WPS International Draft Results Announced
By: Tom | September 24th, 2008Well, ending a process about as opaque as a papal succession selection, WPS belied its own website’s promise to reveal the draft results tomorrow and instead tonight revealed which teams will have the opportunity to sign which world class international players, following last week’s domestic allocation.
Here are the full results on the WPS site. Due surely to smoke-filled-room-negotiations, Marta did not go first, and went to LA with the third pick. AEG has their Beckham for WPS. Perhaps they might try marketing the team now.
Marta was one of four Brazilians to go in the first round; the outstanding Formiga went first to the team known only for now as Bay Area, Daniela to St. Louis, and Chicago got its share of flair with Cristiano headed to the Red Stars.
My own heart was broken as England’s superstar Kelly Smith headed not to play with her former coach Emma Hayes in the Windy City I reside in, but was instead picked second by Boston. Still, the Red Stars did pick up an outstanding young English talent from Arsenal, with Karen Carney (who made her debut in the English PL in 14, and who has twice been national young player of the year) picked in the third round.
The first round was rounded off with Japan’s Homare Sawa headed to Washington and Sarah Walsh of Australia going to the Sky Blues. According to Wikipedia, the latter is “famous for her extensive knowledge of Haitian nationality as well as her penchant for writing concise and well thought out reading responses.” Well, that’s cool then: she’ll fit in great in Jersey.
Now all the teams have to do is actually sign these players, though given the comparative appeal of WPS monetarily and in terms of prestige and the level of competition, I’d expect most of those picked to be headed here next spring.
What do you think of the selections?
Category: WPS News
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Comments
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Thanks for holding down the fort, Tom. The big surprise here, to me, was Sarah Walsh, who I thought would surely go play in the new Australian league. Also, she’s off to Sky Blue but used to play for Pali Blues. It’s fate I tell you.
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Tom, Great to see you on the wps.theoffside.com blog! Between you and Melissa I have no doubt this site won’t miss a beat. Tell me more about these curious stirrings of a Red Stars blog!?!
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Thanks for stopping by Amanda! Yes, there will be a Red Stars blog here soon. Hopefully all the WPS teams will have their own team blogs on The Offside by the time the season starts.
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Here in NJ, we’re really known for speaking before thinking, not well-considered writing. This comment is an example. We also don’t have a sense of humor.
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What if none of these players actually expressed interest to join the league? Since this is a draft to start negotiations and teams still have to get permission from the player’s current club and the details of the player draft list were kept secret… what if WPS made this list up and didn’t bother to find out if any of the players were available and interested? HaHaHa That would be hilarious – and sad.
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Three OL players have been drafted.
I sincerely hope we don’t lose any of them, though I guess the WPS is the best a female footballer can aspire to. I have no idea how a draft process works – are the players selected ones that have a feasible chance of leaving their current clubs, or is a draft more like a wishlist?
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