Spirit Win Weekly Accolades, USMNT Go Perfect, and more: Wednesday Freedom Kicks
Good morning DC Footy Folk!
This week you get a double dose of me as PJ is out today. Not much has changed in the 24 hours since I last saw you all. I did catch the Season 4 Finale of Ted Lasso last night. No spoilers, but I this season was okay. Started off strong especially with its inclusion of many of the issues plaguing women’s soccer. It got a bit rough towards the end, but I have high hopes for subsequent seasons focused on the Lady Greyhounds.
Anyways let’s jump into the footy news!
The young Paraguayan forward has been called up by her national team and will play two friendlies in El Salvador during the international break.
The Spirit won both assist of the week (above) and goal of the week. However, they lost out on a sweep of the awards thanks to Mina Tanaka who won save of the week. Note; I’ve never seen a non-defender win save of the week before in any league!
USMNT takeaways: Young players seize their chance in perfect post-World Cup camp (Yahoo! Sports)
Honestly, things could not have gone better for Poch and the kids over the last few weeks. There were multiple debuts, Cavan Sullivan became the youngest goal scorer in program history, and they beat their two biggest CONCACAF rivals.
Pedro Santos sat down with Underway to discuss his time at both DCU and Loudoun United, among other things.
USL Championship Team of the Week – Week 31
Jordan Farr (on loan from DCU) made it to the TOTW likely because of his miraculous goal over the weekend.
Lionel Messi’s final Argentina match was an emotional send-off worthy of a legend (ESPN)
Finally, this week two legends retired from the international game. Okay, well one did so voluntarily, surrounded by 85,000 adoring fans and the other threw a teenage style tantrum at the age of 41 and it is yet to be seen whether he will don the colors of his nation again.
The above articles show the juxtaposition of the ends of their respective careers and really highlights how positively (for the most part) Messi is viewed around the world and how Ronaldo has truly embraced his villainous side and entered his Homelander era.
That’s it from me folks! See you in the comments!
A double dose of Dennis is good!
Originally when the US announced Peru, Chile, Mexico, and Canada, there was a lot of fan complaining: “we need to be scheduling Germany, Spain!” I think this worked out perfectly. Not because we won all 4 (that’s nice but not the most important thing. The youngsters got blooded in very useful ways. Not just caps. There was an aggressiveness and “bite” to every match (especially the last two) that they don’t encounter in club soccer or many other friendlies (ie: the scrums at the end of Peru and Chile). They were forced to problem-solve in Mexico and Canada facing tactics that were initially uncomfortable for us.
Frankly, I think these 4 matches were more useful for this group of players than if we’d played Germany, Spain, France, and England. Those will come later–as we get used to playing away games and at WC sites.
Thank you! And totally agree. With such a young squad, it was more important to get them acclimated to the NT and expectations. Going perfect was a bonus. We have plenty of time to line up friendlies against European teams. Not saying I was a “Poch truther” from the start but I think he really can put his fingerprint on the team over several years especially with the extended international breaks. Plenty of things to be optimistic about.
I enjoyed their play. Agree with all points above. Besides, Euro teams are busy right now. This was just fine.