Did you catch the post-game quote sheet? Normally those things are totally booooring but this little gem came from from Hope Solo:

I can’t wait for the World Cup. This crowd was amazing. I actually got excited when I got booed and whistled because that never happens. This was great. It’s what it should be like.

Hello open invitation! If during the 2010 season you just so happen to be standing next to her goal and you just so happen to toss a bunch of streamers into her goal and then you just so happen to inform her she is not in her parent’s basement and she needs to clean that mess up RIGHT NOW – yeah, it’s totally cool. You should do that.

* FC Gold Member did something and by doing something, they beefed up their defense by signing Niki Cross. And then they beefed down the depth in their defense by trading Allison Whitworth to the Atlanta Beat. In return, they got the 3rd and the 10th picks from the first round of the draft and are apparently now the owners of most of the picks. Honestly, I am not paying enough attention to this stuff to make any predictions on who will be entering January’s draft. But I will say this – if that Alex Morgan shows up, the Yay team should totally nab her not just because she’s a really good offensive player, but also because the entire male heterosexual population of Chile is in love with her.

* The Boston Breakers filed discovery claims on Kozue Ando and Shinobu Ohno who they are hoping will be the big-guns forwards coach Tony is looking for.

* The Chicago Red Stars signed midfielder Julianne Sitch. The big story here is that she’s from the Chicago area. This is Chicago’s first move since free agency began and honestly, I couldn’t even begin to speculate on it. Patience grasshoppers.

* La Sol signed Czech forward Pavlina Scasna which is apparently one little piece of some sort of crazy multi-part trade that may only make sense to a select few people at the moment. And LA have no more international slots now.

* Lots of stuff happened in the UK which, lucky for us, the excellent site Girls in Football covers with waaay more depth than any news source I’ve encountered so far. If you care about that region, you should just go there.

* FC Indiana coach Shek Borkowski is now the new head coach (with some other guy) of WFC Zvezda-2005 of the Russian Premiere League. I’m guessing that might mean he is not longer coaching the Lionesses, but with women’s soccer, it seems everybody has like five jobs so I’m not so sure about that one.

* The W-League is adding another team which seems a bit crazy to me considering the fact that all the Canadian teams just dropped out of the USL. I think the W-League may want to start thinking “backup plan” in case the USL completely falls apart. Sooner rather than later, ladies.

* According to a post over at the Fan Corner, there wil be a “six continental confederations linked to the FIFA (Concacaf – North America Soccer Confederation, Central and Caribbean; Conmebol- South american Confederation of Soccer; Soccer confederation of Oceania-OFC; Soccer-CAF Africa confederation; Asian confederation of Soccer- AFC; And European Confederation of Soccer- UEFA)”. Oh hey, great idea! I hope it happens and that the fans get to watch it… somehow.

* AND FINALLY! Team on 3 is dead set on proving the USWNT are funny by posting a bunch of videos of them… being funny. Nice selection but missing one of my faves: Natasha Kai singing karaoke. The post also reminds me of those hilarious US Soccer podcasts Sacha Kljestan and Benny Feilhaber used to do – before they turned all douchey. I miss those podcasts. It was a simpler time back then.

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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.

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(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.

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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.

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!

That is, if WPS lasts that long (crossing fingers).

(Also, meethinks this video is a super low budget homage to this little gem from the not-so-past.)

You gotta wait til around minute 2 in the above video to see Natalie Spilger perform a flip-throw throw-in. A what? you say? This thing…

She did it twice during the game. The first time, Fox Soccer Channel gave us the slow motion replay of her acrobatics (sadly, NOT featured in the video above) to which I immediately yelled, “It’s the flip throw in slow mo!” And it made my entire weekend. Chicago beat LA 3-1 and just like FC Gold Pride, they waited til after they were out of the playoffs before showing fans they can play like a real professional soccer team. Except unlike FC Gold Pride, Red Stars game attendance is rising. So the Red Stars are doing something right over there in the midwest and I’ll tell you what one of those many many right things are: Natalie Spilger. Not only did she get so wasted in college she yelled at the cops and got arrested, she also runs that Green Laces organization and is apparently now taking meetings with the NBA. Basically this woman is my new hero and I regret forgetting to vote for the WPS All Stars when I had a chance because I’d mark her in for every category (including favorite AND second favorite WPS team – just the Natalie Spilger team, that’s all anyone needs). Natalie for president (of our hearts!)

picture courtesy of the FC Gold Pride twitter feed cheers David!

Ok. So now we’re looking at Washington, Boston, and Sky Blue to fight for a post-season. Boston are one point behind Washington and Sky Blue are two points behind Boston. Sky Blue have two more games to play while Washington and Boston have just one. I’m getting nervous just typing this.

And the W-League final is set. La Sol affiliates, Pali Blues will play Washington Freedom affiliates, uh, the Washington Freedom.

who is this guy?

It’s been a busy week in the world of pro, semi-pro, and not-at-all pro women’s soccer so let’s review…

WPSL The final four are set. The semifinals will take place in Long Island (will they throw in some of that famous iced tea?). On August 1st, the Dallas Premier play the Long Island Fury then defending champs Ajax America face Miami Kickers FC. The winners of these games face-off in the final on August 2nd.

W-League What an upset! The Ottowa Fury beat FC Indiana last Sunday 2-1 and ended the season quite a bit earlier than last year’s runner ups expected. So now the Fury will face the Washington Freedom (yes – same franchise as the WPS team just the W-League version) on August 1st at the Maryland SoccerPlex. On July 31st, the regular season champs (ahem) Hudson Valley Quickstrike Lady Blues play last year’s champs Pali Blues in exciting Newburgh, New York. I just Googled tourist info for Newburgh and after y’all finish visiting the many George Washington historical landmarks, you are totally done with that place. So if you are still in the area and reading this, you simply do not have a good excuse not to go. Oh, and there’s been a bit of a shift in how things get done in the W-League. Instead of the automatic bye to the final for the regular season winner, the winners of the two above games face each other in the final – which will be live on Fox Soccer Channel at 7:30pm ET August 7th.

WPS The playoff run continues and most importantly, STL and Boston try to clinch their positions. STL win a spot (and apparently get a home field playoff game) if they beat Boston on Saturday OR tie Boston and Washington lose or tie a game this week. Boston win a spot if they beat Washington on Wednesday and I think if that doesnt’ work out they might also get a spot if they beat STL on Saturday… but don’t quote me on that (or anything really). So basically if Boston win tomorrow, STL does too and our friends in mound city don’t even need to lift a finger. And check that last link from answerbag.com. Commenter zaqes1 says St Louis is also called choke city because their sports teams often lose during the playoffs. So is it really in the bag for STL? Ok, it probably is. But I’m just trying to create some intrigue here.

And don’t forget that completely meaningless La Sol at Chicago game that happens to be the only one this week available online as well as on tv.

Right. We’ve got some playoffs, we’ve got some seasons ending. We’ve got that All Stars game to think about. We’ve also got the Euros. Last year around about this time, I spent a few confused and hungover mornings in various bars surrounded by annoying passionate and worldly Spaniards. Now it’s time for the ladies to play (they like to say that in Europe a lot ladies don’t they?). It starts August 23 and ends September 10th. And with France, England, and Sweden competing, I think it’s about 100% likely that quite a few of our All Stars picks won’t be available to play. (And quite a few Umea players won’t make the trip either.) But it seems that according to the fans’ votes, it doesn’t matter anyways since WPS published the tally so far and according to us, we really just want to see the US Women’s National Team play Umea IK. Screw everybody else in this league. Ok, fair enough.

And if you click on this link, you can watch highlights of Germany’s 6-0 pounding of the Netherlands this past weekend in a friendly. Watch the Dutch keeper completely lose it well before the end of the first half. I love the commenter: “the Dutch keeper might have saved it if she just stretched a bit more.” Indeed.