Lori Lindsey’s retirement provoked a lot of good discussion. Would a young player coming through the ranks today stick around in amateur soccer to work her way into the national team? Who else makes that great through pass down the center?
What a great time to experiment with podcasting!
I’ve been thinking about podcasting for a while, and with my left hand in a splint that slows down my typing, it’s the perfect time. And it gives me a good excuse to put all the interviews from Lindsey’s home finale in one big audio file.
I’m learning on the fly, and I’m open to constructive feedback. If you’d prefer to skip around and listen only to the parts that interest you, here’s a quick guide:
3:20 Olympic sports recap
9:05 Setting up interviews on Spirit-Sky Blue game
10:15 Jim Gabarra’s comments on Sky Blue’s season. Techncal difficulties erased Mark Parsons’ comments on the game — basically, the occasion got to them, and everyone was trying to hit one big heroic pass instead of combining intelligently.
11:30 Me on Lori Lindsey’s history in Washington. Somehow, I worked Landon Donovan into it.
18:00 Setting up the rest of the interviews:
18:38 Virginia coach Steve Swanson telling an old anecdote on Lori and paying tribute to her attributes that many younger players do NOT have.
(Incidentally, I don’t think that’s me laughing on this one and other interviews. Maybe Kevin Parker? Maybe the other man who was there? We had a group of about 8 people.)
20:38 Christie Rampone on Lindsey’s ability to play a direct ball with great vision
21:15 Spirit coach Mark Parsons on how Lindsey filled a couple of different roles on a playoff team this year and a last-place team last year. Also, there’s some dispute over who won a danceoff in 2013. (It was Toni Pressley, as recorded in my book.)
24:45 Ali Krieger on the Spirit wanting to win for her
25:25 Lindsey on her retirement and favorite moments
31:00 I sign off and show off my mad GarageBand skills.
I’m not going to do a big recap of Sky Blue’s 1-0 win over Washington for the following reasons:
1. Western New York held Chicago to a draw in the later game, clinching a playoff spot for the Spirit despite the loss. (Former Spirit Reserves goalkeeper DiDi Haracic, essentially the Flash’s fourth-string keeper, got the start.) Sadly for Sky Blue, which counterattacked beautifully in this game and got solid defensive performances from Sophie Schmidt and Christie Rampone, that result knocks them out.
2. Spirit coach Mark Parsons summed up the team’s performance with elegant simplicity: “The occasion got to us a little bit.” More specifically, “everyone wanted to hit that final pass.” He’s right. The night was riddled with ambitious passes that skidded away so quickly that Canadian artificial turf apologists will surely use the video to claim the ball is tough to control on all surfaces, not just FieldTurf.
3. Broken finger. Can’t type much.
So the lasting memory of the evening will be Lori Lindsey’s retirement. The Spirit put together a nice video tribute with comments from all over — former coaches such as Clyde Watson and Kris Ward, former teammates such as Becky Sauerbrunn and Megan Rapinoe (the funniest of a fairly witty bunch), even Mia Hamm.
Fans outside Washington or recent women’s soccer fans might not realize how important Washington has been to Lindsey (and vice versa). In the years between the WUSA and WPS, she slogged it out with the Washington Freedom (held together by Jim Gabarra, now the Sky Blue coach, who graciously congratulated Lindsey before the game). She played on this field in front of a couple hundred people at times. In those years, she pushed her way into the national team pool and wound up playing in the 2011 World Cup.
She talked a bit about those years in the postgame interview, after she signed autographs for everyone who hung around. I’m uploading the entire audio here and may add parts of it to the debut SportsMyriad podcast Sunday or Monday. Stay tuned.
When I was little, I learned about war and sports at the same time. I browsed World Almanacs and other reference books and read statistics, my young brain not yet able to distinguish the gap in meaning between Hank Aaron’s 715th home run and the 140,000 people (give or take tens of thousands) killed when the atomic bomb hit Hiroshima. “Innocent” and “ignorant” are close cousins.
“War annihilates innocence, and no war more than this one,” says Brian Phillips in this brilliant Grantland piece on World War I and soccer. In Phillips’ view, Europe was wholly unprepared for the brutality of the conflict it had unleashed, thinking of it in terms of the sport that had grown so quickly in the generations since the last major war.
Phillips’ view here is dark, seeing the “war as sport” view as an insidious trivialization of what was happening on the gas-clouded battlefields of Ypres and elsewhere:
(W)e still make the same mistakes, because we still understand war through analogy and our analogies still fail. Now we see it as a video game, or we see it as a component of the NFL’s set of minor paraphernalia, jet flyovers part of the same combo pack that includes beer commercials and classic-rock riffs.
(I’m reminded of a sports journalism colleague, not normally a left-leaning guy and certainly a big fan of the NFL, who muttered that if we saw some North Korea, Saddam’s Iraq or some other country doing military flyovers at a sports event, we’d be horrified. So why is it OK if we do it?)
He’s right, of course, but the war photos and histories also provide us a view of soccer as a means of providing some joy and hope in horrible times. We need to cling to something — a loved one’s photo, a favorite food, or a soccer ball.
After Sept. 11, I wrote a column about soccer’s place in the world. I never got any feedback on it, and perhaps rightly so — it’s not as brilliant as Phillips’ work here. But I expressed a bit of optimism in soccer’s role as a peacemaker:
Games remind us that we are all not so different. The people we see as our enemies become sportsmen and sportswomen against whom we can test our skill. They even become our teammates. Our friends.
As we listen to commentators dividing the world into “us” and “them,” we can look on a soccer field and remember that the “us” far outnumbers the “them.” Players of Middle Eastern descent have graced MLS rosters and will continue to do so. Greater freedom in Iran has yielded a few stars of Germany’s Bundesliga. World Cup qualifying this year included a team called “Palestine,” representing the hopes that all nations share — to play in the greatest event in the world.
We can’t all make it to the World Cup. We can’t all play well. But we can share this unique experience with all who take advantage of whatever freedom they have to enjoy this game — a game that captures the human spirit in every corner of the world, even and perhaps especially those that are suffering or mourning.
Play the game.
Live the game.
My optimism is limited, of course. Soccer didn’t end World War I. It won’t end the conflicts in Ukraine or Gaza. And yet there’s something about this sport that has the power to remind us of our common humanity.
I’ll give the link again to Phillips’ piece, Soccer in Oblivion. And I’ll celebrate the fact that when France (or England) and Germany (or Austria) meet now, they dispute nothing more than the occasional call by the ref.
(So once again, England fans, you can stop booing the bloody national anthem any year now, all right?)
For the most startling comment in the wake of Washington’s last-minute winner over Chicago on a pleasant Saturday night at the Maryland SoccerPlex, let’s check in with Chicago coach Rory Dames on how the loss affected the Red Stars’ playoff chances:
“I don’t think (losing) changes a lot for us, to be honest. Winning obviously would’ve helped. But we’re two points back from Portland.
“We always thought the race was going to be with Portland. I don’t think we really ever thought we were in a race with Washington.”
Whoa.
The standings would’ve said otherwise before tonight’s game. A Chicago win would’ve vaulted the Red Stars into a tie for third with Washington. The Spirit would still own the head-to-head tiebreaker, having already beaten Chicago twice, but the Red Stars would have a game in hand. And the Red Stars have three games at home, while the Spirit must travel to first-place Seattle and return home to face nemesis Sky Blue.
And yet, here was Dames after the game, saying they were just competing for the fourth playoff spot with the star-studded Portland Thorns, not the defending wooden-spoon holders from Washington. In fact, Dames and Red Stars all-everything Lori Chalupny were in surprisingly good moods considering what had just happened.
In case you missed it, here’s what had just happened:
4th minute: After missing a good early chance, the Spirit gave up a truly awful opening goal. Tori Huster gave up the ball to Christen Press at midfield, and the Red Stars forward went streaking down the middle. Spirit left back Alex Singer was caught upfield, and Press played the ball into that space for Melissa Tancredi. The Spirit center backs rolled to their left, and Tancredi crossed it back for Lori Chalupny. The should-be national team midfielder didn’t make great contact with her one-timer from the top of the box, but Ashlyn Harris was uncharacteristically slow in getting across. 1-0 Red Stars.
28th and 31st minutes: The Red Stars didn’t necessarily have the better of possession in the first half, but they created the best chances, particularly off Spirit misplays. In the 28th minute, Press again picked the ball away from a Spirit defender (Niki Cross), this time going one-on-one with Harris, who made the big stop. (Dames thought Cross might have held Press back and deserved a yellow; not sure I see it on replay. Meanwhile, the Red Stars were undoing themselves with some silly, nasty challenges, earning yellow cards for Jen Hoy and Jackie Santacaterina.)
Press again had an opportunity as the Red Stars, wisely, went Route 1 with a ball up the middle. Press raced past the defense, but Harris was out in her keeper-sweeper role to clean up. That would be the best Chicago opportunity for some time, while the Spirit started to come back, with Kerstin Garefrekes’ 39th-minute shot cleared away by Abby Erceg.
48th minute: This time, the Red Stars gave up the soft early goal. Christine Nairn has scored some beautiful long-range goals, but this one was a slow grounder that somehow wrong-footed Karina LeBlanc.
89th minute: The Spirit had the better of play in the second half, outshooting Chicago 12-4 while Harris only made one save. But what a save it was. Adriana Leon tapped the ball for Melissa Tancredi, who rushed past Ali Krieger with the ball and crossed for Christen Press, who had found space in the box. Tancredi’s cross was perfect. Press’ header was perfect. But Harris, racing to her left, leaped to knock it away.
94th minute: The ball was surely rolling out. There was no way Diana Matheson would be able to chase it down on the sideline, right? Even if she caught it, how could she keep it in? She slid and hooked a foot onto the ball to play it along the line, then hopped up to chase it down. She played it back for Lisa De Vanna, who held the ball with the poise of a veteran. Finally, De Vanna played it left for Yael Averbuch, who struck it first-time with her left. The other two goals in this game looked a little clumsy. This one was brilliant.
Dames knew the last two big Spirit plays were the sort of thing you could only applaud. “An unbelievable save,” he said of Harris’ 89th-minute leap. Then Matheson saving the ball to set up the goal — “There’s maybe three players in the league who have that thought process and that quality.” And then Averbuch.
Chalupny simply smiled. “The Spirit, they just never quit. Credit to them, they’re a great team.”
Why has Washington managed to sweep the season series with this solid Chicago team? “If we had an easy answer to that, we would’ve figured it all out by now,” Chalupny said with a little laugh. “They’re strong top-to-bottom, and they have some real game-changers and some players who can strike from distance.”
Yet it’s a Spirit team that seems to thrive when its back is against the wall. Porous starts turn to powerful finishes. Harris shrugged off the early goal for a couple of vital saves, including one that frankly deserves some time on SportsCenter. Spirit coach Mark Parsons singled out Tori Huster, who had a bad touch leading to the Chicago goal, as a disruptive presence in defensive midfield. The versatile Huster also had a key clearance late in the game. Lisa De Vanna had squandered a couple of opportunities but came through with a bit of brilliance at the end.
Then there’s Averbuch, who has slid from national team player on the rise to a substitute for the Spirit. In an instant, the low-scoring midfielder (one goal in WPS, she said, and now one goal in the NWSL) found the confidence to rip a goal past a good keeper in LeBlanc, just after passing up a similar opportunity.
“I was angry at Yaya just before that because she passed to someone out wide,” Parsons said. “So I’m so glad she decided to strike.”
And she clearly surprised herself.
“I was just really focused with getting it on frame,” Averbuch said. “So when I got it on frame, I was already happy with the fact that it was going on the goal, maybe get a rebound for someone else to score.”
That’s the second time this season the Spirit have won a home game with a laser in stoppage time. Christine Nairn did it to Houston in May with a goal of the year contender. In the game before that, Matheson’s stoppage-time penalty kick gave the Spirit a 3-3 draw with Sky Blue. In July, yet another Matheson stoppage-time PK salvaged a 3-3 draw with Boston after the Breakers led 3-1.
Other late goals: A 79th-minute goal from Jodie Taylor, who missed Saturday night’s game on national team duty, to win the June 4 game at Chicago that clinched the head-to-head tiebreaker.
Other comebacks: Down 2-1 at halftime before beating Western New York 3-2. Down 2-1 at Boston, won 3-2. Down 1-0 at halftime to Portland, drew 1-1. Down 1-0 at halftime to Kansas City, won 2-1.
“We’ve been a second-half team, for sure, for at least the second half of the season,” Matheson said. “We make games interesting, which is good for the fans.”
(Here comes the call-out …)
“Hopefully we can get some more fans out. I don’t know why we have less fans than last year. So if you could tell the fans that came out last year that aren’t coming out this year to come back out. We miss them. We’re playing exciting soccer.”
No doubt about that. And if Dames is to be believed, the Spirit will be extending that exciting soccer into the playoffs this year.
Circumstances could prove Dames wrong. But so far, the only wrong is … me. When it became apparent a couple of months ago that four teams would be battling for the last two NWSL playoff spots, I figured they would go to Portland and Western New York. That’s mathematically impossible. The Flash can’t catch the Spirit, so there’s no way the Flash and Portland can get in.
This Spirit team is still a strange one. They never control a game from start to finish, something you’d expect a third-place team in a nine-team league to do every once in a while. But their game-changing ability has earned a lot of respect around the league. And maybe it’ll earn them another week of soccer in late August.
National youth championships in the USA are the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Whoever thinks these up should be stoned. — Horst Bertl, Dallas Comets
What is the reason for having roses when blood is shed carelessly? It must be for something more than vanity. — 10,000 Maniacs, Eden
For something we shouldn’t be doing, we sure do national championships a lot. Teams and families travel thousands of miles to see just how cruel and heartbreaking this sport can be.
At the U.S. Youth Soccer championships today, I wound up standing behind a lot of parents from Legends FC, the Southern California powerhouse club that qualified four teams for nationals.
I shouldn’t sympathize with them. Their mission/vision statement reeks of arrogance and a results-first mentality. (To nitpick something else on their website, David Epstein’s The Sports Gene refutes the “10,000 hour” thing.) And they certainly didn’t seem like the underdog against NEFC Elite (Mass.).
But in the Under-14 girls championship, I was indeed caught up in hoping for the best. Perhaps it was because their parents, while certainly arguing the occasional call, were far from the most obnoxious parents I encountered this weekend. (From other fields: Seriously, how do you see your kid play more than 100 competitive games and still not know the difference between a free kick and a penalty kick?) Perhaps it was the cheering/screaming section of previously eliminated Legends teams from other age groups, which mixed a few original cheers along with one adapted from Remember the Titans. (Sub “Legends” for “Titans” …)
Or perhaps it was because they were playing terrific soccer. Possession stats for the game would be outrageously in their favor, and they were playing sharp passing combinations to set up shots that just would not get in the net. On the closest chance, off a deft combination between Alexandra Jaquez and Kaylee Ramirez, a shot was pushed up by the keeper in the middle of the box, and it floated upward in a long, slow arc before falling on top of the crossbar.
These games are tense and tight, and you could see it in the finishing. Players were exhausted from a week playing in the summer SoccerPlex sun. Late in the scoreless regulation time, a good Legends shot led to a rebound with the goal at least partially open. The shot skewed high.
Early in the first overtime, NEFC’s Taylor Sherman got the ball in the box, shielded it well, turned and fired. Goal.
I could see a Legends defender’s heart break on the spot. She held her arms up to her head until the next kickoff. After they cleared it again, her arms went to her head again. She was fighting tears while her team was trying to claw back an equalizer.
Instead, NEFC’s Marykate McGuire, the leading scorer in the U14 tournament, scored a second.
Legends wasn’t the only team to control play and still lose. It seemed to be a pattern. The U15 YMS Premier Xplosion (E. Pa.) forward combination of Murphy Agnew and Andrea Amaro dissected Jacksonville FC Elite’s defense throughout the second half and got closer and closer to the opening goal. Then Jacksonville scored on a corner kick at the other end. YMS got no closer.
The U16 boys Baltimore Celtic dominated the first half against Ohio Premier Eagles, then finally took a 1-0 lead. Unfortunately, they gave up a free kick, and the Eagles had the tournament’s leading scorer in Emmanuel Dapaa. 1-1. At least Celtic made it through on PKs.
So you can travel across the country (OK, Celtic only drove an hour or so), play great soccer, run into the ground … and lose on one play.
Why would you do this? Why put yourself through such cruelty? (Not to mention the expense.) As Natalie Merchant so elegantly sang, it must be for something more than vanity.
Not all of the games were beautiful. One coach seemed intent on violating every lecture I’ve ever heard on “joystick coaching” (“Go sideways! That way! Now pass!”) and his team’s griping tested the ref’s patience. A couple of teams resorted to hit-and-hope longball tactics a bit too easily.
Yet permeating everything at the SoccerPlex was a powerful love of the game. And a love of legitimate soccer skills.
All the families at the Plex were making large sacrifices on behalf of The Beautiful Game. I’ll forgive them a little bit of sniping at the ref and hope their kids soon forget their disappointment, remembering only their outstanding efforts and the friendships.
(But for future reference: A penalty kick is a one-on-one situation between a shooter and a goalkeeper, awarded for a foul in that big box thing.)
Summers are getting shorter all the time, aren’t they?
If you’re a soccer player or fan, they certainly are. My county’s school system only wrapped up its school year 30 days ago. And already, a lot of our local soccer teams have finished their seasons.
That’s the reality today for the W-League, WPSL, PDL and NPSL, which try to squeeze competitive seasons, national playoffs and the occasional cup competition into the 10 weeks or so between the end of the college academic year and the time their players are due back on campus for preseason training.
The teams all have different goals. Some are offshoots of youth clubs giving their oldest players another opportunity to play. Some are official or unofficial reserve teams for the pros. Some are Changing the Way You Will Think About American Soccer! That’s a tough task in a 10-game season. (Actually, Nashville FC’s grass-roots ownership plan is a noble experiment.)
There’s no such thing as parity. BCS Clash finished its NPSL season with a goal difference of -105. In 10 games. In the WPSL, Lion Soccer Club (known as Lions Swarm last year) lost a couple of blowouts and was dismissed from the league, with all its games recorded as 3-0 forfeit losses.
Attendance is erratic. Some NPSL teams play in utter obscurity, while Chattanooga FC drew 2,800 for a regional final. The PDL averaged 590 fans leaguewide, driven by nine teams with a median over 1,000. (See Kenn.com’s typically comprehensive figures.) The W-League, which Kenn notes as less of a marketing force than it used to be, had a few teams drawing over 400.
The USL operations (W-League, PDL) are generally sound from operations standpoint. The WPSL is far more chaotic. (“Skipped the playoffs in a dispute with the league” was my summary of FC Dallas in the power rankings two years ago.)
It’s not as if each player gets 10-12 solid games. These teams list anywhere between 25 and 40 players on the roster.
And in some respects, that’s good for players. They might have multiple responsibilities. Braddock Road’s W-League team was basically their Under-18 national (USYSA) title contender with a couple of key additions. Ashley Herndon scored a crucial goal for VSA Heat in the USYSA national championships this week, then another for the Washington Spirit Reserves in the W-League semifinals. VSA Heat played for (and won) the U-19 national title without her Saturday night. Where’s teleportation technology when you need it?
Want to make these seasons even shorter? That’s what would happen if college soccer plays a full-year schedule with a championship going into June, like college baseball.
That college reform plan probably won’t happen — personally, I’d love to see more meaningful spring soccer, but I’d wrap it up at the end of April. As chaotic as summer soccer leagues might be, they serve a valuable function, giving players another opportunity for elite play during their developmental years and giving a few adults (especially grad students) a chance to stay in the game. (Update: Some people are backing a college championship in May rather than June, and the schedule would start later in the summer.)
The problem with all of this — we’re obsessed with national competitions when they’re not necessary.
That mentality has seeped into youth soccer, too. Development Academy, ECNL (Elite Clubs National League), U.S. Youth Soccer national league, U.S. Club Soccer premier leagues and Super-Y League not enough for you? Form your own national league. We’re seeing that now with the formation of another national league, which SoccerWire commenters find quite amusing.
Several WPSL teams already played a national championship this summer, one that was also open to W-League teams. Now they’re playing the league championship.
So some teams are cramming two tournaments into the brief summer window along with league play. Some have been sitting idle for a couple of weeks.
Take away the insistence on national competition, and things get a lot simpler. One national cup per age group should be fine. Then teams can use the rest of their seasons with league play and perhaps a showcase tournament or two.
Think for a second about the talent on the field at last night’s Washington Spirit-Portland Thorns game. The teams combined to use 27 players. Ten players have made it to the field in a World Cup or Olympics. Six more could make their World Cup debuts next year. Five more played in a youth World Cup.*
That’s great for the fans. But it’s even better for the players. They’re improving, game by game.
These players could be tucked away in residency right now, doing beep tests and going up against the same opponents every day. Instead, they’re coping with new situations in a mix of players bringing different talents to the table.
The international mix helps. The two most accomplished current Canadian players, Christine Sinclair and Diana Matheson, were on the field — Sinclair wasn’t at her best but still hit the post once, while Matheson had a few sharp attacking moments and an assist. Then all six imports from outside North America were in good form:
– Lisa De Vanna (WAS) was a speedy pest down the left flank, nearly combining with Matheson on a brilliant scoring chance.
– Nadine Angerer (POR) showed every bit of veteran poise in goal, dominating the box on set pieces and coming out to sweep the ball away on a Spirit attack.
– Jodie Taylor (WAS) was responsible for that attack and a few more, including a quality finish that leveled the game.
– Stephanie Catley (POR) had a thrilling duel with U.S. phenom Crystal Dunn, assisting on the Thorns goal to Alex Morgan and playing solid defense while wearing out the grass on the flank.
– Kerstin Garefrekes (WAS) might have lost the speed to keep up with the Catleys and Dunns of the world, but she had a couple of moments of class that nearly stole the game for the Spirit.
– Vero Boquete (POR) had an off night. Most other players would call it a highlight reel, turning defenders in knots and scooping a ball over the defense to give Ashlyn Harris a nervous moment in goal.
“That’s what you need in this league,” said Portland’s loquacious coach, Paul Riley. “We didn’t have ’em last year, we didn’t have these foreign players. Now we’ve got some of the top players in the world here. It’s getting more like WPS was. They do bring something to the table. I think they add so much to the team, in practice even.”
In particular, the enthusiastic Riley gushed about Vero, who played for Riley with the WPS Philadelphia Independence, and Catley, a young Australian defender/midfielder/wherever she wants.
“Good decisions on the ball. She can tackle, too. And she’s just turned 20. Think about it — she’s a sophomore in college in our terms in America.”
Australia has already qualified for the World Cup, and Catley is getting a glimpse of a quicker style of play in the NWSL. Vero may finally get a chance to play in the World Cup next year, with Spain sitting atop its qualifying group, and she’s only getting better.
Then consider the effect of these players on Americans who are still on the upswing of their careers. Like Tobin Heath, the skillful Thorns midfielder who missed last night’s game with a knee sprain.
“I told Tobin Heath, if you want to be the Number 10 (playmaking midfielder) for the United States, this is the player you need to watch,” Riley said.
And the league is a learning experience for a player like Crystal Dunn. If you can’t see her quality, you need to consult a soccer coach or an optometrist. But she’s prone to rookie mistakes — a slip here, a bit of matador defense there, an ill-advised run out of position elsewhere. Better to have these teachable moments now than against Germany.
The U.S. depth in field players is growing with each game. Allie Long may have her Twitter detractors, but she was a strong midfield presence for the Thorns last night. Nikki Marshall limited De Vanna. Tori Huster limited Vero. Even if these players don’t make the national team, they’re helping by giving the U.S. players a good test every week. Last year, perhaps you could say a few teams in the league — especially the Spirit — fielded some players who looked out of place against a top team. Not in this game.
Then there’s the goalkeeping question, a dangerous discussion topic in women’s soccer circles. Last night’s game provided plenty of evidence for the cases for and against Ashlyn Harris’ national team future. She was stranded on the Thorns goal and had a couple of rough moments with her distribution. But without her saves, the Thorns win 3-1 or 4-1.
And she was just a little bit defensive when asked whether her play on the Thorns goal, where she came out partway, was “high-risk.”
“I don’t think I would really word it like that. You’re playing against the best striker in the world. To me, it was a great ball, and she dealt with it well. I wouldn’t go as far as to saying it didn’t work for me. I think I had world-class saves tonight, and that game could’ve been much different. So the way I see it is — yeah, I made a decision that may not have worked out in my favor, but I (freaking) got the job done.”
Then came a quote that is surely already being picked apart like the Zapruder film:
When you get so many balls played over the top and your back line’s not doing their job, at some point, you have to come out and relieve the pressure. There’s times where I came out and I intercepted passes, and there’s times that I won’t. There’s times where it’s going to be sketchy and hairy, but until our back line figures it out, we’re in sync and we drop as a line and we don’t create that big of a gap where people can just constantly toe-poke and run after us, we’re going to be beat. That’s something we’re trying to figure out now, but we don’t have the legs. This is coming off of a long week and a half of game after game after and travel, travel, travel.
Could it be better? Yeah, every game could be better. Could I learn from it? Yeah, every game I could learn something from it. At the end of the day, we got a point against a really good team, and we’ve just gotta move forward.
Another reason the Thorns provide a good learning experience: These days, they’re not aiming for the Barcelona-style possession soccer so much in vogue these days. They’re direct. Over the top and far away.
That doesn’t surprise Harris one bit:
Yeah, of course they’re direct. Look at the forwards they have. Why mess with the ball — get it in. These players running at you — it’s not fun. I can tell you that from experience. It put us under pressure. We couldn’t keep the ball. And that was part of our problem.
Going against these players — they want it. Alex Morgan was calling for the ball the entire game. And that’s the difference between her and a lot of other players. She wants (the ball) in all forms — in front, in behind — her movement’s insane. She’s going the entire game. We could learn something from that.
Don’t tell me players don’t care about these games. They’re learning experiences, but they’re learning experiences with far higher stakes than a U.S. friendly against whatever youngsters an international team decides to bring over to face the same old familiar faces in the latest Nike kits.
This game was vital for playoff positioning. Last year, the Spirit might have taken a moral victory over getting a draw with an in-form team like Portland. Not now.
“One point, I think, is a little disappointing,” Cross said. “We were both pushing for three points.”
That said, Spirit coach Mark Parsons is always one to take Eric Idle’s advice and look on the bright side of life, and he’s glad his team has the woeful performances out of its system.
“Sunday (a brutal 4-2 loss at Sky Blue) was not us. Today showed that we’re right up there with everyone.”
HIGHLIGHTS
Check the video for these moments:
FIRST HALF
6:50 Stephanie Catley plays it long for Alex Morgan, who splits the defenders. Ashlyn Harris comes out and winds up in no man’s land. Morgan finishes with a beautiful lob. 1-0.
19:30 Alex Singer makes a strong run up the left and beats two defenders to play a short cross to Jodie Taylor. The Spirit forward, with her back to goal, lays it back for Christine Nairn, who has scored some ESPN-worthy goals from distance this season but is well off the mark this time.
25:50 Direct ball for Taylor, but Nadine Angerer is out quickly to slide feet-first just outside the box to knock it away.
27:05 Another direct ball to Morgan, and Niki Cross does just enough to throw her off and force her shot into a tough angle. Morgan hits side netting.
27:50 Just highlighting a sharp example of good tactical runs. Lisa De Vanna cuts inside toward the middle of the field. Diana Matheson, who was in the middle, sprints ahead while De Vanna occupies the defense’s attention. De Vanna’s through ball is a bit too heavy.
29:25 Once again, it was a rough game for an NWSL ref, who actually managed to get in the way twice and broke up a Spirit shooting opportunity. But here, she did something right, correctly playing advantage after Tori Huster is fouled. The Spirit wind up with a good opportunity, but Taylor can’t quite finish it.
33:20 Morgan beats offside trap, goes 1-v-1 against retreating Harris. Harris pokes ball away, saves resulting (more difficult for Morgan) shot
39:20 Dunn lets Catley glide right past her, setting up a good chance for the Thorns.
SECOND HALF
45:25 A good example of the Spirit almost connecting but just taking a little too much time and not quite being in the right spots. They take a while to swing the ball wide to Dunn, who takes a good quick step to send in a cross, only to find no one anticipating it.
57:45 Watch Vero’s audacious scoop pass. Do any American players ever try that?
62:55 Catley beats Dunn, and the Thorns get a couple of chances in a 30-second sequence that ends with Christine Sinclair’s highlight of the night, a shot just off the post.
67:00 The Thorns defense loses track of Taylor, who takes a heavy touch past Angerer but finishes superbly. Assist to Diana Matheson. 1-1.
72:15 Why did Ashlyn Harris play this ball with her head? Making absolutely sure the ref doesn’t think it was a back pass?
77:00 Morgan rounds Cross, and the well-positioned Harris keeps it level with a kick save.
79:35 Lovely bit of skill from Kerstin Garefrekes, with the shot against longtime German teammate Nadine Angerer going just wide.
Unfortunately, the stream cut off before Garefrekes’ last shot nearly won it for the Spirit, and it wasn’t included in the highlight reel.
* Yes, I looked up every player in the FIFA database. World Cup or Olympics: Lisa De Vanna, Lori Lindsey, Diana Matheson, Ali Krieger, Kerstin Garefrekes, Veronica Perez, Alex Morgan, Christine Sinclair, Rachel (Buehler) Van Hollebeke, Nadine Angerer. Possible World Cup debuts: Vero Boquete, Crystal Dunn, Jodie Taylor, Stephanie Catley, perhaps Ashlyn Harris and Allie Long. Youth World Cups: Christine Nairn, Amber Brooks, Sarah Huffman, Nikki Marshall, Angie (Woznuk) Kerr
Dan Borislow’s larger-than-life reputation was so great that, upon hearing of his death this morning, I immediately thought I needed to get his side of the story. I was sorely tempted to text him, thinking I might get an entertaining response about a bunch of idiots declaring him dead when he had every right to be alive.
In this case, he would’ve been right. To pass away so suddenly and so young, with children just on the verge of adulthood, is a colossal injustice far beyond anything alleged in a Palm Beach County court document. And for someone like Borislow, who refused and ridiculed idle lifestyles, to pass away from a heart attack after a soccer game is a cruel contradiction for a man whose life was full of contradiction.
The first time I spoke with him was at his urging. I had just reported a development in his unraveling relationship with WPS, and I fully expected him to rip me a new one over the phone. Instead, I called and found a quiet, distracted guy who really just wanted to chat a bit.
He was a man who cared deeply about the women on his team who showed no regrets about scorching the earth under their flailing soccer league.
He was a man who enjoyed chatting with reporters but instilled a powerful code of silence among his players and others in his employ. Strong soccer-playing women would take great care to avoid saying anything about life as a magicJack player.
He was a smart man with a knack for making money, most recently taking $6.7 million in a horse racing jackpot, and yet he was prone to email outbursts that were barely coherent, picking fights with people over trivial things like placing required advertising boards at league games.
It’s safe to say he had issues with authority and would speak up for himself in court. He lost big when he tangled with popular website Boing Boing. A search of Palm Beach County court records shows a long list of traffic infractions, many of which he challenged. He has a couple of court cases, traffic and civil, still open.
He also enjoyed venting. My email was full of rants about U.S. Soccer, WPS and other women’s soccer figures. They got a little personal at times, but if you’ve read any of the court documents from the WPS lawsuit, you already get the idea.
And yet, he cared deeply about a couple of things. First was his family. Second was women’s soccer.
Early in our correspondence, I asked him if he had considered any relationship with youth clubs that had worked with the Washington Freedom as the pro team packed up and left town.
“I would do anything for youth soccer,” he replied.
If women’s soccer could have somehow harnessed his enthusiasm and willingness to support the sport without dealing with the controversies that surrounded him, the sport would have surely been better off. But that would never happen.
“Beau, if my wife can’t change me, no one will,” he once told me with a bit of a laugh.
And no one did.
My sincerest condolences to his family, and I hope his legacy will be to inspire others to take an interest in women’s sports and other underfunded outlets for talented people.
What was the “soccer media” in 1996, when MLS first launched?
For the most part, it was Soccer America, Michael Lewis, Grahame Jones and a handful of people who managed to make soccer at least part of their beat work. At some news organizations, journalists managed to get some soccer coverage into their job descriptions alongside their other responsibilities — writing on other sports, copy editing, online producing, etc. IIRC, one “beat writer” was also his newspaper’s librarian.
From this pool of young, energetic people pushing the constraints of the 40-hour (ha!) work week to cover the sport we love, we got a lot of good content. ESPN had Jeff Bradley, whose connections were unmatched (yes, note the last name) and who had the writing skill to turn his passion into good prose. Sports Illustrated ran Grant Wahl’s insights online whenever he had a few spare moments. The Washington Post actually had a couple of voices — Steven Goff covering D.C. United, Alex Johnson writing “World of Soccer” online.
Being “The Soccer Guy” in your news organization was a good thing if you didn’t mind a little extra work. Knight Ridder Tribune let me crank out a weekly MLS column and other content. USA TODAY didn’t mind my soccer columns and original reporting.
But still, soccer stories were so unusual that a lot of us flocked to BigSoccer, where people would share links to the rare finds. BigSoccer, in the early 2000s, was the hub of soccer discussion online in the wake of the decline of the old North American Soccer mailing list. We didn’t have Twitter or a blogosphere.
Eighteen years later, things are a little different. Wahl is one of several soccer people at Sports Illustrated — Brian Straus, the hardest-working man in soccer journalism, joined him a while ago. ESPN first bought Soccernet, the go-to source for so much European soccer news in the early years of the Internet, then rebranded it ESPN FC, all with a strong cast of contributors.
The independent soccer media always survived as a labor of love. Now it’s thriving at sites like SB Nation.
The official site (disclaimer: I wrote a few fantasy columns for the management before the management before this one) has grown into a robust portal of soccer coverage, from personality-driven podcasts to tactical analysis far beyond anything we’ve seen here.
And that’s just print/online media. In the mid-90s, I always made sure my VCR would pick up the weekly hourlong Premier League recap that popped up on Home Team Sports (now Comcast Sports Net of the D.C./Baltimore area). Today? I’d watch Match of the Day on NBCSN, but I’ve usually seen it all already on a full morning of viewing.
So you can see why I was a bit surprised when I read a promotion/relegation piece that offered many supposed benefits of going pro/rel in the USA, while not addressing any of the reasons why that hasn’t been feasible to this point. Among the more interesting ramifications of going pro/rel:
– No more reliance on big, fast and strong players. (Because every relegation-threatened EPL team and all the League One strugglers play fluid, attractive football, right?)
– An open market rather than centralized soccer development. (Because Germany’s top-down approach funded by the FA is so much more of an open marketplace than having multiple elite youth soccer clubs in every region picking and choosing the best practices of U.S. Soccer, U.S. Youth Soccer, U.S. Club Soccer, AYSO and other alphabet-soup organizations, right?)
And then the fun one: “More expertise in our soccer media.”
That’s right — add in pro/rel, and you’ll get the same sycophantic, sexist, pressbox-cheering, transfer rumor-inventing “experts” you get in other parts of the world. Yay!
OK, that’s a generalization. But such journalists absolutely exist in the rest of the world. We’ll get them here soon enough. No need to rush.
Meanwhile, without pro/rel, we the soccer media have managed to expand exponentially. A few people are bound to know what they’re doing.
After national teams Nigeria and Algeria both placed second in their respective World Cup groups to advance to the round of 16, both were knocked out in quick succession at the hands of European powerhouses France and Germany, effectively ending Africa’s presence at the 2014 World Cup.
However, the tournament was not without success for Africa.
For the first time in its history, two of the continent’s five qualifying teams — Nigeria and Algeria, as mentioned above — advanced beyond the group stage. Furthermore, Ghana’s captain and star striker Asamoah Gyan scored his sixth World Cup goal in their final group stage match against Portugal, passing legend Roger Milla for the most career goals scored by an African in World Cup history.
But Gyan’s record and Nigeria’s and Algeria’s breakthrough were truthfully the only positive notes Africa can take from this World Cup. As the tournament progressed, a spell of controversies formed dark clouds over the CAF’s (Confederation of African Football) national teams. Rumors started to spread of Ghanaian and Nigerian players boycotting training sessions, among other acts, due to a delay in appearance fees, which even resulted in match-fixing allegations and an apparent scuffle in one of Ghana’s hotel rooms. Cameroon’s dispirited collapse against Croatia could be considered one of the continent’s ugliest performances in its history, and they too were accused of match-fixing. Finally, three African teams’ managers stepped down shortly after they were knocked out of the World Cup.
Africa is known in the soccer world for conceiving top tier players. Many of Africa’s stars, Gyan the only exemption, make their careers at popular clubs throughout Europe and the rest of the world, from the Ivory Coast’s Yaya Touré at the Premier League’s Manchester City and Nigeria’s Ahmed Musa at Russia’s CSKA Moscow to Ghana’s Kevin Prince Boateng at the German Bundesliga’s Schalke and Algeria’s Islam Slimani at Portugal’s famous Sporting Clube de Portugal.
Why, then, does Africa continue to struggle on the sport’s biggest stage? A rather uncomplicated resolution to this issue is discipline. As these players become superstars to the rest of the world, their national teams’ staffs back home don’t know how to control, let alone manage, rosters made up of players of that caliber. Manager Sabri Lamouchi, for example, had never been the boss of any soccer club before taking up the position in 2012 for an Ivory Coast squad loaded with icons the likes of Didier Drogba, Salomon Kalou, and Gervinho. Often these managers have shaky-at-best relationships with the countries’ governing soccer bodies.
The goal at the World Cup is simple; to prove your country’s supremacy in the world’s beautiful game. But one continent is often amalgamated in the media and public mind as an interwoven brotherhood of nations: Africa. I feel a majority of that public, myself included, want to see that unified fraternity succeed, and the media pushes that at times as well (the scene of Cameroon’s Samuel Eto’o hugging a young, defeated Cameroon fan, prompting both to shed tears, was a touching moment).
Nevertheless, the continent’s 2014 World Cup campaign will in the end be seen as a failed yet valiant attempt sheathed by blurred shadows of the CAF’s flaws. The severe lack of continuity in managerial staff, an excess of corruption, and a shortage of discipline all contribute to this consistent disappointment.
While African soccer is growing, it is maturing slower than anticipated.
And fans of African teams can only hope their nations’ (soccer) leaders are watching and taking note when Argentina and Germany square off today.
Will Sinsky is an aspiring sports analyst/writer whose specialties are professional football and soccer. Follow him on Twitter @wsinsky
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