What’s up with the W-League?

By: Melissa | February 6th, 2009

Since WPS is busy signing players and making announcements, the rest of us may already be forgetting the other other leagues who are busy gearing up for their 2009 season (and I’ll try to get a WPSL update up soon-ish). USL’s semi-pro W-League has been busy. And not just busy quietly watching their players get drafted by WPS teams. It think the biggest news so far is Sky Blue Soccer selling off their W-League side. The new franchise under new ownership is now the Hudson Valley Quickstrike Lady Blues (what’s with the names? oy vey) and now based in New York. Apparently the terms of the sale include the new W-League side acting as a “feeder/identification” team for Sky Blue.

And on the MLS end of the spectrum, it seems as soon as the Seattle Sounders men’s side got themselves some expansion players, they sold their women’s side to the Tacoma Tide F.C.of the PDL.

Existing W-League teams are expanding too. This upcoming season sees three new sides forming: the Buffalo Flash, Quebec City Arsenal, and one more unnamed team. Also, the Rochester Rhinos have new ownership and a new name: Western New York FC Pride. They also have a new partnership with FC Indiana and the first order of business was to ship the 2008 W-League coach of the year Shek Borkowski over to NY to be head coach. And apparently the new Rochester owners eventually plan to start a WPS team if the new league makes it.

The Chicago Gaels also have new ownership and a new name: the Chicago Red Eleven. The team will continue to be the Chicago Red Star’s W-League “affiliate” which may or may not be the reason for the name change (I believe we call that branding).

And as for last year’s two top W-League teams, despite losing players to WPS, both Pali Blues and FC Indiana are busy putting new squads together. Los Angeles Sol GM Charlie Naimo will continue to coach the Blues and I can only assume that means the Blues will be LA’s W-League “affiliate” (I do the quotes thing because it’s unclear exactly what these relationships entail). And Pali Blues just announced the acquisition of New Zealand National Team midfielder Ali Riley. Let the championship rebuild begin. FC Indiana’s website reports the resigning of Spanish striker Laura Del Rio, Mexican Nats Fatima Leyva & Monica Ocampo, and Australian midfielder Aivi Luik. New additions include Cameroon midfielder Ngo and Canadian Sharolta Nonen. Yeah… FC Indiana has been busy for sure.

After skimming the schedule, it may just be the Washington Freedom are the only WPS team keeping their W-League side in the game. This is certainly the franchise who takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’ – since they’ve already survived WUSA. Hats off to them.

For more info on the upcoming season, I’ll just quote USL:

Teams will play a 12 or 14 game seasons depending on their division with the season opening May 8 and concluding July 19.

The W-League postseason will be extended to three weeks with the league semifinals and championship being split into two separate weekends. Eleven W-League teams will qualify for the postseason tournament in 2009 with the league’s Regular Season Champion (based on point percentage) receiving a bye to the league semifinals. The remaining teams will compete in three conference tournaments in playoff week one July 24-26 to determine the other three league semifinalists for the weekend of July 31-August 1 at two locations. The regular season champion will face the lowest remaining overall seed unless they have played during the season, which would result in a pairing with the next lowest seed. The championship game will be August 7-8, and will air on Fox Soccer Channel.