Jill Ellis among rumored candidates for D.C. United job, and more: Freedom Kicks for 10/13/2020

I’ve tried to write four opening sentences, and none of them make a lot of sense, so this slightly late version of Freedom Kicks might be a bit of a slog. Good luck to you, and to me, as I try to get my brain working.

Let’s start off with what’s probably going to be a regular theme in the next few weeks: D.C. United coaching candidate rumors!

In his last MLS gigs, Jason Kreis went 32W-21D-47L across a little over 3.5 seasons with NYCFC and Orlando City, so that’s that on that.

David Wagner got Huddersfield Town into the Premier League and won praise for helping them stay up in their first year, before things went askew the following season. At Schalke last season, he started the season 9W-6D-3L (good enough to be in a Europa League spot), but then things completely fell apart. Schalke didn’t win any of their final 16 games, and lost by 3+ goals an unreal seven different times. So that’s bad, but Schalke appears to be a complete mess in a lot of ways, so maybe it wasn’t just coaching? I don’t know.

Jill Ellis would obviously be able to withstand the pressure, and United would be making some positive history by hiring her. Tactically, though, there were some real issues, and United is never going to assemble a talent advantage like the USWNT had (imagine the MLS All-Stars playing as one club in MLS...but then also adding 2-3 top-end starters to that group).

John Harkes would appeal to club history, and he’s had some success within USL. At FC Cincinnati, he led the expansion team to 3rd place in their first season, and though season two was a bit more middling, they made a run to the Open Cup semifinals. Now with the Greenville Triumph in USL League One, he made the playoffs last season, and is currently working with a nine-point lead atop the table as the season comes to an end.

If you’ve got the means, there’s a golf tournament to benefit Jaime Moreno coming up this Friday:

The Pro Foul Podcast, Episode 12: Magic Names in Places | Last Word on Sports
Our own André Carlisle is one-third of Pro Foul, and they talked Washington Spirit among other things on their latest episode.

MLS postpones next three Colorado Rapids league matches | MLSsoccer.com
The ongoing Covid-19 outbreak within the Colorado Rapids organization is untenable for them and for MLS, and will almost certainly involve using points-per-game to determine playoff places.

MLS unlikely to use bubble for postseason despite positive tests, sources say | The Athletic
Sam Stejskal and Paul Tenorio lay out more on the situation in Colorado, plus they get into the range of reasons that a playoff bubble probably isn’t going to happen. Overall, none of it is very good news!

In case you were wondering about when United could stop adding players, the date has changed to October 29:

The Black Players for Change have teamed up with More Than A Vote to put out this video urging people to vote in the upcoming elections:

Sam Johnson barred from RSL activity after reportedly holding large house parties | RSL Soapbox
The unreal year at Real Salt Lake continues, with huge parties during Covid-19 that involve gunplay the latest bad idea someone over there had.

Speaking of bad ideas, according to Reggie Cannon, FC Dallas asked him to apologize to the same fans who booed and threw things at their own team for protesting against police brutality. You know, rather than back their own players, like any respectable club would do.

20020, chapter 7: Emory Gap, Tennessee | Secret Base
Jon Bois’s latest is about some football players attempting a lateral. This series has been great, such a good follow-up to 17776.

That’s about it, but before we finish up, let me make sure to include Monster Mash: