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Good morning! D.C. United plays Sunday, and the Washington Spirit and Loudoun United are up tomorrow. I have no really interesting things to add here, so that’ll do it for the opening paragraph. We keep it moving!
Let’s first talk about something that I only partially realized:
Immediate impact from @YamilAsad11 last night.
— D.C. United (@dcunited) June 24, 2021
5️⃣ key passes (led team)
minutes played pic.twitter.com/sRV0smSept
I know I wrote about this idea yesterday in our reactions piece, but I had not checked this data point. Yamil Asad is pretty much screaming for more playing time with that kind of impact.
Mohamed “KingCJ0” Alioune Diop, Becomes the Only American to Qualify for the 2021 FIFAe World Cup | DCUnited.com
United’s eMLS player KingCJ0 came through with a big win, and is heading to London for the FIFAe World Cup (an event which should put that “e” pretty much anywhere other than at the end of FIFA, but I digress).
Here’s your Washington Spirit pre-game press conference quote thread:
Richie Burke says Ashley Hatch is in the last day of the concussion protocol. She'll be checked out later today, #SpiritFam hoping for good news.
— Jason Anderson (@JasonDCsoccer) June 24, 2021
We’ve got something of an Ashley Hatch injury update in there, plus Paige Nielsen trying to crossbar challenge her way into the lineup as she comes back from a thigh injury. Click through for the whole thing.
The Spirit are at Kansas City NWSL tomorrow, part of the league’s Super Saturday in which all 10 teams have a game. As someone who wants to be able to watch all the games, I really don’t like these promotions — MLS Decision Day is my personal hell — but I get that selling soccer just to me and my whims (10pm kickoffs at the earliest, no stadium light shows, etc) is probably not a great call for leagues.
US Soccer dropped a 17-tweet retort to the new USWNT documentary LFG, which understandably did not go over too popularly on Twitter dot com:
In the new movie “LFG”, there is a concerning level of dishonesty about U.S. Soccer and the USWNT’s compensation that we feel must be addressed. Specifically, lawyer Jeffrey Kessler presents a misleading and inaccurate account of the facts.
— U.S. Soccer Comms (@ussoccer_comms) June 24, 2021
(Thread) 1/17
Orlando City at Inter Miami CF: Three Keys to Victory | The Mane Land
There’s one MLS match tonight, and as with apparently every soccer game played on earth from now on, it’s in Florida.
Q&A: New Houston Dash, Dynamo owner Ted Segal on why he bought in and his goals for both teams | The Athletic
United comes up as a tertiary character a couple of times in this interview with the new Houston Dashamo (this is the best portmanteau, Dynadash is terrible) owner.
Moving on, there’s a new woso podcast that I can recommend:
The first episode of Football is Wife is here!!!!!
— Gal Pal Sports (@GalPalSports) June 24, 2021
We talk about surprises at the top of the table, we predict a lack of surprises in the #USWNT roster drop, and we get real pissed at the staff who decided to follow a random child without his consent.https://t.co/f4u6mfUWHE
Let’s finish up with UEFA, which I’m told has a Champions League that’s like the one MLS teams participate in but with fewer brawls, doing away with the away goals rule:
⚽ The away goals rule will be removed from all UEFA club competitions from the 2021/22 season.
— UEFA (@UEFA) June 24, 2021
Ties in which the two teams score the same number of goals over the two legs will now have two 15-minute periods of extra time, and, if required, penalty kicks.#UCL #UWCL #UEL #UYL
I’m sure a lot of people like this, and I think I do too, but I also know everyone’s gonna be mad at whatever change comes to how teams approach two-legged matches from a game theory perspective.
Alright, that’s about it. It looks like we’re getting one last comfortable day weather-wise before our collective return into the DMV sauna, so make it count.