretty low down my wishlist of the goalkeepers available within MLS, but it would have been fun just to see him back again. But that’s not happening. Best of luck to Joe as he continues his career in Nashville.
Good for him. Even if they’re thinking of going younger, he’s going to see minutes and will be a good fall-back.
Soccer salaries are definitely progressing here — and that’s why I find it hard to believe USL will be able to sustain a first division. Either the levels will be way below MLS, or they’ll be paying a LOT to attract real talent to a new league — and I don’t see how they could find the revenues to do that.
Will USL play through the summer? That could at least give them a couple of months without MLS to compete with.
That said, it’s worth noting that $55k today would be equivalent to $31-$32 in 2003. Twice what MLS was paying as a minimum then, but a a decent amount less (as a %) than what Dempsey was paid.
Did you open the article? There’s plenty of 16k contracts in 2005, some as low as 11k
I did. Thus, the first sentence in my comment.
Tough times for one of Finland’s more historic clubs. Relegateded a few weeks ago, and now facing a pretty big expense, as an under-15 (age, I don’t know about his club status if any), sets a fire that destroys one of the end stands.
https://www.euronews.com/2025/12/10/teen-admits-starting-blaze-that-destroyed-famous-finnish-football-stadium-stand
And Weston McKennie joins the scoring parade. A golazo that puts Juventus ahead.
Does anybody have an opinion about the Pride Day World Cup match between Iran and Egypt? Should they trade places with Belgium and New Zealand and play in Vancouver instead?