DC Power Extend Fitch, USL W Divisions Announced, Gotham Falls, a Goalie Goal, and more: Thursday Freedom Kicks
Happy Thursday everyone. I hope everyone enjoyed the snow and are now sufficiently dugout and free to move about. Yesterday was a wild day of action. Let’s get straight to the headlines.
DC Power FC Sign Susanna Fitch to a Contract Extension Through 2026/27 (DC Power FC)
DC Power FC’s captain has extended her stay in The District. Fitch’s deal will last through the 2026/2027 season and includes a team option that could push the deal to the end of the 2027/2028 season.
Announced two days ago, Power FC’s deal with fall trialist Lexi Fraley also became official yesterday.
USL W League Announces Divisional Alignment Ahead of 2026 Season (Loudoun United)
On Wednesday, the USL W announced what the divisions will look like in 2026 in the women’s pre-professional league. In their inaugural campaign, Loudoun United will face Northern Virginia FC, Eagle FC (Mechanicsburg, PA), Lancaster Inferno FC (Landisville, PA), and Patuxent Football Athletics in the Mid-Atlantic Division.
FIFA’s list of the top 10 spending Women’s teams is fascinating no matter how you want to break it down. Michele Kang made a clear statement of intent in 2025 with London City (#2), OL (#3) and the Spirit (#6) all in the top 10. Over half of the top spending teams in the world play in NWSL. That’s got to be a positive sign for the league. On the opposite side of the coin, this list raises some questions about what is going on with the European teams and their long term ambitions as only two of the teams listed from the Old World don’t belong to Michele Kang.
Spirit Alumni and current NWSLPA Deputy Executive Director Tori Huster breaks down Trinity’s contract and the two grievances that remain to be adjudicated resulting from the league’s actions during the whole process from the Player’s Association perspective. The discussion of the NWSL’s marketability criteria and the salary cap was particularly cogent for me.
Arsenal trounce ASFAR to join Corinthians in final (FIFA)
Gotham players slam FIFA Women’s Champions Cup scheduling (ESPN)
FIFA held the 2026 Women’s Champions Cup semifinals in London yesterday. In the first match, South American champions upset Gotham 1-0. In the second match, Arsenal blew past ASFAR of Morocco 6-0. After the matches, Gotham players expressed their frustration about playing in the match in the middle of the NWSL off season. As much as I would like to disagree with Gotham on principle, they have a point.
Who’s in Champions League knockout round? Standings, bracket, 2026 playoffs (USA Today)
UEFA wrapped up the League Phase in this year’s Men’s Champions League. Twenty four teams advanced to the knockout phase. Arsenal, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Tottenham, Barcelona, Chelsea, Sporting CP, and Manchester City finessed in the top 8 and advance directly to the Round of 16. The remaining 16 teams will face off in a two leg playoff in February.
Malik Tillman shines for Leverkusen as Americans help shape Champions League race (Yahoo Sports)
The playoff round will be of definite interest to USMNT fans as five players, Malik Tillman, Weston McKennie, Johnny Cardoso, Yunus Musah, and Folarin Balogun, ply their trade for teams in the bottom 16. Tillman booked his spot in the next round in style, scoring a brace in Bayer Leverkusen’s 3-0 victory over Villarreal. The USMNT cadre will learn their next opponents following UEFA’s draw tomorrow.
Why a World Cup boycott is unlikely, and what it would take to organize one (The Athletic $)
The world is clearly on edge about what it is seeing, but right now a boycott is not imminent.
The idea of teams from MLS facing off against the best teams in South America represents a a really interesting proposition. However, I’m not sure its even remotely possible in the near term due to the pending schedule shift and current fixture congestion issues from CONCACAF Champions League, Leagues Cup, USOC, and the regular season. We will see though, particularly if the dollar amount at the right levels.
If you’re a fan of visualizations check out this one of the Rodman contract saga.
I will end with this. I think I have said this before, I am a sucker for a goalie goal. I present to you esteemed readers, Benfica’s last minute goal against Real Madrid.
Until next week. What did I miss?
I disagree that Gotham has a point on the scheduling of the FIFA Women’s Champions Cup. Jason Anderson noted Corinthians hadn’t played since mid December, so both teams were on a level playing field there. It might be an advantage for Arsenal to get to play this midseason, but there’s no perfectly fair time to hold the tournament given the different calendars around the world.
I do think it’s a bad look for the NWSL that Gotham lost this game. But I also don’t mind it because, you know, it’s Gotham. Hopefully the Spirit are in this thing next year!
We also deal with this every year with the Concacaf Champions Cup. Is it fair? No. But as you said, there’s not really a way to make it perfectly fair for everyone. And you also know well in advance when your games are and should do your best to prepare for them anyway. About the only thing that I like about the MLS calendar switch is that teams in the Champions Cup can’t complain anymore about losing because its pre-season. Now they’ll just lose because of the more traditional Concacaf reasons.
It’s not a good look for the NWSL but also maybe the wake up call that the rest of the world has caught up or is even ahead of us? I’m starting to think that a salary cap of $5 mil by 2030 won’t be enough and will have to be adjusted to double that in order to keep the NWSL competitive with top top teams around the world.
I don’t know if this got posted in FKs yet this week.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7000491/2026/01/27/usl-premier-mls-pro-rel-pyramid/
USL launches its pro/rel pyramid in 2028. Of note in the article is the fact that the CBA between the USL and USLPA expired at the end of last month. There isn’t a new one yet, so the USL may be headed for a work stoppage.
DC has posted the “Landing Soon” gif with a Swiss flag, implying the Hefti announcement is probably coming either later today or tomorrow (unless there’s secretly some other Swiss guy they’re signing, I guess)
Hefti will be our third Swiss player, all defenders. He joins 2013 US Open Cup Champion Dennis Iapichino and also 2013 player (though gone by the time of the Open Cup) Alain Rochat.
Not sure how I feel about Hefti’s legacy here if the 2 other Swiss players invoke the reaction of “oh right, that was a guy that played here, wasn’t it?” lol
He’s got an easy bar to clear!
If he plays 7 games, or 405 minutes, he’ll take the title of “longest-serving Swiss player in DC United history.”
I am always nervous when defenders are compared to cheeses, and ours are Swiss……
Heh.
Rochat had a massive allergy to being here, it was actually quite ridiculous
I have a gameworn jersey of his, oddly enough. And we got something like $500,000 for transferring him back to Switzerland.
He made a noticeable improvement to our defense, but imagine playing here in 2013 (I bet you can! It was very similar to 2025!). It must have SUCKED getting traded here from Vancouver. But I still only have fond memories of him.
Considering how bad he wanted out, I thought he played pretty well and was much more professional than a lot of players in his situation.
It’s a story as old as time, or at least since we lost out on Veron for 2008, but there’s just a decided lack of ambition in our signings. NYRB are bringing in a promising attacker from Mexico (possibly DP level), Miami signs an even better attacker from Mexico. As a Spurs fan, I have less than fond memories of Timo Werner, but I feel SJE are reaching higher than DC did with Munteanu and Baribo. There’s Dilrosun with Portland. If TFC land Sargent, I might able go down a list with every other team.
The team has a lot of needs, and raising the level of quality will take more than an impact DP, but still… I hope I’m proven wrong about Munteanu and Baribo.
Signing now official. Low commitment, his contract is only through June 2027, with an option for 27/28.
Yeah. I doubt his wages will be super high, and the transfer fee was pretty negligible. From his (five year old) highlight videos, he looks like he can serve in a decent ball, which we’re going to need until we sign some chance creators in the midfield. On the whole, this seems like a fine signing to me.
Has anybody seen Sean Nealis in any of the preseason photos? It’s kind of a big signing, and I just haven’t seen anything about him so far.
Conversely, the team is still using Aaron Herrera in their “buy tickets!” promotional material. So, presumably the arrival of Silvan Hefti does not herald the departure of Aaron Herrera.
Now that you mention it, I can’t say that I’ve noticed him either. The team has posted a few reels of the players like walking around in California and whatnot, and one at Top Golf, so he could have definitely been in one of those. Without explicitly wearing his number and without having seen him a lot, Nealis just kinda looks like a generic white guy, so he easily could have been in one of those without me noticing. But it is a bit odd he hasn’t explicitly shown up in a dedicated picture at all yet.
I found him! DC just posted a video from training in Cali, and you can barely see him at the 20 second mark
And even more clearly at the 25 second mark
Aaron Trusty just scored a big goal on a set play for Celtic. Up only 3-2, they were teetering on the verge of being knocked out of Europa League play.