USWNT starts SheBelieves Cup with 0-0 draw, MLS kits, and more: Freedom Kicks for 2/18/2022

It’s Friday, and for me that’s great news, because it means a massage that will hopefully break up the knot in my back that is causing occasional, excruciating nerve pain. We have little D.C. United news (but not no D.C. United news), a good deal of Washington Spirit news, and a CCL game delayed by bees. Yes, bees.

We start with your Taxiarchis Fountas watch: Taxi came on in the 62nd minute of Rapid Wien’s 2-1 win over Vitesse in the Europa Conference League. It’s hard to glean much from the data, though, because three minutes after he came in, Rapid defender Filip Stojković got a second yellow card, and they had to just hang on for dear life. If Vitesse can win the second leg...maybe United has some more news?

Moving on to more immediate concerns, the regular season is so close that United supporters are looking for some folks who are willing to paint tifo for the opener. It’s eight days away!

Washington Spirit trade Kumi Yokoyama to NJ/NY Gotham FC | Black and Red United
The Spirit traded Kumi Yokoyama yesterday, which is a bummer. They had an understandable request, though, as playing time might have been hard to come by with Washington.

We’ll have more later this morning on the Spirit’s eleven (11) players on international duty, but until then, here’s how the team’s own Olympiad went down in Florida:

Congrats to Bayley Feist and draft pick Audrey Harding, both representing the state of Ohio, for their triumph.

One of our own was also recognized, with US Soccer putting together this video to commemorate Donald Wine II’s 100th cap as a USNT supporter:

That’s the good stuff.

MLS should mandate broadcasts of preseason games | Black and Red United
In bad stuff, we’ve all had just about enough of MLS preseason being a time where we know teams are playing, and we have no idea what to think about it because we can’t see the games.

In kit news, the Vancouver Whitecaps did it again:

It’s not their absolute best kit ever, but it’s pretty dang good.

And now we finish up with some absolute absurdity from CONCACAF: a nest of some kind of stinging insect delayed Colorado’s CCL match against Comunicaciones, because they were straight up all over one goal:

Other federations have their features and their foibles. We have hornets.

Alright, that’s it for me. Have a good final weekend of the offseason!