Akinmboni loaned to Dundee FC, a request from DC Scores, and more: Friday Freedom Kicks
It’s Friday!
Matai Akinmboni joins on loan (Dundee FC)
Akinmboni is on the move once again! Hopefully he’ll find some success with his new team.
Ranking the USL Super League jerseys (The District Press)
Donald ranked all the home, away, and third jerseys for the USL Super League this season. I agree that DC Power’s third kit is one of the best. What do y’all think?
Open Letter from Our Executive Director (DC Scores)
DC Scores does a lot of good work with kids in our community and are facing a major shortfall this year. Please consider donating if you can.
D.C. United Invites Nominations for 2026 Raise a Toast Recognition (D.C. United)
In other charitable news, D.C. United is soliciting nominations of local leaders who “embody our community values of empowerment, opportunity and service” for Raise a Toast recognition.
Meanwhile, you can also vote for Leicy Santos to win the Lauren Holiday Impact Award. The winning player will have $10,000 donated to the charity of her choice.
Building the future of women’s sports, literally. Plus: A record crowd in Georgia (The Athletic)
This week’s Full Time newsletter focuses on the importance of women’s teams owning their own facilities, citing the Spirit as an “interesting outlier” of a team experience success in bringing in crowds without ownership or its related economic rewards.
Well, well, well. I was unaware that Inter Miami’s coach had a reputation for getting his team out to the pitch late, but apparently it has caught up with him.
Five USWNT young stars to watch ahead of 2027 Women’s World Cup (SBNation)
Donald introduces us to the young stars of the USWNT.
The Cohesive Culture That Constructs Richmond Soccer (USL League 1)
Richmond Kickers and Ivy SC are building a soccer community in Virginia.
Finally, here’s your match schedule for the weekend. It’s a two-match weekend in Buzzard Point!
| Teams | When | Where | Watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lexington SC vs. DC Power FC | Sat., Aug. 29 at 1 p.m. | Lexington, KY | Peacock |
| D.C. United vs. LAFC | Sat., Aug. 29 at 7:30 p.m. | Washington, DC | Apple TV |
| El Paso Locomotive vs. Loudoun United | Sat., Aug. 29 at 9 p.m. | El Paso, TX | ESPN+ |
| Washington Spirit vs. Bay FC | Sun., Aug. 30 at 12:30 p.m. | Washington, DC | ESPN2 |
During a press conference Weiler says Caden Clark is close to departure from club.
Unsurprising in the sense that he has barely played at all this year, even though we probably could have used him. Surprising in the sense that its strange we even brought him in at all given how little he played.
The transfer window closes next week. I wonder if it will happen before then.
Clark has played 221 minutes in 11 MLS appearances for the club. Kimito Nono has played more minutes than he has.
Make no mistake, Clark has talent.
Got a cap for the US last cycle in one of those showcase games, and was easily one of the three most promising displays of talent out there. He’s also shown glimpses of it in his limited appearances. I don’t think it was a mirage.
But my diagnosis is that he has to have a special interest in an event to show, and that disinterest is damning in a professional footballer, regardless of where you play, your skillset, or your age profile. Had he shown interest in training up and delivering at United, he would have been ideal for the RM position in this formation, and gotten far more play.
But, if I’m right about his need for interest to get him going, he’s gonna find out when he moves on that disinterest does not get you to what you’re interested in.
Good riddance, and I think he’s got some “oh, crap” epiphanies to go before he’s good for anybody.
The biggest issue, which seems to also go in hand with what you talk about below in terms of the front office, is that the Clark acquisition calls into question whether Sogut, Kasper, and Weiler are aligned in terms of player acquisitions. The reporting at the time was that Weiler pushed to sign Clark, but then he didn’t play him when he was available last year, and has barely played him this year. It’s possible that he saw something in basically his first game in charge against Montreal (and I believe that Clark didn’t even start that game) and said, “I must have him!” and then immediately changed his mind. Or perhaps it was more likely that Dave Kasper was much more acquainted with Clark’s history in MLS and thought he would be a good player (I did too!), but then he arrived and Weiler didn’t rate him.
There was some speculation going around that Gabe Segal was also not in the plans for United going forward, but reading Weiler’s quote, it just seemed more like he wasn’t going to be in the plans for Saturday against LAFC. Still, there wasn’t any kind of comment about “looking forward to when he’s able to contribute, and show why we got him.” That signing also seemed to have some Kasper fingerprints on it.
It’s possible the Nathan Ordaz signing does too. Weiler seems to have spoken more warmly about Ordaz, and certainly hasn’t buried him, but he also hasn’t given him much of a run and criticized his fitness. It’s also not quite clear how well Ordaz would fit with Baribo and Munteanu. Sogut was quoted as being really excited about the U22 mechanism, and that seems like something that Kasper really would have briefed him on.
As it is, people want to minimize Kasper’s role in the front office, but it certainly seems like he’s still got influence. It’s not all bad, since if we’re attributing intra-MLS moves and weird mechanisms to Kasper’s domain, then things like signing Tai Baribo, Sean Johnson, and drafting Nikola Markovic have been pretty good. Other things like signing Sean Nealis, Gabe Segal, and moving assets to draft Richie Aman are still kind of up in the air.
But the point remains that the organizational flow chart seems a little muddled, and that the three main decision-makers – Sogut, Kasper, and Weiler – don’t seem to be in full alignment when it comes to building the team. That’s a real problem.
Gabe Segal has been out almost from his start with the club from injury. I don’t know how you can judge a person without seeing him play.
The possible signings from South America could be from Dave Kasper. He recruited heavily from there during his tenure.
One thing they can look at more is signings from MLS.
I feel like the Segal situation isn’t nearly as egregious as the Clark one. Segal came in the re-entry draft, so no resources were spent to get him. At the time, we were looking at a striker corps of Baribo, Louis, Murrell, and Segal; essentially 2 starters and 2 backups. I don’t think the intention was to ever really play him much, we just needed some amount of depth. It’s unfortunate that he’s been hurt the entire year, but we’ve also ended up using Pirani, Hopkins, Peglow, and now Ordaz in that position in his place. If anything, I think the odd thing about him is if he was signed to a senior roster spot instead of supplemental, which we still don’t fully know the answer to
As I’ve said, I think there was enough to Clark to roll the dice, and once Sogut came in to work with Weiler, it’s been positive signings pretty consistently. I’m not over the moon with Louis Munteanu as our second striker due to his deficiency at defense disruption, but he can at least shoot at this point.
Clark failed, no doubt, but at what point do you just say the player didn’t lock in?
I don’t think Clark is in keeping with our acquisitions since the offseason.
We took a flyer on an interesting talent that would have fit our system, he didn’t give it a real go, he’s gone. From my perspective, the player is the failure.
Something that is positive is the club is finding ways to fix their mistakes or identify problems and try to address them and not let them drag out.
And, moreover, if Clark was lax in training and commitment, Weiler was right to exclude him from playing time. Other players respect the earning as much as the ability, and get jaded when someone coasts into depth chart dominance.
I think it’s waaaay too early to make a call on Ordaz’s fitness and eventual impact, I genuinely think LAFC likely just didn’t focus on him a ton, cuz they never were going to start him with their DP stable.
And he has been an infinitely more dynamic partner for Baribo, outside of some freakish but rare moments of Louis feeding Tai.
He is the sort of connector, ball carrier, and threat you want in a 4-4-2, and I’m incredibly excited to see him get starts when fully up to speed. Louis is not going to make the machine him, as his goals have been
Even if he is a super sub for the rest of the season, I think that’s more about timing and squad culture late in the game than his effort, which has been there, for sure.
An offseason and a squad rethink will see him boosted significantly, I bet
I wonder if they are even doing due diligence for things outside of soccer skills. Things like character, work ethic, or fit to the club.
Fwiw, there have been interview with Sogut where he has specifically said that one of the most important things to him when signing a player is that they are a good fit culturally. So it at least seems to be something he is concerned about
We were in baddd shape at the end of last season, when Weiler pulled the trigger on Clark.
There are coaches who have made their entire careers off taking “bad seeds” at or near rock bottom, and getting them to reform and deliver what the others gave up on.
Weiler saw something, made the call, backed himself to get Clark going.
It didn’t work out, but it’s not accurate to say Caden was part of the plan we’ve seen
Tom Bogert is reporting silence on the DCU front in his MLS transfer round up.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7544130/2026/08/27/mls-transfer-window-sporting-kc-colorado/
Hate to say it, but this is a sign of competency from the FO team, and a warning light for the club’s reputational pull.
We’d all like to bolster and make the playoffs, but we don’t need any more bad contracts. Cuz next season is the one that really makes or breaks this rebuild.
I would like to see us get playoff qualification, but I think we all know it’s likely that 8th vs 9th spot game, and potentially winning that match would be our ceiling.
That’s not worth jumping for what at this point are surely 5th or 6th player options in this inflated market who are likely both overpriced and a massive drop off in impact and consistency from the top prospects. (Subriare comes to mind as what the type we needed, but got scorned). What’s more, clubs would have no incentive to give us a bargain with the clock ticking down on the window.
The owners gave this FO team a bad hand in terms of enticing players to our club, this isn’t on Weiler and Sogut.
Should we start to worrying about the Spirit? I am not sure what is happening with them in the last several games.
I wouldn’t worry. We lost to SD (they were right near the top of the table) and NC (crazy game where we hit the post right before they scored the winner). Orlando has one of the best forwards in the league and she set up the only goal.
The underlying numbers are still there and we will probably course correct with some easier games coming up (Bay is in 14th and we play Chicago twice). We also have AFCON players back.
Hoping this Sunday is the start of an unbeaten streak that takes us deep into the playoffs and hopefully a championship game at home.
I am still wondering if the coach is capable of finding the right players to play when we have absences. Some of the losses because of defensive mistakes and the inability to finish with all the opportunities concern me.
My only theory is he’s very focused on squad dynamics off the pitch and in training, and has undervalued the need to make pragmatic decisions related to personnel. The lineups are often baffling in terms of roles and cohesion of concept. With Hal Hershfelt and especially, I have recently felt like she is being forced into a game of responsibility charades for the fans to participate in
The vibes and talent have kept us high in the table, but I’m going on record that we could probably do better with this squad than what Gonzalez has wrought
Looks like Kimito Nono and Hosei Kijima went to the Embassy of Japan for a dinner put together about sharing best practices around sport. Seems like a pretty cool opportunity, and something special that happens from being in Washington, DC.
Really nice of the embassy staff, and also a boon to the club for their settling in and feeling like they’re connected
Daniel Gazdag has moved from Columbus to New England. He won’t be a DP for New England, which seems like a worthwhile enough gamble on their part. Gazdag has been a great player in MLS, but wasn’t doing much in Columbus (his PK goal against DC last year notwithstanding).
Columbus is supposedly looking at signing Santi Rodriguez (formerly of NYCFC) to be their new DP in Gazdag’s place. DC doesn’t have to face New England again this year, but does have games against the Crew. No Gazdag, but maybe Rodriguez. We’ll see how that plays out.
Apparently US Soccer is close to taking over the US Youth Soccer Association. Tomorrow in Dallas USYSA members will vote on an amendment to their bylaws bascially handing over control of the organization to US Soccer.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7545747/2026/08/28/us-soccer-youth-takeover/
American youth international midfielder Rokas Pukstas is joining Aidan Morris, Sebastian Berhalter, and Max Arfsten at Middlesbrough from Croatian club Hajduk Split. Puktstas has not been capped at the senior level, but has repped the red, white, and blue at the U-15 and U-21 levels. He is 22 and started in Sporting Kansas City’s youth setup before moving to Split in 2020 where he made his senior debut in 2022.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7539957/2026/08/26/middlesbrough-transfers-rokas-pukstas/