Category: soccer

soccer

NWSL free agent update: Feb. 9

Posted on by Beau Dure

Updated after the Supplemental Draft. No, we didn’t know all the free agent signings by then. A couple were announced shortly thereafter.

Here’s what we know or think we know so far:

BOSTON
1. Cat Whitehill, D
2. Lianne Sanderson, F
3. Kia McNeill, D
4. Kyah Simon, F (announced after draft)

CHICAGO
1. Leslie Osborne, M
2. Lori Chalupny, M
3. Ella Masar, F
4. Taryn Hemmings, D
5. Jessica McDonald, F (replacement for Amy LePeilbet; announced after draft)

KANSAS CITY
1. Jen Buczkowski, M
2. Sinead Farrelly, M (not confirmed)
3. Melissa Henderson, M (confirmed on draft day)
4. Leigh Ann Robinson, D (confirmed on draft day)

PORTLAND
1. Allie Long, M
2. Nikki Washington, D
3. Becky Edwards, M
4. Nikki Marshall, D/F

SEATTLE
1. Jess Fishlock, M
2. Kate Deines, D
3. Tiffany Cameron, F
4. Lindsay Taylor, F
5. Elli Reed, D (replacement for Amy Rodriguez; announced day after draft)

SKY BLUE
1. Brittany Bock, D/M
2. Manya Makoski, M/F
3. Danesha Adams, F
4. Lisa De Vanna, F

WASHINGTON
1. Candace Chapman, D (confirmed day after draft)
2. Chantel Jones, GK
3. Ingrid Wells, M
4. ???
5. ??? (compensation for late-arriving allocated player(s))

WESTERN NEW YORK
1. McCall Zerboni, M
2. Adriana, F
3. Samantha Kerr, M
4. Sarah Huffman, D
5. Brittany Taylor, D (compensation for receiving only two allocations)

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cycling, mma, olympic sports, rugby, soccer, tennis, winter sports

Monday Myriad: Feb. 4

Posted on by Beau Dure

Yes, this will be more of an evening thing from now on.

The week’s headlines:

– Jose Aldo defended his UFC featherweight title as Frankie Edgar suffered yet another close decision loss. The rest of the UFC 156 card scrambled the title chases in ways I’m still working out. Rashad Evans was supposed to fight for the middleweight title, but he lost a dreary light heavyweight fight to Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. In the heavyweight division, Alistair Overeem was supposed to fight for the title, but Antonio Silva knocked him out. And now lightweight contender Anthony Pettis says he wants to drop down to featherweight and fight Aldo.

– Steve Holcomb’s four-man sled set a track record in the fourth and final heat to take bronze in the World Championships.

– Noelle Pikus-Pace took silver in the skeleton World Championships.

– Erin Hamlin and Chris Mazdzer each placed sixth in their events at the luge World Championships. They, along with doubles team Matthew Mortensen/Preston Griffall, placed fifth in the team event.

– The U.S. men struggled past Brazil in the Davis Cup. Turned out to be a great first round for North America, with Canada upsetting Spain.

– Katie Compton was second in the elite women’s race at the cyclocross World Championships.

– Helen Maroulis was the Outstanding Wrestler at the Dave Schultz Invitational.

– U.S. sailors at the World Cup stop in Miami: Five golds, three silvers, three bronzes.

– Upcoming: Biathlon and Alpine skiing world championships, some of which will be televised. Also the U.S. men vs. Honduras as World Cup qualifying’s Hexagonal starts.

http://storify.com/duresport/monday-myriad-feb-4-features

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soccer

Adjusting the U.S. men’s soccer depth chart

Posted on by Beau Dure

Strongly recommended from a couple of weeks ago: Soccer America’s exhaustive look at the U.S. depth chart. That sort of analysis always tricky once you get beyond “goalkeeper” because positions are so fluid. Their rankings separated “striker” from “forward,” and still. some players were listed where you wouldn’t expect (Eddie Johnson at left mid, Brad Davis at attacking mid, etc.).

But the analysis at each position is worth reading, even if some guy decided to comment several times that the USA needs to play more like Barcelona. Really, that has never occurred to anyone else in the United States. Thank you so much for sharing!

After reading that, today’s U.S. roster announcement has only a few surprises. The 24-man roster includes all the no-brainers (listed with SA’s rank):

  1. Tim Howard, #1 goalkeeper
  2. Brad Guzan, #2 goalkeeper
  3. Geoff Cameron, #1 center back
  4. Carlos Bocanegra, #2 center back (the only position on the SA chart from which two players will be in the lineup)
  5. Fabian Johnson, #1 left back
  6. Danny Williams, #1 holding mid
  7. Michael Bradley, #1 attacking mid
  8. Clint Dempsey, #1 forward

One core player has, in the words of Crocodile Dundee, gone walkabout and is not on the roster:

  1. Landon Donovan, #1 right mid

Another core player is out injured, and he’s singled out in the roster announcement:

  1. Steve Cherundolo, #1 right back

His backup’s commitment to the USA has been questioned, but odds are good that he takes the field in Honduras and ends the questions once and for all.

  1. Timmy Chandler, #2 right back

The attacking options are less settled. Jurgen Klinsmann has been challenging a lot of players, even Dempsey, to be more consistent internationally even if they’re tearing up their domestic leagues. For now, these guys are ahead of the rest:

  1. Jozy Altidore, #1 striker
  2. Eddie Johnson, #1 left mid, though we know him mostly as a forward

The next players down the depth chart who were selected and seem likely to be in the mix unless they lose form or health:

  1. Omar Gonzalez, #3 center back
  2. Edgar Castillo, #2 left back
  3. Jermaine Jones, #3 attacking mid (“attacking” may be an ironic word here)
  4. Graham Zusi, #2 right mid

The rest of the roster for Honduras would be the players you’d call “bubble” players:

  1. Sean Johnson, #6 goalkeeper
  2. Matt Besler, #5 center back
  3. Michael Parkhurst, #3 left back (also mentioned at right)
  4. Brad Evans, #5 left mid but listed on USSF release as a defender
  5. Maurice Edu, #4 holding mid
  6. Brad Davis, #4 attacking mid (more likely on wing?)
  7. Sacha Kljestan, #3 right mid
  8. Jose Torres, #2-tie left mid
  9. Herculez Gomez, #3 striker

Evans puzzles me. Is he on the roster because he can cover left back? That’s traditionally a weak spot for the USA (and most teams, really), but couldn’t F. Johnson, Castillo, Parkhurst and even Bocanegra keep that position covered?

That covers the 24-man roster. Add the injured Cherundolo and the itinerant Donovan for a total of 26.

Who else could we see in the Hexagonal? The Twitter reaction I’m seeing is mostly about younger guys who might need more international seasoning before they’re thrown in the fire in Central America.

  1. Sean Franklin, #3 right back
  2. Eric Lichaj, #5 left back
  3. Mikkel Diskerud, #2 attacking mid
  4. Josh Gatt, #4 right mid
  5. Joe Corona, #2 left mid
  6. Terrence Boyd, #2 striker

They’ll have great chances to play their way onto the roster, and that takes us to 32 players in the pool.

Then we have players at unsettled positions:

  1. Nick Rimando, #3 goalkeeper. Johnson leap-frogged Rimando, Tally Hall and Bill Hamid to get the call this time. In the long run, Rimando offers more experience. 
  2. Juan Agudelo, #3 forward
  3. Chris Wondolowski, #2 forward

And a few more players who must have been close calls this time:

  1. Clarence Goodson, #4 center back
  2. Kyle Beckerman, #2 holding mid
  3. Ricardo Clark, #3 holding mid. Really, Edu is ahead of both Beckerman and Clark when he’s in form.

That’s 38 players who could be named to a qualifying roster without surprising anyone.

And still we have the younger wild cards:

  1. Bill Hamid, #5 goalkeeper. A good run at D.C. United could make things interesting. Still a young keeper.
  2. Alfredo Morales, not listed on defense. Youngster is new to the team.
  3. Chris Pontius, #4 left mid. Hard to imagine where he’ll be if he stays healthy.
  4. Brek Shea, #5 (tie) left mid. All over Sky Sports News for his EPL transfer. If he breaks into the lineup and plays well in England, Klinsmann will have a hard time overlooking him.

And the more experienced guys who’ll also be hard to overlook if they’re in form:

  1. Jonathan Spector, #5 right back. Experienced. Just needs to get in the swing of things in England.
  2. Oguchi Onyewu, #7 center back. Not too long ago, he and Jay DeMerit (and Spector and an out-of-position Bocanegra) shut down Spain.
  3. Benny Feilhaber, #5 attacking mid. Might have had his last audition for now. (Update: Or not — Klinsmann says he’s very much in the discussion.)
  4. DaMarcus Beasley, “also considered” left mid. If Eddie Johnson can have a renaissance this late in his career, surely Beasley can manage it as well.

That’s 46 players. That still omits a few players from the recent friendly against Canada (with good reason). It doesn’t include all of the 49 players who took the field for the USA in 2012. It doesn’t include Heath Pearce, who started 11 games in the 2010 qualifying cycle. It doesn’t include Freddy Adu, who played nine games in the 2010 qualifying cycle and is still quite young but last played for the USA in 2011.

Does that seem like too many? Consider the numbers from the last qualifying cycle, including the games before the Hexagonal: 48 players.

This is a long, long process.

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soccer

Soccer Hall of Fame: Can we induct some people this year, please?

Posted on by Beau Dure

The National Soccer Hall of Fame: It’s so exclusive, it doesn’t even exist.

That’s not to make light of the Hall’s current plight. It’s a real pity to have so much soccer history stored away in North Carolina warehouses instead of in display cases somewhere. If the Hall can’t have a permanent building, perhaps we can at least build a “Virtual Hall” with all that memorabilia on a good website, then scatter some of it in various soccer facilities across the country. We do have a few people making tremendous efforts to keep the history alive — I bumped into Jack Huckel at Indianapolis, and Roger Allaway regularly posts mini-histories at BigSoccer. The U.S. soccer history movement is reeling, though, not just from the loss of the Hall but the loss of David Wangerin, whose two books are essential reading.

But as with other Halls of Fame, we have elections to honor people of tremendous accomplishment. And all such elections are controversial. Baseball writers, dealing with a decade or so of inflated numbers through drug use, has elected no one to the Hall this year. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame finally listened to fans (and musicians) and will welcome Rush to Cleveland at long last.

I’ve been a Hall of Famer voter for nearly a decade, and I usually use most of the space on my 10-player ballot. So do most writers who go public with their picks. Yet even with the bar for election lowered from 80% to 66.7% (after people like me whined, and after we had no players inducted in 2008), we’re still electing two or three people per year.

This year, I’d like to offer a challenge. If you have a Hall of Fame ballot, and you’re listing three or fewer people, explain why. Don’t just return a blank ballot and hide out. Tell us why.

In the meantime, let’s go through the annual rite: I’ll list all the players for whom I’m voting, then I’ll guess at which two or three will actually make it …

RETURNING (good data source: Kenn Tomasch’s archive of vote totals)

Last year, I voted for Tony Meola, Claudio Reyna, Marco Etcheverry, Roy Lassiter, Shannon MacMillan, Carlos Valderrama, Joe-Max Moore, Robin Fraser and Jason Kreis. And I hesitated to omit Peter Vermes, Cindy Parlow, Chris Armas and Mauricio Cienfuegos.

The election results: Reyna (96.08%) and Meola (90.20%) got in. That’s it. The rest, in order: Etcheverry, Moore, MacMillan, Valderrama, Parlow, Vermes, Armas, Kreis.

Vermes and Valderrama are no longer on the ballot — they’re up for the veterans committee to consider. That leaves these groups:

– Early MLS international stars (Etcheverry, Cienfuegos). The NASL is represented in the Hall not just by Pele, Beckenbauer and Chinaglia, but also by Willey, Granitza and Child. If Etcheverry and Valderrama don’t make the Hall, it’s going to be impossible to make a case for any foreign player who has played in MLS to date. Including David Beckham. We’ll have to see what the veterans do with Valderrama this year.

– Overshadowed national teamers (Moore, MacMillan, Parlow). Not “the” stars of their national team eras but important players nonetheless. Moore was crucial to several World Cup qualifying campaigns; MacMillan was a supersub who changed the course of vital games for the U.S. women in 1996 and 1999. I left Moore and MacMillan off the ballot a few years ago, but as years go by, I think their accomplishments stand up. I haven’t voted for Parlow, and I hesitate to say that because she’s already teasing me mercilessly about going to Duke and having to be the reporter to ask her about her own goal in the NCAA Tournament one year. Seriously, I’m reconsidering, and I’ll toss it up for discussion: What do you all think of Parlow’s case?

– MLS but not U.S. standouts (Armas, Kreis, Fraser, Lassiter). Ill-timed injuries cost Armas dearly — he was a sure starter before missing out on what turned out to be a great run in 2002. Fraser was one of the best defenders of his MLS years, then in and out of the national team. Kreis is still fifth on the MLS career goal-scoring list, but he never had much of an impact on the national team. I’m at a loss to explain how Lassiter isn’t in the top 10 — maybe the extra publicity from Chris Wondolowski’s pursuit of his scoring record will give him a boost.

I’m once again voting for Etcheverry, Lassiter, MacMillan and Moore. I’ll consider Fraser, Kreis and Parlow.

NEW

It’s a small group of nominees: Wade Barrett, Angela Hucles, Ben Olsen, Tony Sanneh and Taylor Twellman.

Olsen and Twellman had injury problems that robbed them of their prime years. Twellman still scored 101 goals in only 174 MLS games, but the Hall hasn’t been forgiving of other members of the league’s 100-goal club who didn’t break through on the World Cup scene. (See Kreis.)

Hucles and Sanneh had solid careers and one spectacular tournament each. Hucles was a defensive midfielder who moved up to forward after Abby Wambach’s injury in 2008 and became a scoring machine to the shock of everyone but Pia Sundhage. Sanneh bumped around between positions and suddenly became a lockdown defender in time for the 2002 World Cup.

I have room on my ballot for at least three of these players, but I’m not sure I see one who stands out. As with MacMillan and Moore, I could be persuaded. That said, next year’s vote is going to be a logjam — as Roger Allaway points out, we’ll be considering Brian McBride, Kristine Lilly, Briana Scurry, Kate Markgraf, Jaime Moreno, Steve Ralston, Clint Mathis and Eddie Lewis. Yikes.

So what will happen this year?

PREDICTIONS

Like Thomas Dooley and Earnie Stewart before him, Etcheverry is overdue, and I sense that people get that. MacMillan has surged from 27.34% in 2008 to around 50% each of the last three years, and this is an ideal year for her to bump up over the threshold. Moore has been steadier in the high 40s and 50s, and he’s probably a little less likely to make it. That leaves us with yet another class of two or possibly three players from the general voting pool.

I’ll also guess that the veterans committee, which tends to elect U.S. national teamers of the early 90s, will continue the trend and elect Peter Vermes.

MY BALLOT

Marco Etcheverry
Shannon MacMillan
Joe-Max Moore
Roy Lassiter

maybe
Jason Kreis
Robin Fraser
Cindy Parlow

MY QUESTIONS

– If you’re a voter who hasn’t been voting for Etcheverry, can you explain why?

– Out of the MLS-but-not-U.S.-standout group (Fraser, Kreis, Armas, Sanneh, Olsen, Twellman), who would get your vote?

– Is the 2008 gold medal run enough to get Hucles in the Hall?

– Parlow’s World Cup resume: Two Cups, 11 games, four goals — the most meaningful being the first goal in the USA’s 2-0 win over Brazil in the 1999 semis. Overall: 158 caps, 75 goals. Also a decent run in the WUSA with Atlanta. Is that enough?

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soccer

Philadelphia Union: The latest team to mishandle Freddy Adu

Posted on by Beau Dure

Start here:

“Candid” is one thing. Another is “telling everyone we have this high-priced player we’re desperate to unload, and if we can’t unload him, we’ll just be eating his salary rather than playing him, but please don’t make us do that.”

Source: “Dear Season Ticket Holders”.

An SB Nation commenter put it well: ” I’m fine with Adu leaving for nothing if it means the Union get his salary off the books, but as it stands, unless Hackworth gets a bidding war going, no team has an incentive not to lowball.”

Another item in that letter that should make the River End shudder:

And I think it’s time to clear up another misconception…
I know that the draft board described him as a forward, but we did not pick Don Anding as one. We picked him because he was literally one of the most athletic players available in the draft and in fact, the fastest player at the Combine.

Via another SB Nation/Brotherly Game post, we get this scouting report: “Technically a little choppy at times but makes up for it with his speed … As a winger he may not have the soccer IQ to man the position.”

It’s 2013, and American soccer teams are still drafting players based on speed and athleticism? Do we need Claudio Reyna to travel down I-95 and whack someone with a copy of the U.S. Soccer curriculum?

No wonder they couldn’t make much use of Freddy Adu.

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soccer

Scenes from the NSCAA convention

Posted on by Beau Dure

Even for those of us who pay our own expenses these days, the NSCAA convention has become an essential event for soccer journalists. It’s one-stop shopping. I gathered great material for three or four projects and managed to touch base with so many different people — Hall of Famers (Julie Foudy, Claudio Reyna), great journalists, roughly half of the coaches in the NWSL, and people doing extraordinary selfless things to use soccer for good. I’ll single out one session I attended — “Understanding Players with Disabilities,” led by the enthusiastic and thoughtful Mike Barr.

So if you’re wondering why social media legend Amanda Vandervort’s Twitter feed suddenly revs up with excitement around this time of year, that’s why. And Amanda actually has the energy to go out and be social after each day in the convention center. I envy her, especially when my energy level is being sapped by sinus headaches that almost made me turn around and go home on the way to the airport Thursday morning.

Though I spent much of Thursday in sinus-related agony (and my apologies for ducking out of the MLS draft so soon), I’m glad I stuck it out. The content — the sessions, the media opportunities, etc. — was great. The atmosphere is even better. I’m not just saying that because it’s flattering to chat with a couple of Crew fans in line for food and then discover that one of them follows me on Twitter.

One fascinating part of the convention is the exhibit hall. It’s an eclectic mix of soccer-related stuff. Artificial turf-makers. Trophy-makers. Sports complexes with fields ripe for youth tournaments. Leagues — the USL, WPSL, NPSL and U.S. Club Soccer, the latter of which had a rather large space to display the nice Doug Hamilton National Cup Trophy but had no one on hand to answer questions from passers-by like me who are still trying to make sense of the alphabet soup of elite youth leagues cropping up these days. Software and gadgets to help you coach your team or run your league. Coaching videos.

And then this, which appears to be what you try if soccer tennis is too easy for you:

Or this, which brings soccer into the MMA generation:

Soccer Cage Sports usually features 2v2 or 3v3 matches, as featured on their site, but they needed a smaller cage to fit in their space in the exhibit hall.

Next year: Philly. Can’t wait.

 

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soccer

NWSL stars: Home sweet home

Posted on by Beau Dure
Courtesy of Boston Breakers
Heather O’Reilly will spend less time in traffic than you will, unless you telecommute. (Photo courtesy of Boston Breakers)

A common theme running through the NWSL conference calls that stacked up Monday afternoon: Players are happy to be home.

Not just in the sense that they could easily be playing overseas or spending a lot of time in U.S. residency camp if no domestic league existed. For the national team players who chatted Monday, they’re thrilled to be playing close to their families.

But the three stories are a little different …

In the greater Washington-ish area, Northern Virginia’s Ali Krieger is thrilled to be playing close to home after spending a few years in Germany. (She did come back to the WPS Washington Freedom for a brief loan spell.) Even better, she’s healthy again, proclaiming herself at 100% after tearing the ACL and MCL in her right knee early last year.

In Boston, Heather O’Reilly admits she’ll miss New Jersey, where she grew up and later played for Sky Blue, but she enjoyed training with and playing a couple of games for the Breakers in her new hometown last summer. Her husband is a Harvard man, and she says the practice facility is almost literally across the street from her home.

In Rochester and Buffalo, Abby Wambach is going home, but it wasn’t a no-brainer. She confirmed that she bought a house in Portland and is in mid-remodel. She also admits the attention in Rochester can be overwhelming, and that partially explains why she’ll live in Buffalo.

“Fans will be fans. They’ll interrupt you in the middle of dinner. For the most part, it’s so sweet. I’m an extrovert. But … the privacy factor was a concern. The buffer between Rochester and Buffalo will help.”

But she’s happy to see her extended family, saying she wants to see nieces and other relatives through the season.

So can the Flash crash at her Portland place when they visit the Thorns?

In any case, all three players are happier than Megan Rapinoe, who isn’t unduly upset about her allocation but tells Grant Wahl she’s a little surprised to be in Seattle instead of Portland. (You’d think Portland and Seattle would simply swap Rapinoe for Morgan, which would be a more equitable distribution of forwards. And the talk last summer was that Morgan had some Seattle ties, but I’m not up on such things.)

Other bits of news from the Monday calls:

– The Washington Spirit haven’t worked out details on when and how they’ll get goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris from German club Duisburg, but they don’t seem concerned that she’ll miss much time.

– Wambach says friends from other national teams have asked her for contact info for coaches and personnel people through NWSL. She joked that she’s only putting them in touch with her coach with the Flash, Aaran Lines.

– Why did every USWNT Olympic player, including those thought to be retiring (looking at you, Heather Mitts) or perhaps indifferent, put their names on the allocation list? Why go through the grind of a league, facing the possibility of a new U.S. coach cleaning house or accumulated wear and tear proving too much to overcome, rather than go out on top? Here’s a great answer from Wambach:

“The minute you win something, it inspires you to want to do it again because all your hard work has paid off.”

On that note, the U.S. national team is in camp Feb. 2. The new cycle begins …

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soccer

NWSL allocation questions and answers

Posted on by Beau Dure

You’ve seen the list. I’ve heard the conference call. So what can we say at this point?

Q: Is Portland the overwhelming favorite?

A: We still have a lot of roster moves to go, but after the Thorns landed Alex Morgan AND Christine Sinclair, the league certainly doesn’t owe them any favors.

Seattle looks great, too. Hope Solo and Megan Rapinoe? And Teresa Noyola? And Kaylyn Kyle?

We heard the Northwest teams might be stacked, and the whispers were right.

Was Washington ripped off?

Don’t forget how great a defender Ali Krieger has been when healthy. Diana Matheson and Lori Lindsey are a good start in midfield. Ashlyn Harris was a terrific keeper in WPS. But they do indeed need a scorer.

Was Sky Blue ripped off?

Jill Loyden may be the second-best keeper in the allocation, so that’s a good start. One question is whether Christie Rampone can keep turning back time — it’s easier for an older player to put together one good three-week spurt than it is to play a whole season. (That’s one reason I’m a little concerned about the Chicago Red Stars, which unofficially lead the league in WUSA veterans with Shannon Boxx and Maribel Dominguez.) It’ll be interesting to see whether Kelley O’Hara plays left back or midfield. Sophie Schmidt’s solid.

Will Western NY be compensated for getting only two U.S. allocations?

They could easily end up over-compensated. In the conference call, we heard two possibilities: They could end up getting an early draft pick as compensation, or U.S. Soccer may eventually find a 24th player to fill its league-wide allocations. Suppose they get a top draft pick AND a U.S. pool player who decides to come home from Europe?

Which team got the least from a marketing standpoint?

Kansas City. We hard-core fans have a lot of respect for Lauren Cheney, Becky Sauerbrunn and Nicole Barnhart, and Canadian Lauren Sesselmann has her fans. But they’re not big names, and aside from Sauerbrunn’s St. Louis ties, I don’t know of an obvious tie between the players and the community. (Please chime in if I’ve overlooked something.) Washington’s players may also be low-profile, but Ali Krieger grew up in Northern Virginia, and Lori Lindsey is a Washington Freedom alumna.

Are we all making too big a deal out of allocations and forgetting how much will change with free agency and the draft?

Hmm … let’s ponder the history of MLS and the two women’s leagues that … YES! Yes, we are.

Look — a couple of the allocated players are currently in the player pool but have barely been in camps, much less games. Are they really a full tier above Leslie Osborne, Lori Chalupny, Tasha Kai or other U.S. veterans who simply weren’t in Pia Sundhage’s plans?

Also, consider this: New leagues always yield breakout stars. Looking back at the WUSA, would you rather have had Shannon Boxx on your team or some of the original national teamers?

So it’s a fun time to talk about the rosters. Way too early to freak out over them.

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soccer

The awesome NWSL allocation list: Same as it ever was

Posted on by Beau Dure

Hope Solo is indeed on the list to play in the National Women’s Soccer League, likely ending (at least for now) any speculation that she may choose another path. So is Heather Mitts, all indications of retirement to the contrary.

That’s really the only news out of the U.S. section of the NWSL allocation list, which looks almost exactly like the list of players who played for the U.S. national team in 2012.

From that 2012 stats page, subtract one: Stephanie Cox, who’s pregnant. Add Ashlyn Harris and Keelin Winters, who are also in the official U.S. Soccer site’s player pool.

That player pool only has 29 players. Twenty-three will be allocated. Cox is pregnant. Jeff Kassouf reports that Meghan Klingenberg is staying in Sweden for now. Yael Averbuch also is staying there. Whitney Engen is in England. That leaves the two Class of 2012 players who’ll surely be high on the draft board next week — Kristie Mewis and Christine Nairn, who has already graduated from Penn State.

Not officially listed in the player pool but certainly under national team consideration is Christen Press. She’s … staying in Sweden.

So if there are no surprises, it’s only because the player pool is so small. And it includes everyone who played for the USWNT in 2011 and 2012 except Lindsay Tarpley and Brittany Taylor. Even if you go back to 2010, you only add six names: Sarah Huffman, Casey Nogueira, Meghan Schnur, Cat Whitehill, the retired Kate Markgraf and the really retired Kristine Lilly.

And that small player pool is the reason the USWNT needs a domestic league. You don’t want to be two injuries away from calling in people who aren’t playing at an elite level.

 

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mma, olympic sports, soccer

What’s up at SportsMyriad in 2013

Posted on by Beau Dure

When I left USA TODAY in 2010, I immediately embarked on two projects:

1. A book on The Ultimate Fighter.

2. This blog, SportsMyriad, with the intent to “flip the sports page inside-out.”

Those projects were sidetracked a bit, in a good way. USA TODAY kept giving me a lot of freelance work, particularly in its new magazine division. I also got a bit of work from ESPN. In 2011, it turned into a lot of work with espnW and still some more with USA TODAY, though I fulfilled my 2011 SportsMyriad plans, more or less.

In 2012, things shifted back to the 2010 plans. The book is, at long last, done — if you’d like to publish it, please get in touch.

And I learned a lot about what is and isn’t working on the blog.

In 2013, I plan to ignore all that. Well, sort of.

I’m not closing the door on freelance work — again, if you want something covered, please get in touch — but I’m going to focus a bit more on some long-form work. Tossing out bits of info on a blog that generated double-digit revenue exactly once — well, it’s fun, but it’s not adding to anyone’s college fund. (Seriously — I’d make more money grabbing two sticks and doing percussion solos on the railings at the Metro.)

I’m going to keep covering Olympic sports, but a lot of it will be framed in terms of medal projections. Sochi is only 14 months away, and as of now, I’m planning to be there.

Women’s soccer, in the words of that old movie quote, keeps pulling me back in. The stories are too interesting to ignore, and the lack of respect for the club game is too irritating to go unaddressed. Maybe I’ll find a project there as well.

I’m not quite sure what to do with the MLS team pages. I had to disconnect the news feeds when the site was snarled with traffic during the medal projection frenzy.

But I’m going to do another “page” project, and you can see that I’ve already started. I’m doing unofficial rankings — at least by category, if not by number — for each UFC weight class. And I’ll probably keep doing recaps of The Ultimate Fighter. I did write a book about it, you know.

The blog won’t have quite as much daily stuff. I’ll be sure to preview most of the things on the 2013 calendar, particularly Olympic sports that will count toward medal projections. For more daily stuff, check the Twitter feed.

Then for fun and informative features and videos, check the Monday Myriad.

So maybe a bean-counter would look at my stats and say the Monday Myriad and the youth soccer should go away. Well, it’s not. I have my reasons.

But the things you are reading — the medal projections, the women’s soccer news and so forth — will keep going as well.

After I get some “me” time.

Happy New Year.

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