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.

StupidFilter results: Text is not likely to be stupid.

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.

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.

And here it is full size

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!)

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.

That’s Kristen Graczyk and what’s-his-face modeling something or other for a local San Jose California rag called The Wave (more pics plus full article here). But if you do click on the link to the article, you’ll quickly discover that the dress above costs *cough* $1,140. I could fill an entire notebook with things I’d pay $1,140 for and none of them would be THAT DRESS. And don’t even get me started on the irony of the title: “Winning Style.”

(and is it just me or are they posing in front of a freezer full of raw meat?)

Moving on… Sky Blue FC and the Washington Freedom are currently tied for 3rd place with the Boston Breakers a measly one point behind them. This Saturday, Sky Blue play Washington and Boston play LA on Sunday. At some point in the middle of that mess, St Louis play FC Gold Pride but whatevs to that game, right? The WPS site mapped out every single playoff scenario for us which is kinda cool but also kinda weird in a creepy sort of “dear fans, you didn’t vote for Marta therefore you can’t figure shit out for yourselves” kinda way. But basically, it boils down to – whoever wins on Saturday gets home field advantage for the first round and Boston are out if they lose on Sunday. There you go. Also, there will be an audio feed of Saturday’s game and Sunday’s game will be on FSC.

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.

No cristal for this bunch. With Thursday night’s 0-0 tie to FCGP, LA Sol get that one elusive point to make them the WPS regular season winners. Now they have an automatic bye to the final and home field advantage – meaning this thing will be at the Home Depot Center on Aug 22 (mark your calendars). And they’ve managed to do it with games remaining in the regular season. Two of those games are even on tv! And one is against the Red Stars. This weekend, in a game only available online, the Red Stars are going to give it one last shot to make a post-season run. If they fail, they’re out, and their upcoming televised match between LA will be pretty effin’ meaningless. On August 2, both teams could just take off to the bar and field a roster of trained monkeys. Ok, I’d totally watch that.

The Red Stars will make their final stand on Sunday and they’ll do it wearing green uniforms. It’s an environmental thing ya know. I do my part by buying the box wine – lower carbon footprint than the regular wine. The Red Stars will do their part by wearing the green jerseys then auctioning them off afterwards.

The Freedom don’t play this weekend The Freedom play Chicago this weekend and Sky Blue are yet again going to fight to keep their slim lead over Washington… by playing Boston… who are in third place but nipping at the heels of STL… STL are up against FCGP on Sunday. It’s a two point difference between STL, Boston, Sky Blue, and Washington right now (and in that order) so we may see another shift in the postseason line-up by Monday. And apparently with Thursday’s tie, FCGP aren’t completely out of it yet. But who are we kidding?

Now, after watching the atrocious offensive play from STL during their Saturday game against Washington, I’d guess this week is in the bag for LA already except Lori Chalupny is back from National Team training camp and training with STL. Lori Chaloopa… who just so happens to be the second highest goal scorer for STL (thank you stats page) and who strangely enough has become the offensive spark for this team. And Sky Blue after their amazing fire-the-coach-and-start-winning-shit late season run, are barely hanging on to their lead over Washington. So by the time they meet the Freedom on Aug 8th, that game could be a post season deal-breaker. WPS has the break-down (thanks again to the stats collector person whoever you are)

While all games are key at this time in the season, looming on the horizon is a potential one-game elimination match on August 8th to get into the playoffs between current 4th-place Sky Blue FC and fifth-place Washington Freedom, who are currently 2 points back from a playoff spot. Washington has a 6-5 goals edge on the season series with a win and a tie, so if the two teams come in tied on points, then Washington would only need a tie to earn the head-to-head tiebreak, while Sky Blue FC would need a victory. If Washington comes into the game behind by 1, 2 or 3 points in the standings, Washington would still take the season series with a victory against Sky Blue FC and would also edge them for a playoff berth thanks to the head-to-head tiebreak.

I just checked and it looks like this upcoming match is not available on tv or online which is (drumroll please) poetic and kind of sums up the inagural WPS season in a, err, metaphorical type nutshell.