Walker to DC Power FC, Spirit Resign Collins, Korenica Updates, SheBelieves Cup Schedule, and more: Thursday Freedom Kicks
I am an avid reader, mostly nonfiction in general, and history more specifically. Over the last year I’ve gotten back into reading about soccer more often. I’m enjoy learning not just about team’s histories, but the events behind the scenes and they are influenced by and play a role in larger historical moments. Recently, I finished Simon Kuper’s Ajax,The Dutch, The War: The Strange Tale of Soccer During Europe’s Darkest Hour. If you’re at all interested in a look at the impact of World War II on Ajax, its players, and its supporters, I would recommend giving it a read. Now on to the news.
DC Power FC sign forward Alyssa Walker (DP)
DC Power FC and the rest of the Gainbridge Super League are currently enjoying their winter break. When play resumes in February, there will be at least one new face in the squad. Former University of Richmond Spider Alyssa Walker joins Power FC from Carolina. Check out Donald’s profile of DC’s newest member.
Washington Spirit Signs Goalkeeper Kaylie Collins to New Contract (Washington Spirit)
Following Tuesday’s departure announcements, the Spirit continued to lock in their roster for next season. The Spirit the announced that goalkeeper Kaylie Collins will remain with the team through the 2026 campaign.
We’ve got an update on the Korenica rumors from last week. The latest rumors our of Europe suggest a deal to bring Korenica to the Black and Red is pretty close. Current rumors suggest he will cost DCU $8 million, with CFR Cluj retaining 25% of any future sale. Lets see if this one gets across the finish.
USWNT to face Argentina, Canada, Colombia in 2026 SheBelieves Cup (SSFC)
The SheBelieves Cup returns for its 11th year in March. As the USWNT builds toward the 2027 World Cup, U.S. Soccer announced a competitive field. The US will face off against Argentina, Canada, and Colombia in Nashville, Columbus, and Harrison. Donald, once again ably pulling double duty, details this years tournament.
USMNT coach Mauricio Pochettino didn’t bring Weston McKennie in for the final international window of 2025 to enable McKennie to strengthen his relationship with Juventus coach Luciano Spalletti. Despite this quality time and McKennie reaching 200 appearances for Juventus, it appears the midfielder is not part of La Vecchia Signora’s future plans. Rumors suggest MLS teams are looking to bring the USMNT stalwart home prior to the World Cup. Based on the Korenica rumors, it doesn’t appear DCU will be among his suitors.
2026 World Cup: 10 USMNT players with the most to gain this winter (Yahoo Sports)
With only the remaining half of this club season and the March international window left to impress Pochettino and USMNT coaching staff, Goff lists 10 players in the overall pool who need to perform to potentially book their spot on the final roster in June.
FIFA to use ‘3D avatars’ powered by AI to improve offsides calls at the World Cup ($)
FIFA announced it will incorporate AI to help improve offsides calls and the overall broadcast? Yay I guess? I find myself a bit curious on what scale this has been tested at and if the AI is subject to some of the hallucinations that result in junk data in other implementations. As for incorporating it into the broadcast part, personally I’d rather they insert La’eeb into the game footage again.
Collective barganing agreement negotiations remain ongoing between the USLPA and the league. The USLPA released more information on what their position is.
I’ll end with this.
I will admit, watching this I did hear a chorus of away supporters singing “RFK is falling down, falling down. RFK is falling down, falling down.” I still miss the place though.
Until next time, stay safe, and what did I miss?
Man, it’s hard to believe that RFK is gone. There will never be another like it, and that’s a shame.
That video hit me harder than I expected. It was a beautiful mess we all adored.
Lest we never forget……………….
I think Korenica will be a fine addition, but $8 million seems like waaay too much. The Telegrafi article gives a $4 million figure, which is in keeping with other reporting I’ve seen, which is also arguably too much, but it’s also not my money. Still, I wouldn’t have been upset if we left that third DP slot open and landed Weston McKennie in the summer. That assumes we’d have had a chance at him, though.
$4 Million certainly makes him a DP. If we take the “$800 Salary” figure mentioned in the article as $800k, then there is hope that in the future he could actually be a TAM (or maybe even lower) player. I could see it working out if he signs a similar contract to what Sean Johnson did, where it goes through June 2027. If he does well, we re-sign him then, and then his new contract wouldn’t have the transfer fee factored into it, so he could be TAM. In reality, I’m fully expecting the contract to be through 28/29 like Munteanu’s is, but I can hope
Yeah, it will be interesting to see the length of the deal. Baribo and Munteanu were signed for some pretty long deals, and having all of your DPs locked in for 4-5 years is a BIG bet on all of them panning out. It’s also a bet on Rene Weiler sticking around for several years, even though he basically has never done that in his career. Otherwise, your coaching vacancy will mean that a new coach has no ability to bring in his preferred players in DP roles for a couple more years.
I’m not down on these signings. I think they can work out. But there’s plenty of risk involved.
Exactly. In a vacuum I think the signings themselves seem ok, though it would be a bit worrisome if all of our DPs are locked up through the end of this decade, especially if the Cluj players have a hard time adapting to the league. But, I do think it’s worth something that Munteanu and Korenica are already used to playing with each other. They’ll still need to learn the league, but the two of them should know what to expect from each other which should hopefully help chemistry over all.
Yeah, hopefully that’s the case. In the highlight reels for Munteanu and Korenica though, there’s not really many instances of those two combining with each other, for whatever that’s worth.
Yeah, the length of these deals is disturbing. Hopefully there’s some way to do the accounting on this where they wouldn’t occupy DP slots in a couple if years.
Unless Weston has some very strong urge to leave Europe, which I highly doubt he does, he’ll continue to talk to Juventus. As of now, they seem thoroughly uninterested in reevaluating his contract, and there’s not January buzz about a midseason transfer fee from anyone.
Given McKennie’s strange market value to prestige ratio, he’s likely waiting till after the World Cup. Someone will pick him up as a free transfer, and his purgatorial mission to be a key starter in Europe will begin again.
It’s a weird year for him. He’s at an incredibly historic club, and he’ll continue to play relatively regularly, but they don’t value him enough to up salary or guarantees. He could use a really strong World Cup performance this summer, but that’s also a question mark.
He’s not solidified himself as a tone setter or soldier for Pochettino, and the move away from a central midfield three puts him in limbo. It doesn’t seem Poch trusts him in the double pivot, and I don’t friggin blame him- McKennie inevitably roams too much for that disciplined role. He’s suited for one of the supporting 10 spots, but if Pulisic is healthy, the competition for that second spot is fierce. Even if Weah becomes a 9 or RWB option, we’re talking Gio, Luna, Aaronson, Malik Tillman, all of whom arguably suit the responsibilities of that position better. McKennie will not only have to show he’s exceptional there, but show a lot more commitment than he has of late to Poch’s ideas.
So, yeah, it’s a lot for McKennie right now.
Bogert is now reporting on Bluesky that this deal is definitely NOT happening–that Korenica was not a player that DCU was eagerly pursuing. Speculation is that the owner was trying to get a bidding war started and drive up the value of the player on the market.
Yeah, unclear what is going on here, but Bogert indeed seems to be flatly contradicting the multiple messages from the Romanian club, as well as the player, himself.
It could well be that hungry United internet sleuths were taken for a coordinated ride on Twitter by those entities, and Bogert is just now dispelling the confusion, but we’ll have to see where this falls in the coming days.
Steve Goff is reporting that Kristian Fletcher is going to Cincinnati. Cincinnati will pay DC some amount for his rights. That ended up working out pretty well for the Garys when they did the same thing with Lucho Acosta. Good luck to Fletch.
I’m reminded that Fletcher’s first goal in MLS was against Cincinnati.
I expect Fletcher to do well after his recovery, away from DCU unfortunately.
Goff reporting that Cincy is acquiring the MLS rights to Kristian Fletcher, and that he is expected to sign with Cincy. DC will be getting some kind of compensation
Brenden Aaronson is en fuego for Leeds right now
He scored a brace in midweek league action for Leeds yesterday. It was not enough to get a result, as Newcastle nicked a goal late for a 4-3 victory in an absurdly back and forth game. That doesn’t take away from how lethal Aaronson suddenly is in the EPL.
Actually opened the scoring, and clearly has the respect of his teammates, as Dominic Calvert-Lewin decided to feed him with an hopeful early ball for a first time finish.
Aaronson might still be considered a high energy sub for the US this summer, but really liking his ascent
https://sbisoccer.com/2026/01/brenden-aaronson-scores-twice-despite-leeds-uniteds-last-minute-defeat
The extended highlight package is well worth watching
https://youtu.be/P6QKdc8ijSE?si=_tMt4wdVm3o7GqCL
Here’s hoping that former Union players scoring boatloads of goals for their new team is a theme this year.
Ryan Keefer shared a tweet that says the Revolution are currently trying to sign Griffin Yow
They were also the team that brought Ian Harkes back to MLS.
DCU should bring Yow back. Even if he doesn’t know DCU’s history, Weiler knows Belgium. Playing for Westerlo is a bigger deal than playing for Cluj.
Didn’t seem like Yow was appreciated during his time in DC, and we didn’t exactly set him up in Europe, either. Now that he’s developed admirably outside of our program, he would be an excellent signing for any MLS club, and I’d welcome him back eagerly.
Think the org made their bed with him, though.
With Mitrovic in as the new HC in New England, I can see how the move makes sense there, mutual interest probably…but maybe Weiler could pull him back?
Its interesting to see how widely ridiculed the Korenica move has become across social media (namely Bluesky). Even Reddit seems accepting of the move. Could DC have gotten someone distinctly better than Korenica? Maybe. Are they overpaying for him? Probably. But DC isn’t exactly in a position to be able to get good deals on players. We’ve been mediocre to bad for like a decade, we’re gonna have to overpay/overcompensate to get guys until that’s at least partially fixed.
A higher pedigree player would have been nice. Korenica (and Munteanu) might end up being busts. They might not. I certainly hope they do well, but no player, no matter the pedigree, is ever a guarantee. And personally, I would rather see some ambition and commitment to improving the squad like this than the approach we’ve taken over the last few seasons.
Quite frankly, if they even produce at the level Danny Allsopp did over 15 years ago, it’ll be better than many of the pricey internationals we’ve brought in in recent years. That’s still absymal. We’re putting *a lot* of stock in the familiarity between them being worth the money to bring them both in. Sogut has seemingly done a good job with our domestic signings, so maybe he’s got an idea of what he’s doing. There’s just not much evidence that these guys will line up with other similarly priced (or even cheaper) guys from around the league in terms of production.
I want to note I’m not even trying to be down – I’ve adjusted my expectations from “these guys will find it hard to score in the single digits” to “good chance they can get 10 G+A”. I can’t wait to eat my words if they prove better than that.
I think its safe to say that Sogut has largely done better so far than we all thought when he was hired. At least on paper, we still need to see how things work when the players are on the field together. He’s made some solid draft moves, some good FA signings, some good intra-league moves, and some interesting international signings. I don’t expect every signing he makes to be a home run, they never are in MLS. I hope the Cluj guys work out for us. Frankly, the bar for “DC United DPs” is not a very high one to clear. I’ve said before if Baribo and Munteanu can both produce somewhere between what Benteke and Taxi did (somewhere around ~15 goals), that would be awesome. I’m not really sure what to expect of Korenica (whether he’s DP or TAM), but I would think he’d be there to provide more assists than goals. I would hope that he could at least be better than Flores was, which I don’t think will be hard to beat.
That $8 million price is ridiculous. But Weiler may have made negotiations harder for DCU by feeding reporting that has him preferring Korenica to Munteneau
Of note, the article does mention that the price is seemingly $4M, not $8M. At $4M, there’s a chance we could make him a TAM player if he’s on a long contract
The fact remains that, whatever Benteke was able to contribute at his peak, having three DPs will be an improvement overall.
Stroud was relied upon as an impact starter going into last season, and he crumbled. If Korenica is a more reliable as one, it’s better, full stop.
My bar was getting 3 DPs. We still have to hear whether Korenica is a DP or not as they could use Garberbucks to lower his salary hit. But if he is a DP, I am happy they cleared this low bar!
Korenic looks at the very least to be an upgrade over Peglow.
The team is shaping up ahead of schedule.
*Munteanu.
Not sure why brain keeps misspelling the guy’s name. I’ll have to work on that.
To be honest, I think Baribo and Johnson were good signings. Everything else is not going to get us very far. The draft might help more than the signings.
Loudoun United 2 announced that they’re creating a USL-W team
Saw that Nashville released Tyler Boyd. For the right price, I think he could be a nice addition to DC.
Bogert Update: DC is placing Schnegg and Badji on waivers. That will free up 2 senior roster spots and some TAM (in Schnegg’s case).
They are over staffed on forwards and they have a new left back.
Kind of yikes on Schnegg. I think he’ll prove himself a solid contributor to a team with an actual defensive foundation. Kurokawa is going to need to stay healthy, I don’t know where we’re going to find the budget room to get even a backup. Obviously not too miffed on Badji though. He’ll land somewhere and we’ll have the maximum chunk of his salary allowable on our budget this year.
Yeah Schnegg wasn’t perfect, obviously, but he was very much not high on my list of things that need to change from last year. He’s gonna go quick on waivers (and probably to Philly)
I’d have preferred to have both left backs as options, especially since Schnegg apparently had a green card. We needed a better starter, but good luck finding a decent professional at the position that will accept a smaller MLS salary, particularly one that doesn’t take up an international spot.
That said, if it happens Schnegg didn’t want to vie for playing time and wanted out, that’s basically the only “good riddance” scenario for me.
I applaud those moves. Sorry for those dudes, but it’s a cold business.
I hope Schnegg catches on with another team, as he seems to want to be in the US.
Badjii was just on C-SPAN, along with Dwayne De Rosario (I guess we have to be specific now about which DeRo) and Cobi Jones, talking about the World Cup.
https://www.c-span.org/classroom/document/?25517
Schnegg’s girlfriend is American (I sat with her last year). I would think he would want stay in the USA for that and maybe other reasons.
I am a bit surprised that he was waived.
Does it free up TAM? As I understand waivers — and it’s hard to understand — is that it changes nothing as to the players’ budget charge, unless they’re claimed by another MLS team, and even then the claim is awarded based in part on how much of the budget charge the claiming team is willing to pick up (sort of a bidding war that *may* award the player to the team that is the highest bidder as to the budget charge).
Even still, it frees up two senior roster spots. Hopefully the team can find the cap space to continue to upgrade the roster.
Another Bogert Update: He says the reports linking DC with Korenica are not true, saying that he is “not a target at the moment”
Well then, I’ll just tamper my feelings of resignation until the next oddball link to our 3rd DP spot.
Good because they could do better with a DP spot