Coffee with the Caps, Monday January 16

Good Monday morning Caps fans, hope you all are gearing up for the week ahead after a pleasant weekend.

The good news is we’ll see the Caps for the first time in 2023 on Wednesday, when they take on Hamburg SV in a pre-season friendly in Marbella.

The bad news? I’ve not seen any information revealed yet on a potential streaming option, which is leading me to believe that it won’t be, and we’ll need to rely on social media updates/highlight packages. I’m happy to be proven wrong, however, so if anyone has any more details, drop them in the comments.

As a follow up to our somewhat confused analysis of Salif Sane’s invite to training, well, Axel Schuster provided some more details that signal it won’t be a precursor towards any sort of permanent deal.

Sane’s presence with the team, Schuster said as part of a good story on Karifa Yao’s preseason, is considered “day-to-day” and sounds more like his effort to help out an old friend and give some veteran mentorship to young CBs than an attempt at scouting.

“For us, it’s great to have such a player who is, by his normal potential, far better than the players that we are used to having in our squad,” Schuster said. “He has a very high quality that you only would see in our league as a DP.”

I don’t think there is an MLS team that would have Sane as anything close to a DP at this point but Schuster’s point is well taken. In a CB room with little veteran experience, it can’t hurt to have a guy who has experience playing at a high-level in the Bundesliga around — and it doesn’t cost a roster spot to have him around for a week.

It's possible something might come of this, particularly if Sane is still unattached heading into the summer. But I wouldn’t hold your breath in the meantime.

And speaking of centerbacks, a news tidbit I forgot to include Friday is the announcement that Ranko Veselinovic has been called up to the Serbian National Team for a friendly against the United States later this month.

While the roster is primarily domestic guys and a couple of MLS players given that the friendly occurs outside of a FIFA-sanctioned window, it is still a great piece of news for Ranko and speaks to the strides he made last year. If he builds on that this season, there is no reason that these call-ups won’t become a more regular occurrence.

Best of the Rest

Competing on four fronts means a need for more depth. Do the Caps have it this season?

Now a U.S. citizen, Julian Gressel will be Ranko’s opponent, as he got his first U.S. National Team call-up

Marco Bustos officially has inked a two-year deal with IFK Varnamo in Sweden

Aston Villa will sign Chicago Fire starlet Jhon Duran in a major $22 million deal

Chris Klein will be back as LA Galaxy’s president, despite being disciplined by MLS for rule-breaking in the Cristian Pavon deal