China View has a short preview of the women’s soccer tournament. The favorites haven’t really wavered since last year’s World Cup: Brazil, Germany, and the USA are likely candidates for the gold. Germany, Brazil, North Korea and Nigeria are in Group F, which according to the article, is the toughest group and could be considered the dreaded “group of death” for the women’s side. The US, on the other hand, are in are in Group G against Japan, Norway and New Zealand and should hopefully not have a problem making it to the quarterfinals. China is in Group E against Sweden, Argentina and Canada. As Laurie pointed out in her Olympic Soccer Schedule post at World Cup Blog, the womens teams begin play two days before the Games officially begin. The final is set for August 21st.

(EDIT: Apologies to Lauren Gregg. I have a tendency to confuse letters and words without knowing.)

Toronto will play host to Laval in the Northern showdown for the right to face the Central Conference’s top seed and conference tournament host FC Indiana in the conference semifinals. Northern Division Champion Ottawa will face the Midwest runner-up Chicago in the other semifinal. The semifinals are set for July 25 with the conference final July 27.

In the Northeast, Boston will travel to Long Island for their opening match Wednesday with the winner moving on to take on the 2007 W-League finalist Silverbacks in the Eastern Conference Semifinals, which will be hosted by Atlanta. The defending league champion Washington Freedom take on the Charlotte Lady Eagles in the other semifinal. The semifinals are July 25 with the conference final July 26.

With the Pali Blues winning the W-League regular season title and a berth in the league semifinals in Virginia Beach, the Western Conference final will feature second-place Vancouver playing host to the rival Seattle Sounders Saturday, July 26.

The three conference playoff champions will join the Pali Blues in Virginia Beach for the W-League Championship tournament. The league semifinals will be Thursday, July 31 with the championship game Saturday, August 2.

Oh, and here’s a little extra bit of good news from USL: “The Final will air on Fox Soccer Channel at 11:00 pm ET with a replay the following day at 4:00 pm ET.” So after all of the above, three teams (the winners of the Central, Eastern, and Western Conferences – with the Eastern Conference consisting of two Divisions) should emerge to join Pali Blues at the semi finals in Virginia Beach.

So anyone have any predictions? This year may be a bit hard to guess since we’ve got two new and very strong clubs in the mix: Pali Blues and FC Indiana. The Washington Freedom are defending last year’s title and I think they will wind up in the final facing either one of those expansion sides. Now, with the final being televised, and the opportunity for a future WPS club and WPS Red Stars affiliates participating, this is suddenly a pretty cool promotional opportunity… except for the part where the Pali Blues are affiliated with no-one. Yeah, I still don’t get it.

Here is the schedule so far (Eastern Standard time):
Central Conference
7/23: Laval @ Toronto – 7:30 – Divisional Round
7/25: Chicago vs Ottawa – 4:00 – Conference Semifinal
7/25: Divisional Winner vs Indiana* – 6:30 – Conference Semifinal
7/27: Conference Championship – TBD

Eastern Conference
7/23: Boston @ Long Island – 7:00 – Divisional Round
7/25: Charlotte vs Washington – 5:00 – Conference Semifinal
7/25: Divisional Winner vs Atlanta* - 8:00 – Conference Semifinal
7/26: Conference Championship – 8:00

Western Conference
7/26: Seattle @ Vancouver – 7:00 – Conference playoff

Moving on… the Olympics are around the corner and I think I may be covering the US women’s team over at World Cup Blog. At the moment, I’m not entirely sure if this means I’ll be camped out in front of my computer at four o’clock in the morning. But if I am camped out like that and you are too, please stop by and leave comments.

Here are your quick W-League weekend notes:

* Pali Blues are the Regular Season Champions with a perfect record. This is the third time in five years head coach Charlie Naimo finished the W-League season with this title (I think it was twice before with the New Jersey Wildcats). I haven’t heard any announcements whether the 1999 W-League coach of the year might get courted by a WPS team. Anyone know?

* All the remaining playoff teams are set. USL has the list here. Notably, both Chicago Red Star affiliates, FC Indiana and The Chicago Gaels, made it to the post season. Also, The Long Island Rough Riders slid past Jersey Sky Blue to fill the last open spot in the Northeast Division.

* The Global Game has a great article on FC Indiana. Writer Tim Grainey really focuses on the club’s ability to sign and keep top foreign talent. But what really jumped out to me was a short blurb about FC Indiana’s relationship with the Red Stars:

FC Indiana’s owners… also invested in the Chicago franchise of the new Women’s Professional Soccer league, set to launch in seven U.S. cities in Apr 09. Indiana maintains a technical alliance with Chicago and will continue to develop players for possible transfer.

It’s probably waay too early to speculate on how the relationship between FC Indiana and the Red Stars will evolve once all the WPS clubs have real rosters. I think the only thing I can assume with any confidence here is that the Red Stars are doing a fantastic job laying down foundations in the region.

Sundhage’s approach in de-emphasizing the role of Wambach might be what could ultimately save the team now. The new possession-based emphasis has created more opportunities for other players. Though Wambach still leads the squad with 13 goals this year, the scoring disparity isn’t so vast. Lindsey Tarpley has 10 goals, while Natasha Kai has 12, including the winning header versus Brazil that she scored after Wambach’s injury.

Canales does add that losing Wambach while the team is “still taking baby steps to develop other options,” is potentially devastating, but Pia’s work so far has de-emphasized Wambach’s role to such a degree that her absence is not crippling. So to everyone, it’s not over and I think we’ve still got a pretty good shot at the Olympics. I’m remaining positive (but – hey – I still think the San Jose Earthquakes are gonna make the playoffs this year). As for the economy, I could honestly use a little confidence boost right now. I just listened to some very compelling arguments last night that claimed the worst is yet to come.

Here are some quick women’s soccer notes:

* Scott Kucirek, at his Norcal Women’s Soccer blog posted an article from The San Francisco Business Times on his efforts to bring WPS to the Bay Area. So far, he’s acquired around one-third of the investment money and is in talks with Cal State, East Bay (that’s Hayward to the rest of us) and Santa Clara University to host games.

* CFO Magazine has a report on the financial plan for WPS. The article explains: there will be a salary cap “lower than the $40,000 average paid by the WUSA,” there is a strong push from the league to land national television deals, and teams may have the option to sell jersey sponsorship. WPS is also working with SUM (Soccer United Marketing), an organization that works with MLS, with marketing opportunities.

* And the W-League playoffs fight is in full swing. Most notably, the Connecticut Passion beat the Boston renegades 2-1, on July 16th, putting the Passion in a three way tie with the Long Island Rough Riders and Jersey Sky Blue for third place in their Division.

Which kind of sort of brings me to the next topic. It does seem that whether Sky Blue make the playoffs or not, at least part of the organization will be reborn into the new league with new players and a new coach (current Sky Blue coach Denise Reddy will take an assistant role). With all those resources set aside for the new team, will they even field a W-League team at all? And FC Indiana as well – while not participating in WPS, are affiliated with the Red Stars and just signed Monica Ocampo for its 2009 season. But wait – if Monica gets offered a spot on a WPS team for 2009, why would she turn that down? Peter Wilt does make it clear on his blog that despite being an affiliate, the Red Stars don’t have preference to attain her as a player so even though she’s signed to play in the W-League, no one is counting her out of the WPS player pool. Did FC Indiana just sign a player knowing she probably won’t play for them at all? And if so, what kind of compensation should they expect? Would this technically be a trade?

Oh, and here’s the last thing to think about – I’m pretty sure, right now, there are zero answers to these questions. WPS is still in the hashing out the details phase and so far, have gotten the USWNT allocation rules mostly down. But, for example, Philly in 2010? “In due time, processes will be designed for 2010 teams such as Philadelphia to compose their rosters.” Peter Wilt writes in his latest blog entry that he’s off to San Diego to hash out “expansion, marketing, broadcast and player issues.” I expect we will get some new news soon.

The W-League is inching closer to this season’s playoffs. The Toronto Lady Lynx, The Ottawa Fury, and The Boston Renegades have now earned spots. But perhaps the biggest upset of the weekend was the 3-0 victory The Washington Freedom had over Jersey Sky Blue on Saturday. This was apparently Sky Blue’s first road loss in the history of the club and puts the team in third place. And the team has at least one game in hand over the other playoff contenders in their Division. Yikes, this is turning into a bit of a nail biter.

In one last piece of news, Women’s Soccer USA is reporting that the St Louis club is negotiating with Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville to use their field for WPS games next year.

Moving on… it’s playoffs berth time in the W-League. Most notably, the Pali Blues are the Western Conference champions and currently hold an impeccable 11-0 record. On the somewhat opposite side of the fence, Jersey Sky Blue were struggling last week to qualify but seem to be slowly crawling their way back into the running. It looks like they’re in fourth place and their Conference has three playoff spots. Damn. Good luck to them. Already qualified so far are: The Atlanta Silverbacks, The Charlotte Lady Eagles, and Pali Blues. USL has a handy playoffs chart available here.

Oh and a quick shout out to Sky Blue’s Denise Reddy, who was the only female coach selected to participate in September’s W-League Combine. Yeah, these things are important to me. Can you tell?

WPS will begin securing domestic talent with the post-Olympics allocation of the U.S. Women’s National Team (WNT) and U.S. WNT Player Pool in mid-September, to be immediately followed with a draft of the top international players. In October, WPS will conduct a general draft for both domestic and international players, followed by east and west coast combines in December and a post-combine draft in January. WPS Teams for the inaugural 2009 season – Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New Jersey/New York, St. Louis, and Washington D.C. – will then complete their rosters via local tryouts.

And USL announced on Monday it’s first ever W-League Combine will take place in September:

United Soccer Leagues announced Monday that with the upcoming launch of Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS), it will be conducting the inaugural USL W-League Combine in Tampa September 4-7 of 2008. The combine will feature 128 elite players showcasing their talent for WPS and other professional scouts and coaches.

So September is the drop down date for all the teams participating in 2009 to - I say - at least have a GM and a head coach. I hope this gives San Diego and The Bay Area enough time to secure financing as well as, uh, Los Angeles, Dallas, and St. Louis to, um, do something. At least in the WPS press release, we have a quote from the chairman of St. Louis WPS. Hello Jeff Cooper! Time to get busy.

Included in the WPS press release is the very useful player timeline. Keep it handy. Refer to it often:

July 8 – Week of Sept. 15 Advancement of player contract discussions between WPS and U.S. WNT / U.S. WNT Player Pool; contracts to be finalized prior to post-Olympics allocation. Note: U.S. WNT Players / U.S. WNT Pool Players have already submitted their WPS market preferences.

July 8 – Aug. 5 WPS teams may enter discussions with international players, in advance of International Players’ post-Olympics draft

August 5 – 23 Beijing Olympics quiet period; no WPS communication with any Players competing in the Olympics

September 2 WPS Teams submit U.S. WNT Player preferences to the League

Week of September 15 U.S. WNT / U.S. WNT Player Pool domestic allocation

Week of September 22 Draft of top International players (2 per WPS team)

October 6 WPS General Draft of Domestic and International players

December 10 – 13 WPS West Coast Combine

December 17 – 20 WPS East Coast Combine

Week of January 14 WPS Post-Combine Draft February 15 WPS Tryouts in Teams’ Local Markets

March 1 WPS Pre-Season begins

April (date TBD) WPS Regular Season begins

My guess is, any of these dates are subject to change and likely will shuffle a bit as the year progresses. Either way, it’s great news to get a schedule and it certainly feels like, for perhaps the first time, there is for realsies going to be a league next year.

Moving on. To all of us Bay Area residents, sometimes commenter on this site and Red Stars new hire, Amanda Vandervort, clued us in on her blog that a guy named Scott Kucirek is working really really hard to bring a WPS team to the Bay Area. Hooray! He’s documenting his experiences and generally writing about the sport over at Norcal Women’s Soccer. Bookmark that site and/or add it to your reader like yesterday.

And if you are lucky enough to live in Seattle or Chicago, then there are some upcoming events you might consider checking out. The Women’s Open Cup Semi Finals and Amateur Cup finals will be in Seattle August 7-10 (good luck to FC Indiana) and the Chicago Red Stars are hosting USA v Brazil viewing parties coming up July 13th and 16th. Hats off to the Red Stars for yet another fantastic marketing idea.

So Jen Striker at Women’s Soccer USA asks if WPS is in trouble. She, I think, quotes someone else (but did not post a source!) who wonders why there is no movement from Los Angeles, Dallas and St. Louis. I’ve been pondering that myself. But, it does seem WPS is still pushing forward. Over at their blog, they recently kept the rest of us updated on their next steps: the upcoming allocation draft. They are currently hashing out the rules and figuring out possible media coverage. And it looks like they are also sorting out television coverage for the actual games as well as online media outlets. If it’s possible to throw my two cents in, I would LOVE it if there was a subscription service available allowing me access to the games online – preferably live (and possibly archived as well). Oh and give us highlight videos we can embed on our own sites. That would be so fetch.

The under 20s are off to their World Cup and the under 17s are off to try to qualify for theirs.

The Pali Blues continue their W-League winning streak, beating Fort Collins 2-0. Can we just give the Blues the LA WPS territory now?

The future WPS NY/NJ team, New Jersey Sky Blue is in danger of missing the W-League playoffs. They’re currently at third place in the Northeast Division. Whoops.

I’ve been awol guys. Sorry for the not so many updates. Just taking care of business… In about an hour, I’m off to the DMV to for realsies own a new old car I’ve lovingly named El Guzano. At least if the real Guzan leaves Chivas USA for Europe, I’ll still have a daily reminder of the good ‘ol days with my favorite MLS team.

And one last completely off-topic thing – I am completely and utterly in love with Amazon’s Elastic Computing Cloud. If you haven’t jumped on this bandwagon yet, I deplore you to get with the program. I’ve been wasting my time recently building server images and coming up with all sorts of uses for them. Future of scalability right here.

Yeah, it’s been a little footie break for me. And I’m back just in time to get ready for the first WPS draft. Any word on when that’s happening? Any news? MLS is boring me right now. Let’s bring on the new league!