Tag: u.s. women’s national team

soccer

The tough turf questions to ask after the WNT cancellation

Posted on by Beau Dure

The U.S. women’s national team will not play Trinidad & Tobago today. The cancellation is the stunning but fair conclusion to yesterday’s news that Megan Rapinoe tore her ACL in training and the team was less than pleased with the conditions of Aloha Stadium’s artificial turf.

The first question: How could this happen?

Easy answer: U.S. Soccer dropped the ball and failed to check out the field. But it’s a little more complex than that.

This field hasn’t been sitting idle for months. Hawaii’s football team just finished a full season on it. The NFL’s Pro Bowl will be played there in a couple of months.

So how can a field be suitable for large people making sharp cuts and tackling each other but not suitable for a soccer game?

KHON says turf was added to the playing area in an effort to make it wider than a football field, and they cite Hope Solo’s tweet lifting a seam in the turf. But the Honolulu Star-Advertiser cites coach Jill Ellis in saying the field is still “very narrow.”

From overhead photos, it looks like the stadium has little space to add width. This isn’t one of these new NFL stadiums with allowances made for the width of a soccer field.

But they’ve done it before. The Los Angeles Galaxy played at Aloha Stadium in 2008. David Beckham, who criticized artificial turf upon his arrival in MLS, played in that game.

So what happened since then? Did the stadium try a different method of widening the field than was used in 2008? Has the surface simply deteriorated?

Men’s soccer has been through plenty of turf issues in the past couple of generations. The NASL played on old-school artificial turf. The Dallas Burn spent one season in Dragon Stadium, a high school football stadium that was OK for Friday night games in Texas but turned into a broiler in the summer heat. The Burn, no longer willing to take their name literally, moved back to the Cotton Bowl before settling into permanent facilities elsewhere.

Most of the narrow fields are gone. The Columbus Crew will play today in their spacious home, not Ohio State’s narrow football stadium. But turf is still an issue in MLS, and some players are “rested” when it’s time to play on the fake stuff.

So field quality is an ongoing issue. The question now: What can be learned from the Hawaii incident?

For U.S. Soccer, it simply shows venues must be vetted more thoroughly. But I’m also curious to know how a stadium that has hosted elite pro soccer in the past along with its usual college and pro football was unable to pull it off here.

Update: To clarify, it appears Rapinoe was injured on a training field, not at Aloha Stadium. It was on grass, in fact, though reliable sources suggest it was a poor grass field.

I’ve been chatting a lot on Twitter today — some good discussion, some “how dare you ask questions and not just be satisfied with our narrative that U.S. Soccer doesn’t care about women?” nonsense. The latter does not cover the women’s soccer community in glory.

Yes, we should ask why the men play on grass-over-turf (which often incurs its own set of problems) while the women play on turf. Yes, we should ask why the training field was so bad.

But we can and should ask whether this should be the last straw in terms of the men and women playing in unsuitable venues. U.S. Soccer clearly needs to overhaul the way it vets its venues, period. Maybe international games should all be in MLS stadiums with grass. (Sorry, Portland.)

And, to get outside of our soccer bubble, we can and should ask whether the Aloha Stadium turf is unsafe for college football. Or the Pro Bowl.

So thanks to those of you on Twitter who found these questions interesting. In the long run, I think these questions will help all athletes. Including women’s soccer players.

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soccer

Women’s soccer in Europe and other scattered venues

Posted on by Beau Dure

Before going to the Champions League roundup for the week, let’s pause to consider how much more difficult it is to plan a Fan Tribute Tour in the United States that it would be in, say, the Netherlands.

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So yes, I’d like the team to come close enough to D.C. that I don’t need to pay for airfare and a hotel to see them. But a lot of the country could have that concern.

The one curious thing: They know it’s getting colder, right? See that big empty area below Connecticut? It’s a little warmer there.

Meanwhile, the Women’s Champions League in Europe wrapped up the round of 32, our favorite player/journalist Tiffany Weimer has checked in with her take on what it meant to hear the Champions League theme song and knock out Glasgow City. She even provided a few highlights. Anyone else think the Glasgow captain (20-second mark) looks a little like McKayla Maroney, who’s mentioned in passing in the blog?

Weimer’s team has advanced. Here’s the full rundown.

Turbine Potsdam (Ger) 5-0 Standard Liege (Bel), aggregate 8-1: Alyssa Naeher got the start in goal for Potsdam and actually had a few saves to make — Standard got six shots on target. Keelin Winters played the full 90 for Potsdam after sitting out last week, while Alex Singer wasn’t on the gameday roster after playing last week. For Standard, American Carleta Arbulu once again wasn’t involved. For Anonma fans: She entered the match in the 58th minute and scored in the 87th.

Brondby (Den) 3-3 Stabaek (Nor), aggregate 3-5: The Norwegian side scored two first-half goals to run the aggregate lead to 4-0, then answered a Brondby goal quickly to run it to 5-1. Jasmyne Spencer joined the game in the 67th minute.

Lyon (Fra) 5-0 PK-35 (Fin), aggregate 12-0: PK once again started Americans Liz Bogus, Casey Berrier and Megan Chapin, but Lyon outshot them 32-0. The French juggernaut juggled its roster a bit, but Sonia Bompastor still went the distance and scored. Camille Abily also scored early. Lara Dickenmann and Ami Otaki were second-half subs.

Malmo (Swe) 6-1 MTK (Hun), aggregate 10-1: Malmo gave Ali Riley, Ramona Bachmann and Thora Helgadottir the night off, keeping them on the bench just in case. They weren’t needed.

Goteborg (Swe) 3-0 Spartak Subotica (Srb), aggregate 4-0: Christen Press got the final goal for Goteborg, which also started Yael Averbuch, Ingrid Wells, Camille Levin and Anita Asante.

Neulengbach (Aut) 2-2 Olimpia Cluj (Rou), aggregate 3-3, Cluj win on away goals: Each team scored in extra time — Cluj in the 101st minute, Neulengbach in the 108th. Stats say Neulengbach outshot Cluj 35-17 and had 16 shots on target, 2 off the woodwork.

Torres (Ita) 3-1 Apollon (Cyp), aggregate 6-3: Sinead Farrelly and Michelle Betos played the full 90 for the visitors. Arianna Criscione was on the Torres bench.

Fortuna Hjorring (Den) 0-0 Glasgow City (Sco), aggregate 2-1: Weimer played 75 minutes, Lisa-Marie Woods played 90, and Casey Ramirez was on the bench for Fortuna.

Verona (Ita) 3-0 Birmingham (Eng), after extra time, aggregate 3-2: Cristiana Girelli had the hat trick to stun the English side.

Zorkiy (Rus) 3-1 Stjarnan (Isl), aggregate 3-1: Mexico’s Fatima Leyva played 90 for the winners. Katie Deines and Ashley Bares started for Stjarnan; Veronica Perez replaced Bares in the second half.

Rossiyanka (Rus) 1-2 Den Haag (Ned), aggregate 5-3: Teresa Noyola had a late goal for Den Haag. Brittany Persaud came on as a late sub; Libby Guess wasn’t in the 18. Fabiana played 90 for Rossiyanka.

Arsenal (Eng) 4-0 Barcelona (Esp), aggregate 7-0: Kelly Smith started and was replaced at halftime by Jennifer Beattie, who had a second-half hat trick. Alex Scott played 90; Gemma Davison played 64.

Roa (Nor) 4-0 BIIK (Kaz), aggregate 8-0: Still no Lene Mykjaland for Roa.

Wolfsburg (Ger) 6-1 Unia Raciborz (Pol), aggregate 11-2: Rebecca Smith is out injured. Viola Odebrecht finished the scoring for Wolfsburg.

Juvisy (Fra) 1-0 Zurich (Sui), aggregate 2-1: Sonia Fuss got a yellow card for the visitors. Gaetane Thiney had the decisive goal on a PK in the second half.

Still to play next week: Sparta Praha (Cze)-Sarajevo (Bih). Sparta lead 3-0. Sarajevo has American Jelena Vrcelj.

Next update on a U.S. league: Maybe over the weekend. We’ll see.

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soccer

A farewell to Pia: What she changed, what she didn’t

Posted on by Beau Dure
Photo by Scott Bales/YCJ

The dry-erase boards in USA TODAY’s gleaming conference rooms are rarely used for soccer tactics. But when Abby Wambach, Kate Markgraf and a couple of their U.S. teammates dropped by to visit a few months after Pia Sundhage was hired, we broke out the Xs and Os to chat about everything the Swedish coach was going to change with this team.

Little did we know that Sundhage would have an immense impact on this team without really overhauling the USA’s tactics. You could argue that the U.S. Under-20 team, under college soccer mainstay Steve Swanson, plays more of the much-hyped possession game than Sundhage’s team.

Instead, Sundhage adapted to the players around her. And Sundhage’s genius proved to be about something other than on-field style. She steadied the team with a guitar and a smile.

Sundhage’s legacy is one of boundless optimism, shining through with her team management, her singing voice, and a glass that was — as she reminded us in so many press conferences over the years — always half full.

Not that Sundhage was always easygoing. Natasha Kai was out, in, and finally out. Hope Solo’s memoir is full of praise for Pia, but the goalkeeper’s epilogue says Sundhage threatened to drop her from the team over the publication of her book.

The nattering nabobs of negativity on Twitter will always scoff that any coach should win with the depth of talent the USA possesses. They forget that Sundhage inherited an utter mess after the 2007 World Cup implosion. She kept most of the talented but combustible team together — injuries, not coaching decisions, accounted for most of the changes from 2007 to 2008 — and smoothed over the ill will.

And yet it got worse. Wambach shattered her leg in a pre-Olympic friendly. The U.S. women went to China, dropped their opener and sputtered offensively. They scraped into the semifinal and trailed Japan until makeshift forward Angela Hucles combined with Heather O’Reilly and Lori Chalupny for a four-goal outburst.

Sundhage’s faith in Solo paid off in the final. A magnificent goalkeeping performance kept it close. Carli Lloyd provided the goal.

(Solo? Lloyd? Olympic final? Didn’t we just see that? Yes, we did. And though the pugnacious Lloyd took a shot at her “doubters” after the 2012 final, Sundhage rolled with it. Her faith in Lloyd, whose every misstep threatens to crash Twitter, was vindicated.)

The chemistry-conscious Sundhage may not have brought in new players at the rate some fans wanted. But her constant presence at WPS games was worth the air miles, as Becky Sauerbrunn, Lori Lindsey and breakout star Megan Rapinoe built their cases for national team spots.

Tactically, perhaps the team was less predictable that it was in, say, the 2003 World Cup semifinal, when the unimaginative U.S. offense kept banging the ball in the air against a German defense well-equipped to deal with that threat. Yet this is still a team that thrives on athleticism rather than long spells of possession, and the USA would’ve accomplished much less in the past two years without Rapinoe and company floating crosses toward the imposing Wambach. The aerial game helped the USA rally to win Sundhage’s farewell game Wednesday night.

The changes were subtle. The challenges were not. Nothing comes easy for the U.S. women. If it didn’t come easy in 1999, when the rest of the world had only a couple of players making a living in the game, why would it come easily now?

So raise a glass to Pia. Half full, of course.

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olympic sports, soccer

Hope Solo back on the Twitter rampage

Posted on by Beau Dure

So the U.S. women’s soccer team cruised through its game against Colombia today, apart from that nasty punch to Abby Wambach’s face. Three goals, solid win. No problem, right?

Or maybe not.

That was her second Tweet after the game. The first was dated 2:44 p.m. ET. The game ended around 1:50 p.m. That’s quick.

I didn’t hear all of the commentary, given my other two jobs. So what was said?

https://twitter.com/sbethTX/status/229309126608560129

Well that sounds serious. Anyone else want to weigh in?

OK, that clears things up.

Frankly, I’m not sure it matters if Brandi wound up and yelled “HOPE SOLO STINKS! THIS DEFENSE IS A JOKE!” over and over during the game. Fans can debate that.

Why the heck are players offering their critiques before they’ve even left the stadium?

And what does Solo know of Chastain’s comments? She wasn’t that busy during the game. Was she watching an NBC feed in the goal?

As regular readers know, this isn’t the first time Solo has wound up on Twitter. She has been significantly quieter since then.

But with a book coming up and promising to tell her side of the 2007 Women’s World Cup, along with some attention-getting interviews, I wondered before the Games whether Solo’s words were going to pose a threat to team chemistry. You could say it’s “new guard” (at least one of them) vs. “old guard,” but some of the old guard is still around.

Should they be worried?

 

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soccer

Will WPS stars sign up for another season?

Posted on by Beau Dure

Here’s a bit of irony: iTunes, in shuffling through my music library, has just called up Stevie Wonder’s Signed, Sealed, Delivered.

If you look at the list of players who have and have not signed with WPS teams for 2012, you’ll see that an awful lot of players are in the “have not” category. That includes most of the U.S. national team assembled for Saturday’s revenge friendly against Sweden.

A couple of sticking points:

1. When will the WPS season take place? The Olympics fall rather inconveniently in late July and early August. (Yes, if things go awry in January’s qualification tournament, that could be a concern for the Canadian players and not the Americans, but we have no reason to assume such things.)

2. The league has no collective bargaining agreement at the moment. That’s also ironic in a sense, given today’s events — there’s no salary cap, so the league isn’t preventing owners from paying Borislow-style salaries to stack their rosters.

WPS CEO Jennifer O’Sullivan had this to say in a conference call last week: “We certainly believe that a CBA is a vital component. At the same time, we have to kind of move forward as it stands. There’s a tremendous amount of talent.”

The union, though, is a little disappointed with progress so far. Here’s a statement:

This off-season the players union has been busy working with players on various matters, but talks with the league have seemingly stalled regarding scheduling, salaries, contract terms, and other issues subject to bargaining. The owners have not responded to player proposals regarding minimum salaries in any real way and are proceeding as if uninterested in a CBA. The players recognize WPS is in flux but find the league’s lack of responsiveness disappointing – a CBA would only contribute to the stability and professionalism of the league and there is no reason one could not have been reached before free agency opened. We are, however, moving forward with plans for next year and are hopeful and excited about the 2012 season and beyond.

The next key date for the league is Sunday. Each year, pro leagues and teams go through a review with U.S. Soccer’s professional leagues task force (in the past, that group has included USSF secretary general Dan Flynn, executive VP Mike Edwards and board member Carlos Cordeiro), which makes recommendations to the U.S. Soccer board. That board will meet Sunday before the MLS Cup final in Carson, Calif. For a thriving league like MLS, this review won’t generate any news. For a league that needs to apply for a waiver on the minimum of eight teams, there’s a bit more to discuss.

If you need to catch up on today’s news, check out the espnW story on Dan Borislow’s lawsuit and read the preceding two posts.

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