Category: soccer

soccer

U.S. Open Cup second round, collated scoreboard

Posted on by Beau Dure

Headlines (see glossary below):

– The NPSL is out. Georgia Revolution fell 3-2 in the “Battle of Atlanta” against the NASL Silverbacks.

– The USASA is out, though Dearborn took Dayton (USL Pro) to extra time before falling 4-1.

– PDL upsets so far: Reading over Harrisburg (USL Pro), Ocean City over Pittsburgh (USL Pro), Des Moines over Minnesota (NASL), Tucson over San Antonio (NASL)

– Tampa Bay Rowdies (NASL) won the first head-to-head matchup between pro teams, winning the Tampa Bay derby 2-1 and forcing perennial Open Cup power Seattle Sounders to fly cross-country to face them next week. Other MLS teams with long trips: Los Angeles, San Jose, Colorado, Dallas. The NASL’s Atlanta and USL Pro’s Wilmington have long trips the other direction.

– Local derbies in the third round: Richmond-D.C., Columbus-Dayton, Philadelphia-Ocean City, L.A. Blues-Chivas USA

Final scores (home teams listed first):

USL PRO vs. AMATEUR (8 PDL, 2 USASA)

Richmond (USLP) 4-1 Icon FC (USASA), final
Richmond – D.C. United (again)

Dayton (USLP) 4-1 Dearborn (USASA), final (extra time)
Columbus – Dayton

Reading (PDL) 1-0 Harrisburg City (USLP), final (apologies for having it wrong earlier)
New York (Red Bulls, not FC) – Reading

Ocala (PDL) 1-2 Orlando City (USLP), final
Orlando – Colorado

Charlotte (USLP) 3-0 Seattle Sounders U23 (PDL), final
Charlotte – Chicago

Ocean City (PDL) 1-0 Pittsburgh (USLP), final
Philadelphia – Ocean City

Rochester (USLP) 1-0 GPS Portland Phoenix (PDL), final
Rochester – New England

Austin (PDL) 0-2 Wilmington (USLP), final
Portland – Wilmington

Los Angeles Blues (USLP) 5-1 Ventura County (PDL), final
Los Angeles Blues – Chivas USA

Portland Timbers U23 (PDL) 0-1 Charleston (USLP), final
Charleston – San Jose

NASL vs. AMATEUR (4 PDL, 1 NPSL)

Georgia Revolution (NPSL) 2-3 Atlanta (NASL), final
Salt Lake – Atlanta

Carolina Railhawks (NASL) 3-1 Carolina Dynamo (PDL), final
Carolina Railhawks – Los Angeles

Fort Lauderdale (NASL) 1-1 Laredo (PDL), Fort Lauderdale wins 7-6 on PKs
Fort Lauderdale – Dallas

Minnesota (NASL) 0-1 Des Moines (PDL), final
Kansas City – Des Moines

San Antonio (NASL) 2-2 Tucson (PDL), Tucson wins 4-3 on PKs
Houston – Tucson

USL PRO vs. NASL

VSI Tampa Bay FC (USLP) 1-2 Tampa Bay (NASL), final
Tampa Bay Rowdies – Seattle

Glossary:

The divisional structure in the USA/Canada is:

Division 2: NASL, North American Soccer League. (Not the one that featured Pele and so forth in the 70s.)

Division 3: USL Pro, the top flight of the United Soccer Leagues

PDL: Premier Development League, the USL’s summer amateur league. Mostly college players.

NPSL: National Premier Soccer League, an independent amateur league, also operating mostly in summer.

USASA: U.S. Adult Soccer Association, a national body administering most local and regional leagues.

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soccer

Washington Spirit vs. Portland: The forward dilemma

Posted on by Beau Dure

I won’t belabor the Thorns’ 2-0 win over Washington, having spent most of the game discussing it on Twitter with everyone who’s likely to read this post. But I should address the big question on everyone’s minds: Wouldn’t the Spirit be much better if they had some cloned hybrid of Alex Morgan, Christine Sinclair, Abby Wambach, Mia Hamm and early-90s Michelle Akers at forward?

Well, yeah. But let’s talk realistically here.

The Spirit had a pretty good road trip. That first win at Seattle was a good confidence boost for a young team. They showed that confidence today, going toe-to-toe with the best team in the NWSL. And they defended well, moved the ball well …

… and had a really hard time generating chances.

And so Twitter was once again agog at the obvious disparity in forward allocations between Washington and Portland. The Thorns got one goal each from the dynamic duo of Christine Sinclair and Alex Morgan. Sinclair’s goal, a beautiful curling shot that left Chantel Jones no chance, left the Spirit chasing the game. While the Spirit pushed everyone forward, bringing in the usual late-game subs of Caroline Miller and Jasmyne Spencer, Morgan scored on the counter.

But here’s what people forget — the Thorns are good all the way up and down the roster. If you suddenly transposed Miller and Sinclair with the Spirit’s front-runners, would Washington win this game? Probably not.

Maybe Tiffany McCarty wasn’t as sharp as she was on Thursday, and maybe it wasn’t Stephanie Ochs’ best game. But the Thorns really don’t give up a lot of chances. They’ve only conceded four goals in seven games.

By the time Miller and Spencer came on, Portland was clinging to its lead. Miller had an instant impact as always, and Ochs forced Karina LeBlanc to make a tough save late, but the Thorns weren’t going to break easily.

So for the Spirit, this was another moral victory of sorts — more proof that they’re not the pushovers people thought they would be. At least after the road trip, they have an actual victory in addition to the moral victories.

What next? Should the Spirit do something to shore up the attack?

A couple of issues with that:

1. In many games so far, the Spirit hasn’t had enough possession to worry about the forwards. Against Portland, they had the ball for a while but didn’t find a way through. The problem wasn’t that the final touch or the final pass was lacking — it was the pass before that.

2. Who’s available? The Spirit has a free-agent spot remaining but has pretty much promised it to a defender we’re currently calling Unnamed Euro. Unless that deal unravels, the Spirit would likely have to make a trade to get a quality forward.

3. Do you disrupt the chemistry on a developing young team by trading? Or do you keep working to develop Miller, McCarty and Ochs, who’ve done the job at every other level and have shown glimpses of their potential here? (Related question: Even if Tasha Kai suddenly picks up the phone and says she wants to come to Washington, do you bring her in?)

My guess is that the Spirit would be better off waiting it out until the forwards pick up that extra bit of mental speed they’ll need to compete.

One idea that probably won’t fly: As much as another NWSL team might want goalkeeper Chantel Jones after her strong performance today, the Spirit would surely demand a lot in return, especially with Ashlyn Harris banged up and due for a national team call-up later in the season. A solid backup goalkeeper is not a disposable asset in this league.

Soccer is a sport that tests everyone’s patience, but I think that’s what Spirit fans will need. Eventually, we should see Miller or Ochs find the net. And as I’ve said a few times, you still haven’t seen Colleen Williams, who was injured in preseason.

Until then — fun team to watch, isn’t it? Glad to be writing a book about them.

8
soccer

W-League, WPSL still going – with a few changes

Posted on by Beau Dure

The old leagues are not dead. Long live the new league — and the old ones.

The USL’s W-League has survived to its 19th season. Heading to last season, the league lost no teams and added three. Of those three teams, two have rebranded (Central SC Cobras –> Carolina Elite Cobras; VSI Tampa Flames –> VSI Tampa Bay FC).

This season, several teams have gone:

– FC JAX Destroyers, the third new team from last season, fared poorly in their debut and shut down along with their men’s team of two seasons. Little official word except for a comment on Facebook (see response to Ian Garrett):

– The New Jersey Rangers club was folded into Luso Soccer Academy, sans the overmatched W-League team, which won four games in its 2010 debut and only once since then.

– The Northern Virginia Majestics have wrapped up a 14-year run (at least for now) by throwing their efforts into the Washington Spirit’s operations. The club will still have youth operations reaching up through the Super-Y League.

– The Rochester Ravens, another long-standing team, also decided not to compete with the Western New York Flash now firmly established in the market.

– The most surprising news came from Canada, where the Vancouver Whitecaps had demonstrated that they weren’t interested in going to a top-flight league despite a long line of Canadian national team players on the all-time roster. But did anyone expect that they would drop from the W-League to the PCSL?

– The Victoria Highlanders, a longtime PCSL team that spent a couple of years in the W-League, also dropped back to the PCSL and will play under the unwieldy name Peninsula Co-Op Highlanders.

Then there’s one change: D.C. United Women are now the Washington Spirit. With the top squad in the NWSL, the W-League team will be the reserves.

The Spirit reserves are amateur, but the W-League has at least one pro team this season: The Bay Area Breeze have moved over from the WPSL.

Three teams renamed – Hamilton (now K-W United FC) and the aforementioned Carolina and Tampa Bay changes. Also, New York Magic added “-FA Euro” to the name

So the league has gone through yet another pro league’s launch with a few changes but not a complete overhaul. As the song says, steady as she goes.

The WPSL is larger and looser by design. Last year, the league put together an Elite league, providing a helpful bridge from WPS to the NWSL. WPS clubs Western New York, Boston and Chicago were able to stay on the field while giving a lot of players a chance to stay in the game, and the Long Island Fury’s New York offshoot put together another strong pro team under Paul Riley’s guidance.

Now Western New York, Boston and Chicago are back in the fully pro ranks with the NWSL. The New York Fury are gone, though the Long Island Fury remain in the WPSL. The New England Mutiny return home to regular WPSL play. So will the Philadelphia Fever and ASA Chesapeake Charge, two teams that played in the Elite last season. We’ll come back to the eighth team, FC Indiana.

Change is constant in the WPSL. Check David Litterer’s archive, and you’ll see 15-20 teams moving in and out of the league each of the past few years.

(For the current version of the NWSL, W-League and WPSL, check out this map from Laura Taylor:

[cetsEmbedGmap src=https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=206089036518127071689.0004c5e64b34c2bac8df5&msa=0&ll=39.842286,-94.482422&spn=36.415967,86.572266 width=500 height=375 marginwidth=0 marginheight=0 frameborder=0 scrolling=no]

And the situation tends to be fluid. The Houston Aces site still makes several references to playing in the Elite League this season, though there’s no sign that the Elites are back in 2013.

The Houston site lists three of its games with a WPSL Elite logo — two vs. FC Indiana, one vs. San Diego. But the San Diego site lists the Houston game as “Inter League Exhibition.”

Then consider FC Indiana, which fielded a lot of Haitian national team players and picked up five points in 14 WPSL Elite games last year? We know they’ll field a team in WLS (Women’s League Soccer), which is moving indoors.

As for the summer — they’re playing the WPSL’s Houston Aces twice in May. The Houston Aces site lists the opponent as “FC Indiana (Haiti WNT).”

On FC Indiana’s Facebook page, they say they’re chasing another league title, and they say they’re playing WPSL. But their games aren’t listed on the WPSL site, and they’re not mentioned in the standings.

And remember the L.A. Vikings, which put together big exhibitions with impressive rosters? Web pages are gone, Twitter hasn’t updated since November, Facebook has gone even longer.

The WPSL site does have a few words on their new teams and the Eastern Conference.

The Pacific South and South Atlantic look strong. The Pac South has three perennial powers, one of whom (San Diego) just added a top-level WPS player (Nikki Krzysik). The South Atlantic has two former WPSL Elite teams (ASA Chesapeake Charge, Philadelphia Fever) and the ambitious ACF Torino USA (formerly Maryland Capitols FC).

As best as I can tell, here’s the list of who’s in and who’s out:

IN
ASA Chesapeake Charge (from WPSL Elite)
Philadelphia Fever (from WPSL Elite)
New England Mutiny (from WPSL Elite)
Boston Breakers College Academy
Des Moines Menace (from WLS)
AC Seattle (mostly Italian)
Tualatin Hills United Soccer Club Diamonds
Westside Timbers
A second California Storm team (now Storm Elk Grove and Storm Sacramento)
Los Angeles Premier FC
Tucson Soccer Academy
Fire and Ice Soccer Club
Kansas City Shock
Empire Revs WNY
FC Westchester
Tri-City Celtic
Yankee Lady FC
FC Lehigh Valley United Lady Sonic
New Jersey Blaze (returning from hiatus)
Lions Swarm (Southern Maryland)
FC Surge (South Florida)
Alabama FC (Birmingham)

OUT
Bay Area Breeze (now pro team in W-League)
Los Angeles Vikings (see above)
Portland Rain (Portland Timbers now backing NWSL’s Portland Thorns)
FC Dallas (MLS team out)
New England Mutiny Reserves (parent team is in)
Phoenix U23 (parent team remains)
Mississippi Fuego FC U23 (parent team remains)
Tampa Bay Hellenic
American Eagles
FC Austin
Arkansas Comets
West Texas Pride FC
FC Milwaukee Nationals
Ohio Premier Women’s SC
FCW Elite
Milburn Magic
Clermont Phoenix

OUT?
FC Indiana

NAME CHANGES/REPLACEMENTS
Salt Lake United –> Real Salt Lake Women (MLS affiliate)
FC St. George –> St. George United
Aztec MA –> Boston Aztec
Maryland Capitols FC –> ACF Torino USA
Penn Legacy Inferno –> Lancaster Inferno

DIVISION CHANGE
Long Island Fury (New England –> Tri-State)
New York Athletic Club (Mid Atlantic –> Tri-State)
FC Bucks (South Atlantic –> Tri-State)
Buxmont Torch (South Atlantic –> Tri-State)

All told: Last season, the WPSL had 73 teams, including eight in the Elite League. This year, it’s 70.

Corrections, updates, explanations welcome.

2
soccer

Washington Spirit at Seattle: Battle of the unluckys

Posted on by Beau Dure

I’ll have to confess that I didn’t stay up to watch the Spirit’s late-night game at Seattle last night. I won’t belabor my scheduling problems, but it simply made more sense for me to get up and watch it on demand this morning, thanks to the NWSL’s nice YouTube archive:

And this might be the way I approach games I don’t see myself. I’m not there to gather quotes, and I haven’t seen much reaction to the game except this from Seattle coach Laura Harvey (via SoccerWire’s Liviu Bird):

“We concede stupid goals. We just let teams back into games, and we keep doing it.”

And that sums it up. The Spirit won 4-2, and it wasn’t even Washington’s best performance of the season.

Seattle struck early in each half, and each time, a Washington defender was nowhere in sight. The Reign’s Lindsay Taylor neatly chest-trapped the ball in front of Ingrid Wells and hammered the ball past a stunned Ashlyn Harris in the seventh minute to give Seattle a 1-0 lead. In the second half, with Washington leading 2-1, Seattle’s Christine Nairn played a ball into the air for Teresa Noyola, who was marked only by the 5-foot-0-and-change Diana Matheson.

Credit Taylor and Noyola for terrific finishes, but the Spirit may need to figure out what happened defensively on those plays and a couple more, including one in which Noyola and another Reign player had half the box to themselves. Seattle had too easy of a time getting the ball into empty space.

Seattle, though, has more difficult defensive questions to answer. Losing Katie Deines early in the game didn’t help, but the goal that put Washington in the lead was embarrassing — Michelle Betos made the first save off Lori Lindsey’s free kick, only to see Ali Krieger pop up in front of her for the rebound. Betos made another save, but Krieger still had time to leap and nod the ball into the net. The Reign players in the box simply failed to react.

The best part for the Spirit: The chances were converted. Robyn Gayle found Matheson deep in the Reign’s half of the field, and the Canadian dynamo lashed it past Betos at a tough angle. Tiffany McCarty, who made a good case for remaining in the starting lineup, beat three defenders with one touch and clinically finished. And Tori Huster showed why she’s been getting such (Ow! Ooof!) attention on set pieces, finishing with a glancing header when the Reign defense lost her on a free kick.

The bottom line: Washington is a young team, as we’ve said over and over again. Getting that first win is just the boost of confidence they needed. This was a battle between two teams that have been dealt a good bit of misfortune — take all the players each team had from allocations and the drafts, and you’d make two drastically different starting lineups. (A Garciamendez-Noyola matchup would have been fun!)

Now on to Portland, where it’s virtually impossible to imagine a visiting team wi … wait … what?

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soccer

NWSL attendance: Perception, reality and more perception

Posted on by Beau Dure

We’re roughly 20% of the way through the debut NWSL season. Ready to take stock of attendance?

Jeff Kassouf did, pointing to low numbers in New Jersey and Chicago as possible reasons for concern. That’s a good conversation-starter.

I checked in with Sky Blue’s Thomas Hofstetter and Chicago’s Arnim Whisler, who raised a few points:

1. Teams had no time to sell. Whisler: “Most of the table is set for attendance the last month of the PRIOR season. Season ticket sales are strongest during the prior season, we usually have all winter to resell our groups and season ticket holders and this year we started — beyond the hard core standing in line to place an order fans — in February!”

The Red Stars existed in 2012 but could not say what form they would take in 2013 until the NWSL was official.

Most new teams and leagues I’ve seen have been announced a year or so in advance. MLS expansion teams all had plenty of time to ramp up. MLS itself, along with the WUSA and WPS, was years in the making. The NWSL went from announcement to debut in a few months.

Whisler accepts the pressure to improve. “Next year started yesterday — we have many plans league wide to get to the next level in awareness, sponsorship and marketing.”

2. Seasons in the sun. Whisler says Chicago sports tend to build steadily. Spring weather is a factor, as are conflicts with school-year soccer activities and the busy NBA/NHL/MLB overlap. Some MLS teams do indeed struggle with spring, only to rebound later.

3. Locations. Would Sky Blue draw more fans at, say, Red Bull Arena? Probably. But consider this from Hofstetter: “Sky Blue for example cut its stadium cost by 60% over the past three years, which had a bigger impact on our financials then 500 more in the stadium per game.”

And if anyone wants to build an 8,000-seat grass stadium near mass transit in the Chicago area, please call Whisler. That’s not Toyota Park, which is too big for the Red Stars and not exactly downtown. The Red Stars’ current home of Benedictine University is far cheaper for the team and fans, and Whisler says the walkup sales are better in Benedictine than they were at TP.

4. Bottom line. Hofstetter and Whisler say they’re ahead of projections. Some detail from Hofstetter: “For the first time since the beginning of WPS, we are ahead of projections. After 4 games (including season ticket sales and tickets sold for games throughout the season) we generated already more than 50% of our expected ticket sales.”

And the NWSL is built to absorb lower crowds. Hofstetter: “The NWSL is the first league that is set up correctly (including WUSA) and from a SKy Blue FC perspective we are right where we wanted to be in 2013.”

Last word from that perspective, from Hofstetter: “People have to understand that it doesn’t matter what the (attendance) number is. It matters if the revenue generated with tickets are on target and from what I am hearing across the board they are either on target or above expectations for all of the teams at the moment.”

5. The word from the league. I got this statement from NWSL executive director Cheryl Bailey:

“Our goal is to grow the league in many ways as we move forward and attendance will be one area of significance to us. The league is paying close attention to the attendance numbers, but we don’t want to overreact after a small sample of games in the early part of the season. In these early stages we are being patient, along with the clubs.

“As we move along, we’ll continue to have conversations about ways to grow attendance. And at the end of the season we’ll be able to do a much more in-depth evaluation of multiple aspects of the league, including the turnout at stadiums.”

So should we not worry about the crowds?

In the short term, in terms of teams folding, my guess is no. The Red Stars, Sky Blue and Western New York — where WPS attendance was dismal until the World Cup and the Wambach homecoming — have persevered since the WPS days. Sky Blue didn’t draw many fans in WPS, either.

I don’t know enough about anyone’s accounting to know how small is too small when it comes to attendance or how many losses people are willing to incur. Last season, the W-League’s Pali Blues may not have been paying salaries but still managed to bring aboard Sarah Huffman, Whitney Engen, Nikki Washington, Mariah Nogueira, Liz Bogus and company. Attendance for Pali Blues games: 467, 357, 300, 287, 256, 247, 123, 114. They’re still in business. MagicJack was playing for crowds of hundreds with the most expensive women’s soccer team this side of Lyon.

We could just call this season, particularly the early days, as a time to consolidate and build foundations. Teams aren’t spending tons of money just to keep the doors open. And as MLS pioneer Lamar Hunt once said, to build a business, you have to stay in business.

And even in the long term, it’s clear that NWSL teams don’t need giant crowds to survive. Washington’s Bill Lynch said his  club, which includes a reserve team in the W-League and youth operations, would break even at 3,000. Boston’s Dilboy Stadium won’t hold much more than that after renovations.

But … what about perception?

Getting mainstream press coverage these days is difficult. Newspapers are getting smaller. SportsCenter and other highlight shows only have so much time, and they’re trying to focus on bigger sports as cable competition ramps up. More leagues are competing for attention. Major League Lacrosse has teams that average more than 9,000 fans, and when was the last time you saw that get a big segment on SportsCenter?

Then there’s sponsorship. Does a crowd of 1,200 scare away folks with money?

They’re legitimate questions. And by the end of the season, they’ll be big questions. We’re likely to see some regression to the mean — Washington will have weeknight games, which will be challenging for people in Northern Virginia and D.C. trying to battle rush-hour traffic on congested I-270. Chicago and Sky Blue will have more opportune dates.

And when all that has passed, we’ll ask these questions again.

Note: The first version of this post referred to Arnim Whisler and Arnim Wheeler. No idea how I came up with the name Wheeler. I blame Chelsea.

15
olympic sports, soccer

Monday Myriad, May 13: Triathletes, pentathletes and mascots

Posted on by Beau Dure

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soccer

Washington Spirit vs. Boston: Ties, ties, ties!

Posted on by Beau Dure

Here’s a quick look at the top-to-bottom competitiveness of the NWSL:

– The Boston Breakers are unbeaten.

– The Washington Spirit is winless.

– The Breakers and Spirit have played twice.

– Both games have been ties.

The games have followed different paths. On the narrow carpet of the Breakers’ home ground, in both teams’ debut, the Breakers controlled midfield but didn’t have many attack options beyond hoofing the ball toward Sydney Leroux. That’s not a knock on the Breakers — if you’ve had little time together, that’s not a bad option. The Spirit got an early goal against the run of play and held on until stoppage time, when Leroux finally got the equalizer.

This time, the Breakers had a strong start, forcing Spirit keeper Ashlyn Harris into action twice in the early going. But the Spirit midfield showed how much it’s grown since Game 1, gradually asserting control of the game.

Naturally, they conceded a goal. And it came about through two former D.C. United Women’s players, Joanna Lohman and Lianne Sanderson, who spent some time socializing with their former teammates on the Washington Spirit Reserves when their bus arrived at the SoccerPlex. Sanderson drew two defenders and found Lohman open. Solid finish, 1-0.

So the Spirit had nothing to show for one of its strongest halves of the season. And it got worse.

Candace Chapman, playing her first game of the season, wasn’t fully fit to go 90 minutes. Subbing her out of the game after 45 minutes wasn’t a big surprise. But then Ali Krieger, one of the Spirit’s MVPs of the season so far, was going out. The Spirit resumed action with Kika Toulouse and Domenica Hodak replacing the international veterans.

“Precautionary,” Spirit coach Mike Jorden said of Krieger’s replacement. “She was feeling pain a little bit, and it’s so early in the season, we didn’t want to risk anything.”

Then the Spirit played, by far, its best half of the season. Starting with this:

Getting on the scoresheet this season was a matter of time for Lori Lindsey, but I’m not sure anyone expected something quite as emphatic.

The Spirit outshot the Breakers 5-1 in the second half, with four shots on goal to Boston’s 0. The Spirit had six corner kicks to Boston’s 0.

But the Spirit couldn’t really make much of those corner kicks. They’re not the tallest team, though Stephanie Ochs and Tori Huster are viable options. And the ref was letting them play, even when Huster was run over by a few Breakers in the box.

Boston still made a late surge, with Leroux left to rue …

Let me start that again: Boston still made a late surge, with Leroux regretting a miss from close range. When Heather O’Reilly is on the field, the counterattack is always a viable option.

Washington had one more good chance, with Caroline Miller making her now-customary sub appearance and late shot on goal to produce the opposing keeper’s best save of the night. One of these days, that shot is going in, and the Spirit will have its first win.

But the Spirit players and coaches were in a good mood despite finishing its four-game homestand without a win. They knew they were showing signs of improvement. Ashlyn Harris was in a playful mood postgame, praising the fill-in defenders and getting a good laugh when the Spirit’s backdrop for the postgame interviews fell on Ingrid Wells.

And Jorden was a good mood for someone whose midweek back surgery forced him to miss a few practices and will keep him out of this week’s trip to Seattle and Portland. Kris Ward will lead the team to the Northwest.

0
soccer

Should young players stick with one club?

Posted on by Beau Dure

Elite youth soccer in the USA used to send its kids through this rotation of clubs: Youth club, ODP, high school, youth club, ODP, high school, big-time summer league (Super-Y, etc.), college, USL, college, USL … then maybe pro.

Now it’s supposed to look like this: Development Academy, Development Academy, Development Academy, Development Academy, pro.

The reason we’re supposed to be shifting to this new system is, of course, because That’s The Way They Do It In Europe. Just ask Jurgen Klinsmann.

Now consider this point about Klinsmann’s playing career and how it affected him as a coach:

Klinsmann, 48, agrees to revisit the experiences he amassed playing for eight clubs over the course of 17 seasons, exploring each coach’s philosophy and mining the elements he synthesized into his own.

So Klinsmann has grown in soccer by playing for different clubs. But our elite kids are supposed to sign up with FC Bigname Youth Club Vipers at age 12 and play for no other coaches in no other situations until college or the pros?

The old system is certainly chaotic. The summer leagues — PDL, W-League, NPSL, WPSL — are strange entities that grab players for a handful of games. ODP can require a ton of time and money on top of the time and money already spent on travel.

But when I speak with players and parents, I sometimes hear that they’ve learned more from their ODP coaches than from their club coaches. Or vice versa. Or that one coach pigeonholes a player as a left back, while another rotates him or her through different positions.

The “solution” to this situation is supposed to be greater uniformity in coaching. You get one coach. If that coach leaves, the new coach will have the same principles in mind.

Why not expose players to different coaches? Different ideas? Different positions? Don’t we want players who can adapt?

And going through different teams exposes players to different environments. High school soccer games may not be the lore of Friday Night Lights treatment just yet, but they’ll have more of an atmosphere than an ODP event. A youth soccer showcase is more likely to be highly competitive on the field and subdued off it.

The Academy system has the allure of simplicity. But could it also dumb down youth soccer?

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soccer

A few honest words with NWSL executive director Cheryl Bailey

Posted on by Beau Dure

I had a chance to speak with Cheryl Bailey for a few minutes during the Thorns-Spirit game, and we ran through a quick series of topics:

– Scheduling around FIFA dates: The season is just too short. They tried to minimize the impact this year and will re-evaluate next year.

– Attendance: Even moreso than the numbers, Bailey is impressed with the environments at the games she has attended. She has seen different stadiums — big, little, neighborhood, suburban — and has enjoyed the variety of experiences they’re providing.

– Marketing: Veterans of BigSoccer and beyond will appreciate this exchange, which also gave Bailey a good laugh (nice to know the NWSL boss has a sense of humor):

ME: Will we see more of a marketing push for NWSL as the season goes on?

BAILEY: In terms of …?

ME: (Pause). I don’t know. I never know what “marketing” really means. Every time there’s an argument about soccer for the last 20 years online — and I’ve been online for 20 years, I’ve seen every argument there is about soccer — it’s just, “Oh, if it were just marketed more, people would come out.” So I have to ask …

BAILEY: I think since it’s so new, it’s not something everyone automatically knows about. It’s new, it’s starting, it’s growing. Just the fact that it’s on YouTube — all the games are live. The last six weeks of the season, it will be on Fox. It’s a gradual transition. But that, I think, is what’s going to give us stability. So in that respect, marketing, getting the word out — we’re using a lot of the social media that wasn’t there before. That’s what people are responding to these days. In a short amount of time, how do you get the word. It’ll grow, and the marketing will grow from there.

– Contracts: Are most NWSL players signed for one-year deals?

BAILEY: There’s an option at the end of this year.

ME: So teams should be able to keep their players together?

BAILEY: If they choose, yes.

Good news for the Spirit, which should be a better team in 2014 than it is right now.

(Corrected: She said “using a lot of the social media.” Not “losing,” which would be very different.)

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soccer

Washington Spirit vs. Portland: The real deal

Posted on by Beau Dure

I had a lot of fun tonight on Twitter at the expense of the fans and the ref fawning over Alex Morgan tonight at the SoccerPlex, where attendance was one starting lineup north of 5,000.

But the takeaway from tonight’s game is this: The Portland Thorns aren’t just hype. They’re great.

All the preseason attention went to the star-studded attack allocations — Alex Morgan and Christine Sinclair. They showed their skills, with Sinclair fully capable of being a playmaker as well as a target player.

Get past them, and you run into WPS/PSG veteran Allie Long in midfield. Then you hit former U.S. U-20 captain and two-time WPS champion Becky Edwards. Attack the wing, and you run into former U.S. defender Marian (Dalmy) Dougherty. Go up the center, and who’s that making the recovery and clearing the danger? Just national teamer Rachel Buehler.

And you have Nikki Washington, who scored the game-winner in the Thorns’ 2-1 win with a terrific far-post shot after Washington’s Ali Krieger coughed up the ball.

Even the relative unknown — Meleana Shim — played a terrific game Saturday night.

That’s just not fair.

You can’t hand the NWSL trophy to Portland just yet. Kansas City matched up well with them in the season opener. On a given day, Sky Blue or Western New York could give them a run. Maybe Boston, too.

The Spirit made a game of it. The home side (yes, Alex Morgan fanboys — Washington was the home side) had seven shots on goal to Portland’s five. Portland’s opening goal was a penalty kick awarded dubiously after Morgan seemed to be offside, was barely fouled and may or may not have been in the box. Ashlyn Harris was sufficiently incensed by the call to get a yellow card for dissent for her protests before and after the PK.

Fans will be happy to know Harris and Morgan hugged it out in the SoccerPlex’s main building after the game. The Thorns were gracious winners all the way around. When asked if the Thorns did anything to slow down Washington’s all-world midfielder Diana Matheson, coach Cindy Parlow Cone (can we just call her CPC from now on?) said, “I don’t know if there’s anything to slow down that girl. She’s all over the field.”

CPC also singled out the Spirit defense and holding midfield. By name. She listed everyone and apologized for not being able to come up with Domenica Hodak’s name, even though Hodak was making her first start. Quite a change from her old coach, Anson Dorrance, who refers to people as “that girl who used to score a lot against us” or “that other girl who used to give us a tough time” or “that tall girl.”

She might be a rookie coach, but CPC is an early front-runner for coach of the year. She says the right things, she’s intense at the right times, and this team is tactically sound.

And she believes firmly that, despite her team’s unbeaten record, the NWSL is a league of parity. “With only eight teams, every team is really good, and the Spirit is no exception. We were lucky to get out of there with the win.”

Lucky to get the PK call, maybe, and perhaps lucky that Krieger had an off night with a costly turnover. But the Thorns are surely a bit farther along in their development than the youthful Spirit.

Washington coach Mike Jorden sees the work to be done. He made the crowd-pleasing move of starting Caroline Miller ahead of Tiffany McCarty, but Miller was just as tentative as McCarty has been.

Jorden has plenty of options up front, but as my D.C. media buddy Aaron Stollar pointed out tonight, he doesn’t have that one player that requires constant attention from the defense. The Spirit has been most effective with players like Matheson, Stephanie Ochs and Lori Lindsey drifting into the attack. If Miller or McCarty can develop into that dangerous forward, the Spirit will be much better off.

On defense, Candace Chapman was once again on the bench despite pregame claims that she was available to play. But Tori Huster is growing into that center back role. After a strong performance against Abby Wambach and a more difficult time against Sky Blue last week, she had a terrific game against the big-name Thorns offense, making a few timely interceptions and generally minimizing the threats. Ashlyn Harris made one big save, but that was on a long-range Christine Sinclair shot.

Morgan had a few words with Domenica Hodak after a mild foul, then a few more with Diana Matheson after an even milder foul. She just shrugged it off as getting fiesty. “As players, we know that we need to put a good product on the field. We don’t get paid to go out there and fight, we get paid to go out there and play.”

Matheson’s late PK goal was just what the game needed, just enough to remind the crowd that the home team is worth supporting even when someone with nice hair isn’t on the visiting team. The big crowd, packing the SoccerPlex’s stands and the hill with the beer garden, deserved some late drama.

I’ve been insisting that you can’t write Washington’s name in Sharpie at the bottom of the table. I still believe that, especially after Boston’s demolition of Chicago today. They’re still due another couple of players — Chapman, Mexican midfielder Teresa Worbis, and an unnamed Europe-based defender. But it’s also a matter of confidence. The sooner the Spirit get that first win, the better they’ll be.

Until then, Washington fans should just take heart that they’re seeing some good games in a great facility. Enjoy.

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