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U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati is an economist by trade — which is good, because if you see the financial documents linked later on, you’ll remember that he doesn’t get paid for his role with the federation. (Perhaps it’s a little unfair that the person making the big bucks, CEO Dan Flynn, rarely has to face the media while we pester Gulati all the time. But I digress.)
So when we pestered Gulati before Sunday’s USA-China women’s game, he made one telling statement: “I’ve been doing this too long to get too up or down by individual data points.”
Whether you agree with everything Gulati does or not, this statement is one thing that separates his thought processes from most of us who yap about soccer on the Internet. We in the virtual soccer community can “prove” lots of things from single data points:
In the long run, it’s a good thing the powers that be don’t make decisions based on isolated data points. They might see a few hundred people gathered for one of last spring’s WPS games and figure women’s soccer is dead. They might see empty seats in MLS cities — even in places like Toronto where the seats are apparently sold but not occupied — and figure MLS is struggling. They might notice that ratings trumpeted as big numbers for European broadcasts are in the same ballpark as the numbers that have fans of The Ultimate Fighter on edge.
Let’s look at a couple of data points and see how the situation is a little more complicated than it appears:
I don’t see the press release at USSoccer.com yet, but there was a second announcement today in addition to Pia Sundhage’s roster for the Olympics. Here’s the key excerpt:
Following the FIFA Women’s World Cups for the Under-17 and Under-20 age levels this coming fall, the head coaching positions for those teams will become full-time for the first time. In addition, U.S. Soccer will hire another full-time coach whose main focus will be on enhancing the player development environment for young players from coast to coast.
So before today’s game against China, U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati held a press conference with women’s technical director April Heinrichs and women’s development director Jill Ellis.
Does this sound boring so far? In some respects, it’s not a huge announcement. But these little announcements — like the hiring of Heinrichs and Ellis a while ago — are adding up to something, and the press conference led to a wide-ranging talk on women’s soccer.
So in the 20 minutes before this game starts, I’ll try to sum up:
– Heinrichs and Ellis say they’re trying to shift the focus of U.S. development from physical and psychological to tactical and technical.
– Will we see the women duplicate the U.S. U17 men’s Bradenton residency? Heinrichs and Ellis weren’t enthusiastic about that. Heinrichs says it’s a good way to win a U17 World Cup, but she and Ellis want to cast a wider net for players at that age for future national team development.
– Heinrichs says an 18-year-old American recently had to choose between college and a lucrative deal with Lyon in France.
– Might we see a national B team to keep more players in active international play? Gulati thinks it’s possible and said Heinrichs once drew up some similar plans.
– The big news you’ve already seen us tweet: In 30-45 days, U.S. Soccer will convene a meeting of various stakeholders in the women’s game: USL, former WPS teams … and yes, MLS, either teams or league staff or both. (I forgot to ask if Dan Borislow was invited.)
– An interesting WPS post-mortem piece: Gulati says U.S. Soccer offered 12 months ago to help WPS with league administration. They were turned down.
I’m thinking regular readers here might have some thoughts. Have at it.
This week, I participated in a roundtable discussion (sort of — we didn’t see anyone else’s answers until today) on WPS’s demise, and Julie Foudy sent us scrambling down Memory Lane with an espnW column about the next steps in pro women’s soccer.
Taking the roundtable first: It’s a little humbling to answer a question and then have someone closer to the situation give a diametrically opposite answer. That’s what happened when I was asked about the effect the WPS’s folding will have on youth soccer. I said none. Melissa Henderson, who actually plays, said millions of little girls will have their dreams crushed.
In the tangible sense, I’m right. Millions of girls play soccer, and even if WPS had eight healthy teams, only a couple hundred of them would be playing in the league. In WPS’s last season, I think the league had fewer American pro players than my local club had at the U8 level. Thousands of women are currently in college on at least a partial scholarship; maybe 100 have any reasonable hope of getting paid to play anywhere. Generally, kids aren’t playing sports or participating in activities in the hopes of going pro. I never thought of being a professional piano player, even though I nearly wound up a professional music-type person. (My college music department loved me for reasons I can’t fully explain.) My elementary school’s chess club isn’t full of people hoping to be the next Nakamura — I doubt they even know who he is.
But in the intangible sense, Melissa’s right. Seeing women playing pro soccer gives a sense that anything’s possible. Losing that is a disappointment.
Over to Foudy’s piece: There is a small contingent of keyboard warriors (that’s the MMA term for guys who act tough behind their computer keyboards) who will never forgive Foudy for comments they’re not even sure she actually made back in 1999 at the height of Women’s World Cup mania. Let’s ignore that and focus on actual facts.
But there were some conflicts between the women’s stars and the U.S. Soccer establishment at that time. And that’s led to some interesting historical research in some quarters of the Web.
Summing up, randomly:
1. After the ’99 Cup, the USWNT sought to get paid a bit more. There was a player boycott for a 2000 tournament in Australia before the team and U.S. Soccer made a deal.
2. MLS’s Mark Abbott, the key man behind the single-entity structure and other aspects of MLS’s ultimately successful business plan, helped draw up a business plan for the WUSA, which the investors rejected. (Also interesting in that story: WUSA appealed to Phil Anschutz, who at the time owned several MLS teams, before it closed up shop in 2003. If only we could interview the famously reclusive Anschutz to ask why he said no.)
3. MLS made a late bid of its own to counter the eventual WUSA proposal, though details were sketchy. You can see the reaction here.
4. Women’s players had two reasons not to go with MLS at the time. First, they had a fresh dispute with USSF. Second, MLS was far from the juggernaut it is today. You might be able to dispute Point A. If you want to dispute Point B, talk to the lawyers who spent 2000 arguing for the league’s life in court or talk to your local Tampa Bay Mutiny fan.
All of this came about in the context of where women’s soccer goes from here. Foudy’s column suggested that MLS involvement would make more sense today than it would have in 1999.
Hard to see why that’s a controversial point. The disputes between the women’s national team and U.S. Soccer are largely a thing of the past. And MLS has come a long, long way from contracting two teams in 2001.
And yet, MLS and its teams have a right to be wary. They’re still not swimming in profit. A women’s league could be done cheaply — you could fund several good teams just on David Beckham’s salary — but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a good investment.
That leads to one curious point, though. If MLS isn’t quite to the point at which it can support a small-scale women’s league today, why was arrogant of the WUSA founders (players and executives) to spurn MLS involvement when the league was in a downturn in 2001?
Starting a women’s sports league is difficult — only the WNBA is still around, and it might not be here if not for the NBA’s support. And starting a soccer league is difficult — the American pro landscape is littered with failed leagues, of which only two (the ASL of the 1920s/30s and the NASL of the late 60s-early 80s) made any impression.
So starting a women’s soccer league is doubly difficult. It requires a bit of trial and error. And it hardly seems fair to load it down with baggage from old conflicts few people fully understand.
The BBC weighs in on the “Is track & field dying in the US?” question.
I’m a little biased because Jill Geer, the USA Track and Field spokeperson quoted herein, is one of my all-time coolest co-workers (Knight Ridder Tribune days). But she’s absolutely right that the empirical data simply don’t point toward death.
Perhaps someone will regale me of tales of yore when the entire country stopped what it was doing to watch the Drake Relays. More likely is that we have some overromanticized sense that our Olympic champions of the past were giant figures in the years in between Games.
Actually, track and field didn’t even have a world championship until 1983, soon after the sport officially went pro. (Remember Jim Thorpe and the track and field medals he lost because he dabbled in pro baseball? I don’t think today’s track and field athletes have it worse.)
Sure, track and field — like other Olympic sports — is better ingrained in Europe than it is in North America. But the USA has two meets in the top-tier Diamond League, same as the UK.
And American athletes are doing pretty well. Just look at how many men and women have already met Olympic qualifying criteria. (And only three athletes per event can go. Trials will be intense.)
Still testing various video editors. The Flip video editor did some unnecessary transitions, and I lost the caption for D.C. United Women goalkeeper Didi Haracic.
The topics covered here:
1. Mikaela Howell, a youth teammate of Lianne Sanderson’s back in England, scored both goals for D.C. United Women. (Sanderson and Joanna Lohman weren’t eligible to play in this one. Marisa Abegg also was out because her boyfriend is briefly back from Afghanistan. And Becky Sauerbrunn is still busy with the national team.) The first was a beautiful turn at the top of the box. One day, I’ll get a goal on video. D.C. United Women had highlights from the Breakers exhibition, so maybe they’ll post these highlights later.
2. The Piranhas have a diverse roster, to say the least. They have a couple of players from Sweden and three Nigerian players — goalkeeper Marbel Egwuenu and skilled speedsters Linda Chukwuji and Esther Anyanwu. Coach Wendy Waddell’s comments are recruiting them sight unseen are interesting.
3. After seeing the United-Breakers exhibition a week ago, the physicality of this game was stunning. I counted three blatant Piranhas fouls in the first 80 seconds. United adjusted and started to shove back as well. The ref was generally consistent, at least, and she started to take more control with a few whistles late in the first half.
4. D.C. United Women have three talented college goalkeepers on the roster. Didi Haracic (Loyola, Md.) was fantastic against the Breakers last week, and she played well in the first half in this game. Danielle DeLisle (Virginia) played the second half. Britt Eckerstrom (Penn State) was unable to play Saturday. As you’ll see in the video, the team plans to rotate to make sure the players are developing.
5. For about 10 minutes, no matter where I stood on the sideline, the ball followed. I trapped one, and another whipped past me to the wall of the bleachers. It was a little eerie, like I had a magnet for the ball or something.
Anyway, here are a few comments on video …
(And yes, I’m aware of the glitch in which the video freezes on Jorden’s face. The interviews that follow: Haracic on goalkeeping at 2:30 mark, Jorden on rotating goalkeepers, Haracic on rotating goalkeepers)
Here’s my attempt to make sure my players didn’t get caught up in any unsportsmanlike antics yesterday (my comments in bold; the rest are from various kids):
So we’re all going to be cool, OK? Like Fonzie. What’s Fonzie like?
(blank stares)
You all don’t know Fonzie, do you?
No.
Wait, is he a Muppet?
Fonzie’s really … cool … OK?
No, he’s not a Muppet!
He’s a cool Muppet?
Which Muppet is he?
No, no — he’s not a Muppet.
Are you sure?
Is he the chicken Muppet?
No, Fonzie was on Happy Days.
What’s Happy Days?
Happy Days was a TV show with Fonzie.
A Muppet was on Happy Days?
No — FOZZIE is the Muppet.
Oh.
Is he supposed to be funny?
Yes. And he’s the bear, not the chicken.
I thought he was supposed to be cool.
Wait, you want us to be like the bear?
OK, let’s start over …
I thought about trying to explain the Pulp Fiction reference, but I didn’t want to shock any parents.
Former magicJack owner Dan Borislow has been conciliatory toward other WPS alumni. Their lawsuit is settled, and everyone’s moving forward.
But he still sees an obstruction in the path of women’s soccer, and it’s the organization that collects the sanctioning fees. Here’s his statement:
My take on the whole matter is that WPS could have made it if the USSF granted money to the league instead of charge it. I have never understood why the most successful team and players representing the United States in the last 10 years are not taken care of like the national treasure they are. Why is Pia (Sundhage, the U.S. women’s coach) not extended a contract and make 20 times less money than the head coach of our men’s national team (Jurgen Klinsmann)?* Why wasn’t the USSF more involved in helping form and run a successful Women’s Division 1 league?
In the future, the USSF needs to give MLS an annual grant so they can run a women’s league. Right now the largest sport we have for kids and Women can’t get a few million dollars from the wealthiest country in the world and their governing body. It’s disgraceful. Billions here, billions there and not a couple million for the best team representing our country.
If you have to point fingers — in this case there is a guilty party, that is where you point them. But not these owners who put up the money and tried the best they knew how. Fire these morons running the USSF and replace them with somebody who understands the value and importance of girls and women playing soccer in the United States. They shouldn’t even be invited to the Olympics.
U.S. Soccer would argue that it pays the national team players pretty well. But it’s safe to say the organization hasn’t been pro-active about getting a women’s soccer league running. Is that their role?
Quick historical precedents: In 1993, U.S. Soccer solicited bids for a new men’s professional Division I league, and veteran U.S. Soccer officials were involved with the winning bid, MLS. And in 2010, U.S. Soccer administered a men’s Division II league, forcibly (and temporarily) merging the USL’s top tier and the nascent NASL.
* – Technically, Klinsmann makes 13 times what Sundhage makes, but the point is taken.
Duresport.com 