Category: women’s soccer

podcast, women's soccer, youth soccer

Podcast: Episode 3 with Gwendolyn Oxenham and extraordinary women’s soccer stories

Posted on by Beau Dure

Gwendolyn Oxenham and I both went to Duke, but she’s a more typical Dukie overachiever — soccer player, filmmaker, author, etc. Her new book, Under the Lights and In the Dark: Untold Stories of Women’s Soccer, collects interesting stories from all over, showing us what women’s soccer players do to compete and get better in a sport that is providing more opportunities than in the past but not quite as much as we’d all like.

She also chats here about her youth soccer experience (a devoted coach!) and what she’d like to see for her kids.

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women's soccer, youth soccer

More apps (and more women) in the crowded soccer-skills marketplace

Posted on by Beau Dure

From the mailbox today:

English Premier League soccer team Manchester City has launched SkillCity, presented by Nexen, a new interactive app that will help develop the talents of young soccer players across the US. The City squad is currently in the United States for its pre-season tour, visiting Houston, Los Angeles and Nashville.

SkillCity will see young players compete across a series of challenges that have been exclusively developed by the Club’s City Football Schools coaches. The four challenges will allow boys and girls aged 5–14 years old to test their speed of movement, ball mastery, finishing and passing — ranking themselves against their friends and Manchester City players. Manchester City player Kevin De Bruyne and former Manchester City Women’s player, and Tour Ambassador, Carli Lloyd have already tested the app and users can watch these videos to help develop their skills.

U.S. women’s soccer is already well-represented in this app genre. Former WPS Commissioner Tonya Antonucci was on iSoccer’s board of directors. Kristine Lilly’s long association with Coerver carried over to apps.

And last week’s Ranting Soccer Dad podcast guest, Yael Averbuch, teaches skills through her Techne Futbol app.

Check out the podcast.

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women's soccer

Spirit, Pride still works in progress

Posted on by Beau Dure

Marta is here. Alex Morgan is back. Mallory Pugh is here. Estefania Banini is back.

But the chemistry isn’t quite there. And neither is the service from midfield.

Yes, the Washington Spirit and Orlando Pride each scored twice in a 2-2 draw before a crowd of 5,200 that filled the seats, the hill and the concession lines Saturday at the Maryland SoccerPlex. And yes, we had a couple of moments like this:

(Incidentally, I have no idea how I’m not in that camera shot. I was sitting on the hill today because I brought the little one with me. So I had a perfect view of that bit of Morganinho skill. And a perfect view of the first penalty awarded. Struck me as a little soft. A bit. When Kate Markgraf calls it “just a little bit of a shoulder challenge,” it’s probably not a great call.)

But neither team produced much to trouble the keepers. Morgan was offside a few times. A late flurry from the Spirit padded the stats.

The strangest thing for the Spirit: Tori Huster, usually a game-changer in midfield but not an offensive force, was shooting from all over. Some of the shots, as coach Jim Gabarra said afterwards, were the result of defenders giving her space and trying to contain Franny Ordega, Mallory Pugh and others.

But then there was this:

And she took a ton of shots in pregame warmups. Even more than Cheyna Williams, who helped the Spirit make a late surge when she came on a substitute.

Williams probably should be starting. So should Kristie Mewis. The Spirit could use some possession, and Ordega’s passing was erratic today.

Today was also the return of Ali Krieger to the SoccerPlex. If you love Krieger, you saw a passionate captain and defensive rock. If you don’t, you saw a lot of griping to the ref and some puzzling passes.

And this:

And a lot of people think Tom Sermanni needs to find a way to move Krieger from center back to right back. Probably, but center backs seem to be in short supply these days.

Sermanni, ever the gentleman, came over for a quick work with the media even though the Pride needed to fly out of town. He wasn’t thrilled with conceding the lead twice. He is thrilled, though, with the prospect of Morgan getting into form alongside Marta.

Pugh is a little younger and Banini is a little less famous than the Pride attackers. But they showed glimmers of quality today, too. Pugh had a marvelous finish and kept her nerve on a last-minute penalty kick.

So both sides will get better. For the Pride, that might mean a late push for the playoffs. For the Spirit, that might mean eighth place.

 

 

 

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women's soccer

Washington Spirit 1-0 Portland Thorns: Rivalry?

Posted on by Beau Dure

The driving distance from Providence Park to the Maryland SoccerPlex is 2,785 miles. Google Maps says I can do it in 41 hours.

But is the relationship between the Portland Thorns and the Washington Spirit a rivalry?

“For me, yeah,” said former Spirit and current Thorns midfielder Hayley Raso with little hesitation. “It’s hard to leave a club the way I did, so coming back here, I feel like I have something to prove.”

Raso is a young soft-spoken Australian who was happy to see Boyd, the SoccerPlex’s field-maintenance dog — “he’s cute,” she said — and doesn’t seem like the sort of person who’d be in the middle of controversy. She had a few fouls tonight and picked up a yellow card (which I missed because I foolishly thought the Thorns might dart through the press area before I got there, so I was heading down to the field) at the final whistle. But this was nothing like the professional agitators so many NWSL teams employ.

And yet, there was an incident immediately after the whistle (again, I missed it) between Washington coach Jim Gabarra and Portland coach Mark Parsons — who was, of course, the man who led the Spirit to consecutive playoff appearances before Portland hired him away. I understand Gabarra didn’t comment (I missed the last part of his comments to catch Raso), but Parsons …

Bear in mind — Parsons didn’t turn up to the postgame interviews with a bright-red face and a hoarse voice from screaming. He thought we didn’t want to talk with him, the result of a miscommunication between some non-PR Spirit staffers and Nadine Angerer, the Thorns’ goalkeeper coach/visiting PR contact. When I suggested to him that perhaps the Thorns could invest some of their gate receipts from their five-figure home crowds in an actual PR contact who isn’t also the goalkeeper coach, he gave me a playful pinch on the arm.

And he was gracious to his former team.

“The Spirit were very good. Packed house (attendance over 4,000) for them tonight, and I know what a packed house does — we have it at home. It pushes you. They caused us some problems, and we struggled to break them down.”

Indeed they did. The Thorns had 62.7% of the possession but generated few chances.

“I don’t think they had any clear possession in our final third,” Gabarra said. “It was all the middle of the park or their half.”

This week may bring a screeching halt to goalkeeper Stephanie Labbe’s weekly nomination(s) for Save of the Week.

“That’s GREAT news!” Labbe laughed. “I guess? I know, they’re killing my saves here, you know? But that was awesome. I can’t even remember having to make a dive at all. Defensively, I thought we played so well and kept everyone in front of us. With so many attacking threats, I think it was almost a good thing for us because we didn’t have to focus on one person, we focused on the whole team.”

Spirit fans are used to seeing Estelle Johnson’s magical recovery power, and they can trust in Shelina Zadorsky’s steady presence at center back. The improvement has been a collective effort, but Zadorsky’s central partner Whitney Church deserves special mention. The thought of putting Church up against Christine Sinclair might’ve seemed frightening in the past. But Church was steady tonight.

Midfielder Tori Huster: “I thought we had really tight lines for the most part. I thought our back four did perfectly. They were dropping when they needed to drop, and I think Whitney had probably 20 headers that we really needed her to have, and they could’ve been a lot more dangerous had she not headed them. I thought she had an outstanding game.”

And yes, that’s Huster, the midfield rock who has been missing with an injury for the last few games. She was so happy to be back on the field that she was still signing autographs 45 minutes after the whistle.

Washington is one of two NWSL teams that doesn’t have a midweek game on Wednesday. Portland has to face perplexing but dangerous Kansas City.

“Individually, we have to look at our performances and examine how we did and go back to work and make sure we’re fixing those things we didn’t do well,” said defender Meghan Klingenberg, who spent much of the game pressed forward on the flank. “And collectively, figure out what we didn’t do well. And fix those things for Wednesday, because it’s a quick turnaround.”

But Klingenberg declined to make any Carli Lloyd-style comments about her teammates. “My teammates are amazing! They work their butts off. I don’t care if we win or lose, I would choose to play with them more than any other team.”

And in any case, the game would’ve been much different if not for this:

Ordega and Cheyna Williams were magnificent up front. Williams forced the best Portland save of the night, and Ordega had a sick nutmeg among other sweet moves.

Ordega was especially inspired:

That goal certainly changed the Thorns’ approach.

Raso: “We went down a goal, so I guess we got a bit anxious out there. From the start, we were chasing the game. We probably could’ve played more simple, but when you’re chasing the game, you’re just trying to do what you can do.”

And the Thorns simply looked tense, making a lot of clumsy turnovers and failing to connect in the final third.

Parsons put it in simple terms: “We were just a little bit off tonight, and when you’re playing a team with a bit of momentum, it’s going to be a rough one.”

Other notes from the game:

Spirit owner Bill Lynch heckled Parsons and a few Thorns during the game. But Parsons didn’t seem to notice anything from the stands this time around.

“Last year, I heard a lot of negative, which was pretty cool and fun. That’s when you know women’s soccer’s growing, when players and coaches come back and get harassed in a good, healthy way.”

But things have changed since last year, when the Spirit had most of the same players from Parsons’ last year.

“It’s been a changeover in players, fans and staff. But it’s great coming back. This is a special place for me that I had some great, unbelievable moments with, and I’ll always hold on to that and know that this gave me an opportunity to get in this beautiful game and work with these great female athletes.”

Tony DiCicco’s passing was observed with a moment of silence and armbands. I missed what Gabarra said about him — check with Caitlin Buckley or Jordan Small. Parsons hailed him as a “person and face and heart of women’s soccer,” and he shared a personal anecdote:

“I remember going to watch his NSCAA Convention sessions when I first got here and wanted to learn. I finally had the opportunity to talk to him when I was trying to sign a Japanese girl here at the Spirit. I reached out to Tony. He didn’t have to help me, and he sat there for an hour on the phone telling me everything I needed to know about this Japanese international and walked me through everything. He didn’t know me, he had no tie to the Washington Spirit, he probably had closer ties to other teams. … Now you read what everybody else is saying about him. I experienced that first-hand. He was all about helping anyone in the women’s game and outside the women’s game. We’ve lost a great there. If we can grab the special qualities that he had consistently every week and keep spreading that love and support for everyone in the game, I’m sure he’d be proud.”

 

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women's soccer

What happened to the Washington Spirit?

Posted on by Beau Dure

I spent several weeks reporting this piece tracing the club’s trajectory from “30 seconds from the title” to “who’s starting for this club?” and “what happened to the youth clubs?”

I did not pick the word “downfall” in the headline, which immediately made me think of Meme Hitler screaming about the Krieger trade.

Source: So close, and yet so far: the curious downfall of the Washington Spirit | Football | The Guardian

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women's soccer, work portfolio

U.S. women’s soccer: Always look on the bright side of life

Posted on by Beau Dure

Sure, they lost 3-0. But they learned a lot, and the crowds keep coming out to see them even when they’re not seeing a bunch of celebrities crushing some hapless, unfunded national team just happy to be staying in a nice hotel.

Go ahead and rip me on Twitter. I won’t be responding. At least until Easter, when all bets are off.

My analysis, quotes and words of comfort from what’s probably my last appearance in the RFK pressbox …

Source: USA women suffer worst defeat in a decade as France win SheBelieves Cup | Football | The Guardian

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women's soccer

Steffi Jones’ homecoming, anthem update, other notes from RFK

Posted on by Beau Dure

German women’s coach Steffi Jones has every reason to be pleased tonight. Her team took an impressive 1-0 win over England, and she did it in her old home stadium from her Washington Freedom days.

“That was about 14 years ago, but I was still feeling home,” Jones said. “I remember so many great games here, the great fans. I was feeling good coming back. I know it’s going to be a new stadium coming, so me being in here one more time is a good, good feeling, yes.”

She was too polite to mention that the place looks like it’s about to fall down. A few newcomers to the RFK Stadium pressbox have been looking around in disbelief.  And the cookies and brownies in the hospitality room have disappeared.

But a good crowd has filed in here, despite the threat of rain. Sunil Gulati is here. So is Abby Wambach.

This is probably my last trip to the pressbox, so it’s a little sentimental for me, too.  So many memories of incomprehensible PA announcements, nachos and bad weather. And great soccer.

One note from the lineup: Former Spirit players Ashlyn Harris, Ali Krieger and Crystal Dunn are NOT in the starting lineup. You could say Jill Ellis is a spoilsport, or you could say she simply cares more about developing her team than anything else.

And … it’s pouring again. This stadium always makes it interesting.

Thoughts on the game at some point tomorrow and later this week.

UPDATE: I also got a little bit more information about the national anthem policy (NOT BYLAW) and why it was not included in the “book” that’s released before the Annual General Meeting. The quick answer: Not enough time. Items from the February board meeting simply couldn’t be added to the book. (You might argue that they still could’ve sent out an addendum, of course.)

I was also told the when the policy appeared on screen at the AGM, the crowd of state and association reps from all over erupted with a loud cheer. Take that for what it’s worth or whatever you want to make of it.

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women's soccer, work portfolio

U.S. women and 60 Minutes: What we still don’t know

Posted on by Beau Dure

Yes, Carli Lloyd actually said the women’s team deserves to be paid more than the men.

We still don’t know what that means.

So my Guardian piece on the matter covers some familiar ground. But we do have some news, and it’s probably not good. This labor dispute has no signs of progress. The next round of talks has been delayed, and we don’t know why. The EEOC doesn’t seem to be close to issuing any sort of guidance.

The women are willing to talk about the issues. But only on their terms.

A few other thoughts:

  • I’m not comfortable calling the women’s soccer team the greatest team in women’s sports history. Not when the USA had to catch up to other countries in basketball and is now overwhelmingly No. 1 in a sense that the women’s soccer team never was.
  • The piece wasn’t bad, especially given its generalist audience, but some of the editing made little sense. Rich Nichols made a point about the similarities (or differences?) between the U.S. soccer dispute and the NBA/WNBA, and the context of his point wasn’t at all clear. Hope Solo made a point about the men getting paid “win or lose” — in the context of U.S. women’s salaries that are paid, you guessed, win or lose. (Or sit out entirely.)
  • The points raised on travel are misleading if not outright false. The men travel business class when they’re flying to camp from their European club teams and on a charter when they’re going some place like San Pedro Sula. They’ve sometimes been in coach in other situations, though I don’t know how recently. The women’s Memorandum of Understanding says flights over three hours are business class or charter. If USSF is violating that deal, then that’s a point worth mentioning. (That said, the sides are trying to negotiate what happens in the future.)
  • We still don’t know how any of this affects the NWSL. Some people who chatted with me say it’s not fair to expect the U.S. women’s deal to have any NWSL ramifications. Maybe it’s not. But if U.S. Soccer is going to continue subsidizing salaries for its players in the NWSL, then it’ll be difficult to write a labor deal that doesn’t address that fact.

Here’s the story, which has a surprising number of comments considering that the U.S. soccer community has been preoccupied with the Klinsmann matter: The USA women’s national team are demanding equal pay. Is it realistic? | Football | The Guardian

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culture, women's soccer

To my LGBTQ friends, colleagues and readers …

Posted on by Beau Dure

I’m not going to lie. I grew up with a backwards attitude. Yeah, Athens is a college town, but it’s still in Georgia. At both my rough-and-tumble public school and my vaguely Christian-ish (and generally wonderful) private school, homophobia reigned. “Gay” meant “weak.”

It took me a few years to realize that I knew gay people. Those guys we knew in Savannah who lived together with their bulldogs? Yeah. My relative who only married a woman as a business deal of sorts? Yeah.

In college, I met plenty of people who were out. And my attitude changed.

College will do that to you if you go to the right place. My perceptions on Muslims changed. I had known a couple of Jewish neighbors at home, but now I was seeing observances of all the holidays and learning much more about the religion and the culture. And I met gay people, some of whom didn’t conform to any stereotype that had been instilled in me in Athens.

I don’t think I actively hated anyone growing up. But I was ignorant. Surely insensitive at times.

And my attitude on sexual identity was still framed by my church and the “muscular Christianity” youth groups that had taught me to play football very well and soccer very badly. I needed a few years out in the real world to see that things weren’t always what a hyper-literal and biased interpretation of the Bible could make them seem.

At the same time, I’d always been open to women’s sports. I went to women’s basketball games at Duke when maybe 200 people would show up. I had friends on the volleyball team and soccer team. I nearly got in a fight at N.C. State during a volleyball match. (Those guys were jerks.)

So whenever I’ve been in sports journalism, in and out over the last 25 years, I’ve covered women’s sports, ranging from UNC Wilmington basketball games that no one saw and Women’s World Cup games that packed stadiums in Germany.

And through the years, acceptance of gay players and fans has grown. At UNC Wilmington, there were occasional whispers. Now I cover soccer teams with multiple lesbian players and a large LGBTQ fan base.

Why am I talking about this now?

Because we just had an election, and I see a lot of people who are scared. I think the gay-bashing rhetoric we saw in the election has little change of becoming law, but a lot of hateful people now feel empowered, and that’s legitimately frightening.

So I’m writing now to say this …

I’ve got your back.

Maybe 30 years ago, when I was a naive high school kid in Georgia, I wouldn’t have said that. I wouldn’t have understood why it was important to say it.

And even today, I have to limit my political statements for a variety of reasons. I’m not going to argue federal income tax with anyone.

But today I understand that basic human decency means treating people with dignity. So if anyone tries to invalidate the lives and loves of their fellow human beings, I will speak up.

Yell at me about my women’s soccer coverage. That’s fine. We have controversies. But just know that when it comes to what’s really important, I’m on your side.

My favorite tweet of the past two days:

Joanna Lohman is a lot stronger than most of us. She’s certainly stronger than I am, so I doubt she really needs my help.

But I’ve got her back. And yours. And yours.

 

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