DC United draw, Spirit and DC Power lose, and more: Monday Freedom Kicks
Happy Monday, everyone. Well, it wasn’t really a happy weekend on the soccer field for our teams. Let’s get into it:
DC United claws its way to scoreless draw against Atlanta United (DP)
DC United had the only result of the weekend, and it was a scoreless draw where they had a total of 4 shots
Washington Spirit struggle in 3-0 home loss to Boston Legacy: Match report (Green Line Soccer)
Ugh, what a terrible loss by the Spirit. The team needs to regroup after that one.
DC Power was on the road against Dallas Trinity on Sunday. Unfortunately, they suffered their second loss of the season by a 2-1 score.
To round it off, Loudoun United also lost over the weekend, falling 1-0 to the Pittsburgh Riverhounds.
NWSL’s Houston Dash fire manager Gautrat, director Kilgore (ESPN)
Big news out of Houston, as Fabrice Gautrat and Twila Kilgore got the axe from the Dash.
Over in England, Sebastian Berhalter had a brace for Middlesbrough. Love that those guys are finding their footing in the Championship.
Cristiano Ronaldo calls for lifetime bans in Saudi Pro League after Diogo Jota chants (The Guardian)
Over in Saudi Arabia, Rúben Neves, who was a pallbearer at Diogo Jota’s funeral and one of his best friends, was subjected to taunts from the crowd at a match that targeted Jota. Cristiano Ronaldo wants those fans to be banned from stadiums for life, and the Saudi FA is investigating.
Yet another subsidy for a D.C. stadium? Really? (WaPo)
The Washington Post has an opinion article that really hammers the notion that the District should pay for more subsidies for Audi Field.
Finally, Ashley Sanchez continues to be on fire. She now has 19 goals on the season after this banger over the weekend.
Have a good start to the week, everyone.
Outstanding year by Sanchez. Great start by Berhalter.
As for DCU this weekend, didn’t we have a game under Benny where we beat Montreal 1-0 and didn’t have a shot on goal? Or is my memory playing tricks on me?
I said it earlier in another thread: the Spirit (roster-wise) are going through a lot of upheaval at the moment. And I think it’s showing on the field.
The Spirit did just transfer Bernal and lost a few players on injury. On the other hand they brought in a few new players too. So its true there is a some change, but the core seems to be there.
We did beat Montreal with one sort of half shot/half cross from Chris Rolfe
Rolf’s Magic Headband scored that goal. We need Rolfe’s magic headband back.
1 goal for all the DC area teams this weekend. Woof. I was only able to watch the second half of the DCU game and we looked not great.
I think Hayes has to call up Sanchez for the next set of internationals. However, Sanchez has been playing left wing for NC. I think that’s where Rodman has been playing for the USWNT. It seems like a good thing to have an overabundance of amazing players but it is tactically challenging when they all play similar roles. Sorta like Mbappe and Vini Jr at Madrid though they play 40+ games per season so plenty of chances for rotation.
In fairness, DCU actually looked pretty good for the first ~20 minutes of the game. Then we just didn’t do a whole lot from there.
Sanchez is going to be league MVP, and Moultrie’s ACL tear opens up what was otherwise a consistently filled spot. It’s happening.
I’d also note that the playmakers in Emma’s system have been shaded toward that left half space for quite some time now positionally.
Looks like a venture capital group is in the process of buying a stake in DC and Audi Field:
https://www.benzinga.com/markets/private-markets/26/09/61748992/why-a-seed-investor-just-bought-a-piece-of-an-mls-team
Interesting to note that in the context of the WaPo editorial board piece. The thing to know about the WaPo opposition to any subsidy to DC United is that Jeff Bezos doesn’t own DC United. If he did, we wouldn’t have that editorial now.
“Levien isn’t part of his court” was my reaction, as well
As a progressive friend loves, loves, loves to tell me, “Government does so much for us that we can’t do for ourselves.”
DCU-Cincy game has been officially rescheduled for Wednesday October 21st
That’s gonna be a REALLY busy few weeks now. We’ve got October 10 at Miami, Oct 14 home against NYRB, Oct 17 at Orlando, now Oct 21 at Cincy, Oct 24 home against Cincy, Oct 28 at Toronto, and Oct 31 at Columbus
Yeah with our depth, I don’t see us making the playoffs with that end of season gauntlet. And if we make the play-in round I don’t think there will be enough left in the tank to make a fight of it.
If only we either had a developmental team for our young players, or had started to work them in systematically over the course of the season.
Or had a second left back. Keisuke Kurokawa is literally going to explode on the field.
I don’t know who on our squad, I would put in at left back to rotate. Markovic?
I think Markovic is probably the answer, but we could probably try Nono or Hefti there as well if they both already aren’t on the field. I could also see Weiler throwing Peglow or Hopkins there.
Weiler is interesting. He plays players in positions I wouldn’t expect. Markovic is a mid field sub right now. Seriously? Seven games in October is horrible.
Its not unheard of at least for guys to come out of college and have their positions adjusted. I know it happens to wingers quite a bit, where they’ll get turned into fullbacks or wingbacks. I guess its possible that they just see his skillset as better for a CDM or fullback, but I guess we’ll see where he goes
The Athletic has coverage of this past weekend’s Springbok’s victory over the All Blacks at M&T Bank Stadium. In the coverage, apparently World Rugby (FIFA equivalent) had a team on the ground this past summer to learn what to do and what not to do from FIFA. The US hosts the Men’s Rugby World cup in 2031 and the Women’s Rugby World cup in 2033.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7588012/2026/09/13/rugby-world-cup-us-new-zealand-south-africa/
As I pointed out in the game thread, the US got slaughtered by Japan this past Saturday in the semifinal of this year’s 4 team Pacific Nations Cup. They were down 21-0 inside the first 10 mins. They went on to lose 63-14 and were completely shut out in the 2nd half. They will face Canada in the 3rd place game early on Saturday morning while Japan takes on Fiji in the championship match.
The Houston Dash fired both their Head Coach and Technical Director over the weekend.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7590785/2026/09/13/houston-dash-fabrice-gautrat-twila-kilgore-fired/
Anyone else paying attention to the U-20 Women’s World Cup? This past weekend, the US finished group play with a 9-0 drubbing of New Zealand. But they lost to Italy’s U-19 team 2-1 to start group play and tied Japan 2-2 in the 2nd group game. They’ve managed to advance out of the group as one of the best 3rd place teams and will take on Brazil who won their group on Wednesday at 9 AM EDT. If they win that game they will take on the winner of Spain vs Portugal in the Quarterfinal round.
Several players from the DC metro are on the team:
Several players including Alex Morgan, Crystal Dunn, Marta, Brandi Chastain, Julie Ertz, Yui Hasegawa, Claire Hutton, Sydney Leroux, Vivianne Miedema, Hinata Miyazawa, Leslie Osborne, Alex Pfeiffer, Jaedyn Shaw, Danielle Slaton, Aly Wagner and Sophia Wilson have called on FIFA to move the U-20 Women’s World Cup to an international window. That way universities/colleges and teams will have to release players.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7590739/2026/09/14/alex-morgan-crystal-dunn-marta-fifa-u-20-world-cup/
DC has recalled Antley from his loan to Tampa Bay
I’d imagine this means someone is injured that hasn’t been announced yet. But Antley is a welcome addition to the team, regardless.
Maybe they realized what a slog October is going to be and they realize Kurokawa might need a little bit of a break at some point
Not necessarily
Antley is sort of astonishingly good fullback depth on both wings
Not someone who’d start for a competitive club, but he actually delivers plays and keeps whatever existing momentum there might have been going
I could definitely be wrong. But Nono and Hefti have the right side covered, and Weiler hasn’t been pressed about needing a backup for Kurokawa basically all season. We say that Antley can play both sides, and he probably can, but he’s got something like 12 minutes of time on the left in MLS.
Perhaps they were opening up Antley’s senior roster spot trying to bring someone in before the transfer deadline, but we’ve had a few games since that closed, and were in no hurry to bring him back for depth until now. Which is why I suspect someone is injured now. But yes, I could definitely be wrong. And even if everybody is healthy, as I said, Antley is a welcome addition to the team regardless.
My theory was always that Kurokawa and Hefti kept him glued to the bench, and the willingness to be a bench option (which Antley had displayed for a while now) is not the same as being good to with such a dry spell for playing time.
This lends credence to that theory, we kept him from depreciating and now he’s back for the late season glut of games