Category: soccer

soccer

Single-Digit Soccer: Don’t specialize … really

Posted on by Beau Dure

The chorus against specializing in one sport at an early age is growing.

Just today, I’ve stumbled into two pieces:

– Specific: NPR on kids suffering back injuries.

– General: Changing the Game author John O’Sullivan at Potomac Soccer Wire, presenting mountains of data.

It’s such a temptation, isn’t it? Your awesome athletes get overrun by a team that’s practicing twice a week through the whole school year and doing a few things in the summer, and you feel like you need to keep up, right?

(Of course, it’s also tempting for me to print out O’Sullivan’s piece and present it to the gloating parents in our indoor league, but that’s another rant.)

For the Single-Digit Soccer book, I’ve already interviewed a lot of famous athletes. The vast majority played more than one sport growing up.

So you need to ask — is it your goal to develop a good high school (or college or even beyond) soccer player and a well-rounded person? Or to win U9 games?

Update: Thanks to Setting the Table for pointing me to a radio discussion with John O’Sullivan and radio host Marc Amazon. I like the host. Then he gets a scary caller — “Dave from Columbus,” who says he’s a coach of elite 9- and 10-year-old football players. He’s not worried about burnout because the only players who burn out are the ones that stink.

So, so many things wrong with that statement:

1. What can you tell about a kid at 10 years old? You can’t even tell that much at age 17. Freddy Adu and Lionel Messi were once close to the same level. U17 stars wash out all the time. So you’re telling me you can tell who’s a good player and who isn’t before kids even hit puberty? Suppose your good little running back goes through a growth spurt and ends up 6-4 and scrawny? Suppose your big lineman doesn’t grow much more? Suppose you had a 9-year-old who was going through a clumsy growth spurt and settled into being a pretty good athlete by age 11, and you told him to go away at age 10?

2. What’s the point? You just want to coach kids who look like the total package at age 9, and the rest can just go sit on the sofa?

3. “If these kids don’t specialize, how are they going to make any money?” How many pros do you know, Dave? How many of them specialized? Not many. A lot of NBA players played other sports. I can’t think of a soccer player I’ve interviewed who played nothing else.

But Dave is also an old-school soccer basher who thinks soccer is a sport for weaklings and isn’t American. Bully for him.

I think Dave has built a business convincing parents they need to pay him so little Billy will be a D1 football player. And guess what? No one can promise that. I’m not going to call Dave from Columbus an outright fraud, but he’s not looking good.

“So how do I know you’re not an absolute idiot,” Amazon asks him. Good question. The next caller also buries Dave, pointing out how many prominent NFL players are crossover athletes. Some NFL players barely even played football growing up. And there’s another three-word argument: Michael. Jordan. Baseball.

So Dave clearly falls into the Friday Night Tykes school of stubborn old-school idiocy. We don’t have any of those coaches in soccer. Right?

Another update: Another tangentially related link — participation levels in youth sports are dropping as the “casual” player is left out.

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soccer

MLS history books: The next generation

Posted on by Beau Dure

When I wrote Long-Range Goals, I said the following: “If this is the only MLS book on a bookstore shelf in 2011, that’s disappointing.”

Not sure about your local bookstore, but mine doesn’t even stock Long-Range Goals. The “soccer” section is usually a collection of dubious books on European stars, a few how-to-coach books ranging from mildly helpful to dangerously flimsy, and possibly something on Mia Hamm. Of course, I don’t venture into bookstores that often because (A) I’ve embraced my Kindle and (B) the front displays are always best-selling political punditry written with neither any discernible effort or concern for anyone outside a narrow agenda. But I digress …

Thankfully, we do have some more entries in the MLS history genre. The new effort is Sounders FC: AUTHENTIC MASTERPIECE: The Inside Story Of The Best Franchise Launch In American Sports History by Seattle broadcaster Mike Gastineau. When I saw the press releases for that one, I figured I should finally get around to checking out an older entry in the genre, Steve Sirk’s A Massive Season, the chronicle of the Columbus Crew’s 2008 championship season.

And I owe Sirk several apologies. He’s one of the good guys in soccer media, and I should’ve gotten to this book much sooner. Also, I somehow created exactly the same book cover for Enduring Spirit that he used for A Massive Season. Same template, same modifications to the template. Different photo, of course, and different primary color. Everything else was the same.

I was intimidated away from reading A Massive Season by its massive size. It’s more than 450 pages. If you took two copies on a plane, you’d probably be charged for an overweight bag.

But it’s an easy, fun read — or skim, if you prefer to read a few sections of the season. It’s a collection of Sirk’s witty and informative notebooks on the team, supplemented and annotated after the season. One of the entries written after the fact is compelling — it’s the story of the Crew’s plane encountering powerful turbulence and aborting a landing, leaving even the hardened travelers on the plane in a quivering mix of nerves and nausea.

(Eerie coincidence: The one time I’ve ever been on a plane that aborted a landing, it was a small plane similar to the one the Crew was on, and I was traveling back from Columbus after covering the USA-Mexico game in 2009. Winds were extreme all over the East Coast, and a Colgan Air plane crashed that night near Buffalo (though the investigation attributed the causes to pilot error and ice). I was on that plane with the ESPN commentary crew of JP Dellacamera and John Harkes. JP was astoundingly calm. John and I were both a bit more rattled. John did mention that he had seen worse when the USA’s plane landed in Central America despite a warning to divert elsewhere. We bumped into each other again while waiting for parking lot shuttles. He mentioned what a rough ride it had been. I quipped: “Really? I didn’t notice.” He was stunned for a moment before I said I was kidding — I don’t think I’ve ever been so terrified.)

Sirk gets terrific details from those who were on the plane. Before the situation got too serious, players joked with devout Christian Eddie Gaven to put in a good word for everyone else when they all ventured to the pearly gates in a few minutes. The Trillium Cup (Columbus-Toronto rivalry) wasn’t on the plane — players joked later that the lack of such a heavy trophy may have saved their lives.

Throughout Sirk’s notebooks, he benefits from being inside the locker room (an option we women’s soccer writers don’t have) to catch the teasing and bonding within the squad. Frankie Hejduk is every bit the colorful character you’d expect him to be. Danny O’Rourke is like a hockey enforcer — snarling pit bull on the field, good-hearted fun-loving guy off it.

The whole of the book will appeal more to a hard-core Crew fan than it will to a casual MLS fan. Nothing wrong with that. Every championship season deserves its retrospectives and celebratory words. Maybe we could collect edited versions to celebrate the league’s first 20 champions … hmmm … new book idea …

Gastineau has no MLS champion to celebrate just yet. And the hyperbolic title does the book no favors. Given the reputation of Seattle fans (some, of course, not all) to pull attitudes in online discussions with people who’ve been supporting MLS through some dark years, it’s easy to imagine people outside the Northwest scoffing at the title and studiously avoiding any mention of it.

And that’s a shame, because the book is better than its title. Sure, it’s very friendly to the Sounders. But it rarely makes its point at the expense of other teams. This isn’t the ranting of some Internet braggart who doesn’t realize MLS teams have had supporters groups and tifo all along.

A better title might have been Sounders FC: The Perfect Storm — except that the “Seattle Storm” name is already in use elsewhere. The Sounders didn’t create the atmosphere they have through some innate superiority of Seattle fans. It came about through having the right people in the right place at the right time.

– A USL owner and soccer fanatic who had taught himself how to run a team effectively
and efficiently. (Adrian Hanauer)

– A movie mogul who really wanted to own a soccer team. (Joe Roth)

– An entertainer whose idea of a good time was to drop him to a soccer bar and pick up
the tab. (Drew Carey)

– An NFL team (Seahawks) with a civic-minded owner (Paul Allen) and some soccer fans
(Gary Wright) lurking in the administration.

– A convoluted history of stadium deals that left Seattle with a stadium that had been
built with the promise (and field dimensions) of soccer as well as football.

The book’s chapters aren’t linear. They tell stories of different aspects of the team’s construction. The reader also meets Sigi Schmid and Kasey Keller.

And we learn a few fun behind-the-scenes stories. Why didn’t the Sounders release doves at their first game as they had originally planned? Because they wisely did a dress rehearsal the week before. That’s when they discovered that the hawks around the stadium were rather aggressive. And so the first home game in Sounders MLS history was not spoiled by dead birds.

These are the fun stories that should be part of MLS lore. Without these books, we’d lose all that. So even if you’re not a fan of Seattle or Columbus, raise a glass to Sirk and Gastineau for the work they’ve done.

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soccer

Single-Digit Soccer: Dissension in the ranks

Posted on by Beau Dure

A few sessions at the NSCAA convention made a couple of things clear to me:

1. Not everyone’s buying into the U.S. Soccer curriculum.

2. Not everyone’s buying into the Development Academy.

Tackling the second point first: A session on the Development Academy and high school soccer, which have been separated for all eternity by the U.S. Soccer powers that be, turned into a gripe session about the Academy.

One of the gripers is Steve Nichols (no, not Steve Nicol), a Baltimore coach who ditched the successful Baltimore Bays to form a new club called Baltimore Celtic, which is heavily populated by ex-Bays. He’s also a high school coach at McDonogh, one of several strong Baltimore teams, and he didn’t see the point in barring his players from high school play, particularly when the Academy only gave his Bays 4-5 challenging games. He’d rather take his Celtic teams to big tournaments all over the place (sponsorship helps).

Nichols may come across as outlandish, but the standings back up his claim that his Bays cruised through their Academy divisions. (They’re a little less dominant now that so many players have gone to Celtic.) And he’s not alone — Alecko Eskandarian, the MLS veteran and former Philadelphia Union youth technical director now working with the New York Cosmos, said he “cringes at the thought” of some of the lesser clubs being called “academies.”

Nichols also didn’t like top-down approach from administrators who weren’t distinguished players or coaches: “Why should (they) tell Alecko Eskandarian and Jeff Cook (Union coach, another panelist) what to do?”

No one on the panel was much of a fan of denying Academy kids the high school experience. Eskandarian said he needed to play high school and have responsibility. Colorado coach Theresa Echtermeyer said she’s going to her 20-year high school reunion, not her 20-year soccer club reunion.  (That said, Eskandarian also liked what the Union was doing in setting up a high school along with its Academy program.)

How does all this affect the single-digit years? Indirectly, sure. But Academy programs continue to trickle down into “pre-Academy” years as well, as do rivals such as Baltimore Celtic, which has tryouts all the way down to U8.

And the resistance against the top-down approach to youth soccer is clear elsewhere as well. In some cases, no one ever tried to push it seriously — for all the talk of trying to hold off on competitive soccer at young ages, those of us at a recreational soccer session agree that our tryout-based soccer is starting at U10, U9 … U6? “Times are changing,” muttered the man who settled at the back of the room and said his club was selecting players at U6.

Then there’s the curriculum.

It’s not that people were voicing specific criticisms of the work Claudio Reyna unveiled a couple of years ago. But neither are they taking it as something every club should follow.

A session in the NSCAA Club Standards series — surprisingly crowded given the dry title “Implementing a Curriculum for Player Development” — was based on the assumption that one size does not fit all. Clubs should feel free to pick and choose from the U.S. Soccer, U.S. Youth Soccer, Canadian or any other curriculum.

Another session raised a tough question: “Coalescing the USSF, USYS, and NSCAA Curricula for U8-U10: Can it be done?” (I had to leave early for the NWSL Draft, so I don’t know the answer.)

The differences aren’t vast. It’s not as if one group is striving for a possession game while another urges kids to boot it upfield to a lumbering forward. But the disagreements jump out of the charts. U.S. Soccer rates “passing” as one of the top skills a U6 should learn; another curriculum doesn’t even check off passing until U8. (I know of some coaches who insist kids can’t grasp the concept until U9.) U.S. Youth Soccer suggests several tactical teachings at U6 and U8 — USSF has nothing.

Massachusetts coach Mike Singleton had the tough task of leading this session, but he brought an open mind. In Spain, Singleton said, a club can lose its charter if it doesn’t follow the federation’s dogma. That’s not the U.S. way.

So whether it’s diversity or chaos, U.S. youth soccer isn’t going to a “one size fits all” approach any time soon. Is that a good thing?

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soccer

NWSL notebook: Time for German efficiency?

Posted on by Beau Dure

Apologies for writing about last week’s NWSL panel at the NSCAA convention nearly a week after it happened, but it’s tough to get any work done when the local schools decline to open and give your kids some place to go during the day.

In any case — the big issues have been covered. First: The coaches say it’s difficult for them to compete salary-wise with Champions League teams. That doesn’t apply to the players in the allocation pool, but it would apply to anyone on the outside. Players who pass up higher pay to come over here are doing so for the competition — tough games each week instead of 10-0 routs over the Sindelfingens and Toulouses of the world.

The other big issue is the schedule. Everyone’s dreading a five-month stretch with 24 games. The basic problem is international loans. The season can’t start too much earlier — the Algarve and Cyprus Cups already take away international players during preseason. And it can’t go later because teams would have to return their international loanees by early September. So as long as women’s soccer players are doing the WNBA thing and playing year-round in two different countries to make ends meet, this is reality.

But the discussion turned up another thread worth following: Is the league’s style of play too athletic, too frenetic, too fast?

Chicago’s Rory Dames was the one raising the question. “We need to slow the game down, make it about technique as well as athleticism,” Dames said.

Dames saw the clash in international styles first-hand through the German players on the Red Stars last season. They saw a lot of “pointless running” on the field in NWSL play, he said. That echoes a few comments Washington’s Conny Pohlers made in her too-brief time in the league.

Over the course of a 24-game, five-month season, teams would be well advised to work smarter, not harder. But how do you teach that to players who come out of college soccer, where they run hard and then get breaks to catch their breath?

One of many things to watch in the next season. Can’t wait.

Other quick notes from the NWSL panel:

– Washington coach Mark Parsons had a curious comment about challenges in coaching. He said a team might have an accomplished player who’ll do anything it takes in practice along side a player who has done nothing at this level but “demands the world.” Read into that what you will.

– Boston’s Tom Durkin said the Breakers are looking toward an ECNL (elite youth) presence as part of a full-fledged club with a consistent curriculum. Could be interesting.

– Yes, at least one other coach teased Seattle’s Laura Harvey about her active wheeling and dealing in the offseason. She smiled like the Cheshire cat.

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soccer

Soccer Hall of Fame 2014 vote: Perfect 10

Posted on by Beau Dure

One bit of news from the NSCAA convention: Those of us who care about U.S. soccer history are gaining momentum.

The Society for American Soccer History might kick itself into gear in the coming months. Academics such as David Kilpatrick, who works with the Cosmos, are working to get serious papers published. And we’re still looking for creative ways to get the Soccer Hall of Fame out of storage, so fans can learn and enjoy this country’s colorful relationship with the world’s game.

Now we’ll have our annual vigil to see how many people will be unjustly snubbed in the Hall of Fame vote this year.

I typically vote for five, six, maybe eight people. And so do most voters with whom I’ve spoken, though it’s a small sample.

And yet, last year, NONE of the players on the ballot got the required 66.7% of the vote for induction. As set out in the Hall’s rules, they took the five top vote-getters for a second round, and Joe-Max Moore made it.

This year, we shouldn’t have that problem. Kristine Lilly and Brian McBride are on the ballot, and if you don’t vote for them, just pull a Dan LeBatard and hand your ballot to Deadspin.

Some idiot won’t vote for Lilly, but in general, the biggest women’s stars have been nearly unanimous. The highest vote percentages in Kenn Tomasch’s archive: Mia Hamm 97.16, Claudio Reyna 96.08, Michelle Akers 95.89, Eric Wynalda 93.15. I’ll guess Lilly is somewhere in the 93-95 range, and McBride will be in the low 90s.

Could we get a rare three-person class? The rest of the newcomers (in alpha order): Chris Klein, Eddie Lewis, Lilly, Kristin Luckenbill, Kate Markgraf, Clint Mathis, McBride, Jaime Moreno, Steve Ralston and Briana Scurry.

If Briana Scurry could be voted the best U.S. women’s goalkeeper of all time (with some debate, sure), she’d have to be a Hall of Famer as well. Right?

Kate Markgraf didn’t make the all-time Best XI back line, but that’s only because she was behind current Hall of Famers Carla Overbeck and Joy Fawcett, along with future Hall of Famers Brandi Chastain (eligible in 2016) and Christie Rampone (eligible when she has been retired for three years, so … 2049?).

Then you have Jaime Moreno. Third in MLS history with 133 goals (one behind co-leaders Landon Donovan and Jeff Cunningham). Fifth in MLS history with 102 assists. The common thread in all four of D.C. United’s MLS Cup wins.

The NASL has plenty of foreign players in the U.S. Hall. MLS is long overdue to get one.

But I’ve been beating this drum for years for Moreno’s teammate, Marco Etcheverry. The Bolivian playmaker was the cornerstone of D.C. United’s dominance in the early year, and even after fading in his latter years, he finished his MLS days with 101 assists in 191 games.

That’s six players who should be in the Hall. No question. And I’ll add one more — women’s soccer super-scorer Shannon MacMillan.

(Yes, 99er-bashers, I will be voting for your favorites when the time comes. Hope Solo is absolutely a Hall of Famer. And Abby Wambach, obviously. I’ll vote for Heather O’Reilly and Carli Lloyd. As long as Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe stay anywhere close to their current form for a couple more years, I’ll vote for them as well. The defender with the most HOF potential to me is Becky Sauerbrunn, who has considerable pro accomplishments along with her WNT play.)

Last year, I had three more names on the ballot — Jason Kreis, Robin Fraser and Cindy Parlow. I’ll add them again. I don’t feel as strongly about them as I do about the other seven, but they certainly wouldn’t be out of place in the Hall. At the very least, they deserve to have their names carry over on the ballot for another year and remain in the discussion.

That’s my maximum — 10 players. And I’m still passing up all-time MLS assist leader Steve Ralston, 100-goal scorer Taylor Twellman, midfielder monster Chris Armas, reliable midfield leader Ben Olsen, and 2002 World Cup contributors Clint Mathis and Eddie Lewis. Based on the old criteria for the Hall of Fame (pre-2000), all of those players would be in. So would John O’Brien and Tony Sanneh. We’ve raised the bar, but we’ve overcorrected.

One of these years, we’re going to have to induct a huge class and clear the logjam. Will it be this year?

Probably not. I’m predicting a three-person class, with these percentages:

– Lilly 95
– McBride 92
– Scurry 72
– Markgraf 63
– Etcheverry 55
– Moreno 52
– MacMillan 47
– Parlow 35
– Ralston 35
– Armas 23
– Kreis 20
– Mathis 18
– Fraser 15
– Twellman 15
– Olsen 13
– Lewis 13

Or maybe this will be the year my fellow voters prove me wrong. I’m not expecting 10 people to make it. But can we aim for four or five?

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basketball, soccer

Single-Digit Soccer: The lessons of basketball

Posted on by Beau Dure

The general consensus says playing multiple sports is a good thing for kids. They get a broader range of physical activity, they avoid overuse injuries, and they may find some skills in a secondary sport that transfer to their primary.

Also … they’re kids. The overwhelming majority of them are just looking for fun things to do with their friends. And later in life, they may have more social options if they’re comfortable playing pickup basketball as readily as they play soccer.

So as I spend parts of my winter sitting on a gym floor watching 7- and 8-year-olds heave a ball up toward a basket on which I can actually dunk, I sometimes try to shut off the coach/philosopher part of my brain and just enjoy the spectacle.

But not always. And I’m finding a couple of interesting philosophical differences between the USSF youth soccer mandates (which not everyone follows) and the approach I see in basketball.

1. Tactics. The basic advice for youth coaches in the single-digit years is simple: Get out of the way. Let them play. Let the game be the teacher. At the earliest ages, kids can’t even understand positions. And for heaven’s sakes, don’t yell at them during the game, or we’ll call you a “joystick coach.”

No such concern in second-grade basketball. Our team spent the first practice session of the season learning how to set screens for the point guard. Every time we bring the ball down the court (excluding fast breaks), our coach yells out “2!” or “3!” — and now “4!” and “5!” These are plays designating which player is supposed to set a screen. A couple of other players are supposed to move accordingly.

I think if my soccer club’s technical director saw me doing that, I’d be in for the lecture of a lifetime. But is it more necessary in basketball than it is in soccer?

And why do we think kids are better able to grasp these concepts in basketball? Are basketball players smarter? Or is it just because basketball has a clearer distinction between who has the ball and who doesn’t?

2. Passing. Yeah, they don’t get that in basketball any more than they get it in soccer. U8 soccer players are probably better at passing than second-grade basketball players, at least in our town. Also, the refs tend not to call dribbling infractions, and holding onto the ball until shooting is just a higher-percentage play than trying to fling it to a kid who can’t really catch it.

3. Individual skills. In soccer, we’re supposed to make sure players are getting plenty of touches on the ball at every practice, especially at the earliest ages. It’s not so much that we aren’t teaching how to pass as much as we are supposed to let kids get comfortable with the unnatural state of having soccer balls at their feet.

Our basketball practices? Usually no more than two balls in use, often just one. Players take turns learning plays or a particular skill such as boxing out for a rebound.

Is this typical? I don’t know. When I went to USA Basketball’s site, I just saw a bunch of things about teaching a 2-3 zone and so forth. Basketball is, at its heart, much more of a chalkboard sport than soccer is. But I do see a bit of hand-wringing over how we’re teaching kids, particularly when it comes to “the fundamentals.”

My hunch is that kids who play basketball in the winter will return to the soccer fields in spring with better spatial awareness. Maybe they’ll see that what they do away from the ball can affect the game.

So soccer players can learn from basketball. Can soccer coaches learn anything as well?

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soccer

Quick retort to the English hand-wringing over Jermain Defoe

Posted on by Beau Dure

Just a few random facts:

– The USA advanced to the 2002 World Cup quarterfinals with a lot of MLS players. Landon Donovan and Brian McBride scored two goals each.

– The USA drew Italy 1-1 in the 2006 World Cup with a lot of MLS players. Only Ghana’s gamesmanship and some ill-timed injuries and loss of form (among the Euro contingent) kept that team from advancing further.

– The USA and England were in the same group in 2010. Remember who won that group? Fewer U.S. players that year were in MLS at the time, but many had spent several years in our little league.

– Other countries that have featured MLS players at the World Cup: Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica, Honduras, New Zealand.

– MLS players in Euro tournaments: Robbie Keane, Lothar Matthaeus, Roberto Donadoni, Miklos Molnar.

– David Beckham kept going on loan and proving he could still play through the first couple of years of his MLS career. He had already declined from his peak years, yet after several years in the USA, he was still a sought-after player at an advanced age.

– MLS is indeed a physical league. So is the Premier League. You know, we get to watch that on TV here. Rebecca Lowe is our host, and you can’t have her back.

– Some players thrive in different environments. New Zealanders Ryan Nelsen and Simon Elliott looked like better players in England than they were in MLS. Brek Shea is apparently the opposite.

– The 2002 World Cup was overrun by players from unfashionable leagues and clubs. Turkey and South Korea reached the semifinals. The chaotic Brazilian leagues supplied much of the Brazilian team that reached the final (beating England along the way).

– Uruguay (semifinals) and Paraguay (quarterfinals) fared quite well at the 2010 World Cup with only a handful of players at big clubs.

– Who do you think is going to get better service at his current club — Jermain Defoe or Jozy Altidore?

I love you, England, but when will your writers drop the provincialism?

Yes, we know Toronto isn’t the best club in MLS. At least Thierry Henry and Robbie Keane are surrounded by decent players on clubs that have some recent successes.

But here’s the funny thing: In a league built for parity (something Premier League folks can’t possibly understand), teams routinely move from the bottom to the top. Or vice versa. The margin for error is thin; the potential rewards for making just the right offseason moves are immense.

Taking Toronto to the top will be a challenge. But don’t you want your players to be challenged?

If nothing else — look, England plays Costa Rica in Group D this summer. MLS has Costa Rican players, and their best clubs face MLS teams in CONCACAF play all the time. You’re getting a free scouting report. Enjoy.

And if you’re that worried — OK, we’ll let you keep Clint Dempsey.

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soccer

NWSL expansion, MLS precedent and devious tactics

Posted on by Beau Dure

Want some irony?

The person at the epicenter of the biggest controversy in MLS expansion draft history is now the managing director of the Houston Dash, which will stock its roster in the first NWSL expansion draft Friday.

Brian Ching was (and still is) a Houston legend, a key figure in the Dynamo’s early MLS success. The Dynamo left him unprotected in the 2011 expansion draft, figuring no one would take him.

Naturally, the Montreal Impact took him. Brian Straus explained:

Houston officials had gambled that Ching’s age (33), salary ($412,500), recent injuries and public preference for retirement over Quebec would scare off Marsch. Instead, the coach called the Dynamo’s bluff and made an instant enemy in Texas. Now, the Dynamo will either have to trade for Ching or let the long-time face of the franchise go.

And it wasn’t the first time this had happened. Here’s Ives Galarcep:

In 2006, Real Salt Lake tried a similar move by leaving then-captain Jason Kreis exposed in Toronto FC’s expansion draft, never thinking that the Canadian club would be interested in a 33-year-old American striker on a relatively high salary. Toronto FC wasn’t interested in Kreis, but was fully aware that Real Salt Lake had made Kreis their poster boy heading into the 2007 season. TFC selected Kreis and ultimately forced RSL to pay a $125K allocation to give him back.

So Kreis made it back to RSL, where he went on to be their coach for several good years. And Ching made it back to Houston — for a surprisingly low price of one draft pick. Ching finished out his playing career in Houston, and now he’s the one who gets to turn the thumb screws in the expansion draft.

When you look at the protected/unprotected list that someone curiously leaked in the middle of the night, you’ll see some surprising names. Nicole Barnhart. Karina LeBlanc. Becky Edwards. Tiffany Weimer. Ashlyn Harris. Lori Lindsey. Sarah Huffman.

A couple of those players are goalkeepers, and they’re less likely to be taken now that we know Houston has Erin McLeod.

Some other players are simply value decisions — maybe Player X has more long-term potential than Player Y. Or maybe losing Player Y would give the team more flexibility under the salary cap.

Some of these players are gambles, like Ching and Kreis. The teams figure Houston will shy away, not wanting to use a lot of salary-cap space or not wanting to bring an angry player to camp.

But look at this from Houston’s perspective. Suppose you really want, say, a player on Western New York’s protected list like Samantha Kerr or Kat Reynolds. Maybe you pick Sarah Huffman and say, “OK, Flash — we’ll give you Huffman for Kerr.” Maybe toss in a draft pick to make sure it happens.

For that and for several other reasons, don’t expect the dealing to stop on draft day. In 2010, the Portland Timbers (sibling team of the NWSL’s Thorns) drafted 10 players in the expansion draft. A couple of their picks weren’t playing in the league; the Timbers merely stashed their rights. Others were immediately traded elsewhere.

So you’ll all forgive me if I don’t do a mock expansion draft. Too many moving parts. And unlike MLS players, NWSL players don’t even have their salaries released to the public.

A couple of side notes:

– Did some teams know about the McLeod deal while other teams did not? That would explain why Barnhart, Harris, LeBlanc and company are floating around. Why not just announce it ahead of time so the teams have all the same information before submitting their lists a few days ago?

– Can we drop the myth that the Spirit is trying to stock its roster cheaply? They overspent on some players last year, and they saved up money early to acquire Toni Pressley and Conny Pohlers. You can say they managed their cap space badly, but they weren’t fielding an Atlanta Beat team against the rest of the league’s magicJack.

– Another precedent for the NWSL: A lot of indoor soccer players in the 2000s were picked in expansion drafts but immediately traded back to their original teams for draft picks and whatnot. One factor: Some players had second jobs. And a low-budget league doesn’t want to pay to relocate families.

– So does Houston take Tasha Kai and deal her to Portland in hopes that she’ll want to reunite with Paul Riley? Boom bam, everybody.

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soccer

What you’ll learn from ‘Enduring Spirit’ — now in print

Posted on by Beau Dure

I had intended to make Enduring Spirit: Restoring Professional Women’s Soccer to Washington available in print in time for Christmas.  You’ll have to hurry and possibly pay a bit extra if you want it under your tree, but in any case, it is finally available on Amazon. (Yes, I had to design a new cover, which irritated me to no end.)

spirit-printWhat will you learn from reading the book that you probably didn’t see elsewhere? Here you go …

– How Spirit owner Bill Lynch summed up the team’s relationship with MLS club D.C. United.

– U.S. coach Tom Sermanni’s thoughts on the NWSL on Draft Day.

– Then-coach Mike Jorden’s initial reaction to the team’s draft picks.

– How the Spirit’s approach to free agency differed from that of other teams.

– Who made an impression at the Spirit’s open tryouts March 3.

– Assistant coach Kris Ward’s account of Lori Lindsey and Julia Roberts practicing with his D.C. United Academy team.

– The dynamic of Spirit practices, with Ward usually leading most of the drills and Jorden choosing his spots to speak.

– Why D.C. United Women assistant coach Cindi Harkes couldn’t commit to the Spirit.

– Which player wanted to check her official team photo to make sure she looked cute. (Easy one to guess.)

– Which player dominated the first official Spirit practice.

– How the Spirit adjusted when windy weather forced them inside in preseason.

– Why Real World star Heather Cooke found the camp atmosphere more intimidating than reality TV.

– Cooke’s car-intensive youth career and how she wound up playing for the Philippines.

– Which discovery player struggled in the second week of practice.

– Which player was so competitive that she refused to switch to an easier matchup in a running drill.

– Several players (Ingrid Wells, Kika Toulouse, Chantel Jones among them) comparing their experiences overseas to the Spirit environment.

– Lori Lindsey’s preseason thoughts on the team’s playing style.

– Which player worked in a sports bar.

– Which player worked as a dog sitter.

– Why Ashlyn Harris didn’t really need another training camp.

– Anson Dorrance’s defense of insisting on playing with college substitution rules.

– Why the Spirit didn’t object to college substitution rules in other preseason games.

– UNC’s Kealia Ohai on the differences between between the college game and the Tar Heels’ preseason loss to the Spirit.

– How Jasmyne Spencer was greeted in a preseason game at her alma mater.

– How Tori Huster adjusted to playing center back.

– Which player was most prone to cursing at herself in practice.

– How the Spirit prepared for the opener against Boston, including a couple of animated discussions about defensive tactics and a less-than-imposing wall on free kicks.

– Which vertically challenged Spirit player scored on a header over tall goalkeeping coach Lloyd Yaxley.

– Lori Lindsey’s toast after the opening draw with Boston.

– All about one of the most amusing supporting characters of the season — the bus driver on the first Boston trip.

– Which player plowed through New York Times crossword puzzles on the bus.

– Which player wasn’t a fan of the German people’s serious attitudes.

– How news of the Boston Marathon bombing affected the team as it traveled back from Boston.

– Which player looked like a Navy SEAL in an early-season fitness drill.

– Which player tried, in Lloyd Yaxley’s words, “Hollywood passes.”

– Julia Roberts on the difference between a big W-League team in 2012 and an NWSL team in 2013.

– Kika Toulouse’s approach toward making the team’s pregame music mix.

– Which player forgot to remove her warmup gear before going to check in to an early-season game.

– Which U.S. women’s team staff member visited an April practice.

– Which player was upset over a prank involving an autographed picture.

– Which player’s college choice was affected by the Eurosport catalog.

– Which player’s early playing experience was nothing other than “being thrown in the net by my brothers.”

– Robyn Gayle’s thoughts on staying in women’s soccer even years without a pro league.

That’s a partial list through April. I’ll add more later, but at least this gives you an idea.

It’s not an insider account of every team meeting. I was only invited to one, and it involved a fun game of charades.

It’s not an opinion piece. There’s a good bit of detail on the events leading up to Mike Jorden’s departure and a few other moves, and there’s a bit of analysis where needed. The game reports are pretty subjective. It’s not a point-by-point take on what the Spirit did right and wrong.

It’s a diary of the team and a collection of interviews with every player and nearly everyone involved. It captures their personalities, their struggles and those moments when things went well.

Enjoy. Print, Kindle, Nook — whatever you prefer.

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soccer

Fun and frustration of voting on soccer awards

Posted on by Beau Dure

Even without Hope Solo’s Twitter jab at Julie Foudy, the voting for the U.S. women’s national team’s all-time Best XI was sure to be controversial, full of difficult cross-generational comparisons.

Michelle Akers was a certainty (the one voter who omitted her from his/her ballot should really speak up and explain why). But what about the other two-thirds of the Triple-Edged Sword from 1991 — Carin Jennings Gabarra and April Heinrichs? Do you take Alex Morgan ahead of them even though Morgan is still in the early stages of a surely great career?

How about Megan Rapinoe? The midfield competition is even tougher. If you go with a 4-3-3 to add a third forward alongside obvious choices Mia Hamm and Abby Wambach, you have only three midfielders, leaving Rapinoe to displace Akers, Kristine Lilly or Julie Foudy. And that omits Shannon Boxx and two-time Olympic hero Carli Lloyd.

And then you get to the choice that started all the debates, Solo or Briana Scurry. (Note the single ‘n’ in Briana. Now that she’s on the centennial celebration all-time Best XI, do you think we could spell her name correctly?)

My ballot had 10 of the 11 honorees: Joy Fawcett, Carla Overbeck, Christie Rampone, Akers, Lilly, Foudy, Hamm, Wambach, Morgan and Brandi Chastain. But it wasn’t an easy pick. I didn’t turn in my ballot right away — I slept on it and went back and forth on the Morgan/Gabarra choice. My last decision was to put in Chastain and go with a 4-3-3 formation rather than a 3-4-3, in which I would’ve picked either Boxx or Lloyd. (I hadn’t decided.)

Yes, I was debating whether to include the person who gave U.S. soccer its most indelible image AND played forward in a winning World Cup campaign AND was a defensive anchor for two Olympic champions as well as the ’99 Cup winners. That’s how difficult these choices got.

The voters clearly had the same questions I had. Among field players, the obvious picks of Fawcett, Overbeck, Rampone, Akers, Lilly, Hamm and Wambach got at least 46 of a possible 56 votes. Foudy, the captain of multiple Olympic and Cup triumphs, got 40, even though she pointedly omitted herself from her picks on ESPN. (In this politicized environment, I’d guess a couple of other people left her off their ballots for non-soccer reasons, as surely as some people used off-field issues as a tiebreaker between Solo and Scurry.)

Chastain and Scurry also got more than half the votes — 31 each. Then it got tough. Solo (24) actually got more votes than Morgan (15), but having two goalkeepers wasn’t an option.

The race for the 11th spot was a barnburner. Morgan won with 15. Gabarra had 13. So did midfielders Boxx and Lloyd, nearly pushing the final formation to 4-4-2. Heinrichs had 12. Tiffeny Milbrett, who lost some time in her career when she fell out with then-coach Heinrichs, had 10. Kate Markgraf, whose 200-plus caps and defensive steadfastness would make her an automatic pick in any other national team, got 9.

If you were picking a Best XX from this group, then Rapinoe (6) barely pushed ahead of Heather O’Reilly (5) and the lovely protest vote for Lori Chalupny (5). That’s a strong Best XXII.

So I feel relatively happy with this vote. I’ve seen one vociferous protest over Gabarra’s omission, and that’s a worthwhile lament. Scurry-Solo could be debated forever, though it’s probably not a good idea.

The men’s Best XI? I don’t envy those voters one bit. They’re judging players who pulled off astounding World Cup feats (and then had few other opportunities to play in noteworthy games) before most of the voters were born. How do you compare Bert Patenaude’s hat trick, the first in World Cup history, with Brian McBride’s decade of excellence? Some players in the Hall of Fame aren’t on the ballot.

Which brings me to the good I hope will come out of this Best XI discussion — better-informed Hall of Fame voting.

I’ve ranted many times about the high bar some Hall of Fame voters are setting. Those of us who go public with our ballots typically vote for five, six, even 10 people. Those who keep their ballots private are clearly less effusive.

Kenn Tomasch has a good archive of our voting shame. Earnie Stewart, the man who steadied the USA through countless World Cup qualification campaigns, needed several years to get in. No one made it in 2008, prompting the Hall to lower its acceptance threshold to 66.7%. And that’s how Joy Fawcett finally made it.

Fawcett was a unanimous choice for the Best XI. So are we finally getting smarter? Maybe not — the pool of voters for the women’s Best XI was carefully picked, with most of them having solid credentials in the women’s game. The Hall of Fame voters aren’t gender-specific — though we should note that Mia Hamm and Michelle Akers were still nearly unanimous first-ballot selections.

Now we’re having discussions. How do these players stack up? Which players did the Best XI voters consider that the Hall of Fame voters might not?

Maybe, just maybe, we’ve pushed voters to think a little more. We’ll see.

In the meantime, tread lightly on Twitter.

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