World Cup knockout bracket set, Canada win Round of 32 match, and more: Monday Freedom Kicks
Happy Monday, everyone. I’m back in DC for like 30 hours before I head to the Bay Area for the USMNT match. Let’s discuss some of what happened over the weekend.
The World Cup knockout stage was set, and here’s the bracket for everyone:
Marsch’s ‘Canadian heroes’ deliver defining win over South Africa (ESPN)
Canada was the first team to win in the Round of 32, with a late goal moving them past South Africa and into the Round of 16 for the first time.
For those people here, the Spirit had a bar crawl, and some of the players were at Solace pouring drinks! I hate that I missed this.
World Cup glory could all come down to penalties. What’s the best strategy? (The Guardian)
Let’s hope that USMNT matches don’t come down to penalties, but if it does, what’s the best strategy?
Should there be a World Cup NIT? Some seem to think so…what say you?
Are Iran the unluckiest side in World Cup history? (BBC)
Iran had the deck stacked against them in so many ways and still suffered heartbreak where in the span of 2 minutes, they went from out of the tourament to qualified for the knockout stage back to being out.
Shoutout to Africa. They sent 10 teams to the World Cup and 9 of them made the knockout stage.
Finally, two shameless plugs. First, if you’re looking for US gear since everything is sold out, of course I got you covered!
In DCU rumor news, they made an offer for Mihai Lixandru, from Romania.
https://www.transfermarkt.us/will-mihai-lixandru-join-d-c-united-/thread/forum/154/thread_id/1196969/page/1#anchor_3380218
Is DCU out of International slots? Here is a list of DCU Internationals. Who is on the chopping block? Pirani for sure. Probably Kajima.
Kajima
Pirani
Peglow
Rowles
Markovic
Kurokawa
Helfti
Baribo
Munteanu
Quick correction to your list of international players. The current list is:
Dozzel, Hefti, Kurokawa, Markovic, Munteanu,Peglow, Peltola, Rowles.
We’re at 8 out of 8 spots filled at the moment. Pirani and Baribo both have green cards. Peltola has been here the longest and would presumably be next in line for a green card (maybe an off chance of Rowles getting one). So, if they want to bring in anyone thats not domestic, either someone on that list needs to get a green card, or they need to get moved (or we need to trade for another international spot)
Based on your list, they must have plans to trade or get rid of people during summer transfer.
Yeah, we really should be prioritizing domestic players right now, unless its some sort of guaranteed home-run star DP or something. Im sure Lixandru is a fine player, but I’m not sure he’s the kind of guy we should be spending our international spots on at the moment. Especially since Peltola, Peglow, and Rowles are the only international guys on the roster that have been here longer than 6 months (Markovic has been in the country for years, but as far as I am aware time in college does not count towards getting a green card, so his time essentially started when he was drafted)
You are correct that time spent on an F-1 student visa doesn’t count towards green card status. It is a temporary non-immigrant visa.
https://visaliv.com/forum/main-forum/how-long-will-it-take-to-obtain-us-citizenship-green-card-after-studying-unicollege-there-for-4-years-or-do-you-have-to-
The other thing is that we would likely hope that United switches its roster construction designation and gets a third DP. Getting Dozzell (and potentially Lixandru) make it that much more difficult to get an international player. Maybe they’ll go for someone like Yunus Musah or Tim Weah, or maybe they’ll repeat what they did with Baribo and target someone already within MLS who would have a green card if necessary.
Or they can just trade for some extra international slots.
It should also always be mentioned that even though DC opted for the 2 DP/4 U22 model, the only time they sort of had 4 U22s was when they signed Jackson Hopkins to a new deal. And Joon was in Korea all season before making his transfer permanent, and the other two U22s – Pirani and Clark – have played a total of 556 minutes this minutes and are both pretty solidly in Weiler’s doghouse.
So, way to roster construct, DC United!
Speaking of DP’s, Chicago got Lewandowski. I bet ownership would spend money for a marquee signing like that.
I do question how durable Lewandowski will be both immediately and as time progresses.
Think you could argue that he was actually in the ideal playing situation at Barca- incredibly creative, fast, and front loaded attack designed to generate countless chances for anyone who can finish in the box. He didn’t need to be particularly mobile, he just had to be there at the end of the play.
But Barca saw less and less of him on the field this past season, despite the dynamic being set up for him.
He’ll get some goals in MLS, he’s one of the most ingenious finishers of all time. But will Chicago be able to replicate the environment of a mega club essentially dunking on destitute sporting institutions? (La Liga is really strapped overall, which is one reason why Barca and Madrid struggle to generate proper revenue).
Especially since he’s going to be anxious to put up numbers, you might actually have a dampening effect on attacking output, like Portugal with Ronaldo.
As far as the World Cup “NIT” idea goes, I do think it would be fun/interesting to have a sort of unrelated showcase going on during the World Cup downtime. If we could use cities that weren’t picked as World Cup host cities (DC, Chicago, Charlotte, St Louis, something in Ohio, etc), I feel like that could also do a lot to get other places more involved.
What a missed opportunity. Because the USA would have been the country to pull this off. We have so many stadiums that could have been used, so many cities that could be good hosts (like DC, Chicago, Portland). And I’m so loving the cultural experience delivered by the Norwegians, the Tartan Army, the Oranje,and the others as well. Imagine adding Denmark, Italy, Guatemala, Nigeria to the traveling fan bases.
Japan up 1-0 on Brazil!