“Artisanal” Takeaways, Team of the Month and Best XI’s, “Milwaukee Messi”, Design Flaws, and more: Thursday Freedom Kicks
Happy Thursday everyone. The less said about Liverpool’s Champions League match against Paris Saint Germain, the better. At this point, I am just pretending this season didn’t happen. I’m skipping from last year’s title to next season and just not going to talk about it. With that, its on to the news.
Takeaways from Loudoun’s ‘Artisanal’ draw with Birmingham (DP)
Loudoun debuted their wine and hops inspired “Artisanal” kit in their last match. Ryan breaks down the match and what it means while also looking ahead to Loudoun’s next match against Louisville.
Two DC Power FC Players Named to Gainbridge Super League March Team of the Month (DC Power)
Recently the results haven’t been adequate enough for a DC Power team looking to make the playoffs. Despite the three game losing streak, Recently the results haven’t been adequate enough for a DC Power team looking to make the playoffs. Despite the three game losing streak, two players, Loza Abera and Emily Colton, performed well enough to make the GSL Team of the Month. Abera made the starting 11, while Colton made the bench. For Colton, it is her third straight appearance on the GSL team of the month.
This month’s GSL Team of the Month also features other DC ties. Heather Stainbrook, on loan to Dallas from the Spirit, joined Abera among the “starters”. Former Spirit Amber Wisner was among those named to the bench.
Generation adidas Cup 2026: Who made the Best XIs? (MLS)
Marco Vita represented D.C. United in the U-15 Best XI. He scored the winning goal against Barcelona.
International Affairs: DC Power and Spirit April International Window Preview (DP)
The international window kicks into high gear today. Check out who got call ups, who and when they are playing, and what’s at stake. Me, I am personally really looking forward to the USWNT/Japan matches. Both teams are in good form, it should be a good test for both and entertaining for us.
Struggling Leicester City lose appeal over points deduction (ESPN)
Leicester City is the only team outside the Big Six to win the Premier League title in the last 30 years. That was 10 years ago though. Now they are potentially looking at relegation from the Championship to League One. That is rough,
Bosnia and Herzegovina are going to their second World Cup ever, that’s in part to a guy from Wisconsin. Here’s look at the man (some) people are now calling “Milwaukee Messi” (apparently).
Nike’s high-tech 2026 World Cup jerseys have a shoulder problem (The Guardian)
This story is just incredible to me. Given the significant amount of time between initial concept to unveiling a jersey and the sheer amount of money involved, you think at one point or another they would have had someone actually try on one in front of others long enough to identify this as an issue. It seems like an indictment of their quality control process.
Why Montreal isn’t hosting the World Cup — and FIFA’s rigid rules for Toronto, Vancouver (CBC)
Montreal is one of two cities, along with Chicago, that I was a bit surprised to not see among the host cities in the final announcement. Looking at the onerous requirements FIFA tried to saddle them with, I guess I shouldn’t be. Will any US city actually want to host the Women’s World Cup when it rolls around in 2031?
At this point FIFA can’t find any good press in advance of the World Cup. This is starting to creep into the larger discussion enough that some of my friends who are not interested in soccer as much are starting to pay attention.
Liverpool Fan Groups Plan Ticket Price Protests for Fulham Match (The Liverpool Offsides)
I said I was going to avoid commenting on the Liverpool/PSG match, not ancillary topics. One of the things I appreciate about European supporter groups is they don’t take things like ticket price hikes as fait accompli like many fans do here. Many will protest and back up their words with action. I wish them success in this endeavor.
Normally, I try to end with something funny or oddly interesting. This week, I came ran a cross a story while researching articles that led me down a rabbit hole looking into the unknown (to me anyway) history between one DC’s college soccer programs and MLS.
Normally, I wouldn’t consider a short term signing for anyone other than DC United as potentially FKs worthy, however, there is an interesting personal and local soccer angle to this. Elgersma played his college soccer in The District at my alma mater, American. The midfielder was AU’s captain and won Patriot League Offensive Player of the Year and Midfielder of the year in his time with the Eagles. Though he was on the bench for LA, Elgersma didn’t see the field against Toluca.
Prior to coming across this article, I didn’t think that AU ever had a player sign with an MLS squad let alone appear in a match. I was clearly wrong. American stated Elgersma is the 15th player from the school to sign with the league. It appears though no Eagle has seen the field for an MLS side since Sal Caccavale was drafted by and played one game with RBNY in 2007. Interestingly enough, the Black and Red have a minor history with AU. Three former Eagles, Antonio Otero (25 games in 1999-2000), Avery John (6 games in 2009) and Shawn Kuykendall (2 appearances in 2005) have seen the field for DCU over the years. Scott Pearson was on the bench as an unused substitute in a May 1999 match against the Chicago Fire. DC United also drafted former AU players Bobby Brennan and Michael Behonick, though neither player stayed long or saw official action. Kind of an interesting history that I never knew existed.
What did I miss?
Arne Slot signed two elite wingbacks and Florian Wirtz, who is incredible in the left half space in a system that uses them.
Then he proceeded to not build around them remotely.
They also shouldn’t have signed Isak when the Swede made the unhinged decision to wait till all of Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal, and Liverpool had acquired players they intended to start. That was frankly a distraction from sorting out the real structural issues, which really still aren’t addressed.
They also continued to keep Virgil Van Dijk and Mo Salah the year they aged out of the robustness that defined their playstyles.
Slot also didn’t realize that the success of last year was him bringing a more composed and staid component to Klopp’s training and intense mindset. He thought it was all him. And he destabilized the team with huge money transfers before he knew what the team would look like after a year, when Klopp’s influence would cease and it would become fully his team.
Slot’s a good manager, but he messed up. Xabi Alonso is a better manager with a preferred style that obviously suits Wirtz and Frimpong (his former charges), and will likely get the best out of Kerkez, as well.
Liverpool are not dead, they have a ton of talent that can be configured. Slot will figure out his thing somewhere else.
Liverpool do need to figure out whether they’re a powerhouse that makes decisions based on continued excellence, or if they’re compelled to ride the vibes and appease the short term emotional needs of their fans. Case in point, someone offers you 200 million for a 32 year old player, you friggin take it.
Is Slot even in charge of transfers? I’m sure he’s got strong input, but the club is the one that’s made these decisions. He hasn’t gotten elite performance from the team, but the club haven’t planned for the future all that well even when Klopp was around. Bringing Alonso in, who seems to demand more discipline, won’t fix the squad building issues.
I couldn’t disagree more.
While we don’t know what conversations were had internally about transfers, Slot got put on the wall of coaching legends following last season. The idea that he didn’t sign off on all of them seems highly improbable.
I will grant that the lack of awareness of how this could go even if they didn’t destabilize the club was club wide, but Slot still needs to go at this point.
And I don’t think you know how good Alonso actually is at coaching. During his Bundesliga winning season with Bayer Leverkusen (who had such an underperforming identity there were scoffed at as “Bayer Neverkusen”), he lost exactly one match the whole season. That was a Europa League Final against Atalanta, who managed to hit their ceiling against a team tired from sustained excellence.
Alonso was too disciplined for Madrid because they’re allergic to it. Mbappe, Bellingham, and Vini Jr. think they owe their talents only to God, and only credit him because he doesn’t manifest in training and tell them to run and learn.
Alonso accomplished incredible things with Wirtz and Frimpong. Liverpool liked winning the EPL, but they’ll love Xabi
Kudos to Marco Vita!
Damn the requirements of those FIFA agreements to host are nuts.
I can understand why Montreal said “Thanks but no thanks” to this.
Merci, mais non merci……
Merde……
PJ, I am reporting you to Ottawa for you lack of French in a Canadian posting. Insensitive. What did they teach you up the road from Georgetown?
/s (totally joking, dude, don’t resign!)
FIFA is a disgusting cartel. They have pretty much sucked the joy out of my anticipation for this World Cup travesty. I wonder if Darth Garber has his resume on their desk?
Je vous prie de m’excuser. Hélas, mon étourderie fait honte à mon université. Merci, Google Traduction.
My apologies. Alas my thoughtlessness casts shame on my university. Thank you Google Translate.
Well played. 😂
My sister went to AU. Love G’town’s neighbor for sure.
I really appreciate the banter in this community.
I’m trying to even understand what this means, and how it could be workable. There’s no place that is taking a stadium out of business for almost 2 years. So, this means growing a field somewhere…and then cutting out the sod to lay a new surface sometime before the event…which, to me seems far more consequential. The field needs some time to lay roots, below the sod, I would think, unless it’s still just going to be a thin carpet of real grass laid on top on an artificial surface or concrete, like we saw in Baltimore last month.
i mean it seems to me that a stadium that has its own grass pitch would be preferable, and could be in great shape if not being played on for a couple of months prior.
Capital City Soccer Show attended DC’s practice today and had some notes on participating players:
Rowles was fully training
Baribo came out late, but was looking like he will participate
No sign of Sean Nealis
I sorta want Markovic to get a real shot, cuz Rowles and Nealis aren’t spring chickens, and I want him to get the black and red bug- don’t think there’s any doubt he’s gonna develop
If Markovic could turn into a Steve Birnbaum type, that would be cool to see again.
So Markovic can also play as an extra striker late when we are trailing?
Ah yes, that wonderful time in DC history where the striker depth chart was
Between us chickens, I think he’d likely be a more talented second striker than Louis, at this point. I’ve seen early training videos of both of them, and, sadly, the one that caught my eye with skills was not acquired for 7 million 🤷♂️
It’s been very surprising not to see him on the pitch the last 2 weeks.
Donald is reporting Nealis had shoulder surgery and is out for a bit. he also mentions Baribo is questionable for this weekend.
https://bsky.app/profile/blazindw.bsky.social/post/3mj37vqccms2w
“A couple of weeks” seems like a really fast turnaround for shoulder surgery
I also have to wonder if Baribo can’t start this weekend, if Murrel gets the start or if we try a Louis and Pirani combo up top.
DC announced that he underwent surgery to fix his clavicle. He’ll be out 6-8 weeks
Ex-Chelsea player and former Brazil International Oscar has retired at 34. He has been diagnosed with vasovagal syncope, which is a common type of fainting caused by a sudden drop in blood pressure and heart rate.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7171706/2026/04/04/oscar-chelsea-sao-paulo-retirement/