I’m sure there’s a mathematical explanation for this

By: Melissa | August 4th, 2009

If you haven’t already guessed, I am not a huge fan of All Star games. But I’ll tell you what I am a fan of, the Add-Art extension for Firefox. It replaces “advertising images on web pages with contemporary art from a curated database” and after I installed it, theoffside.com loads up super-fast on my computer. And theoffside.com looks 300% more sophisticated. Win win. Another thing that happened today was WPS announced their first round of All Star picks.

Karina LeBlanc GK – Los Angeles Sol, Canada
Tina Ellertson D – Saint Louis Athletica, United States
Amy LePeilbet D – Boston Breakers, United States
Alex Scott D – Boston Breakers, England
Camille Abily M – Los Angeles Sol, France
Sonia Bompastor M – Washington Freedom, France
Shannon Boxx M – Los Angeles Sol, United States
Lori Chalupny M – Saint Louis Athletica, United States
Kelly Smith M – Boston Breakers, England
Eniola Aluko F – Saint Louis Athletica, England
Marta F – Los Angeles Sol, Brazil

Ok, so the first thing you will note is Alex Scott, Camille Abily, Sonia Bompastor, Kelly Smith, and Eniola Aluko probably won’t play (confirmed: Smith, Scott, and Aluko certainly will not. Why? Because they’ll be in Europe. France plays Germany on August 27 while England plays Russia on August 28th. And if either team makes it out of their groups, they’ll be at it again starting on September 3rd. So maybe just maybe if England and/or France punk out of the Euros early, a few of players above will be back in time. Maybe.

So contingency plan time. I guess it’s just cool to be nominated. Maybe Shaq can take someone’s place and roll up with the Jabbawockeez. And looking at the top picks from the fans, one can hope that Hope comes in as a midfielder (but realistically, LeBlanc and Solo will swap halves – the fans have spoken!). At least there are plenty of USWNT player pool-ers available from the Red Stars and FC Gold Pride. What? We’re not gonna pick even one? According to the fine print:

With several players expected to be unavailable due to national team commitments at the 2009 European Championships, the First XI players who cannot play will be replaced by the next-highest vote-getters at that position announced later this week.

So there’s still time for Shaq to get in this thing! Or rather, Abby Wambach.

The players voted LA Sol head coach Abner Rogers to be the All Stars coach. Rogers and the Commish get to pick seven more players so I’m sensing a very LA-heavy All Stars roster coming up. Stay tuned, y’all.