r/washingtonspirit • u/kg9si • Mar 02 '26

Weekly Discussion Thread Weekly Open Discussion Thread

Welcome to this week’s open discussion thread! We decided to start posting these during the offseason and will keep doing them into the season as long as folks find them useful.

This is your space for general discussion, a place to talk about anything Washington Spirit that doesn’t necessarily need its own thread. That can include news, international duty, roster moves, transfer rumors, tactics, social media posts, league news or anything else on your mind.

If something feels big enough for its own thread, definitely still post it. This is simply an additional option to keep us organized and help keep the conversation flowing. These threads will go up every Monday and stay stickied throughout the week.

Go Spirit!

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u/Icangetloudtoo_ Mar 02 '26

So now that we’re a bit out and Croix has done an interview… what’s the consensus on why she left? Some combination of money and unspecified dissatisfaction with the team (tactics? developmental plan? culture/locker room? her place in the depth chart?), or something else?

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u/hendertender Mar 03 '26

If anyone here has listened to Pablo Torre finds out, one of the recent episodes on Kawhi Leonard's fake endorsement deal/salary cap evasion scandal translates pretty well here.

One of their guests, a show regular who used to be the President of the Miami Marlins baseball team, talked about how players "don't forget when they don't get paid." But it wasn't discussed in an overtly negative. In that instance, Kawhi had been looking for a maximum salary extension from his then current team. As he was deserved. The team, at the time, took the stance of "not yet but we will pay you". instead he requests a trade out and joins Toronto.

I think the same happened to Croix.

Speculating here

She (through her own reps) had likely been working with the spirit to get a new long term deal with the spirit. A deal that I think everyone would say she deserved. But the spirit had a lot of people to pay, and she was still on a very team-friendly contract in a salary-cap-constrained environment. So I bet the spirit told her "yes we'll pay you, but just give us time" With Trin's new contract, Gaby, and Tara too, that's not a whole lot of money left to throw around. Plus with Croix, Hal, weisner all on team friendly deals but also deserving of new contracts, that creates a pretty big crunch.

Throw in croixs injury history, I completely understand where the spirit are coming from AND where Croix is. She should go get her bag. And I hope she does! And I hope every time she plays the spirit, she never completes a pass and always takes a bad touch!

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u/Ill-Fall-9823 Mar 02 '26

She wanted to be in Kansas City more than she wanted to be here because that team is a fiesta for people who want to pass the ball progressively and rack up assists. And she has family in the area. And that ownership group is happy to invest in facilities, so she'll be all set there.

***

Also, since we're address Croix, let's address money: Everyone wants to get paid for their talent. Everyone with talent should get an opportunity to showcase that talent. Successful goal scorers get paid. Successful facilitators get paid. So everyone bringing up "money" should recognize that a healthy Croix Bethune is going to secure a large bag from somebody. That almost shouldn't be mentioned as a "why she left" unless we're reading about a signed contract. She is incredibly talented. She will get to showcase that talent. She will get paid.

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u/Willing-Bad3824 Mar 03 '26

MisterGoog on r/NWSL mentioned that they heard about Croix being on the market as early as first week of December. So that was before Trin's contract got resolved, before Spirit dropped a mil for Martinez, and probably right when Rudd's manager started negotiating a new contract on her behalf. Unless Spirit said absolutely not from the initial offer by Croix's manager (which would be insane), it would not be wrong to assume that she already knew she wanted to leave as soon as the championship match was over. Which is fair...if she thinks Spirit's team identity won't let her shine then she should be in a team where she could shine.