Hopkins Stays, Karamoko Loaned Out, Triple Espresso Returns International Spirits, Firings, New Jersey and New York Enter the Chat, and more: Thursday Freedom Kicks
Happy Thursday everyone. One of the more fascinating things for me in the run up to the World Cup has been seeing where the 48 teams selected for their base camps. Some of them are quite interesting. Chief among them is Egypt picking Gonzaga University. I am just picturing Mo Salah strolling through Spokane’s Riverfront Park enjoying the peace and quiet while most people are blissfully unaware. Anyway, it was a busy news day. Let’s get to the headlines.
The youngest player to serve as DC United captain will be sticking around until 2029 with a new U22 contract. Hopkins new deal is well deserved. Entering the World Cup break, he has already set a career best in minutes played.
D.C. United Loans Forward Hakim Karamoko to Forward Madison FC (DC United)
While Hopkins will be staying, another young DC United player will be going out on loan. Karamoko was the 10th pick in the 2025 MLS Super draft and has made two appearances for the Black and Red over the last two years. He’ll take the field for USL One side Forward Madison FC.
Over the last two days, eight more call ups for Spirit players were announced for the upcoming international window. England and Scotland announced call ups previously for Esme Morgan and Sandy MacIver respectively. As of now, the Spirit could almost field a full starting line up with the players called up. No reports on if Jose will travel to Mexico with Bernal.
First squad decisions (VfL Wolfsburg)
In DCU alumni news, after suffering relegation, VfL Wolfsburg released six players, including Kevin Paredes. Could a reunion be in the future?
Triple Espresso returns as USWNT roster named (Stars and Stripes FC)
Triple Espresso is back! Donald’s got a more in depth look at the USWNT roster ahead of their trip to Brazil.
Speaking of Triple Espresso, Sophia Smith and Mal Swanson are returning from maternity leave. In NWSL, 28 mothers are on active rosters, an all time record. The Athletic dives into the science supporting record numbers of mothers returning to the field of play and national team duty.
MLS-worst Philadelphia Union fire coach Bradley Carnell as part of front office shakeup (AP)
There are multiple layers to this story. Despite winning the Supporter’s Shield and Coach of the Year in his first season, Carnell is joining the cavalcade of unemployed MLS gaffers just a few months into the season. Despite the shake up somehow Ernst Tanner is still employed by the Union.
Chicago Stars dismiss general manager Richard Feuz (5 Chicago)
Chicago is off to a horrid start, scoring only 5 goals in 11 games. I’m sure the dismissing the GM will be exactly what is needed to right the ship for the Stars. Its definitely not partially on the cheap ownership….
Why NWSL’s business expansion creates tension between longtime fans and newcomers (ESPN)
The tension has been obvious to anyone paying attention over the last few months to the online response to any of Commissioner Berman’s business word salad statements about the spirit of this or that. The big question remains can NWSL manage growth without alienating core fans and destroying its “cultural relevance.”
Despite injury concerns, Richards was an unused substitute in Crystal Palace’s UEFA’s Conference League final against Rayo Vallecano. For Crystal Palace, their 1-0 victory clinched their first European trophy and a spot in next season’s Europa League. For Richards, his presence on the bench is a positive sign with roughly two weeks until the USMNT kicks off the World Cup.
New York, New Jersey Attorney Generals Launch Investigation Into FIFA Practices (SI)
This is going to be interesting to watch. FIFA is familiar with dealing with authoritarian regimes, but I am not sure if they are prepared to deal with the AGs from New Jersey and New York.
I’ll end with this……
Between the roster selections, the email rejection controversy, and this news, the run up to the World Cup is turning into the Poch show.
What did I miss?
Given we’re at the nominal half-way point of this season, I decided to look back at the first 15 games of last season to see how DC is comparing so far.
For this season, we sit at 4-5-6 (W-L-D, 18 points), with 21 goals scored and 25 goals conceded (-4 GD).
For 2025, we were at 3-7-5 (14 points), with 13 goals scored and 27 goals conceded (-14 GD).
Improvements all around. I was a bit surprised to see how similar the goals conceded numbers were, but the team really started leaking goals (and not scoring many) in the second half of last season, so hopefully that’s not the case this year. There was also only 2 more wins after this point last year, and I feel confident saying that the current team will be able to do better than that this year.
At this time last season, I was already at the point of assuming a game was going to be a loss and being pleasantly surprised when something else occurred.
I would say that Sean Johnson is doing a good job, but I was a little bit taken aback when I noticed the comparison to Zach Wells, who I consider to be one of the worst goalies in United history (David Ousted and Rafael Romo ended up being worse).
Anyway, Wells played 17 games and gave up 28 goals, keeping only one clean sheet.
Johnson has played 15 games, given up 25 goals, and kept four clean sheets.
So, it’s absolutely in the realm of possibility that Johnson allows at least three goals in his next two games. The edge in clean sheets is good, but that also means that in the games where he allows a goal, Johnson is performing at a worse clip than Wells.
United touts its defensive improvement, and it has improved over last year. But that improvement has been slipping in recent games, which we’re also seeing in the inability to close down games and hold leads.
Probably related, but we’ve also tended to score more goals in the games in which we’ve allowed more (4-4 NJRB game, 4-4 MTL game, 3-2 ORL game). I feel like we end up in situations where either everyone but the forward(s) defend, and we get really exciting games like the 0-0 one in Atlanta where no soccer was played, or everyone gets involved in the attack to try to score more and subsequently give up more goals. The NYC game comes to mind of one where we did both fairly well, but IIRC, the goals we scored in that game were lower percentage sort of goals
Probably something to that. The NYCFC goals were off a long throw in (especially long on those field dimensions) that bounced in the box and Louis put away, and then a converted penalty kick. So they weren’t exactly low percentage, but they were more set piece style goals, which have kind of become a signature of our side.
NWSL is doing a league branded bus tour in conjunction with the World Cup and the restart of the season following the Men’s World Cup break.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7314241/2026/05/28/nwsl-world-cup-summer-of-soccer-fan-initiative/
United has announced that Aaron Herrera, Matti Peltola, and Louis Munteanu have all been called up to their national teams for friendlies during the World Cup break. Herrera and Peltola have been mainstays for Guatemala and Finland respectively, but it’s good to see that coming over to MLS hasn’t damaged Munteanu’s ability to get call ups for Romania. He’s only made four appearances with their senior national team, so I don’t know that he was strongly in the mix before coming over to DC, but I’m glad that he’s been in good enough form to be called up again.
Well Senegal is…interesting..Pape Thiaw their head coach has been out of contract since February despite their participation in the World Cup. Media in Africa were reporting that Thiaw had refused to travel to the US for the World Cup. The Senegalese football federation is “categorically” denying that report. Still weeks out form the start of the World Cup and they still haven’t renegotiated a new contract for Thiaw…
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7314698/2026/05/28/senegal-manager-thiaw-contract-world-cup/
https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/why-philadelphia-union-cleared-the-decks-at-the-world-cup-break
House cleaning for the Union. They let head coach Bradley Carnell go and have appointed Ryan Richter, the coach of their MLS Next Pro team, on an interim basis. They are also letting Ernst Tanner the Sporting Director, who is currently on administrative leave, go at the end of his contract later this year. While Tanner is on admin leave in a restorative practices program they have appointed Jon Scheer who runs their academy as Acting Sporting Director.
The last time the US hosted the WC, it lead to a lot of WC players then moving to MLS. Granted, some of that was due to the birth of MLS. But I’ve got to think that exposure to the US (even with the current Administration) may make MLS more attractive to a number of players. It could be a good time to have some open DP slots and cap room. We’ll see.
I think that will largely be determined less by the cities, and more by what happens. Iran, thousands of inexperienced fans flying in, watch parties with ICE interested….
If there’s a real effort to not be inhospitable, MLS might have a shot. I’m absolutely not betting on clear skies, though.