Good Friday morning Caps fans, hope you all are gearing up for a well-deserved weekend break.

I will not subject everyone to my semi-regular rant about how it is ridiculous how Major League Soccer makes everyone play through the international break at a time when the league is growing in stature and thus more players are getting called up.

You could say that I wasn’t as bothered by this when the Caps didn’t have good players who were getting called up and you would probably have a point. But they certainly will have a conundrum this weekend, when they will be down Brian White, Pedro Vite, Ali Ahmed and Andres Cubas on top of Sam Adekugbe and Ryan Gauld. At least Emmanuel Sabbi could make his debut.

The Chicago Fire will have their own problem, after Brian Gutierrez, their excellent young attacker, was called up by the U.S. Men’s National Team. Not as bad as the volume of the Caps’ call ups but still, it stings.

Vancouver will still be the underdogs, as they will likely rolling out a Sebastian Berhalter-Ralph Priso-Jeevan Badwal midfield, with J.C. Ngando likely joining the attack alongside Jayden Nelson and Daniel Rios.

Seb will probably want to get one over on his Dad and Ngando, Berhalter and Nelson have been excellent so far this season and I look forward to seeing them get the start on Saturday. And, if you’re looking for a silver lining, Daniel Rios clearly needs minutes up top to get settled, as he’s looked rusty to date. But it is wise to mentally prepare yourself for the first league loss this weekend.

Still, it is a landmark moment for the Caps, with all of the players called up set to play an important role for their respective national teams. Brian White is perhaps the most exciting. While the Caps have naturally had plenty of top Canadian national teamers, the only U.S. international they’ve ever really had was Jay DeMerit.

White, meanwhile, is in red-hot form and the call up should be mutually beneficial in some ways, as it will reinforce the confidence he’s acquired in Vancouver. There also is a chance that he will continue to impress — striker is a question mark for the Americans right now. Aside from Josh Sargent, none of the typical options are either a) fit or b) in good form. Aside from Patrick Agyemang, who can also play on the wing, White is the most likely MLS striker to force his way into the national team picture.

One thing is for sure, the USMNT could use Brian — they lost 1-0 to Panama on Thursday in a match where White didn’t feature.

Shameless Self Promotion

Everyone should welcome our new writer Jake to the blog by reading his match preview for the Fire tie!

Best of the Rest

Canada didn’t fare much better than the U.S. did in the Nations League semis, falling to Mexico 2-0.

Meanwhile, Canada’s prep for 2026 will continue in June with the Canadian Shield, a glorified series of friendlies against Cote d’Ivoire, New Zealand and Ukraine in Toronto.

More on the uniqueness of the Berhalter v. Berhalter showdown on Saturday night.

The Canadian Premier League will return to TSN, in a boon for the league’s exposure.

USL voted officially to adopt promotion and relegation, becoming the only league in North America to do so. You’ll just have to wait until 2028, at the earliest.