Canada calls Carle, the Spirit Loan with DC Power FC, Bodo/Glimt Giant Slayers?, Klopp on USMNT Job, and more: Thursday Freedom Kicks
Happy Thursday everyone! We’ve official moved from Fake Spring to Winter II: Electric Boogalo here in Minnesota. We had a streak of nice, sunny, warm (relatively speaking) weather. Most of the snow had melted from my lawn. Then bam, we get snow, not a huge amount of it, and everyone forgets how to drive again. I used to complain about DMV drivers in the snow. I take this opportunity to publicly take all of my comments back. Drivers out here aren’t particularly any better at driving in the snow despite more frequent accumulation. They just talk a bigger game. Now on to the news.
Washington Spirit and USWNT defender Tara Rudd re-signs through at least 2028 (DP)
Tara Rudd has had a week, signing a new contract and receiving a call in to the USWNT camp for the SheBelieves Cup. André looks at her transformation from a top 10 draft pick playing forward to being the NWSL defender of the year and current holder of the Candy Corn Crown.
Washington Spirit’s Gabby Carle Called Up to Canada Women’s National Team (Washington Spirit)
The Canadian defender will rejoin her national side for next month’s SheBelieves Cup against the USWNT, Argentina, and Colombia. Carle will potentially see plenty of familiar faces on the opposite side of the pitch with Rodman, Rudd, and Wiesner in the US camp (and potentially Leicy Santos on the Colombian side).
In a first for the District’s two professional women’s soccer teams, the Spirit and DC Power agreed to a loan.
The Spirit signed Wojdelko out of Vanderbilt last month.
The Spirit and the Rose Room Collective announced their collaboration on new Spirit gear just the other day. The Hey Spirits crew dives into the news and interviews artist and Rose Room Collective co-founder Aaron Bland about it all came to be. Its been said multiple times, but the Spirit really get working authentically with the community.
MLS is Back: 10 biggest newcomers in 2026 (MLS)
What’s that, a DC United mention on the main MLS site? The Black and Red’s newest DP, Louis Munteanu, makes the preseason list of notable newcomers.
It looks like MLS’s transition to its new schedule is already causing some residual impacts, with the Pigeons delaying the opening of their new home until the start of the 2027/2028 campaign.
There are times I think Donald might be the busiest person in the DMV soccer world, doing everything he does here, writing for and managing Stars and Stripes FC, and doing multiple podcasts. Donald and his partners on the World of Concacaf are celebrating five years of their podcasr. Check it out as they talk with Jon Arnold of Getting CONCACAFed about where the region’s soccer past and future.
Speaking of Concacaf….
Mexico captain Edson Alvarez has ankle surgery as World Cup nears (USA Today)
Though the Fenerbahçe midfielder’s surgery comes just four months ahead of the start of the World Cup, he is expected to be fit for the tournament, barring any setbacks.
Bodo/Glimt brush aside Inter Milan in UCL playoff first leg (ESPN)
The Norwegian side are proving a dangerous foe for the European giants during this year’s Champions League. In the league phase, Bodo/Glimt knocked off Manchester City and Athletico Madrid. Now they are up on last year’s runners up going into next weeks second leg in Milan.
Prestianni could face a 10 match ban if he is found to have racially abused Vinícius Jr. The second leg of Benfica and Real Madrid’s playoff is Wednesday. Behavior like this has to stop.
Oh what could have been. A little bit of “heavy metal football” with this player pool might have been kind of fun. Would it have worked? Who can say, It definitely would not have been boring. There also would have been less of some of the unforced PR errors we’ve seen over the last year with Poch and the USMNT.
Speaking of Klopp, I’ll end with this. Since he joined Red Bull, he has been showing up in some random places. First it was Trivago commercials. Now he’s at the Olympics ringing the final lap bell for the Men’s 4 x 7.5km Biathlon Relay.
I wish I had the kind of gig where I was paid to watch soccer and pop up at random events just because.
What did I miss?
I think it’s cool that the Spirit are loaning a player (especially a GK) to the Power. They’ve got too many GKs on the roster, this makes it easier to monitor then sending someone to Dallas. I still don’t know how the Spirit are going to make all of the international spots work for their roster–we’ll see–maybe more loans?
It’s a very good practice to try this. I agree.
Didn’t see this comment on Thursday, but they’ve gotten green cards for many of the international players: a specialty of Haley Carter. Bernal, Santos, and Kouassi had all lost the international tag on the last roster announcement, and Carter told Hey Spirits more were on the way.
So who else is ready to get our twice seasonal thumping by Philly out of the way with the first game?
I have a ticket, and declined insurance random, so, yep.
I wonder if Klopp with start hanging out with Martha Stewart and Snoop Dog?
That would be kind of fun to watch I think
I don’t even know if it’s largely unforced PR errors from Poch. He definitely wants the team to work on the field and to try to maintain a certain culture, but it’s with his own career in mind.
All of that would be absolutely fine by me, considering a strong World Cup showing is vital to the growth of the program, and Poch can be on his merry way the second that run ends. However, Poch has been eyeing past whatever that match will be in blatant, publicized fashion. He wants the media and, by extension, the EPL clubs to keep him in their brain pans as a figure who has this mystique and will soon be available.
Sometimes it feels like he’s just a step dad pointing at his newfound charge, and just being like, can you believe how incorrigible this kid is? I love ‘em, but a bit much, amirite? He wants credit for the caretaker status, but certainly wants to loom larger in the public eye as he obsesses over the approaching opportunities.
Glad he’s found a formation that works, and isn’t waiting around for some of the more detached talents to make the team elite, but I won’t miss the “Oh, wow, a journalist, I guess I might as well…” bullshit.
I’ll actually be in town during the DC game this weekend, but wont be able to watch it. My wife is a big Duke Basketball fan, and she’s never been to a game, so I’m taking her to their game at Capital One Arena. Hopefully I have enough phone service in the arena to actually keep track of the DC game. And hopefully DC gives me something worthwhile to watch on replay on Sunday (i.e., not a 6-0 loss).
Knowing that he’s also a Duke fan, I have to wonder if Donald is more likely to be at the Duke or DCU game.
I know live basketball is worth it when competitive, and I’m not speaking directly to this situation at all, but…
I’m sorta surprised how stubborn Americans with TV recording capabilities don’t just record basketball, baseball, and football games, and watch them later more often. There’s something deeply ingrained in people that they need to be sitting down from the beginning, and won’t even wait an hour to be able to skip a ton of commercials and see the end result anyway.
My dad especially refuses to even watch a game he missed in this fashion, and never mutes the commercials. Think it’s a weird tradition to hold to, as commercialization is just getting worse, not better.
I actually don’t have the ability to record things through my cable provider, so I’m usually stuck watching live things when they happen or not at all. Very glad that I can go back and watch DC game replays whenever I want though, its super helpful. I’ll keep track of the game as much as I can in the arena (mostly through comments on the game thread here and whatever gets posted on Bluesky) but it’ll be nice to still be able to see how the new guys do and fit together, even if its the next day (and even if they get destroyed by Philly like usual…)
Oh, yeah, as I said, I just wanted to air this befuddlement at Americans refusal to eschew countless and relentless hours of commercials even when they already have the capability to avoid them with only the slightest of habit tweaks.
This scenario just brought it to mind, it’s just something I think about
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/feb/19/world-cup-bump-mls
Are we doing District Press MLS Fantasy leagues this season?
Blasian has unfortunately made the call to cease the feature due to work/life balance.
We thank him for his dedication, but I know the series will be missed.
That’s more than fair. I might spin up a classic and head to head anyway, even if the performance isn’t blogged about. Just for something to do as a community.
Annoyingly, MLS Fantasy is now done through Kickbase app on smartphones.
Here’s the classic league: https://kickbase.app.link/HZndzYh5T0b
Here’s the H2H league: https://kickbase.app.link/izsIk8p5T0b
I wouldn’t have said no to Daniel Salloi.
Dax McCarty has a piece on MLS site listing DCU as one of 5 teams that won the offseason, but still thinks they’ll miss the playoffs, I guess Salloi means Josh Sargent is a man without a club. Just saying. I think I’d prefer him to Baribo. As between Salloi and Baribo. we probably have the better guy. Anyway, I’d love to be surprised, but when I look at the players other teams are getting, I think DCU aimed lower.
By the way — I have an extra ticket for the opener, in case anyone’s interested.