Haley Carter interview, USYNT call ups, and more: Tuesday Freedom Kicks
Good morning everyone! I hope everyone had a good weekend/start of the week! The Benito Bowl popped off. We are slowly starting to emerge from this deep freeze (high of almost 40 today?!). This weekend was capped off for me by receiving one of those coveted emails from FIFA notifying that I had a successful ticket application. I’ll be headed to a World Cup game in Los Angeles later in the summer and I can’t wait! Did anyone else get an email for their own Golden Ticket aka World Cup ticket?
Let’s start with a great interview from Hey Spirits! The new Prez of Soccer Ops teases that another Spirit player is close to getting a green card meaning we may not need to acquire any other international slots! Also, I learned what can jam is…
Paul Simpson Names 24-Player U.S. Under-16 Boys’ National Team Roster for February Domestic Training Camp (US Soccer)
DCU’s young homegrown player, Oscar Avilez, is getting a look at the youth national team level so that’s promising!
2026 MLS Previews: DC United, Atlanta United, CF Montreal (ASA)
A pretty in-depth preview of the upcoming season from American Soccer Analytics. If you like charts and numbers, you can really spend a lot of time on this article!
Lukas MacNaughton set to join St. Louis CITY SC – Defender wants to make CanMNT team (Transfermrkt)
Some DCU alumni news as MacNaughton is close to joining St Louis…
The roster continues to take shape but for me the biggest question remains McKennie. He’s absolutely on another level right now and is the best performing American. But do you sacrifice the system for the player? Does he simply come on as a sub?
USMNT winger Tim Weah says Juventus spell left him ‘broken’ (USA Today)
Speaking of World Cup players, Weah seems to have benefited the most from a move over the summer. If you’re ever thinking that a change of scenery will do you a world of good, Weah is proof that it works.
WSL and women’s clubs monitoring X’s Grok over generation of sexualised images ($NYT)
Ugh AI. And the lack of firm guidance from the league is incredibly disappointing.
The haircut millions have been waiting for could happen today…
George Mason’s Ilia Malinin claims Olympic gold (GMU)
Finally, not soccer news but still local. The first star to emerge from this year’s Winter Olympics is a DMV native and a student at George Mason University (my alma mater!). Watch him at 12:30 PM today to see if he can add to his Gold medal from over the weekend. Good luck Ilia!
That’s it for me today! Sound off in the comments!
Ally Mackay goes to Nashville. Lukas MacNaughton goes to Nashville.
Ally Mackay goes to DC. Lukas MacNaughton goes to DC.
Ally Mackay goes to St. Louis. Lukas MacNaughton goes to St. Louis.
Think it’s evidence of a good relationship… and MacNaughton’s skill level indicates that perhaps divesting from Ally’s judgment is a good call, regardless of the dearth of resources he had to work with in his DC tenure
Just leaving this here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surya_Bonaly
Read for some further context of being the first at Olympics.
Stay for this and other anecdotes like it:
“despite a broken toe on her right foot and a strained right calf, Bonaly performed a backflip and a handspring, another move banned from competition, as well as seven triple jumps, and two triple-double combination jumps”
According to MLS Communications, all new jerseys for this year (i.e. DC’s new home jersey) will be revealed either today or tomorrow
The ones that I’ve seen so far, I’ve actually liked a pretty great deal. So I am heartened.
Its been an interesting mix of more simple designs and more out-of-the-box designs. From the leaks, DC’s will be on the simple side of things…but that’s also kinda been the home jersey’s thing for most of the team’s existence.
DCU game is probably going to be streamed tomorrow. It is listed as YouTube on their preseason schedule. Also, Minnesota list the game as well.
Did DCU get religion this preseason after years of draught.
Maybe its a directive coming down from the League?
A general note on this: To find the stream from DCU, you have to go through the DC United app. Portland ended up just sharing a link to the stream on Twitter last time, but its hard to know if Minnesota will do the same. The streams themselves are unlisted, so you can’t just search Youtube to find them.
Of course they wouldn’t make it simple or easy…
At the Perth stop of the HSBC SVNS Tour, the US Women again finished in 4th. They beat Fiji 34-15 to open pool play, then beat Japan 38-14, and finished pool play getting blanked by New Zealand 31-0. They still finished 2nd in their pool which put them into the semifinals where they lost to the home team Australia 26-5, and where almost blanked in that match as well. Then they lost to France 21-14 in the 3rd place match.
Thus far on the tour they have finished 5th (Dubai), 4th (Cape Town), 4th (Singapore), and 4th (Perth). Next up is Vancouver in 1 month from 7-8 March then the USA stop in NYC 14-15 March. Then onto the HSBC SVNS World Championship series with stops in Hong Kong (17-19 April), Valladolid (29-31 May), and Bordeaux (5-7 June).
https://eagles.rugby/news/usa-womens-eagles-sevens-close-out-perth-svns-202628
On the Men’s side of US Rugby 7s Head Coach Zack Test has announced the roster for the first stop of HSBC SVNS 2 (2nd tier, got relegated back in May 2025) in Nairobi, Kenya this coming weekend 14-15 Feb. The US Opens play against Belgium, then Uruguay, then Canada (always a fiery match), then Germany, and finally finish by playing hosts Kenya.
https://eagles.rugby/news/squad-named-for-svns-2-opener-in-nairobi-202624
SVNS 2 works differently from SVNS (top tier). In SVNS, you have pool play followed by the playoff rounds at every event. In SVNS 2, you play all 5 other teams once with ranking based on accumulated pts. At the end of the 3 stop SVNS 2 (Nairobi, Montevideo, Sao Paulo) the top 4 teams will advance to the HSBC SVNS World Championship series to join the 8 teams of HSBC SVNS 1. While the bottom 2 will be demoted to HSBC SVNS 3 for the 2026-2027 season. At the end of HSBC SVNS World Championship, the top 8 men’s teams and top 8 women’s teams will make up the 2026-2027 HSBC SVNS 1 circuit. While the bottom 4 of each will end up in the HSBC SVNS 2 circuit and be joined by the top 2 teams from the single event HSBC SVNS 3.
I like how American Soccer Analysis summarized the rebuild by saying fans should watch the Spirit.