DC United win, end of an era, and more: Monday Freedom Kicks
Happy Monday everyone. We got some snow, so as we navigate the streets to get the week started, let’s look back at the weekend, which was full of news!
DC United Open Season With a Win, Knock Off Union 1-0 (DP)
DC United opened the 2026 season with a win! Tai Baribo gets the lone goal against his former team. Shoutout to PJ for the recap of the opening night win.
D.C. United downs Philadelphia Union…no, seriously: Match report (Green Line Soccer)
Also, the goat Jason Anderson has his own site going! He gives us his first match report at his new writing home.
2026 DC United season preview: What does success look like? (DP)
ICYMI, we have a season preview for DC United up. The matches have started, but you can catch up with what it’s going to take for the Black-and-Red to be successful this season on and off the field.
MLS Fantasy Focus: The End (DP)
Our man Blasian has decided to cease his weekly fantasy soccer article after 14 years. We couldn’t be prouder of the work he’s done for this site and the former Black & Red United to keep us up to date with all the fantasy ins and outs. He’ll still be around here, and we thank him for all the hard work!
We have a new Hey Spirits out, so if you haven’t listened to it, it’s a great way to start your week!
DC Power announced a schedule change, with their away match against Brooklyn FC moving up from April 18th to March 7th. March 7th just got a little bit busier.
DC United is close to getting a 4th goalkeeper, as academy goalkeeper Grant Leveille is finalizing a first team contract. He was with the team during the preseason, and clearly impressed enough to get the first team deal. It will be unclear how the team plans to give him some minutes with 3 other keepers on the roster.
Mourinho made ‘unacceptable, huge mistake’ – Kompany (BBC)
Vincent Kompany make sure Jose Mourinho knew that he made a mistake in his comments to Vini Jr. after Vini reported a Benfica player made racist comments towards him last week. Real Madrid and Benfica play the return leg this week, and UEFA needs to take action before that match takes place.
Lionel Messi apparently tried to force his way into the referees’ locker room after their match against LAFC this past weekend. Precedent for that would call for a suspension long enough to render him out of the match against DC United on March 7th in Baltimore. But, looks like the league isn’t taking any action against him and he will remain eligible to play.
Mexican league matches postponed after cartel leader killed (ESPN)
Violence surrounding the killing of a powerful cartel leader by the Mexican army prompted 4 matches around Guadalajara to be postponed over the weekend. It’s becoming a pretty sticky situation down there, and hopefully peace can prevail. Mexico’s WNT is set to play Iceland in Queretaro on Wednesday, but it’s not known yet whether it will be postponed or moved.
New York/New Jersey cancels World Cup Fan Fest (USA Today)
The Liberty State Park Fan Fest that was charging money for tickets has now been canceled. New Jersey will instead invest $5 million in community initiatives surrounding the World Cup.
James Milner breaks Premier League record with 654th career game (USA Today)
Congrats to James Milner, who has successfully completed 84 years 654 games in the Premier League! Seriously, that’s a buttload of games and a tremendous accomplishment.
Japan replace draws with shootouts and hope to avoid paying World Cup penalty (The Guardian)
The J. League is changing its schedule format in a way similar to what MLS will do next year. But they’re introducing a thing that they think could help them in the World Cup: penalty shootouts whenever there are draws after 90 minutes. They feel the extra PK practice could help their national team this summer.
As we close out, I’ve been running a series on social media where everyday during Black History Month, I’ve paid tribute to a Black hero in various areas of life. On Saturday, I paid tribute to club legend Bill Hamid:
I wrote an article way back when on Hamid’s rise to becoming the youngest goalkeeper in MLS history. You can read that and more over at Stars & Stripes FC’s Black History Month hub.
Enjoy the day, y’all.
MLS and its Messi and Miami coddling are getting to some pretty crazy extremes.
Sure, MLS, Messi just had to be restrained by Suarez (which, when that’s your protector from unhinged overreactions, get a grip) cuz he was this close to a vending machine, and soda can NOT go into that temple we call his body. 🙄
It does sorta make me wonder what MLS post Messi playing in it looks like. Is there an institutional hangover that they eventually recover from, and execs say “what did we do to our league last night? This place is filthy!”
Missed the DC game live, and was finally able to watch the replay last night. Definitely impressed with some of the new guys. Seeing the passion from Baribo was great, he looks like he really wants to succeed here and hopefully that is maintained in games where we aren’t playing Philly. Kurokawa also looks like a great pickup. I liked having Schnegg here, but Kurokawa looks like he’ll do great. It’s also nice to see that Baribo, Kurokawa, and Peglow seem to have a decent (though not perfect) understanding of each other already.
Munteanu seemed fine, but does seem like he’ll need more time to adjust. We saw some flashes from him in the pre-season games, so hopefully things click soon. I’m certainly more hopeful that he’ll be able to figure it out compared to what Flores did while here
Will also note, for the roster, given that we didn’t have any announced out-bound loans before this weekend’s game, I think that means that Gabe Segal is occupying a senior roster spot. Otherwise, I don’t think we would have been compliant before kickoff unless we’re using that weird 31st roster spot mechanism. And if we sign that academy GK, someone will surely have to go out on loan to accommodate that
The Athletic just put out the first half of their anonymous MLS Executive survey. DC United gets only two mentions: among the contenders for “worst stadium” and the same for “worst training facilities.”
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7058062/2026/02/23/mls-anonymous-executive-survey-2026-best-worst-players-clubs-coaches/
BILL HAMID BILL BILL HAMID
Any chance the inter-confederation playoff games scheduled to be in Guadalajara next month get moved to the US? It’s a really terrible situation in Mexico right now and I hope they are able to sort it out before the World Cup proper in a few months.