DC Power win spring opener, Concacaf calendar announced, and more: Monday Freedom Kicks
Happy Monday, y’all. I had to sleep in a bit cuz I was still hyped from Bad Bunny’s performance at the Super Bowl last night. Now that I have my double shot of coffee, let’s get to the news:
DC Power had their spring opener down in Jacksonville, and they’re coming home with 3 points after Alyssa Walker’s substitute goal proved to be the winner in a 1-0 final.
Concacaf announces 2030 World Cup cycle calendar (SSFC)
The 2026 World Cup hasn’t happened yet, but the 2030 World Cup cycle for Concacaf has a calendar. World Cup qualifying will start up for everyone, including the USMNT, in October 2027.
Some news from across the pond involving Catarina Macario:
Who’s gonna go after Cat?
Ex-Villa striker Duran signs for sixth club aged 22 (BBC)
The former Chicago Fire young’un will now play at Zenit on loan, his 6th club in just a few years.
Joan Laporta resigns as Barcelona president, will re-stand in election (ESPN)
FC Barcelona will once again have presidential elections. Normally, the president doesn’t resign early to run again unless they know they have the votes to get another full term, but these moves always comes with some kind of risk. I hope the winner of that election is: CHAOS.
Chinese football returns against backdrop of bans, crackdowns and confusion (The Guardian)
Chinese soccer has undergone a huge makeover, from their main professional league to their youth national teams. They feel they have a set up that is ready to compete again, but not after dealing with violations of league rules and national law that sees 9 of the Chinese Super League’s 16 teams starting the season with points deductions.
That’s it for today. If you want to rewatch Bad Bunny’s halftime show, here you go! Enjoy!
There was some discussion on this in Friday’s FK post over the weekend, but DC played Portland in the first (open door) pre-season game on Saturday, and we actually got to watch it via Youtube. Weiler approached the game largely like an actual game, without using 20 subs like would normally be expected in pre-season. The lineup was:
Johnson (Farr); Antley, Bartlett (Markovic), Rowles, Kurokawa; Hopkins, Peltola, Servania (Clark), Peglow (Kijima); Munteanu (Murrel), Baribo (Turner). Some of the subs caused some player rotation (Hopkins started as RM, but moved inside when Clark subbed on).
Game ended 0-0, but DC was arguably the better team throughout. Baribo ended up hitting the cross-bar off a pass from Peltola, and Munteanu had a decent shot at one point that got saved. Some reports from DC fans at the game indicated that Kurokawa looked pretty good, and Hopkins has taken a step up already. They also noted Pirani was seen before the game in street clothes, so there seems to be some reason why he didn’t play. No sign of Herrera though, so hard to say what’s happening there.
My general impression is that we are way more solid and reasonable in our setup, and will be far less prone to blowouts.
But we don’t have a real weapon. Baribo can finish, I’m sure, and Hopkins looks like a grown ass man out there, but we signed two DPs, and neither look like they’ll be dominant enough to make this season much more than a grind for points.
I don’t think we finish bottom, but whether we are in contention for a low hanging playoff birth seems like it will be determined by how many truly dysfunctional clubs end up below us.
If the league is healthy enough, I think we miss out again.
Agreed. I think we look more solid on the whole. The defense did well this game, hopefully they keep that up. The front looks ok, the back looks ok. Even the midfield looks ok. Its just going to be a matter of trying to get them all to link up together.
At this point I think I share your sentiment of battling for the last playoff spot. As things currently look, I think it would take actual effort to be worse than SKC, so I would like to think another spoon is not happening this year. But its hard to say right now what other teams in the East might struggle, outside of Montreal who always struggle
For every team that got worse (maybe) in the East, there’s another that got better, which will definitely make things challenging. I think Toronto and Atlanta will be more threatening this season. Chicago and Nashville might disrupt the upper tier teams (I’m thinking specifically Cincinnati and Philadelphia) since they were already good and got better/have more time under their coaches systems. Doesn’t leave too many candidates for who will be worse…will Columbus handle life after Nancy? I’m kind of betting that they struggle, and not entirely because of the change in coaching.
Even Miami got better…..no surprise there……
I’d definitely settle for another home draw with them, considering the disparity in talent ….but yeah, I don’t see who knocks them off in the East this time.
Watching the preseason game, I can’t really say better or worse. At least it was a tie.
The Capital Soccer Show was at the preseason game against Portland, and caught up with Dr. Sogut. According to him, the team would still add players “if it was the right player, right salary, right fit,” etc.
That is usually the words of someone who is not actively looking to add any new players.
It is blowing my mind that we’re going into the season without making any additions to the midfield (sorry, Oscar Avilez and Richie Aman).
I do wonder if they’re taking more of a “try it and see what happens” sort of approach. The window is still open for quite a while, so you could always see how things go in a few competitive game, and then react if needed. Not the biggest fan of that, but it is a strategy
I keep waiting for the announcement that welcomes Jesse Lingard to the District.
I am in the camp of better than last year, but not in the playoffs. I listed to a podcast that thought they made some good changes, but there was a lot more to be done so not much better. I agreed with that.
They need a playmaker/central midfielder to round out the team. They may wait until the summer window to pursue this, but generally that is too late as it takes time to adjust to a new team.
Otherwise, this was a very good offseason.
It’s too much to ask to go from Wooden Spoon to playoff threat in just a year these days. You have to have stuff in place to make a jump – Chicago actually had a lot of their pieces before Berhalter was brought in, then he made a few more changes and suddenly they look like they belong in MLS. But it took a while. It goes without saying that we had nowhere near that level of talent last year, old or young. We’ve demolished the team every 2 years and swung between boring back-to-basics soccer and wild chaotic soccer with no discipline maybe half a dozen times since Olsen’s last season. Playoffs and a general hope for success are only possible when they final get a foundation in place to make than next jump.
Is it really too much to ask? In one year, San Diego FC went from not even being a team to being a Supporters Shield contender and ended up on top of the Western Conference. Granted, the current DC United front office was stuck with a bunch of contracts that limit cap and roster flexibility, with players they would never have signed. And probably have less allocation money than San Diego had last year, but there’s a model, or at least an example of how quickly a contender can be built in MLS.
I’d argue that cap/contract burden is precisely the reason why it’s not really comparable. They could afford to have a grand vision and executed it pretty well. But even now, they get to experience the pleasure of a hefty, unwanted contract in the form of Lozano.
We could certainly try to be smarter with our money than hoping Munteanu is DP-caliber. Weiler seems like a good coach. We could be lucky. It can happen, but will there be sustained success (for either team honestly)?