Month: October 2012

soccer

Sermanni makes good impression in first U.S. call

Posted on by Beau Dure

New U.S. women’s soccer coach Tom Sermanni didn’t break out into song. Nor did he start calling out rival soccer coaches.

Instead, Sermanni came across as a level-headed guy who seems to appreciate the complexities of his new job without rushing to judgment on how he wants to proceed.

He wants to play a positive, attacking style, continuing the efforts Pia Sundhage made to eliminate “kickball” (in the words of Mark Ziegler).

“The game’s changing at a rapid pace,” he said in response to Brian Straus’s question about whether he needed to overhaul the team or just keep a steady hand on the helm of the fastest boat in the fleet. In other words, Sermanni knows every team, no matter how good, will have to evolve.

And he’s going to keep an open mind about the player pool. Asked about integrating young players, Sermanni said he wants to have greater competition not just from the U-20s on their way up but players already IN their 20s. If you have a particular favorite from WPS who never got much of a chance under Pia, that has to be heartwarming.

But he hastened to say he hasn’t made any decisions yet. He doesn’t know if he’ll start a drastically different side in his first home friendly. He’s not rushing to push out Shannon Boxx or Christie Rampone, saying he’s not going to make decisions based on “chronological age.”

Basically, he managed to come across as open-minded without being ignorant. Impressive.

We’ll see how long of a honeymoon period he gets — my guess is it’ll tough for him to pick a roster that offends no one on Twitter — but he came across quite well in this first impression. Friendly, knowledgeable, enthusiastic and sincere.

Too bad women’s soccer doesn’t have a major offyear tournament. (Copa America for whole Western Hemisphere would be fun.)

2
soccer

U.S. Soccer chooses Sermanni, not symbol, as women’s coach

Posted on by Beau Dure

Tom Sermanni is, on paper, the most impressive candidate the U.S. women’s soccer team has ever had as head coach.

The U.S. women have never had an experienced international coach on the bench. After Anson Dorrance stepped down, the USA has had a steady succession of assistant coaches moving up — Tony DiCicco, April Heinrichs and Greg Ryan. That line of succession ended with Pia Sundhage, a head coach at youth national level in Sweden and a club coach with the Boston Breakers (WUSA version) and KIF Orebro in Sweden. (And, like Sundhage, Sermanni was a WUSA head coach.)

Sermanni was Australia’s head coach from 1994 to 1997, then again for the past eight years. That includes two World Cup quarterfinal appearances with a perpetually young team. As Julie Foudy put it:

Foudy also has tweeted plenty of compliments about Sermanni — “GRT coach and GRT human being” — and she elaborated by email: “I have known him for many years and think he is a great coach. And that he is a player’s manager type of coach. But is a strong personality who can also “crack the whip” (quote from many of current players) as many of the current players want.”

ESPN’s Adrian Healey had an interesting thought on how Sermanni might be able to deal with the large personalities on the U.S. squad:

Most other folks in the women’s soccer community seem happy with the hire. Then there’s Philip Hersh, veteran Olympic sports journalist for the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. His take:

That led to a few arguments with people in the WoSo community, such as our good friend-in-blogging Jenna Pel. But he stuck to it.

Hersh echoes Christine Brennan’s recent thoughts on the matter, though Brennan took more of a long-term view:

In a nation of 314 million people, with millions of girls and women playing or having played soccer, if not one of them is deemed good enough to lead the U.S. women’s national team in 2012, isn’t that a terrible indictment of the feeder system for girls and women in leadership positions in the game?

That’s a legitimate long-term question. That said, U.S. Soccer has now placed women — April Heinrichs and Jill Ellis — in charge of that very feeder system. Heinrichs, Ellis and Carin Gabarra are in charge of a sprawling effort to develop women’s soccer from the youth level up, with full-time youth national coaches on the way. They’re setting the tone for U.S. women’s soccer for years or decades to come.

Sermanni should fit well with both the long-term and short-term vision. He surely gets the long-term goal of developing players with breathtaking skill with ball at their feet. But, like Pia Sundhage, he surely understands that a team with the world’s best target forward (Abby Wambach) should make sure she gets a few chances to get her head on the ball in the box. (Hey, crossing like Megan Rapinoe is a skill, too.)

As for the importance of having a woman on the sideline in 2013 and beyond, I’d have to defer to those whose words and deeds carry a bit more weight. There’s Foudy, who isn’t exactly a Title IX opponent. Then there’s Mia Hamm and Danielle Slaton, half of the coaching search committee.

The concerns about developing women’s coaching talent in the long term are legit. But for now, there’s one symbol far more important — the USA’s first World Cup trophy since 1999. (No pressure or anything …)

9
olympic sports, winter sports

Monday Myriad: Ligety Ligety Ligety

Posted on by Beau Dure

Let’s rush out this wrapup before the power runs out:

Alpine skiing: The time it takes you to read this sentence is Ted Ligety’s margin of victory (2.75 seconds) in the season-opening World Cup giant slalom on the big glacier in Solden, Austria, the traditional opener of the World Cup season in which fans celebrate the first snows of the Alps, putting away for a moment their concerns about the state of the climate and the European economy, which continues to be plagued by crippling debt in a few countries while Germany, a traditional power in winter sports, ponders the fate of the Euro, which has never been fully supported in some portions of the British aristocracy, which was also concerned that Lindsey Vonn missed a gate and didn’t finish the opening women’s race, along with Julia Mancuso, whose mishap you can read about here.

Figure skating: Spain’s Javier Fernandez upset Canada’s Patrick Chan to win Skate Canada. Depending on your point of view, that’s either an inspiring first Grand Prix win for Spain or signs of trouble with one of Canada’s star athletes. American Ross Miner bounced back after a rough short program to finish fifth.

Better news for Canadian women: Kaetlyn Osmond edged Japan’s Akiko Suzuki by 1.29 points to win. Americans Gracie Gold and Caroline Zhang were seventh and ninth.

The U.S. pairs were the last two. The USA’s Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donahue were fifth in the ice dance, predictably won by Canadian greats Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir.

But if you want to look ahead to the Big Ice Dance Throwdown and compare scores, Virtue/Moir won Skate Canada with 169.41; the USA’s Meryl Davis and Charlie White won Skate America with 176.28.

Short-track speedskating: J.R. Celski was second in the 1,500 meters and fourth in the 1,000, and the U.S. men finished third in the relay in an otherwise dreary World Cup weekend for American skaters in Montreal.

Bobsled/luge/skeleton: Wikipedia currently lists 17 current sliding tracks in the world, with two more planned. It’s about to be 16. The Torino 2006 track will be dismantled.

Oh, it was scheduled to host a World Cup luge stop in December? Too bad.

Shooting: Jason Parker won the World Cup Final in men’s three-position.

Beach volleyball: Jen Kessy and April Ross won in Thailand.

 

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mma

The Ultimate Fighter, Episode 7: The worst fight in TUF history?

Posted on by Beau Dure

We’ve seen a bunch of decisions so far this season, two of them questionable. And we’re promised more controversy tonight. It’ll be hard to top tonight’s Bellator card on that front. Yeesh.

Roy Nelson’s team has control again. And again, he does it randomly, this time using the “Pick a number between 1 and 20” philosophy. The winner is Nelson’s top pick, Dom waters. But Waters wants Nelson to pick his opponent. Nelson doesn’t wanna. So Waters passes, and Michael Hill gets it.

And that’s how Michael Hill won the “Please Let Someone Beat The Crap Out of Matt Secor” sweepstakes.

Shane Carwin admits he has wanted to see this fight as well. Hill annoys Secor by walking around with his shirt off. (Note to Secor: Don’t go to the beach.) Secor annoys Hill by talking crap. So Carwin thinks this fight will “at least see one of them shut up.”

And … hey! We get to see one of Nelson’s assistants! It’s TUF 1 winner and former TUF coach Forrest Griffin. Has he always had that much hair on his chest? Forget Hill — maybe Griffin’s the one who should put a shirt on.

“You guys are like (bleep) robots.” Griffin says. Laughter. “Not good.” Oh.

Now we meet Secor, who was in the 82nd Airbone. Fort Bragg in the house! His brother was killed in Iraq. Then a little bit of training/trash-talk advice, and then we hear Secor telling the story of how his father died. It gets a little graphic. I’m not going into detail.

Then we get two straight ads for horror TV shows or films, which reminds me that I want to make a “found footage” film with a happy ending.

On fight day, Michael Hill makes eggs. He likes fighting. Secor is like the pet dog of the house, barking all the time.

Secor says for the second time this episode that he likes Michael Hill and thinks he’s a good kid, but … something about blonde hair and tattoos. Has Secor ever seen a UFC show?

“If you can only knock somebody out, that a $1.75 will buy you a cup of coffee.” Then he says something about having two hearts, which is either a symbolic shoutout to his relatives or a strange Dr. Who reference.

This episode is moving quickly, and we all know what that means — three-round fight! Right!

And Hill should be the overwhelming favorite, but we’ve been promised a shocker.

Ref Josh Rosenthal is sporting facial hair now, and we’re off.

Nothing’s happening …. nothing’s happening … finally, after two minutes, Secor tries a kick. Hill grabs the leg and dumps him. Secor grabs Hill’s head and tries to work his leg up for a triangle. Hill slowly works his head free and lands short punches while Secor lands even shorter punches. Hill makes a big effort to get out of guard but can’t do it. Secor gets a few warnings about hitting the back of the head with his two-inch punches. Rosenthal stands them up late in the round. 10-9 Hill in a snoozer.

Round 2. They touch gloves. Secor looks remarkably uncomfortable on his feet. He shoots for the takedown, but Hill ends up on top in side control. Then more of a north/south position. Secor finally gets a bodylock and takes Hill to the cage, then down. Secor advances as Nelson yells, “Danger, Mike! Danger!” And it certainly is — Secor gets a good grip on a rear naked choke. He lose it but gets both hooks in. Hill is bleeding from the nose and breathing heavily. But he’s defending well, keeping Secor’s arms off his neck. Secor settles for some rudimentary pounding. As the round ends, Secor yells something like, “Was I supposed to be up? Get the (bleep) out of here!” What?

For once, we don’t get a 10-8 round. It’s the ill-named sudden-victory round again.

Round 3, gloves touch, and we’re not doing much for the first minute. But Hill tries a spinning back fist, Secor grabs him, and Hill lands in Secor’s guard. This time, Hill, has a clearer path to lands punches and elbows to Secor’s face. Then he works his way out, and Secor tosses an acrobatic upkick to get up.

Then comes the sloppiest takedown defense in TUF history, and Secor easily deposits Hill on his back. Hill rolls but gives up his back. Secor gets the body triangle, lying on his back with Hill on top of him. But Secor gets nowhere near the rear naked choke, and Hill gets control of his arm. Hill can’t quite escape, and they end up in the same position, Hill lying with his back on top of Secor. Hill flings some big punches over his shoulder to pop Secor a few times before the fight ends.

So do you give the third round to the guy who got a takedown and did a tiny amount of ground-and-pound, or do you give it to the guy who got a takedown and a good position but did nothing with it?

And what’s the shocking ending? A draw with neither guy advancing?

Dana White has a pained expression as he walks in with the decision. They do a fight recap first, and White says the first round was one of the (bleep) in show history. In the third round highlights: “This isn’t (bleep) summer camp!”

Michael Hill wins the split decision. Dana’s pissed. He says the Nevada commission should be embarrassed. Nah. Just the fighters.

But Hill and Secor seems to respect each other now. That’s nice.

In the next episode, White visits the house to tell the fighters how underwhelming they’ve been in the fights this season: “If you want to fight in the finale, (bleep) turn it up a notch.” And it looks like Dom, who has been remarkably quiet, smashes something. And Julian, strangely silent in this episode, needs everything short of a Taser to restrain him.

2
olympic sports, winter sports

Bobsled: The case for Lolo Jones

Posted on by Beau Dure

Updated with Hyleas Fountain news

Perhaps I’m being paranoid in thinking people are going to gripe about the news that Lolo Jones has made the U.S. team for the upcoming World Cup bobsled season.

Let’s check Twitter and collect all the insane reaction, shall we?

OK, that’s funny.

Yes, that’s true.

http://twitter.com/TheDon_D/status/261453438603378688

And most of the other reaction has been either a simple “congratulations” or a weak reference to Cool Runnings. Maybe the crazies on Twitter aren’t morning people.

So maybe this is a non-controversy. But just in case people are skeptical about Jones’ inclusion on the World Cup roster, let’s take a closer look.

Here’s the existing roster listed on the USA Bobsled and Skeleton site:

Drivers:
– Elana Meyers (2012 World Championship bronze; as push athlete, won 2010 Olympic bronze),
– Jazmine Fenlator (one full year on World Cup)
– Bree Schaaf (2010 Olympian, 5th place)

Push athletes:
– Emily Azevedo (2010 Olympian, 5th place)
– Katie Eberling (2012 World Championship bronze)
– Ingrid Marcum (bobsledder/weightlifter in mid-30s)
– Brittany Reinbolt (football player — yes, American football — with little experience)
– Hillary Werth (not much experience)

Last season, a few others appeared on the World Cup circuit — drivers Jamie Greubel and Megan Hill, along with push athletes Ida Bernstein and Nicole Vogt. But typically, USA I and USA II were some combination of Meyers, Schaaf, Azevedo and Eberling. And they were the only U.S. athletes with top-10 finishes. The World Championship results: Meyers/Eberling 3rd, Fenlator/Marcum 10th, Schaaf/Azevedo.

So the team wasn’t really settled beyond the top two sleds. Marcum’s Twitter feed, with the great handle IronValkyrie, makes a vague reference to an injury, which likely accounts for her absence from the selection process this fall.

The selection started with a push competition, where a few Olympic athletes gave it a try. The results, with returnees in bold and Olympic guests in bold italic:

1. Aja Evans 9.65 (4.84, 4.81); 2. Katie Eberling 9.78 (4.88, 4.94); 3. Cherrelle Garrett 9.99 (5.02, 4.97); 4. Hyleas Fountain 10.01 (5.00, 5.01); 5. Emily Azevedo 10.04 (5.01, 5.03); 5. Tianna Madison 10.04 (5.03, 5.01); 7. Lolo Jones 10.11 (5.07, 5.04); 7. Maureen Ajoku 10.11 (5.04, 5.07); 9. Tracey Stewart 10.13 (5.09, 5.04); 10. Kristi Koplin 10.15 (5.007, 5.08); 11. Ida Bernstein 10.18 (5.07, 5.11); 12. Brittany Reinbolt 10.30 (5.14, 5.16); 13. Nicole Vogt 10.66 (5.33, 5.33); 14. Katie Steingraber 10.73 (5.36, 5.37); 15. Micaela Damas 10.79 (5.39, 5.40); 16. Sinead Corley 10.84 (5.35, 5.49);

Those results might make you think these Olympians are picking up the sport rather quickly. Here’s what women’s bobsled coach Todd Hays, whom you might remember from past Olympic medal runs, had to say at the start competition:

It’s great to see talented athletes like this give back to their USA teammates. And it’s of course a great opportunity for a coach like me to test his recruitment skills by trying to get these athletes to commit to our sports. I’m not successful yet, but we’ll see if we can entice them to give it a try.

Fountain (@Hept_Chic) said she had fun, and she congratulated Jones this morning. But she wasn’t in the full selection races. (Update: Slight injury, apparently.) Madison and Jones were there, though Madison just rode as a fore-runner with driver Elana Meyers, who got a bye thanks to her World Championship results last year. Eberling also didn’t compete. The rest of the top nine from the push championships competed.

The first selection race results:

1. Jamie Greubel and Aja Evans 1:56.96 (58.50, 58.46); 2. Jazmine Fenlator and Lolo Jones 1:57.01 (58.46, 58.55); 3. Bree Schaaf and Emily Azevedo 1:57.80 (58.82, 58.98); 4. Megan Hill and Maureen Ajoka 2:00.96 (1:00.36, 1:00.60); 5. Katelyn Kelly and Tracey Stewart 2:01.36 (1:00.79, 1:00.57);

Big gap there between the top three and the next two. And rookie push athlete Aja Evans was clearly legit.

Schaaf then decided she wasn’t fully fit after hip surgery. She’s heading back to rehab. That makes the driver selections rather easy, especially after the second selection race:

1. Jamie Greubel and Aja Evans 1:55.94 (57.56, 58.38); 2. Jazmine Fenlator and Cherrelle Garrett 1:55.99 (57.67, 58.32); 3. Katelyn Kelly and Tracey Stewart 1:59.49 (59.68, 59.81); 4. Megan Hill and Maureen Ajoka 1:59.50 (59.26, 1:00.24);

The World Cup team will have three drivers in three sleds, so with Schaaf out, it’s rather obvious: Meyers, Greubel, Fenlator.

Then they decided to take six push athletes. Eberling and Azevedo are the returnees with world or Olympic medals. Then there’s Evans, the rookie who left Lake Placid with a start record. Garrett, like Evans a former college track athlete, showed enough to get a look. And then two summer Olympians — Madison and Jones.

So what’s really going on here?

The USA’s results last year weren’t that great, and the team is still looking for the right mix of athletes. Like a national soccer team two years out from the World Cup, they’re experimenting.

And if you look at the selected athletes, you see Jones is far from a shoo-in for Sochi 2014. The USA will get three sleds — at most — in the Olympics. Eberling and Azevedo have the experience, and their results this fall have been good. Then Evans is the hotshot rookie. That leaves Jones, Madison and Garrett competing to push (pardon the pun) one of those athletes out of the top three.

The competition might go right up to the last weeks before Sochi, and what seems set in stone now might not be the case in a year. Remember Jean Racine and Jennifer Davidson, the dominant duo before Salt Lake 2002?

We’ll see if 2014 proves to be controversial as well. For now, it’s not. Lolo Jones is one of a handful of track and field athletes giving bobsled a shot, and she has shown enough potential to get a shot in international competition.

And if anyone sees it otherwise, please refer him or her to this post. If nothing else, maybe their eyes will glaze over reading through the results.

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cycling, mma, soccer, sports culture

Tuesday’s links: Pot in MMA, skeleton comeback, soccer launch, Armstrong albatross

Posted on by Beau Dure

The day got away from me, but I did some interesting reading in between trips tending to sick cars and family members who need oil changes.

Wait, I’ve got that backwards.

Anyway …

MMA: Matt Riddle, “Chipper” from his TUF days, says he’s not a stoner but smokes pot because he needs to chill out. Having never walked in that world (apart from attending indoor Pink Floyd and Rush concerts), I can’t tell whether that’s a meaningful distinction.

Speaking of odd behavior in MMA, remind me to get to this hourlong Jason “Mayhem” Miller interview when I have a spare hour.

Skeleton: Like a BMW on the Atlanta Perimeter, Noelle Pikus-Pace came back and sped past the rest of the field.

Cycling: Some sort of philosophy blog thinks Lance Armstrong has become an albatross to co-author Sally Jenkins.

Soccer: Congratulations to Howler magazine (on Tumblr, too) on its launch party. My invite got lost in the mail, I’m sure. (That, or they realized I don’t live in New York.)

Finally, a quick thought on today’s Twitter conversation about how much or how little commentators should ramble about their playing days. I can’t compare or critique Kate Markgraf and Brandi Chastain — they’re friends and colleagues, and I hope we’re all covering another Women’s World Cup someday. But I know a lot of fans have had issues with Chastain, claiming she talks too much about her playing days. So it struck me as interesting that Arlo White was trying to get Markgraf to talk more about her playing days. Maybe he doesn’t read Twitter?

0
olympic sports, Uncategorized, winter sports

Monday Myriad: Skating away on the thin ice of a new day

Posted on by Beau Dure

That’s a Jethro Tull reference. Would you prefer Avril Lavigne? Some skater boys did pretty well over the weekend.

Short-track: A lot of world records fell over the weekend at the World Cup opener in Calgary, and J.R. Celski came up with one of the biggest, breaking the 40-second mark in the 500 meters. Celski also picked up a third-place finish, as did John-Henry Krueger, a discretionary pick for the World Cup squad who must have done some industrial smoothing to finish just behind Celski and Canadian favorite Charles Hamelin in the 500.

Check out the 500-meter final (via DailyHouse):

Canada’s Valerie Maltais took the women’s 1,000-meter record, though the overall World Cup leader at 1,000 is Britain’s Elise Christie.

Not a great weekend for the U.S. women, who finished eighth in the team classification. The men were a solid fourth, well ahead of China, despite finishing eighth in the relay.

Figure skating: Here, the U.S. women had a great weekend. For all my fretting over the “rise up and fade” tendencies they’ve had over the last few years, the results at Skate America speak for themselves: Ashley Wagner first, Christina Gao second. (On the downside, Rachael Flatt was ninth out of 10.)

Meryl Davis and Charlie White won the ice dance so comfortably they probably could’ve tossed in a bit of the Chicken Dance toward the end. Caydee Denney and John Coughlin were a promising third in pairs.

So if you want to panic about anything from a U.S. standpoint, consider the men. Japan swept the podium, Jeremy Abbott was fifth, and the other U.S. men were in the bottom four.

MLS: The playoff field is set, with Columbus and Dallas falling short of the last spots. San Jose has the Supporters’ Shield, but L.A. defender Omar Gonzalez cares not for the Quakes’ style of play, accusing them of some off-the-ball ref-not-looking shenanigans. And Galaxy supporters group Angel City Brigade raises some pointed questions for security at Buck Shaw Stadium.

Women’s soccer: Germany announced its re-emergence, holding the USA to a 1-1 draw on the Fan Tribute Tour at Toyota Park, the former home of the Chicago Red Stars.

Swimming: Missy Franklin is going to Cal. Can’t blame her, but those of use who learned to swim at the University of Georgia may be a little sad to hear the news.

Triathlon: Gwen Jorgensen knows how to finish a season in style — second place in the last World Championships series race, moving her up to ninth on the year. Sarah Groff was ninth on the day, seventh on the year.

The U.S. men had a rougher time, but the USA also came away with several paratriathlon and age-group prizes. If only they had a category for “over-40, can’t stand cold water or running” entries.

Rowing: Want to see a frightening photo? Go to the Head of the Charles’ official site and wait for “Day 2 underway” to come around. Is this rowing or rugby?

Swimming: A lot of Olympic swimmers pass on the World Cup season, particularly after the Olympics, but Anthony Ervin and Jessica Hardy seem to be making up for lost time with a few wins on the circuit this weekend.

Also in the Team USA roundup: Katie Compton’s latest cyclocross medal and the Head of the Charles.

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cycling

Lance Armstrong’s legacy falling like Berlin Wall

Posted on by Beau Dure

At what point does Lance Armstrong go from a being an inspirational figure to a sympathetic one?

Six months ago, Armstrong was comfortably in the USA’s firmament of sports heroes. He had parlayed his Tour de France championships and triumph over cancer into an assortment of lucrative business deals and a reputation as one of the country’s leading cancer-fighters. Of the people whose names are synonymous with cancer organizations — Susan Komen, Jim Valvano — he’s the one who’s still with us, ready to speak about his experience.

Sure, he had critics. But they were mostly shouted down, scorned or sometimes silenced in court.

Then the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency said it was checking into Armstrong’s past. And Armstrong scoffed, confident that his business partners and the sports community as a whole would stick with him. After losing a round in court, he wiped his hands and figured he didn’t even need to fight the case against him. Maybe he couldn’t? No one knew for sure.

When USADA released its colossal evidence against Armstrong, he shrugged it off again. Great times coming up at Livestrong, he reminded everyone on Twitter.

Aside from the media reaction, nothing tangible happened at first. Then, everything fell. It was like everyone in East Berlin suddenly realizing that the guards were no longer at the Berlin Wall. The official bulwarks — in Armstrong’s case, Livestrong and his many commercial partners — fell away. And journalists, many of whom had suspicions for years but no proof, felt free at last to heap scorn upon Armstrong.

Today, Lance Armstrong is officially the seven-time Tour champion no longer, stripped by international cycling authorities who seem to believe every bit of evidence except the bits that implicate them as well. Given the depth of doping scandals within cycling over Armstrong’s decade of wins, many titles will simply sit vacant. There’s no point in “promoting” anyone to the Tour title when the other cyclists either had doping issues of their own or were never put under the same scrutiny to which USADA put Armstrong.

And Armstrong has lost the last of his endorsement deals. A few days ago, he had tens of millions in future earnings. Today, that’s all gone.

Other people and organizations are feeling the ripple effect. In the D.C. area, some people want to hear from Post columnist Sally Jenkins, Armstrong’s co-author and staunch defender a few short weeks ago. Former Armstrong teammate Levi Leipheimer will be telling his story in a documentary and panel discussion. And will we ever see the lovely Tour de France the same way?

But at the heart of it all is a giant now toppled. Just 12 days ago, he said he was “unaffected.” How different he must feel today.

0
soccer

Women’s soccer trending upward or going in circles?

Posted on by Beau Dure

Interesting quote in this espnW report on the USA-Germany game:

The new coach, (Abby) Wambach told reporters this week, will have to be someone who “can put all the X’s and O’s together but who can also treat this more like a business. Gone are the days when the players aren’t recognized. We’re selling out stadiums.”

Rewind to two years ago, when I had one of many good conversations with the ever-thoughtful Wambach at the Maryland SoccerPlex:

“It feels like I’m doing something wrong,” says Washington Freedom forward Abby Wambach. “It feels like I’m failing at my job. I wanted to be part of the thing that kept it going. Now it feels like we have taken a step back at some level.”

So here’s the question*: What’s “normal” for women’s soccer? Selling out stadiums and being recognized? Toiling in obscurity at the SoccerPlex with a few empty seats in the bleachers? Or something in between?

Let’s rewind further to the WUSA (2001-2003). The typical post-mortem of that league is that expectations were wildly inflated after the 1999 Women’s World Cup, when the players were recognized and were selling out stadiums. The league leaned heavily on those stars.

Women’s soccer stars have shown staying power. Brandi Chastain still draws enthusiastic fans everywhere (Twitter exceptions duly noted). Julie Foudy is still an authority on leadership. Mia Hamm draws squeals from fans who were maybe 3 or 4 in 1999.

But how much can the “business” of women’s soccer depend on players being recognized? When Wambach, Solo, Rampone and company are gone in 1-5 years, will enough stars emerge alongside Alex Morgan?

Women’s soccer has gone from obscurity through a boom, bust and boom cycle. Will this boom last? Or are up-and-down cycles inevitable?

That’s what Sunil Gulati, U.S. Soccer business planners and a few team owners are surely trying to quantify right now.

* – You could also argue that the question is what the U.S. women’s coach has to do with running things “like a business.” Isn’t the new coach’s job to evaluate the whole talent pool and get the best players on the field in the best spots? Shouldn’t other people be worrying about the “business”? A conspiracy theorist would say a “business” would mean leaving the same core players on the field ad infinitum while they’re being “recognized,” but I don’t think that’s what Wambach meant. 

6