DCU pursues Japanese defender, Morocco advances in AFCON, and more: Tuesday Freedom Kicks
Hello after a few weeks of hiatus! I am back from my trip to El Salvador. It was recharging to visit my family’s homeland and really appreciate the warmer weather there. I packed it with some family time, climbing volcanoes, coffee tours, and even kicked it with some local kids in the street! I am happy to be back so let’s dive into some soccer news:
To start, here is fairly comprehensive recap of American soccer. A LOT happened in 2025. Personally, I’m hoping for a better 2026 for the members of Triple Espresso. What is your hope for 2026, soccer or otherwise? Sound off in the comments!
Word on the street is that the Director of Soccer Operations at DCU, Dr. Sogut, might actually be more competent than many initially thought. He’s certainly working to improve the leaky backline from last season.
World Sports Summit: Beyond the Boys’ Club
The World Sports Summit is happening in Dubai this week and DCU’s President of Business Operations, Danita Johnson, was a part of this all female panel there. NWSL commissioner, Jessica Berman, was also on the panel. You can find her comments below:
Sources: Denver to sign Oke for NWSL record fee for American (ESPN)
Denver Summit appears to be prioritizing defense for their inaugural season. It would be among the most expensive incoming transfer fees paid by an NWSL team and the most for an American from outside the league.
Messi, Inter Miami to tour South America in preseason (ESPN)
Messi and co will visit Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador during preseason.
San Diego Wave FC and Goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan Mutually Agree to Part Ways
Sheridan is the starting keeper for the Canadian Womens National Team and one of the top shot stoppers in the NWSL. Any team that picks her up, is assured of a steady presence in goal. Also the Wave are left with only 14 players on their roster at the moment and zero goalies…
Morocco tops group A off a bicycle kick from Olympiacos forward, Ayoub El Kaabi (his second overhead kick of the tournament). Mali, Egypt, and South Africa also advance to the round of 16.
Finally, one of the DMVs own soccer institutions, Ireland’s Four Courts, is up for “America’s Best Soccer Bar” as voted by the followers of Men In Blazers. Feel free to vote here. I may even pop over there this afternoon to catch some of the holiday Premier League action.
That’s all from me folks! Enjoy the penultimate day of the year and I hope you all have a safe and happy NYE tomorrow!
Someone needs to thoroughly what Morocco has been doing soccer wise for the past 20+ years, this is insane
They are so impressive.
I kind of want to know more about the coffee tours.
Oh man they were so cool! I went to El Carmen coffee estate in Ataco. It was a 3 hour tour where they show you the entire coffee making process from coffee fruit to roasted beans. We also did a coffee cupping. I ended up bringing home a clay pot pour over (which was a pan in the butt to pack). If you love coffee, I highly recommend doing a coffee tour if you’re ever in a country that offers them.
Very cool.
Pan cooking beans is so awesome from start to steeping.
In college I worked as a roaster at a local coffee shop. I’ve thought about getting back into roasting but I’m afraid of how much money I would pour into it (pun intended)
Ryan Keefer has dredged up a Romanian article suggesting that we are still pursuing a big money move for Louis Munteanu. I am a bit perplexed, as I am not clear how Munteanu + Baribo + a high/gegen press would work. However, at this point we certainly cannot complain that the new FO is failing to try hard.
He apparently has some flexibility to be a left or right winger. He’s right footed.
I’d prefer it if he was capable of playing as a right winger, drive the line, provide service while also being able to run into space space and finish, but unclear if that’s the case.
If he’s being brought in as a CF to pair with Baribo, then that would suggest a two man frontline. So, 4-4-2 or 3-5-2.
Yah, it has a 3-5-2 feel to my eye. That would dovetail with bringing in Kurosawa and thereby ensuring that we have enough depth and capability at LWB. If you stopped at Munteanu it would all still be a mess in the midfield, but it feels safe to say that they’re unlikely to stop there.
If it’s a 3-5-2, I think the wild card is what Weiler thinks he can get out of Jackson Hopkins.
I sorta wonder if he could be a 10. Not in the Riquelme or Christian Gomez sense, but there’s a different player profile for that position.
Players like Steven Gerrard, Scott McTominay, or even Connor Gallagher when he played for Crystal Palace are just technically proficient players who have a talent for robust secondary runs into the box to score and create. I wonder if Weiler sees him there.
I don’t see Hopkins as a double pivot player, and certainly not a destroyer in midfield. He’s gonna have to be used further upfield. Given his form and key plays toward the end of last season, I wonder…
I like that vision for Hopkins. All the assets on hand (Hopkins, Pirani, Peglow, Kijima, Stroud, Peltola, Servania) are limited in various ways and present problems for constructing a 3-5-2/3-4-3/3-3-3-1/3-4-1-2/whatever midfield that actually works, such that if you have Baribo and Munteanu then I think you have to have a 3rd DP in center midfield to help tie it all together; but if you think of Hopkins the way you’re describing, that 3rd DP doesn’t have to be a #10-capable type with the attendant costs… you can platoon Pirani and Hopkins with an eye to the latter making the former very disposable, and allocate cap space to getting control of the midfield behind them. As you say, we wonder.
I will say, I quite like Kijima, and if we get other quality, technical players around him instead of burdening him, I think he’s gonna thrive.
I’m sad he suffered from the coaching changes so much last season. It doesn’t seem like he’ll be a starter this time around, but I’m hoping he looks more like the early season version of himself in a sub role rather than just a pair of fresh legs.
I don’t know if he’s a bench player, for the following reason.
Peltola. I think it’s criminal how we basically never saw them play in a double pivot together. Kijima has the tenacity for that role, and is able to shuttle forward, pass, and carry the ball effectively. Peltola as the more disciplined minder with certain in-possession qualities himself, that’s what I want to see more of next season.
Enow getting so much playing time was a disaster, and anyone paired with him was screwed.
Team definitely fell for the sunk cost fallacy/international pedigree fallacy with Enow…one thing you could never accuse Olsen of even when the whole fan base was calling for him to start underperforming guys from abroad.
I feel like Servania and Kijima are fighting for the same role. I’m keen on Servania but Kijima is on his level as well.
I’ve always said Hopkins is somewhere between an 8 and a 10. I think if he had the right around of people around him, he could be kind of a faux-Dempsey.
Goff is reporting that DCU has traded the rights for Finn Sundstrom (a 19 year old CB who played for North Carolina FC) to Philly for a 2028 First Round Pick. I don’t know the player. And unless Philly takes a nose dive, it’s really a high #2 pick. But this sounds like a decent decision to me. We have a lot of CBs right now. I hope that we’re going to be getting an MLS Next-Pro team soon and having extra picks to add talent for this “soon to be” (sigh) MLS Next-Pro side in Baltimore or Arlington or someplace in the DC area.
I won’t believe anything about this FO doing something about an MLS Next-Pro team until they actually play a game at this rate.
My New Year’s wish: Scotland games on the cheap (Tomorrow is my birthday, 63 trips the sun took around me)
A rebuke of Galileo
I love my gravity
I do appreciate some form of idea from the FO currently. Although I bailed on my STH after 30 years, I hope they smash it out of the park.
So moving on from Benteke, they are getting two good attacking players if they add Munteanu. They got a good goalie. They got some defenders, but are they good enough to improve the team or just be the same. I don’t know. How far will these moves help the team forward? That is the question.
I think there are two factors here in “improving the team.” Weiler indicated at the end of the season that the overall talent across the entire roster was substandard, it wasn’t just about not having a good GK or finisher–a weakness in one spot. We were a USL team talent-wise except for Benteke. I think we’re going to see a major turnover of the roster. A bunch more guys who are currently on the roster and under contract will not be on the team opening day–I’m sure of that. So the effort (if you trust the GM and coach) to upgrade the roster is going on, we’re probably not even half-way done at this point. Maybe we’ll buy out some contracts, maybe there will be trades within MLS, maybe we’ll sell more players overseas but I think the roster will add 6 more players who are not currently on it.
Second, I don’t think we had a coherent system of play that was realistic for the talent and roster. For instance, if you’re going to play a high-press (ala Lesesne), you don’t need a great #10 but you’d better have a backline of vacuum cleaners who can cover a lot of space and snuff out attacks before they turn in to jail breaks. We never had that. And you ideally play with twin pivots who effectively serve as box-to-box mids, covering a lot of ground, counter-pressing, and quickly playing balls in to your players in the opposing third. Again, we didn’t have that. So we played a system that had no “Plan B” if the initial high press failed.
If you trust Weiler (I do) and believe the owner will followthrough on their promise to add more DPs (ummm…..not so trusting there), then the team will absolutely be better. Better enough for the playoffs? That I don’t know, we’re still a work in progress.
I’m gonna need a lot of convincing and real-life proof that Munteanu is worth a club-record transfer deal. He’s going to take a while to adjust to MLS, without the creative forces behind or seemingly around him to lean on in the meantime. Unless we get Espinosa? And we’re all still wondering how to center midfield will hold up.
With the current moves, I think Sogut is making deals happen and ownership is opening the checkbook more than last year. Thats a positive. DCU has a history of bringing in foreign players that don’t flourish here, most notably from South America. Hopefully, the current front office will have better luck with identifying talent.
From what I read, we out-bid Celtic to get him.
Well, I think we’re going to find out aren’t we. The Athletic is reporting that this deal is nearly finished. Still a lot of work to do. Now if we’d only get the MLS Next-Pro team set up in time for the season.
Interesting bit in Bogert’s write-up on the Munteanu:
“The new-look attack will be built around Munteanu, Baribo and summer signing Caden Clark.”
I guess Weiler still likes the Caden Clark move. We’ll see how they line up, but Clark on the right, and maybe Munteanu on the left. Or, maybe Peglow and Clark as left and right sided midfielders and Baribo and Munteanu up top in a 4-4-2, with Kurokawa and Herrera behind them, and Nealis and either Bartlett or Markovic in the center of the defense…and the center midfield to be determined. Hopkins? Pirani? Peltola? Someone not here yet?