D.C. United to sign Jovanny Bolivar, Kreis announces Olympic camp roster, and more: Freedom Kicks for 3/2/2021

Welcome to Tuesday! I’m assuming, anyway, that this is the first thing you’re encountering on your Tuesday, which is almost certainly not the case, but I don’t know how your mornings go, or if you’re not getting to this until the afternoon, or really much of anything. What I do know: we’ve got a D.C. United move to talk about, a pretty cool Washington Spirit event, and some other news.

Rather than me trying to guess the daily habits of the entire readership, it’s probably best for everyone that we move into the meat of the post:

As an organization, United looked to Venezuelan league champs Deportivo La Guaira to bring Darluis Paz to Loudoun United, and now we have solid reporting in Venezuela and up here saying that Venezuelan under-20 national team forward Jovanny Bolivar will be joining the Black-and-Red on a one-year loan.

Bolivar scored 3 goals in 560 minutes this past season, or just barely under the handy old benchmark of one goal every two games. It sounds like he’s more of a second forward/wide forward (what we like to call an attacker), which is a very deep position for United right now.

D.C. United to acquire Venezuelan forward Jovanny Bolívar | Washington Post
Here’s Steve Goff, who had the first stateside confirmation of the move, with more (including some notes on the progress of other moves) on a move that is not official yet, but that we expect is gonna be announced pretty soon.

The boys are back. The boys are back.

Jason Kreis selects 31 for Olympic Qualifying pre-tournament training camp | Stars and Stripes FC
Not into this Donovan Pines-free roster! Thumbs down!

If you know me, you know I am very interested in the Spirit’s Japanese players, and Japanese soccer as a whole. So when I heard about this event, I signed up on the spot. It should be a really interesting conversation involving Kumi Yokoyama and Saori Takarada of the Spirit, as well as Kikuko Okajima, the head of the new WE League (as well as a Baltimore resident) that aims to take pro women’s soccer in Japan up to a new level.

Ryan Martin looking forward to 2021 with Loudoun | Black and Red United
Our Ryan talked to Loudoun’s Ryan, getting into expectations for United’s USL Championship side, the new signings that have come aboard so far, and his early impressions of the new coaching staff in the District.

Remember that extremely-pared-down version of the Open Cup that we’re stuck with this year due to Covid-19 (and, perhaps, some degree of collective lack of will to push for a larger tournament later)? Well, here are the details on the 8 USL Championship clubs that will apparently take part:

Vanney expects LA Galaxy to add 6-8 more players for 2021 season | LAG Confidential
While most MLS clubs are fairly quiet right now outside of the occasional player announcement, Greg Vanney and the LA Galaxy have been pretty noisy of late. I’ve been saying that United still needs to make some moves — the squad can’t be entirely made of forwards — but Vanney’s talking about expanding his roster by like 25-33%.

Chicago Red Stars announce new ownership group | All for XI
The big NWSL news yesterday was the (for some reason, extremely early) announcement that the Chicago Red Stars have added over a dozen members to their ownership group. You might recognize some of the names from the sports world, or from the music industry. Very cool times seeing the NWSL’s independent clubs becoming more financially stable while developing far stronger connections in a lot of different spheres.

While we’re talking about cool NWSL things:

The Black Women’s Player Collective’s GoFundMe has flown way past its goal, and as I’m writing is actually approaching doubling the initial $20,000. Among their goals: the docu-series in the above tweet.

USMNT announce Jamaica friendly | Stars and Stripes FC
USA vs. Jamaica in Austria, the traditional home of such matches. The covid era is so strange.

Alright, it’s very late and that’s about all the energy I have left for the day, so I’m going to sleep. Have a good Tuesday!