If a tree makes a mistake in the woods…

I apologize to every one of you, even the creepy guy on the right.

So surprise surprise England won their game against Turkey on Thursday but the qualification rounds resume in March meaning I misread the Guardian article or it contained misinformation. Whoops. Moving on…

Not containing misinformation is an excellent interview with player & assistant manager of Stratford Town (a not quite Premiere League club), Esther Slater on her thoughts about the upcoming FA Superleague. And she gets down to business for sure:

Personally I don’t think the super league will make much difference to the profile of women’s football. The pyramid system that is already in place works well enough and I can’t see how changing the structure is going to help raise the profile. I think maybe in the beginning it may create a bit of interest, but I can’t see it lasting.

Well it’s supposedly open for any club to apply for. However with the money they are talking about (paying top four players an annual salary of £20-30k and matching the £70k the FA are going to give each club per year for the first two years) I cant see how they will get any teams other than those who are fully affiliated with large men’s clubs raising the funds. Therefore the gap between top and bottom will be bigger than ever.

So while the senior England team continues to move up the world ranks, there may be lingering questions whether this new “super structure” the FA wants (perhaps more to dazzle top players away from WPS?) will hurt a player development system that appears to be working already.

And speaking of working already, the NCAA College Cup has been showcasing some amazing talent who will all pretty much be the first round picks in the upcoming WPS draft. I’m not really going out on a limb here when I say the final will be Stanford and UNC. Tonight UCLA play Portland for the last open semi-final spot. Then it’s onto the semis… which are (I believe) televised. Look out for:

Tobin Heath @ UNC. People who are smarter than me predict she’ll be the #1 draft pick overall (congrats Atlanta).

Kelley O’Hara @ Stanford. I missed last night’s game unforch. She scored a brace in Stanford’s 3-1 win over Boston College. Homegirl’s been scoring hella goals and got called up to December’s senior national team training camp.

Casey Nogueira @ UNC. She’ll also be in December’s nats training camp. Her hat trick on Friday pushed UNC to the semis. And she’s a really great dancer…

Also of note, this year’s competition is having record attendance rates which ideally would be a fantastic thing for WPS to figure out how to translate for their 2010 season.

Category: "News"