Leslie Osborne is an inspiration
By: Melissa |
3 Comments
The official news is supposed to be out today but the fans already know Leslie Osborne will sign with the Boston Breakers after turning down an offer from the Washington Freedom. She also turned down the Red Stars. This is – at the every least – the first publicly known bidding war over a WPS free agent and hopefully not the last. Shrewd businesswoman I say and an inspiration to all of us trying to get ours (well, at least an inspiration to me as one of my clients is starting to negotiate with me to join them full time). Also of note is the fact that Leslie attended Santa Clara University (whether Kiera Knightley was her classmate is unknown at this time) and likely not coincidental, she was allocated to the Bay Area team last season. So she balked her hometown roots by turning down Chicago and she bailed on her university ties by leaving FC GoldMember – an act I find very impressive because women’s soccer tends to focus a bit too much on where one grew up and where one went to college. I believe when you leave home and when you graduate, you are pretty much done with that chapter. But I digress…
So what else is going on in the world of women’s soccer?
Tiffany Weimer is excited to start playing for the Breakers this season. Also excited is Kelly Smith. She says: “Watching her play is an absolute pleasure, I’m really excited.” *GULP*
According to her club in the Netherlands Daphne Koster signed with Sky Who Blue. As the captain of the Danish National team, she took them all the way to the Euro semi-finals.
Did you miss the audio interview with Abby Wambach and Cat Whitehill this week? That’s ok. The Freedom Insider took notes for us.
Goal.com checks in over at the Australian W-League where Sydney FC will play the Brisbane Roar this weekend. Seems the two teams are developing a bit of a rivalry. Says WPS free agent Sarah Walsh: “It will probably be Sydney’s toughest game… It’ll come down to – to borrow the old cliché – of who wants it most.” Both teams contain the highest number of Matildas (national team players) in the league. Should be a bloodbath.
Over in the UK, there are apparently some rumors that Grimsby Town may ask Hope Powell to be their new head coach which would make her the first first team female coach of a UK men’s team. Likely just rumors but it seems folks agree that she certainly is qualified to do it.
Also in the UK comes a story from the Guardian – John Terry put his pants back on long enough to realize the Chelsea Ladies were in all sorts of financial trouble and he bailed them out, found them a new head coach, became the club’s president, and started attending their games. no word on whether he chased down Lorrie Fair for an autograph.
On a similar note, WPSL finalists Ajax America are officially broke and need everyone’s financial help to keep on playing. Also revealed in that link is the news that LA Sol lost $2 million dollars in 2009 but AEG do promise to remain partners through 2010. After that? Well, let’s hope Anthony LaPaglia doesn’t bail too.
The Soccer Science blog asked Emma Hayes 10 questions in a segment that really should be renamed Get To Know Me!
AND FINALLY, Match Fit USA is conducting a contest to determine who will be the winner of the Twitterverse Players League. Simply put, readers get to vote on their absolute favorite US men’s soccer player on twitter. This contest got me wondering – if there was a women’s version, would there even be enough interesting tweeters to have a proper contest? Seriously ladies, it’s time to step it up.
Category: Boston Breakers, Chicago Red Stars, FC Gold Pride, Los Angeles Sol, Sky Blue FC, WPS News, Washington Freedom
Tags: Abby Wambach, Ajax America, Anthony LaPaglia, Australian W-League, Boston Breakers, Brisbane Roar, Cat Whitehill, Chelsea Ladies, Chicago Red Stars, Daphne Koster, Emma Hayes, FC Gold Pride, Grimsby Town, Hope Powell, John Terry, Kelly Smith, Leslie Osborne, Lorrie Fair, Los Angeles Sol, Sarah Walsh, Sky Blue FC, Sydney FC, Tiffany Weimer, Twitterverse, Washington Freedom, WPS NewsCarli Lloyd doesn’t want to talk about it
By: Melissa | Add Comments
Today, Sky Who Blue announced they signed free agent Carli Lloyd. Lloyd is from New Jersey and went to Rutgers so pretty much as soon as she became “free,” the rumors were flying that she was headed home perhaps even before she packed up and moved out of Chicago. And the rumormill was active well before Chicago burned out of the playoffs (and by rumormill, I really mean something like three to four people). It may or may not have been true Carli was unhappy with the Red Stars and her spotty 2009 performance may or may not have been because of that. But during the press conference, Carli didn’t want to talk about her time in Chi-town. Or rather, she said: “You never want to dwell too much on the past.” And that may or may not have been her nice way of saying “fuck that noise”. As for the signing? Sky Blue gains another US National Team player – making the number six, and the most of any WPS team. Chicago fans, on the other hand finally bid a fond “don’t let the door hit you on the way out” farewell to another of their allocated players.
StupidFilter results: Text is not likely to be stupid.
Happy Hondurans Love Wikipedia… and Links!
By: Melissa | 1 Comment
(Spotted over at ONTD football)
Angela Hucles retired from professional soccer effective immediately. Coach Tony loses yet another player from his 2009 roster, Pia loses a midfielder for the upcoming friendly against Germany, and Hucles thinks maybe now she’ll try real estate. Of course. Makes perfect sense.
Speaking of, Megan Rapinoe had knee surgery on Thursday sidelining her for a few weeks and forcing her to miss the upcoming USWNT game. Pia replaces the two open spots with newbies Ella Masar and Kacey White.
And since we’re still talking about Germany, Laura “the one that got away” Del Rio is tearing it up in the Bundesliga right now. She scored her 4th goal in 4 games during Frankfurt’s 4-0 win against SC 07 yesterday. Game highlights are here and include Steffi Jones saying a bunch of stuff in German.
I’m pretty sure Jones was not talking about a CONCACAF World Cup qualifying schedule in the above link, since Little Miss Soccer is keeping tabs on the upcoming games and… well… nothing but Europe and two friendlies. To be fair, there are a lot of countries in Europe to get through.
BBC Sport has a league update and check it, Watford is kicking ass and taking names and now sitting at the top of the table. Love it when the womens team does better than the mens. Oh and Kim Little scored her fourth hat trick of the season. If WPS teams aren’t already wooing this girl with promises of unlimited cell phone plans, meet and greets with Zach Effron, and pirated copies of Blue Moon (the girl is 19 years old – just sayin’), they need to start NOW.
StupidFilter results: Text is not likely to be stupid.
The get well Charlie Davies links
By: Melissa | Add Comments
Could it be? No more stanky leg? WAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Was the torch just passed? While the former Arsenal Ladies in WPS are back in their home country (and some on loan to their former team), the hype machine has moved onto new striker Kim Little who took Kelly Smith’s position after she joined the Breakers. Little scored a whopping 13 goals in her first six appearances of the season – including a brace during Arsenal’s 8-1 pounding of Doncaster. Recent English league updates can be found here.
WPS posted a what the hell are they up to in the offseason report and the Woman’s Soccer Insider blog gave us updates of the off-season players and their leagues. Well, updates as of Octber 9th. I’m afraid I missed this link last week when it perhaps would have been a bit more relevant.
Jill Oakes blogs about being a girl and a guy. No, I mean she blogs about having personality traits traditionally considered both masculine and feminine. While the stuff she writes about in her post isn’t new or groundbreaking, this quote of hers caught my attention: “Personally, I made my first conscious statement to the world challenging a stereotype, when I became a high school cheerleader. Yes, it’s 100% true. I was telling the world that cheerleaders deserve athletic respect, and that athletes are beautiful and feminine too.” Now, I’ve read a few complaints on the internets this week regarding the recent ESPN body issue and the question of female athletes and their bodies (do they or don’t they?) and I must say it’s refreshing to read what the athletes themselves have to say on the topic (and not just people like me who wank off online – metaphorically of course).
WPS interviews Jorge Barcellos which isn’t too terribly interesting but that dreaded word “family” pops up again and this time it’s said by the interviewer. Although his response somehow translated to “familiar” which maybe really meant “intimate.” I will of course be following this important lead as it develops.
StupidFilter results: Text is not likely to be stupid.
i lurv x factor more than pie n chips
By: Melissa | Add Comments
Karen Carney just twittered that today. Homegirl knows what’s up with popular tv programs (or is it programmes?). Anyhoo, a lot has been going on in the world of WPS since I last wrote. Free agency is in full swing and there’s been significant moving and shaking. Annnnnd the whole thing was explained by the WPS COO in a blog post which in this age of the internets, social media, and general short attention spans, seems entirely appropriate.
When a player signs a contract with a WPS team, many things are negotiated. Along with the compensation, is the duration of how long the player’s rights will be held by the team. Many contracts last for a year (or a season), with team options for subsequent years attached to it.
According to the WPS standard player contracts, teams have until 30 days after the end of the league season (which this year, was as of the All Star Game) to exercise their options. At this point, teams can do one of four things:
1. Exercise their option for a player – thereby bringing them under contract for the 2010 season. OR
2. Waive their right to exercise their option – thereby forfeiting their rights to extend the player’s contract for the 2010 season. As a result of waiving their option, the player then will become a free agent when free agency opens at the end of the options exercise period. OR
3. Do nothing, and let their option lapse, also rendering the player a free agent. OR
4. Sign the player to a NEW contract (rather than exercise her option) for the 2010 season and perhaps beyond. There are a few additional rules about this that apply depending on what the terms of the new contract are and whether or not the player was protected in the expansion draft, but I digress.
The options exercise period ended on September 29 and right on queue, each team announced who will stay and who will – not necessarily go but – become a free agent. Except one effin day before all that, Boston traded Amy Rodriguez to Philly for their 2010 first round draft pick. My only guess as to why that happened ONE DAY before free agency was that possibly she signed a multi-year contract in 2009? It’s just a weird trade is all. Moving on…
Boston grabbed Tiffany Weimer. They dumped one hyped yet underwhelming player for another. Except Weimer did play for coach Tony already at SoccerPlus FC so here’s to Weimer having a freaking awesome season this time around.
Philly grabbed Heather Mitts in a move that surprised absolutely no-one but did add a slight bit of intrigue to this free agency period.
They also signed Caroline Seger to a three year deal marking season two’s first high-ish profile international signing.
And then they traded their 5th and 22nd draft picks for LA’s Allison Falk and Val Henderson clearly demonstrating that Philly is more concerned with building a team of veterans over gambling with the upcoming draft.
FC Gold Bonds grabbed Candace Chapman out of free agency which is significant because I kinda hope they are attempting to sign the entire Canadian National Team… and then grab Canada’s new head coach.
Annnnnd, in a move that has nothing to do with free agency, Sky Blue FC announced Pauliina Miettinen as their new head coach. Not entirely what I hoped for (my soccer/Fargo dreams are completely dashed) but after reading the press release and how Sky Blue’s GM emphasized that Miettinen has a psychology degree and coupled with Miettinen’s quote that she wants to join the “family,” (she said family twice) I’m wondering if Sky Blue’s locker room will eventually start looking like this:
But not to worry though, last time I checked, Natasha Kai still plays for them and I expect if Sky Who Blue start getting all touchy feely on our asses, she’ll be right there to knock some sense into those b*tches. Here she is keeping it real in ESPN’s recent body issue. I can’t imagine this picture would qualify to be posted on either Habs Offside or Wags Offside so it just remains here in this WPS ghetto. Enjoy.
Ok, I may have forgotten something but I think those are the big deals going down so far. Elsewhere in the world qualifiers are still underway for the first ever UEFA Women’s Champions League (and there are so many goram clubs participating, just click on that previous link to keep tabs on who is winning), Wales announced it will start it’s own professional league, there’s You Tube clips of Marta and Christiane playing in Brazil, and I am going to bring the StupidFilter back to WPS The Offside so you can see the results of a program written solely to “detect rampant stupidity in written English.” I’ll be running the text of all my blog posts going forward through this thing and adding the results in the footers…
StupidFilter results: Text is likely to be stupid.
(DOH! It’s my first ever stupid rating!)
Be a Tiger! Be a Tiger!
By: Melissa | Add Comments
Here are some links to pass the time while you ponder what exactly was that photographer thinking in the above photo shoot?
I was wondering about this whole free agency thing and the USWNT contracts. Luckily, it’s all been cleared up in a lone twitter. Those players who haven’t yet resigned with their 2009 teams become free agents on September 30th. So now it’s not quite so bad that Hotlanta and Philly don’t have any national team players… yet.
The FA Superleague is now scheduled to start in 2011. Suuuuuuure it is.
Heather O Reilly tells US Soccer how awesome it was to win the first WPS season. I remember the moment it as if it was only a month ago.
Megan Rapinoe tells US Soccer how not-awesome it was to not win the first WPS season and a bunch of other stuff too.
Something Happened!
By: Melissa | Add Comments
Today was all a-twitter as Philly and ATL got to pick five international players each to stock their rosters. But, assuming similar rules apply from last year’s international draft, both expansion teams really picked five players each with whom they have the exclusive rights to negotiate a contract. Or, they picked five players each with whom they have the exclusive rights to trade the rights to another team so the other team can negotiate a contract. Here’s a rundown of today’s picks. In essence, this is the first round intended to give the expansion sides a slight advantage because the “International Discovery Period” begins tomorrow (Sept 23rd). That means all teams will get the chance to claim a new group of internationals – but not before they clear their rosters. So yeah, that’s happening too. Players are getting waived left and right. But all is not lost in that department either. WPS does do one thing that MLS fans may raise an inquisitive eyebrow over. Free agency begins September 30th so all those waived players get the opportunity for each team to compete with each other and woo the players into a new contract. That should be fun… I think. We’ll see.
In other news:
Lotta lotta lotta loans. Marta is in Brazil with Santos FC. Kelley Smith, Alex Scott, & Karen Carney are back with Arsenal. For the Freedom, Sonia Bompastor is in France with PSG, Homare Sawa is in Japan with NTV Beleza, Lisa De Vanna is in Australia with Perth Glory… and there are probably heaps others all over the place either playing or just training. I’m sure there’s a full list somewhere. All this does is really make me wish I found a different line of work. Sure, playing in WPS can’t pay well but you do get to see the world a bit. Damn.
The USWNT training camp begins this week. Pia gets 12 days with her call-ups to decide who goes to Germany to play a friendly in October. There are a few new faces on the roster and the NYT Goal blog has a little interview with midfielder Yael Averbuch. Also, Abby Wambach got a dog. Hey, this is off-season news, y’all. We take what we can get!
And in much much more serious and somber news, one of the men accused of the “corrective rape” and murder of South African footballer, Eudy Simelane, received a life sentence. He was the second man involved who received a conviction so far.
Category: "News", Atlanta Beat, Boston Breakers, Chicago Red Stars, Los Angeles Sol, Philadelphia Independence, Sky Blue FC, US Women's National Team, WPS News, Washington Freedom Tags: "News", a dog, Abby Wambach, Alex Scott, Atlanta Beat, Boston Breakers, Chicago Red Stars, Eudy Simelane, Homare Sawa, International Draft, Karen Carney, Kelly Smith, Lisa De Vanna, Los Angeles Sol, Marta, Philadelphia Independence, Sky Blue FC, Sonia Bompastor, US Women's National Team, Washington Freedom, WPS News, Yael AverbuchImmma let you finish, but first… LINKS!!!!
By: Melissa | 1 Comment
2011 World Cup Qualifying is underway in Europe. The groups are posted here and the recent results are:
Iceland – Estonia 12-0
Armenia – Finland 0-4
Slovakia – Macedonia 9-0
Poland – Ukraine 4-1
Bosnia- Herzegovina – Hungary 0-2
Malta – Spain 0-13
Switzerland – Ireland 2-0
Slovenia – Italy 0-8
UEFA qualifying runs til August of next year. OFC starts in October, AFC started in April, while CONCACAF and CONMEBOL are yet to be decided? HEMISPHERE FAIL.
Nottingham Forest wants to build a “Wembley for Women” meaning a 45,000 seat stadium. The club is hoping it can be the place to host all England home games as well as the FA Cup finals.
Did Peter Wilt get pushed out of Red Stars management via some evil corporate coup? The answer is no. He’s just keeping his options open but will stay involved perhaps in a lesser capacity while Marcia McDermott takes on a bigger role. Easy Peasy.
That’s all for now. Seacrest out!
Social Activism?
By: Melissa | 3 Comments
In the past, I’ve ruminated or rather thought out loud the question of how this league can be all about gender yet market itself as mostly genderless. This idea is apparently the topic of a little e-fight going on between Wendy Parker and someone who refers to themself as the Fake Sigi Schmid (I suppose someone’s gotta be him). Basically, Parker argues that WPS should steer away from marketing itself as a social cause which irked Fake Sigi and the fake one (not to be confused with the special one) wrote an admittedly very eloquent post explaining the point. Alright, I’m gonna paraphrase. Here we go…
Parker: The WUSA folded partially because their overt “girl power” message turned off potential ticket buyers. Furthermore, this recession is hitting niche sports markets hard so the bottom line is more important than ever.
Fake Sigi: The WUSA folded partially because they jumped on the “girl power” bandwagon as a last ditch effort to save the league after they ran out of money. WPS is working to distance itself from the failures of WUSA by starting out as a more grassroots business model and by not marketing themselves as a charity case, or as Andy Crossley said, “the ghetto of being a role model for girls.” (great quote!) So what WPS can do is embrace cause-related marketing which is apparently an actual term that defines businesses that align themselves with social causes by raising money, creating volunteer opportunities, raising awareness, etc etc etc. The point being the message targets the company’s audience emotionally. We all feel a bit better about spending our money on you because you care about the same issues that we do. Fake Sigi also argues that – well – WPS is struggling to understand their core demographic market and cause-related marketing is a good way for them to figure it out before they lose all the fans.
What can I say, I’m nowhere near as eloquent or S.M.R.T. but I do agree with the fake one. And one of my employers just happens to be a organization at the forefront of this cause-related movement. Over the years, I’ve seen their funding shift dramatically from 100% philanthropy to now majority business partnerships and their list of clients is really becoming a who’s who of the Fortune 500. What Fake Sigi writes is no joke. WPS can benefit from league-wide and strategic social cause marketing because that is actually what many consumers want. And don’t even get me started on the demographic woes of the WPS. It’s enough to make me stop caring about this league altogether. The mixed message of yes this is an important thing for women’s sports but no we aren’t going to talk about it might just backfire because the league’s core audience, who the fake one calls “athletic minded women and girls,” may very well want WPS to talk about it!
Well, I’m no expert on the subject and it seems pretty apparent that this is new-ish mostly unchartered territory (srsly, how many professional women’s sports leagues are there?). And I’m typing this while sitting at said job mentioned above while at the same time testing mysql backup programs. Stay tuned while I pull together my thoughts on why WPS should completely ignore television and broadcast everything online as well as keep all video archives available on their website on-demand. That’s right – control the means of production!
Links!!!
By: Melissa | 2 Comments
I recently installed the Read it Later Firefox plugin which I will be using to clip (i.e. remember) all the interesting womens soccer links I stumble upon then spit them back out to you all. Call it one stop shopping and, yes, you can thank me later. Here goes installment number one…
Expansion Draft! Were you wondering why ATL & Philly passed on their last picks? Turns out, per the rules, they could only pick from FC Gold Pride in that round and they instead said no. Ouch.
Combine! The W-League Combine is September 24 – 27 and will be crawling with WPS coaches. This time, WPS and W-League coaches will meet each night to rank the players and choose the best to play against each other on Sunday. It’s like a fight to the death but everyone lives.
Speaking of the W-League, apparently it’s not going anywhere despite the sale of USL and a few USL-1 teams threatening to form their own league. W-League President, Melanie Fitzgerald, says hell to the no.
We are very excited about the acquisition of USL by NuRock Soccer Holdings from Nike. It is clear from our early meetings with the new ownership group that NuRock is committed to providing the necessary resources to enhance our ability to manage the W-League and allow for us to provide more active support and service for our franchisees
The above does indeed loosely translate to “hell to the no.”
Jo Lohman and Becca Moros are blogging from Japan where they are playing for a team over there (anyone know which one?). A friend of mine went to Japan on vacation this summer and told us all about a cat cafe which is exactly what you think – a place to go to sit down, order sweet drinks, and pet a bunch of cats. Now when my friend is having a bad day, she twitters that she wishes she could go back to the cat cafe in Japan. Yes, this link was just an excuse for me to write about the cat cafe.
So apparently the international draft is happening next week but you won’t see one name on that list. Laura Del Rio, FC Indiana’s top scorer in 2009 and brief (like for a week) international draft pick for the Red Stars, just signed with FFC Frankfurt where she will be paired up top with star striker Birgit Prinz. This is a HUGE move and I think a pretty hilarious fuck you message to WPS. Ha Ha.
Speaking of WPS (oh, wait, that’s this blog), Click this link here to Kanye-ize the official WPS website. No-one shall escape!
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