Whut up it’s a weekend review

By: Melissa | May 4th, 2009

Talk about bizzarro weekend. The big word these teams can’t seem to get a good grasp on is consistency. Also, the veetle channel appears to be permanently offline now. Luckily justin.tv picked up the slack. Justin.tv actually saved my ass a few times and I hear Justin lives in San Francisco, so if I ever meet him, I’d like to buy him a drink or two.

Boston Breakers 2 – LA Sol 1 Kelly Smith scored in the second minute and that was pretty much it right there. Kristine Lilly scored again in the 55th minute. Coach Tony said Boston was embarrassed over last week’s defeat and coach Abner’s response to the loss: “even after they scored the second goal, we never put our heads down.” Seems that was pretty accurate assessment. in the second half, Brittany Bock scored for LA and Marta had a couple of chances caught by Kristin Luckenbill while Luckenbill saved a Miyama free kick in the 90th minute. In the post-game quotes, Abner talked about Marta disappearing late in the second half. Coupled with the Breakers’ loss last weekend to Chicago when Smith sat on the bench, I wonder if these teams suffer more because of their marquee players than other WPS sides who have what I would call a more even roster.

FC Indiana 3 – Chicago Red Stars 2 I believe FC Indiana are right now actively looking for investors to become a new WPS franchise so even though this one was just a friendly, I’m counting it in the wrap-up. FC Indiana coach Shek Borkowski complained “the performance was not good enough” but they outshot Chicago 12 -7. And two of the goals scored were from Laura Del Rio – who was a Red Stars international draft pick before either being let go or choosing to return to Indiana. Not entirely sure what happened there. It may seem a bit shocking that the Red Stars would fall so quickly after beating the Breakers so badly, but this Red Stars squad had Lydia Williams in goal and substitutions in the defense leading me to believe coach Emma used this game as a chance to beef up the depth in her backline. Smart.

Washington Freedom 3 – Saint Louis Athletica 3 Ummm, Hope Solo. If I could have a word with Hope Solo right now, it would go along the lines of: what the f*ck. Actually, cause this one was televised and thanks to Justin I got to watch it, I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what she’s telling herself. And according to the wise words of Peter Wilt (told to me in a bar of course), when we get a brand new pro league, the national team (mens or womens) changes pretty dramatically. So heads up to Hope – Barnhart is looking real good right now. In the first half, Daniela put two on the board for STL and in the 69th minute, Eniola Aluko brought the score to 3-1. Except Lisa DeVanna and Sonia Bompastor managed to score in the 79th and 90th minutes. Clearly WPS is not the league where you can call the game and cut out early to beat the lines to the bathroom. And while Hope had a pretty bad day broadcasted on national television, the big scandal of the game was a hard tackle Wambach made to Daniela late in the second half. Daniela had to be carried off in a stretcher and apparently passed out in the locker room because of the pain. After the game, Wambach said her tackle was not malicious but instead she slipped on the rainy pitch. Okely Dokely.

Find more videos like this on Women’s Professional Soccer

FC Gold Pride 1 – Sky Blue FC 0 Okay, I’m currently kicking myself for missing this game. Especially after I read (thanks twitter) that some of the fans were trying to get a little atmosphere going in the stands. Yo – sign me the f*ck up for that. And here’s my review of this game: when you watch a lot of MLS, you forget that late-game substitutions are supposed to help bring extra energy and a new strategy to what’s already happening. Substitutions are NOT supposed to expose how little depth you really have past the starting eleven. And of all the WPS teams, FC Goldeneye got this one covered. The first half saw great offensive runs from both sides saved by Barnhart and the Sky Blue goalposts and in the 39th minute Jenni Branam saved a PK from Tiffani Weimer. The back and forth continued throughout the second half until substitution Ann Robinson received a pass from substitution Adriane and scored the game’s only goal. Afterwards, coach Albertin commented: “I think it’s quite remarkable that we’ve had six different players score this season, in only our fifth game.” As for Sky Blue, the return of Christie Rampone wasn’t enough to solidify their defense and their overflowing offensive talent still could not eek out a goal. Coach Ian’s post-game comment: “The problem for us is that we’re attacking somebody else’s goal.” Yes, yes you are.

(Okay, in all fairness, this is the complete quote: “The problem for us is that we’re attacking somebody else’s goal, and all of a sudden we’re getting counter-attacked. The problem started way up in the field, and then we weren’t compact enough to handle the pass at the end.”)

So tune in sometime this week for a preview post and possibly more posts if I discover an interesting tidbit or two. Speaking of, thank goodness Joel McHale went to Australia last week because he mentioned on The Soup the latest scandal down there. A video a few Aussie Rules Football players made of their mascot (a rubber rooster named Boris). In the video, Boris goes to the grocery store, puts a condom over his head, then sticks his head into a frozen chicken. The players had to apologise and maybe even got benched (honestly, I don’t care enough about AFL to really follow this story). I say, the only crime here was the use of a sh*t Ludacris song for the soundtrack – which the Australian media called offensive to women. Ummm, that song is only offensive because it’s completely stupid. When I read Ludacris was going to start an acting career, I got excited because I hoped that meant he’d stop making crap albums. Unforch, the dude knows how to multitask. Anyways, consider this your video of the week. Enjoy Boris wining and dining the chicken after having sex with it in the frozen isle. I wish all sports mascots were this entertaining.

Sorry, it won’t embed so click here