Bernal and Clark Depart DMV, Zouhir Returns, DC Power August Accolades, Rollercoaster Tifos, and more: Thursday Freedom Kicks
Happy Thursday everyone. As Talonesque mentioned yesterday, he and I will be switching days going forward. I’ve been writing FKs for Thursdays for just over a year. It’s not a long time, but there have been several impactful things that have dropped late on Wednesday’s for DC teams, almost always after I had finished my draft for Thursday morning and called it a night. DCU fired Troy Lesesne after the USOC destruction at the hands of Nashville. “Spirit of the rules” entered our collective lexicon late on a Wednesday night when NWSl rejected the deal between Trinity Rodman and the Spirit. I say all of this to say, have fun with Thursdays Talonesque.
Bernal’s move to Man U is now official. The Spirit will receive an undisclosed transfer fee plus potential add ons. Bernal will become the first Mexican player in the Women’s Super League.
Bernal’s time in DC was relatively short, but influential. Dennis took a look at the flexibility and impact Bernal demonstrated on the field, as well as the off the field legacy she will leave, particularly with the areas Mexican and Mexican-American fans.
DCU makes a deal to send an international spot they weren’t going to use this year for assets to use next year.
Sounders sign once-promising prospect Caden Clark (Sounder at Heart)
Caden Clark’s time with DC United will be one of the odder notes of the this era of Black and Red soccer, From the team acquiring Clark after René Weiler saw him take the field for Montreal against the club, to his limited appearances, and capping off with Red Bull scrapping a deal to acquire the midfielder, his time in the DMV hasn’t been entirely uneventful in a traditional way.
Gainbridge Super League Team of the Month – August (Gainbridge Super League)
After the first month of play, three players from DC Power made the GSL team of the week, DC mainstays Loza Abera and Justina Gaynor were named to the Starting 11. With three goals in three games Abera sits second in the Golden Boot race. Gaynor has helped anchor a DC backline that has conceded only three goals thus far. Newcomer Emma Jaskaniec was named to the bench.
Loudoun United FC Sign Midfielder Rida Zouhir Through 2027 (Loudoun United)
Zouhir spent the 2025 season with DC United after four years with Montreal.
Bowser opposes $300M public investment to put roof on Audi Field (Washington Business Journal)
With the city owning and renovating Cap One and building a brand-new domed stadium for the Commanders, putting a roof on Audi is not a priority for the city, according to the mayor. This could change when administrations change, but is unlikely to. Raise your hand if you’re surprised. No one?
There’s a new book coming out on Michele Kang’s time at Olympique Lyonnais. Unfortunately for us, in the short term it’s only available in France and in French. If there are any francophone DP readers, I’d be curious on your thoughts.
Yahoo Sports and Apple TV team up to deliver live MLB and MLS alternate broadcasts (Yahoo Sports)
Not to sound to much like “Old man yells at cloud”, but no matter the sport or who is helming the show, alt broadcasts are not my thing. For those of you who enjoy them or just don’t want to listen to some of the Apple crew, this could be a good thing.
Argentina pausing all games in minute 10 for Messi tribute (ESPN)
Ok, on this one I might intend more to sound like “Old man yells at cloud” because I’m a bit incredulous here for two reasons in particular. 1) Messi has retired and unretired from international football before. Will this one stick? Likely. But you can’t say for certain though. 2) This seems like a move for when someone moves between planes of existence, not when they’ve got a 7:30 match against Atlanta.
Hull condemn ‘disgusting’ racist abuse of deadline-day signing Robinio Vaz (The Guardian)
THIS BEHAVIOR IS REPUGNANT AND NEVER ACCEPTABLE. The fact that we need to keep having this conversation is insane.
German soccer team’s rollercoaster tifo may be greatest of all time (USA Today)
Palate cleanser. This is pretty cool.
This whole fiasco just continues to induce eye-rolling scorn. How much of the billions in reserves that this “nonprofit” has are going to be used up defending Infantino’s corruption?
I’ll end with this.
If you thought we’d have a post focusing on Rebeca Bernal’s departure and Jose the Coyote wouldn’t appear, you’re mistaken. Check out his tribute to his mama with full volume on.
What did I miss?
Do we know if that 2027 GAM is just for the sprint season or it will also be useable for the 2028-2029 calendar flipped season? My guess is that its just for the 2027 sprint season.
GAM should be able to be rolled over (as long as its not the U22 model GAM, which this isnt). So, it should be good for the whole 2027 calendar year, I suppose
Whoops meant the 2027-2028 calendar flip season.
There’s going to be a lot of weird things that happen with this calendar shit in regards to contracts and things like GAM. Like Peltola’s contract currently goes through December 2027, with an option until December 2028. Gonna take a bit for all of the contracts to reflect the new system
I try to take a long view on the transfer deadline. In the window, we did add two (maybe three?) starters in Dozzell, Nono and Ordaz. We did sign a promising homegrown in Castillo. We did clear out some premium roster slots (Pirani, Clark) and players that weren’t getting time (Murrell, Antley, Karamoko, Farr). That’s all to the good.
But we still left two premium roster slots unfilled. After ownership saying that all three DP slots would be filled this year, that seems like a broken promise. I think it even makes sense to go with the U22 model and bank some GAM for next season, but we’re ending the season with fewer U22 players than when we began it. Signing a DP to a long term deal would have meant locking all of those slots for the next several seasons, given the contracts to Baribo and Munteanu. But at least one more U22 player would have been bringing in an asset that could grow. It might not have panned out, but you aren’t staking the success of your club to them delivering in a way that you are with DPs. And maybe it would have worked. It looked like they were pursuing Ian Subiabre, but that didn’t work out. And now you don’t have that extra help for the stretch run, and more importantly you don’t have them in 2027.
There’s still the opportunity to add free agents, so maybe we can still get some kind of depth move in. A left back for Kurokawa’s sake if nothing else. We were able to move one international slot, but if that other one goes unused the rest of the year, that’s a demerit for the front office.
Maybe it’s the case that there weren’t players who “made sense” available. But that seems more like the team wasn’t looking hard enough. We’ve made big impactful signings in the summer window before (Arriola, Canouse, Rooney, Benteke), and also signed plenty of warm bodies to make up the numbers before (Jose Fajardo, Eric Davis).
The team is teetering on the edge of postseason qualification, and stood pat at the final opportunity to improve itself for the window. As I said, they didn’t do nothing, but Rene Weiler is really going to have to start trusting his young players at some point.
There’s plenty of evidence that Weiler and Sogut were looking.
In terms of tipping us over the top of that playoff line, at least into those lower spots, Subriare would probably have done the trick.
You can have the money and make the offers, you can see the ability from across the seas.
You can’t MAKE them come.
To me, this looks like evidence that DC United as a brand is not enticing. They won’t have heard glowing things about the DMV, so the visit to even get proven wrong doesn’t happen often.
Rooney was actually weirdly attracted and then attached to this place. We can’t expect that, only enjoy the rarity if it occurs.
We’ll do better this offseason. Deals will exist in January, and big opportunities will be had next summer.
We are dropping bad contracts, and have some solid floor raisers (Kurokawa, Nono, and Hefti) and one ceiling helper working in (Ordaz).
Louis will contribute when he can.
We are definitely rail thin, and I would prefer Turner got some runouts, and that if Kijima gets in, cuz Stroud is fully toast.
The team isn’t competitive up the league this season, but we’re not dead. And we weren’t going to catch up last minute with anything available to our particular brand.
It’s not enough yet, but we have to be reflective of how backward we were before.
It sucks that we’re only just clearing the ditch, but some off season repairs, and we may be ready to ride.
It should also be noted that Benteke was a direct result of Rooney casting out his Rooney energy. Luiz Saurez talked to him, a lot of calls, Benteke was the only fish that got landed. And this place rejuvenated him, so we honestly lucked out a bit that he even locked in.
Whatever United will be, it has to be built. There’s no much good looking back.
I watched Falkirk vs Rangers yesterday. Unfortunately, Murrell missed a misplayed gift of ball and rifled it straight at the keeper. He could have passed it into the corners, easily. The announcers were not particularly kind to him throughout the broadcast. Falkirk desperately needs a goal scorer. I hope he gets his groove on.
Yeah, I wish him as much luck as any athlete, but I expect little.
So I have to ask, is this still the ownership not willing to spend the money or is it soccer operations being careful and thoughtful in a rebuild?
I don’t think spending money is the issue. Since Weiler came in, the owners spent $700k on Clark, $4M on Baribo, $7M on Louis, $2.375M on Ordaz. Plus there have been transfer fees for Hefti, Kurokawa, and Nono, and there might have been some amount of buy-out for Badji, Schnegg, or Herrera. So, we’re looking at a minimum of $14M spent in the last calendar year just using the numbers we know for sure. The actual amount is probably closer to $16 or $17M once we factor in Hefti, Kurokawa, and Nono
Pretty much.
Sometimes things are so bad, that you can’t even freak out about the damage till things get appreciably better.
No use in being frustrated about structural weaknesses when the whole thing was gone before.
Well, if they have a spectacular offseason (even though during the offseason we always get the line “There will be more impactful transfers available during the summer”), then it’s a careful and thoughtful rebuild.
Right now, the rebuild is going… decently. They’ve collected a number of good parts. They’ve cleared out a ton of old players. They’ve done well getting green cards for existing internationals. But there’s a few things that really hamper it so far. They haven’t shown an ability to get truly impactful, star-level international players. They haven’t been able to address the issue of chance creation. And the biggest thing is that the coaching staff hasn’t shown much of an ability to improve young players and there’s no infrastructure for young players to get seasoning.
If we can’t attract talent – which is probably true to a degree – then we need to grow it. Develop it. And we see how seriously the organization takes that.
This is what was alluded to earlier. Is DCU a place that would attract players? I would say, if you are a talented player you will get interest from multiple clubs. If I didn’t know anything about DCU, I would look at there record and think, I don’t think they are very good. Then DCU would have to open up its purse to offer more than what the player could make elsewhere. The money incentive. Otherwise, it will be coaching connections, or player connections to the club. Most coaches bring players who know them. I think DCU can find good young players. Its unfortunate that if you sign with DCU, you end up being a practice squad player and not getting minutes in games/competition (MSL Next) that will help you grow.
Baring any surprise moves or announcements, here is what the DC roster breakdown currently looks like.
Players with contracts expiring after this season (with options) are:
Bono, Farr, Kijima (27), Nealis, Rowles (27), Servania (27), Stroud (27), Antley, Tubbs (27).
Players with contracts ending after the sprint season are:
Hefti (27/28), Johnson, Segal (27/28, 28/29), and Aman (27/28, 28/29, 29/30)
The window this winter should see us having 2 international spots to work with, 1 or 2 U22 spots open, and 0 or 1 DP spot open. The roster space to make moves is there, we’ll just have to see if they do anything with it
I don’t think any of the first group are returning
Unless Kijima and Weiler have some sort of 3rd act movie bonding moment between hardass and prospect, he’s gonna move on. And someone in MLS will use his value, plug him into a midfield we won’t like playing.
Antley for his own sake should move on, but he’s simply the best and most
effective backup fullback we’ve ever had, and I say that completely unironically. You need a few squad players you can’t accept as starters, but who are good to go when needed, and he was soooo deeply that outside of unfortunate injury spells.
The rest of them, if they were inventory resources in a video game, I’m trading them for cash at the nearest in game merchant, and laughing at how dumb the economy is in my favor.
Anyway, this demonstrates very clearly how much space and resources we have to invest right next time.
Wouldn’t mind simply finding a CB pairing over performing as a unit somewhere, and just transport them here together.
Who knows what Weiler is doing with Markovic, but that seems another half season away, at this point
I agree with a lot of this. Servania might get his option picked up just because he *does* seem to be what Weiler is looking for. Maybe we make a play for another starting CB in the winter – possibly from around the league.
I don’t think we’re in for a “year 2 Ally Mackay” type of window where he’s instructed (or chose to) go as cheap and messy as possible.
Yep, gambles aren’t foundational, they’re marginal. Sometimes they pay off big time, but we’ve built well in a number of ways with some of the signings.
This was why I was seething about the perception that US Soccer is all about cheating, and I’m like, motha-#%^*er, do you think US Soccer has ever been in a position where an instance of cheating makes enough difference? It was friggin work, the sport and the org didn’t have time or use for any of that.
Anyway, I’m saying that you bet with money you can lose, and build with investments that you’re more sure of, and I’d put Nono, Kurokawa, Hefti, and even Baribo in that category.
One thing that stands out for me with Weiler is this: he is looking for a particular type of player (especially in practice and approach to the team) and if you don’t fit that, you’re out.
Best of luck to Murrell, Bernal, and Clark.
I think Weiler will make player moves decisively. An example is Pirani who lasted for many coaches and is probably good but not what DCU needed. He finally got moved on. Weiler is doing something about problems the fans can recognize already. Herrea, it seems was unhappy at DCU and wanted to move on. When the scandal broke, the club waived him right away. I think Kasper and Sogut probably deserve some credit for finding ways to move players on.
Clark trade is now official. From the Sounders release:
“Sounders FC today announced that it has acquired midfielder Caden Clarkfrom D.C. United in exchange for Seattle’s natural Second Round pick in the 2028 MLS SuperDraft. As part of the trade, which was completed prior to the close of MLS’ Secondary Transfer Window, Seattle retains Clark’s U-22 roster designation, while D.C. United retains the player’s discretionary costs above the U-22 salary budget charge for 2026. D.C. United also receives $50,000 in 2027 General Allocation Money if Clark remains on Sounders FC’s roster in 2027.”
Nike have signed a multi-year deal tobe the front of shirt sponsor for Michelle Kang’s London City Lionesses. No financial details have been released.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7562265/2026/09/03/nike-london-city-lionesses-shirt-sponsorship/
USWNT legend Beck Sauerbrunn is returning to the Portland Thorns as a Technical Consultant for the rest of the 2026 season.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7561383/2026/09/03/becky-sauerbrunn-return-portland-thorns-technical-consultant/
I really have to keep wondering about Miami’s roster construction as they are bringing in Matías Galarza on loan from Argentine powerhouse River Plate through 2026 with a purchase option. That’s in addition to the young Brazilian they announced yesterday as well as an Ecuadorian player announced earlier this summer.
https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/inter-miami-acquire-matias-galarza-from-river-plate
It’s whatever the boss wants.
You don’t want anything to get (cracks knuckles) Messy, right?
Nice pun