The above photo is how I imagine the recent WPS behind closed doors Expansion Draft went down

Umea IK received a teeny tiny blurb at uefa.com. Mika Sankala stepped down as head coach this week because the traveling took him away from his family (awww). No word on his replacement (that I know of). And St. Louis just signed former Umea players forward Madelaine Edlund and midfielder Elaine.

Hope Powell and the England squad will play Turkey on Thursday (while we Americans eat turkey on Thursday) and a win for England means they qualify for the World Cup. That’s a potential spot earned in three games. Uh, wow. No wonder CONCACAF are dragging their heels on this. Anyways, Powell wins quote of the week from a Guardian interview where she spoke about England’s 8-0 beating of Malta last month:

Now we have to build on what we’ve achieved this year, and to do that we must qualify for the World Cup. We made a good start in terms of the result against Malta, but it was disappointing that we didn’t score more goals.

The WPS site has an interview with new Sky Blue coach Pauliina Miettinen where she discussed scouting and what she looks for in potential players. Part of her research is finding out more about the player off the field: “I also want to know what they are really like, day-to-day, and also about their personality.” Um, ok. I’m all for co-workers getting along and finding the right fit and all that but it does seem that she mentions this sort of thing A LOT. And coupled with the fact that this is a women’s league and she’s a female coach, it tends to imply to the average person that maybe THIS IS ACTUALLY A HUGE PROBLEM IN WOMEN’S SPORTS. Just a fyi there – especially on the heels of the whole Elizabeth Lambert fiasco. Yes, I may be totally overreacting here but it bothers me.

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.

StupidFilter results: Text is not likely to be stupid.

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.

But the expansion draft does remind us all that WPS season two is on the horizon. I’ve been away for a while dealing with LIFE so I missed likely all the postseason reflections and reviews out there on the internets. Although I did catch Peter Wilt’s post at Pitch Invasion which is good enough for me! Just read that one. So I say it’s time to move on to season two! Haters to the left. Looks like the league has another year in it. Here’s what I’d like to see happen for 2010.

Christie Rampone is officially named head coach of Sky Blue FC By April she should be showing and I think it will be crazy cool to see her preggers self perched on the sidelines bossing everyone around like a soccer version of the movie Fargo – but without all the blood and snow and William H Macy. Even better would be Rampone solving murder cases while at the same time coaching her team to their second league victory.

Kim Zolciak becomes a sponsor of the Atlanta Beat and her headshot is screenprinted on the front of their jerseys This will, of course, coincide with the release of her soon to be hit album follow up to the smash single Tardy to the Party. Kim, THE BRAND. You know she only needs to ask Big Papa for the money. And then Real Housewives season three will feature scenes from team practices & games. And WPS, the brand, gets plastered all over Bravo tv for a few months. Win win.

Justin.tv or Ustream.tv or Veetle or whoever gets a WPS channel I was pleasantly surprised to discover a few months back there was a 24 hour online rollerderby channel. Interviews, live games, random filler. Very impressive. Just sayin’.

Rachel Brown joins WPS Perhaps the Euros final was not her shining moment but I spent most of that game thinking the England keeper really is the spitting image of Christina Cox, one of the actresses on that mediocre soap opera in space, Defying Gravity. And after reading that the British “Superleague” is on hold yet again, perhaps she really is Christina Cox? Girl has gotta pay the rent somehow.

FC Gold Pride actually sign a player under the age of 40 And the rest of us spend one more year inventing new and hilarious ways to make fun of the name “FC Gold Pride.”

A US player will finally outshine the foreign players A year ago at this time, I fully expected the brand spanking new league to unveil a whole new crop of amazing American players. Uhhhhh, no. Instead, we got to meet (some of us for the first time) Sonya Bompastor, Eniola Aluko, Lisa De Vanna, Karina LeBlanc, Aya Miyama, etc etc etc. A few fresh faces creeped into the roster for the upcoming USWNT training camp and WPS marketed the Olympic winners hard in their advertising campaigns. But on the field… I dunno… I felt like our domestic draft picks just kinda disappeared. No star quality? No flair or creativity? Are we still just settling in? Fuck it. Let’s bring on season two!

This picture has nothing to do with WPS but I think it really captures these charged political times we live in

I’m a bit late on this post but as I type, Allie Long is celebrating her birthday at the Rhino Bar with some other Washington Freedom teammates. So if you are in the DC area and a fan (and who isn’t?), you should go. You should also bring a present. I mean something besides telling her good luck against Sky Blue FC on Saturday at 4pm Eastern for the first round of the playoffs (the game is on Fox Soccer Channel too). Something nice and thoughtful. According to her UNC player profile, she really likes the beach.

And here are some playoff previews to tide you over before the carnage begins

ESPN
World Soccer Reader
WPS site

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.

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.

Sky Blue FC goalkeeper Karen Bardsley writes a regular column over at goal.com. For her most recent, she wrote about her call-up to England’s National Team (betcha’d never see the day when an American played for England and please feel free to use this little trivia fact to win bets against your frenemies). I normally wouldn’t think twice about her article but she mentioned “the great voltage converter meltdown crisis of 2009” which I immediately assumed was her queue to start waxing crazy literary metaphors regarding Sky Blue’s inaugural WPS year head coach fiasco. Earlier in the season, coach Ian Sawyers was let go leading assistant Kelly Lindsey to take the job. And now – uh – Lindsey resigned and Christine Rampone will take over as player/coach. Good lord I say. Karen, you had the most amazing opportunity to wow me with a poetic diatribe regarding your pro team’s ongoing staffing drama. Unfortunately, Karen’s words were completely literal. While she was watching a WPS game overseas on her computer, it’s voltage converter exploded. What a let down.

Rampone is currently recovering from emergency stomach surgery (she sat out the last two US/Canada games) so she’ll have plenty of time to concentrate on the coaching part of her new job. Sky Blue are now barely hanging onto their fifth place position after Washington beat Boston on Wednesday and shot up to third place. Sky Blue are just two points behind Boston while STL, Washingon, and Boston are all one point behind each other.