Tag: u.s. women’s soccer team

us soccer, women's soccer

No, the WNT didn’t lose in court because the MNT lost in Couva

Posted on by Beau Dure

The court ruling that decimated the U.S. women’s soccer team’s lawsuit had a peculiar irony that didn’t escape the sharp eyes of many who read the case: The women’s earned more than the men, not just over the course of five years but per game, because the men failed to qualify for the World Cup and therefore missed out on a ton of bonus money. And that fact was Point No. 1 in the decision.

Image by Mdesigns from Pixabay

Yes, that could be another verse for Alanis Morissette to consider.

No, it didn’t cost the WNT the case. It just saved Judge R. Gary Klausner a bit of time. “The Court need not address the remaining elements of Plaintiffs’ prima facie case,” Klausner wrote, surely with a sigh of relief that he didn’t have to delve into anything more complex than that.

Both sides presented plenty of hypotheticals; e.g., whether the MNT would make more under the WNT deal or vice versa. This period of time just gave the judge a scenario that he couldn’t dismiss as implausible — because it actually happened.

In any case, a lot of analyses are overlooking the more damning part of Klausner’s ruling. The women willingly traded higher bonuses for greater stability. They can’t turn around and complain that they would have been paid more under a deal they didn’t actually want.

That fact also saved Klausner some time. He didn’t have to walk through the four-part test of the WNT’s legal burden that Elon professor Andrew Haile, a former Davidson soccer player, spelled out in an Oregon Law Review piece. Klausner only really addressed No. 2: Rate of Pay.

The judge didn’t deal with No. 1: The “Same Establishment,” on which U.S. Soccer had a legitimate argument that the MNT and WNT “effectively operate in different markets,” as Haile said. Nor did he address No. 3: “Equal Work,” on which Haile was more bullish on the WNT winning. The USSF had plenty of sound arguments on No. 4: Pay differences for reasons “Other Than Sex” — including revenue generation.

Here’s where we find another irony, one that acts as a bit of a counterweight to the first one. Yes, the men’s failure to qualify for the World Cup suppressed their pay. But it also suppressed the team’s revenue, which had been running well ahead of the WNT’s in the years before this all started in 2016. (The exception was a World Cup year, but that difference hardly made up the differences in 2011-15.)

So if the case had gone to court back when the EEOC complaint that became this lawsuit was filed in 2016, before the men’s disastrous World Cup qualifying campaign, U.S. Soccer would have had that much stronger of an argument that the disparity is due to reasons “other than sex”: Just look at the revenue.

That’s not necessarily fair. U.S. Soccer is a nonprofit charged with growing the game in the United States. That’s why it pays for things like Paralympic soccer and development programs that are guaranteed to lose money. They should be supporting women’s soccer even if they lose money. (In the strictest sense, they do, but the women’s team certainly helps bring in the sponsorship and marketing money that is by far the biggest revenue-driver in the USSF budget.)

Which brings us back to the point you’ve seen from so many knowledgeable people in women’s soccer such as Andrew Das, Kelsey Trainor and Julie Foudy: Any more progress the women make will be made at the negotiating table that they’ve avoided for a while. (It’s certainly possible that U.S. Soccer made that table unpleasant at times.)

So the suit may have served a purpose beyond any settlement the WNT may get on the remaining points on support for the team aside from paychecks. That’s the conclusion of Caitlin Murray, who literally wrote the book on the WNT and points out that the suit sparked a strong wave of public attention and pressure that has forced U.S. Soccer to address a few issues already.

Unless the women appeal, which would be an appalling decision akin to when MLS players — also represented by Jeff Kessler — dragged out their case two unnecessary years, everyone has a chance to avoid embarrassing situations.

The WNT can avoid having their case picked apart in court. They can avoid having Meghan Klingenberg, Kelley O’Hara and union chief Becca Roux called by the Federation, which found items in their depositions that they believe favored their side.

The Federation can avoid the optics of cross-examining beloved celebrities. Even if they’re not asking the insulting questions about skill and physical abilities that prompted USSF President Carlos Cordeiro’s resignation and an abrupt reshuffling of their legal team, USSF lawyers surely would love to avoid questioning Alex Morgan (pending pregnancy) and Megan Rapinoe while journalists who don’t know the details of the case sit with poised skewers.

And the Federation finally has the opportunity to wriggle out of a situation it created by accident — an MNT contract with World Cup bonuses they’ll never need to pay the men and can’t afford to pay the women.

The MNT won’t like hearing this, but World Cup bonus money is the whole reason the Federation is in this mess. When U.S. Soccer agreed to a deal that would pay the MNT north of $25 million if they won the Cup, a significant but not overwhelming chunk of FIFAs $38 million prize money, they didn’t anticipate that the women would see the same money, which would have given the Federation a loss of more than $20 million on FIFA’s laughable $4 million prize money for the Women’s World Cup.

In Australia and Norway, the federations have reached “equal pay” deals because women accepted equal percentages of prize money, not equal payouts. The USWNT certainly wouldn’t have accepted that calculation in their request for back pay. U.S. Soccer probably would have.

FIFA has pledged to double the prize money for the 2023 Women’s World Cup. But unless they double that figure and then double it again, we’ll still have a large disparity in the winnings available for the MNT and the WNT.

Everything outside the World Cup bonuses can and should be as equal as possible. U.S. Soccer might not accept the argument that the SheBelieves Cup would be as important as the Gold Cup or Copa America if only they asked FIFA to recognize it as such, but the details aren’t impossible to work out.

Seriously — the women made that argument about the SheBelieves Cup. If you want another bit of irony, just bear in mind that U.S. Soccer created that competition for the sole purpose of boosting the women’s game.

And that’ll give us one last opportunity to look at the women’s court filings and see the contortions their lawyers made. These are from the Plaintiffs’ Statement of Additional Genuine Disputes in Support of Their Motion for Partial Summary Judgment:

Disputed that the “results of friendly matches, such as those in the SheBelieves Cup or Tournament of Nations, are not as heavily weighted in FIFA’s team rankings as those in non-friendly competitions such as the Gold Cup, Copa America, or the FIFA Confederations Cup.” This purported “fact” is only Mr. Gulati’s opinion.

Sunil Gulati would need very little time to produce the documents backing up this “opinion.” Actually, the women also get more heavily weighted rankings from continental competitions than they do from the SheBelieves Cup.

Disputed that “in the world of international soccer there is more prestige involved in winning an official continental championship, such as the Gold Cup or Copa America, than winning a friendly tournament such as the SheBelieves Cup or Tournament of Nations. This additional prestige results from factors such as the number of participants in the tournaments, the fact that the continental championships are continental championships in the first place (and not friendly matches), the fact that they include knockout rounds and a final match, and the comparative age of the tournaments.” This purported “fact” is only Mr. Gulati’s opinion.

Good luck disputing that in court.

USSF has acknowledged that it has not attempted to register the SheBelieves Cup and the Tournament of Nations, tournaments it hosts, with FIFA, and that FIFA’s recognition may not be needed.

What does that even mean?

How much money did both sides have to pay their lawyers to come up and refute such ridiculous points? Billable hours aren’t cheap.

The women might not get as much back pay as they wanted. But we can turn to the future and figure out how to solve this.

Let’s go back to Julie Foudy again for her solution: Pool everything together and split it …

The arguments against:

  1. If the MNT made a decent World Cup run, they’d end up making less money than they would under their own deal.
  2. Each team, likely within each union, would need to figure out how to split their money.

The arguments for:

  1. Figuring out how to split that money within each team may be a good thing. In the WNT, we’d have to hope they do more to get money to more people in the talent pool. As it stands now, the difference between being the 23rd player and being the 27th player in the pool can be the difference between a solid six-figure payout and the need to find a side hustle.
  2. One Nation, One Team. While the MNT union has mastered the art of being performatively woke in its statements backing the WNT, even though a $66m payout to the WNT — especially given the COVID-19 budget cuts — would effectively kill any hope they have of getting a raise in the new deal to replace the one that expired 16 months ago, there’s a rift between some MNT fans and WNT fans. Shockingly, bashing the MNT apparently didn’t sit well with a lot of supporters. Split the pot equally, and then every MNT success helps the WNT and vice versa.
  3. No more lawsuits. Equal pay. Surely no more strike threats either. As revenue increases, player pay would increase as well.

So if you’re looking for a way to inspire the next generation of women’s players, make a deal that ensures labor peace and equal pay (however they can define it) now and down the road. And try to leave a bit of money to develop the younger players who’ll form the generation after that.

2
us soccer, women's soccer

U.S. women’s soccer case: Witness list

Posted on by Beau Dure

If the U.S. women’s team lawsuit proceeds to trial, it’ll take a while. The parties have just released their witness list, and it’s a nice 25 pages. (That means I spent $2.50 at PACER, so please buy one of my books as compensation. You can now read the details for free at RECAP.)

Here we go …

PLAINTIFFS

Plaintiffs reserve the right to call more. USSF is seeking to exclude Cook and Goldberg.

Asterisks are witnesses on both plaintiffs’ and USSF list. Time estimates are combined (in other words, when USSF says 1.25 hours, that should be total).

  • *Alex Morgan (live – time expected: 1.25 hours plantiffs, 1.25 USSF) — but due to pregnancy, Christen Press may be called in her place. If Press is called, USSF expects only 0.75 hours.
  • Megan Rapinoe (live – 1.25/1.25)
  • Carli Lloyd (live – 1.25/1.25)
  • Becky Sauerbrunn (live – 2.5/1.25)
  • Finnie Cook, economics expert witness (live – 3/2)
  • Caren Goldberg, human resources expert witness (live – 3/2)
  • Roger Noll, economics expert witness called for rebuttal to USSF experts Carlyn Irwin and Justin McCrary (live – 2/1.5)
  • “USSF through designees Jay Berhalter, Sunil Gulati and Tom King” (by deposition video — 5 hours plaintiffs, 3 hours USSF)
  • *Sunil Gulati (live or deposition video – 3/4)
  • Jay Berhalter (live or deposition video – 1/1.5)
  • Carlos Cordeiro (live or deposition video – 2/1.5)
  • *Tom King (USSF managing director of administration, live or deposition video – 3/4.5)
  • Pinky Raina (USSF’s relatively new chief financial officer, live or deposition video – 1/2)
  • Jill Ellis (live or deposition video – 1/1.5)
  • *Rich Nichols (Hope Solo’s lawyer, but more relevant to this case is his role as former WNTPA executive director, by deposition video – 0.75/2)
  • *John Langel (WNTPA executive director before Nichols, by deposition video – 1.25/2.5)
  • “The Coca-Cola Company through designee John Seiler” (by deposition video – 1/0.25)
  • “Visa U.S.A. through designee Ashley Fisher” (by deposition video – 0.75/0.25)

USSF

USSF reserves the right to add more. Plaintiffs are seeking to exclude Moses, Marsteller, Hopfinger and Levine.

Asterisks are different here — these are witnesses USSF will call “only if need arises.” Is USSF that confident?

  • *Kay Bradley (USSF brand director, live – 1.5 USSF/1 plaintiffs)
  • *Jill Ellis (see above)
  • Sunil Gulati (see above)
  • Amy Hopfinger (USSF director of events, live – 1.5/1)
  • Carlyn Irwin (forensic accounting expert, live – 3.0/1)
  • Tom King (see above)
  • Meghan Klingenberg (video deposition – 0.75/0.5)
  • John Langel (see above)
  • *Lisa Levine (former USSF general counsel, not the one involved with recent controversies, live – 1.5/1)
  • Paul Marstellar (USSF director of event revenue, live – 1.5/1)
  • Justin McCrary (economics expert witness, live – 3/2)
  • Philip Miscimarra (labor economics expert witness, live – 2/1)
  • Alex Morgan (see above)
  • Ross Moses (USSF director of analytics and research, live – 1.25/1)
  • Rich Nichols (see above)
  • Kelley O’Hara (deposition designation – 1.25/0.5)
  • Christen Press (see above – note that USSF doesn’t distinguish that she would be called only if Morgan can’t testify. “Her testimony includes her own admissions,” USSF says.)
  • Pinky Raina (see above)
  • Rebecca Roux (WNTPA executive director, live or video deposition – 1/1)
  • *Russ Sauer (retired lawyer who represented USSF in CBA talks – 1.5/1)

So a few thoughts:

Klingenberg, O’Hara and Roux – seems interesting that USSF is calling them and plaintiffs are not.

Coca-Cola and VISA – relevant because plaintiffs, in motion to exclude evidence of Soccer United Marketing revenue, make the case that these sponsors inquired about sponsoring only the WNT but were told SUM bundles MNT, WNT and everything else.

1
us soccer, women's soccer

Will the U.S. women’s back pay demands hurt future women’s soccer players?

Posted on by Beau Dure

I’ve been covering women’s sports for about three decades now. Not as 100% of my job — through most of my employment, I’ve had a lot of editing and online responsibilities as well as reporting — but I’ve amassed a considerable amount of women’s soccer stories (and a book) and a lot of women’s coverage in my Olympic sports work.

Lately, that’s been less game coverage and more issue coverage. How can we keep young athletes safe from sexual predators like Larry Nassar? How do Olympic sports athletes support themselves? How can an athlete stay in a sport in which women have been denied a spot in the Games?

It hasn’t been good for my career. I lost money on my book, though I could’ve done a better job reporting it. An editor (a woman, and she was a great boss) once told me I should cut back on covering women’s soccer, and I didn’t.

I’ve also delved deeply into U.S. Soccer finances. Haven’t made a lot of money on that, either. The Guardian and Soccer America are good to me, but I’ve done so much extra work on this that my income is far under minimum wage.

I’ve also covered youth soccer. It’s a mess. That’s a big reason why I have a book out now called Why the U.S. Men Will Never Win the World Cup.

But it also has the potential to ensure that the 2019 Women’s World Cup win will be the USA’s last. The rest of the world is catching ahead, and staying ahead will require well-spent money.

So when I see that the U.S. women are looking for $66 million, I have to go back to the math.

U.S. Soccer, of course, has countered with a motion for a summary judgment of $0. I’m guessing negotiations aren’t going well.

And we should say at the outset that such motions, no matter how many volumes of documents are printed in support, still don’t force the court to play “all or nothing,” as the eminent sports law professor Steven Bank points out.

But if the women were seeking $10 million, we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all. $20 million? Possibly.

Here are a few points demonstrating that neither the Fed ($0) nor the players ($66 million) have taken a justifiable stance.

$66 million is more than even the most generous computation I can find.

I ran the numbers last summer, using the assumption that the U.S. women would ask for the same bonuses the U.S. men would have received had they won the World Cup. That wouldn’t meant the women, who under the current CBA get close to 100% of FIFA prize money if they win (once you include the Victory Tour bonus, which is paid on top of their regular pay for four friendlies), would have received more than 1,300% of FIFA prize money in 2015. (The winning country received $2 million. The men’s bonus for winning would’ve been more than $26 million.)

I came up with $50,365,524.

You can make your own calculations and run different scenarios if you like using this spreadsheet. You can also download from GitHub.

The Federation’s mandate is to grow the game, which will make it possible for the men to get better and the women to stay on top

A lot of people look at pay in a vacuum, as if U.S. Soccer is an NBA team and players should get a specific part of the revenue. But we’re not talking about billionaire owners here. (Yes, we’re talking about overpaid executives — we’ll get to that.) This is a nonprofit organization that is responsible for coaching education, referee education, Paralympic soccer, youth national teams, etc.

The Federation is way behind other federations in this respect

U.S. Soccer doesn’t have the scouting or coaching infrastructure that other countries have.

That’s one reason the men haven’t done as well as anyone would like.

That’s one reason the women’s youth national teams haven’t done well recently, either, and that bodes ill for the future.

The Federation is trying to address this by spending a pile of assets it accumulated, much of it by hosting the Copa America Centenario, on new programs

The initial idea was to spend it down to $50 million. Thanks to legal fees, that’s now $42 million.

Which is less than $66 million.

That said, we don’t know how well the Federation is spending that money

Take a look at the Federation’s budgets — not just in FY 2019 but in past years as well.

A couple of things seem sensible. They’re spending more on the U.S. Open Cup and much more on referee and coaching education. They’ve also spent a bit on technology so they can keep track of players and shore up the Fed’s awful web sites. They’ve launched a terrific Innovate to Grow grant program that was a big hit among state federations (who deserve none of the blame for the Federation’s spending or contract negotiations) at the Annual General Meeting.

But in the Annual General Meeting book (see AGM books tab on the spreadsheet linked above), they have a $3 million line item for “Various.” And executive pay is out of whack. Maybe they can go without replacing Jay Berhalter. (Not Gregg. They still need a men’s coach.) Maybe they don’t need to hire so many staffers and relocate them to Chicago.

Still, the new CEO will probably command a lot of money, maybe even more than Dan Flynn made. They need someone good.

It’d be cool if they hired a woman, right? Maybe a former Board of Directors member?

Historically, the Federation hasn’t treated the women as well as they should have

There’s a reason the women went on strike in 2000. There’s a reason they filed an EEOC complaint. And the new collective bargaining agreement should have equalized some things that could’ve been equalized. (You could argue that hiring lawyers who have lost multiple times to U.S. Soccer was a bad idea on the women’s part.)

Hank Steinbrecher is gone. Dan Flynn just left. Sunil Gulati is an ex officio member of the board.

And to be sure, they’ve invested more into women’s soccer than other federations. Yes, even Norway and Australia, with their much-hyped “equal pay” deals that (A) don’t account for the differences in prize money that the U.S. women clearly want to address and (B) don’t pay either team that well, especially in Norway.

But they left a mess. There’s no reason the women’s CBA shouldn’t have equal bonuses for friendlies at the very least.

One important myth to debunk here: Typically, the WNT’s revenue is not equal to the men. Not close. But the women can still make a case. Go back to the notion that the Federation is a nonprofit that’s supposed to grow the game. They’re not going to make a profit on beach soccer (which has a new women’s team), Para soccer and youth programs, but they have to do so anyway. They may not make a profit on women’s soccer, but it’s their mandate to support it equally anyway.

I’ll write more for various outlets on this at some point, but I hope everything above is helpful.

0
us soccer

An even deeper dive into U.S. Soccer finances

Posted on by Beau Dure

I went into a rabbit hole and kept digging.

On Dec. 4, The Guardian published my piece on U.S. Soccer and where the money is going. It was essentially a preview of a board meeting that had the potential to shed light on the federation’s five-year plan to spend its assets down to $50m but did not.

I had been working on a spreadsheet rounding up a lot of U.S. Soccer numbers from their public documents — the 990 forms required of nonprofits, Audited Financial Statements, Annual General Meeting reports, etc. I figured I would have it done the day after the piece was published.

I finished it this morning. Dec. 13.

It’s fair to say I have a lot of detail:

  • Revenue and expenses in detail from 2011 forward, with some information from 2001-03 and 2006.
  • Game-by-game estimates for U.S. national team pay dating back to 2010.
  • Attendance and ratings for U.S. national team games

I’ve uploaded all of this to GitHub. If you’d prefer that I make it available some other way, please let me know.

Download away.

1
us soccer, women's soccer

A quick guide to the U.S. women’s soccer pay dispute

Posted on by Beau Dure

This World Cup is going to be quite competitive, today’s 13-0 rout notwithstanding. The bad news is that the USA’s chances of winning are less than 50-50, but the good news is that the reason is the growth of the game worldwide. No one who cares about women’s soccer would want the game in England, France, the Netherlands and elsewhere to make no progress.

And it raises a question that pops up on occasion: Why aren’t the U.S. women aren’t paid as much as the U.S. men?

You may be surprised here. Unless U.S. Soccer is outright lying on its 990 form for the fiscal year ending March 2018, the women are being paid more than the men.

Look at pages 7-9, the breakdown of what USSF pays its highest-paid employees. You’ll see that USSF spends ridiculous sums of money on its current and past men’s national team coaches, which we can refer to as The Klinsmann Boondoggle. Even aside from that, it’s hard to understand why the men’s Under-20 coach is paid more than women’s coach Jill Ellis.

The only players, from any team, on this list are …

  • Christen Press, $257,920
  • Becky Sauerbrunn, $256,720
  • Kell(e)y O’Hara, $256,695
  • Samantha Mewis, $247,497

It occurred to me that USSF could have listed the men as independent contractors. But the 990 lists any independent contractor making more than $100,000, and no U.S. men appear there. Also, for the fiscal year ending March 2010, Jozy Altidore and Brad Guzan are listed in the same “highest-compensated employees” that lists Press and company on the most recent 990. (Altidore and Guzan made a little more than $150K, if you’re curious.)

How is this possible? A couple of things:

  1. The men’s team rotates players often. In 2018, even though the men only played 11 games (shame about that World Cup), they used more than 50 different players. No one played 10 games. In 2017, when the men played 19 games, a few players reached double digits, led by Jorge Villafaña, of all people, with 15. (This is worth remembering when we see the “a man playing 20 games” argument — unless I’ve missed someone in the media guide, no man has played 20 national-team games in a year since Landon Donovan in 2002, the year the USA reached the World Cup quarterfinals.) The women might use 30 players in a year, with 8-12 of them getting only a couple of short appearances.
  2. The women (20-25 or so, at least) are on salary. The men are not.
  3. The men haven’t exactly collected that big World Cup bonus. In FY ending March 2018, they actually won a major tournament (the Gold Cup), and their bonuses still didn’t propel anyone into the Sauerbrunn/O’Hara $250K range.

All of this makes things complicated.

But it doesn’t necessarily make things right.

To my knowledge, no one has quantified what “equal pay” would look like. I tried …

https://twitter.com/duresport/status/1136247465496256513

It’s a long thread. The highlights are a women’s salary that equals what a man would make if he played 20 games, evening out “base pay” a bit, and comparable competitions get comparable bonuses. Oh, and I’d slash the men’s bonuses if they ever make a big World Cup run, instead investing that money in youth soccer. Please don’t tell them I said that. And I wonder if I’m just replicating the scenario in the Rush song The Trees, in which the trees are all kept equal by hatchet, axe and saw.

Even then, you’re faced with a question. When you say “equal pay,” does that mean the women get the same amount of money, divided 30 ways, that the men get divided 50 ways? Or does it mean Alex Morgan should be paid the same as Christian Pulisic?

So that’s the present. But it’s also worth knowing the past, and for that, you should really read Caitlin Murray’s book, which is excerpted in The Guardian.

And that all points to the weird duality of U.S. Soccer and the U.S. women:

  1. The USSF has done quite a lot to push women’s soccer forward.
  2. The USSF has, at times, treated the women’s players with negligence or even malice.

All of which makes it very difficult to assess the fairness of any CBAs, especially those we haven’t seen.

1
women's soccer

Women’s World Cup predictions (collated)

Posted on by Beau Dure

If you made predictions, feel free to share them. I’ll try to compile as best I can.

GROUP STAGE

Key: Third-place teams that qualify marked with asterisk.

The predictors …

  • BD: me
  • 538: from their rankings
  • AC: Avi Creditor, Sports Illustrated
  • LL: Laken Litman, Sports Illustrated (you’ll have to click to see the picks from Kellen Becoats, Luis Miguel Echegaray and Grant Wahl

GROUP A

  • BD: France, Norway, South Korea, Nigeria
  • 538: France, Norway, South Korea*, Nigeria
  • AC: France, Norway, Nigeria*, South Korea
  • LL: France, Norway, South Korea*, Nigeria

GROUP B

  • BD: Germany, Spain, China*, South Africa
  • 538: Germany, Spain, China*, South Africa
  • AC: Germany, Spain, China*, South Africa
  • LL: Germany, Spain, China*, South Africa

GROUP C

  • BD: Australia, Italy, Brazil*, Jamaica
  • 538: Australia, Brazil, Italy*, Jamaica
  • AC: Australia, Brazil, unknown
  • LL: Brazil, Australia, Italy*, Jamaica

GROUP D

  • BD: England, Japan, Scotland*, Argentina
  • 538: England, Japan, Scotland, Argentina
  • AC: England, Scotland, Japan, Argentina
  • LL: England, Japan, unknown

GROUP E

  • BD: Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand*, Cameroon
  • 538: Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand*, Cameroon
  • AC: Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand*, Cameroon
  • LL: Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand*, Cameroon

GROUP F

  • BD: USA, Sweden, Chile, Thailand
  • 538: USA, Sweden, Thailand, Chile
  • AC: USA, Sweden, unknown
  • LL: USA, Sweden, unknown

ROUND OF 16

2A vs. 2C (Nice, June 22)

  • BD: Norway over Italy
  • 538: Brazil over Norway
  • AC: Norway over Brazil
  • LL: Australia over Norway

1D vs. 3B/E/F (Valenciennes, June 23)

  • BD: England over New Zealand
  • 538: England over New Zealand
  • AC: England over New Zealand
  • LL: England over New Zealand

1A vs. 3C/D/E (Le Havre, June 23)

  • BD: France over Brazil
  • 538: France over Italy
  • AC: France over Japan
  • LL: France over Italy

1F vs. 2B (Reims, June 24)

  • BD: USA over Spain
  • 538: USA over Spain
  • AC: USA over Spain
  • LL: USA over Spain

1C vs. 3A/B/F (Montpellier, June 25)

  • BD: Australia over China
  • 538: Australia over China
  • AC: Australia over China
  • LL: Brazil over China

1E vs. 2D (Rennes, June 25)

  • BD: Netherlands over Japan
  • 538: Netherlands over Japan
  • AC: Netherlands over Scotland
  • LL: Netherlands over Japan

1B vs. 3A/C/D (Grenoble, June 22)

  • BD: Germany over Scotland
  • 538: Germany over South Korea
  • AC: Germany over Nigeria
  • LL: Germany over South Korea

2F vs. 2E (Paris, June 24)

  • BD: Sweden over Canada
  • 538: Sweden over Canada
  • AC: Canada over Sweden
  • LL: Sweden over Canada

QUARTERFINALS

June 27 (Nice winner vs. Valenciennes winner)

  • BD: England over Norway
  • 538: England over Brazil
  • AC: England over Norway
  • LL: England over Australia

June 28 (Le Havre vs. Reims)

  • BD: USA over France
  • 538: France over USA
  • AC: France over USA
  • LL: USA over France

June 29 (early; Montpellier vs. Rennes)

  • BD: Australia over Netherlands
  • 538: Australia over Netherlands
  • AC: Australia over Netherlands
  • LL: Brazil over Netherlands

June 29 (late; Grenoble vs. Paris)

  • BD: Germany over Sweden
  • 538: Germany over Sweden
  • AC: Germany over Canada
  • LL: Germany over Sweden

SEMIFINALS

July 2 (June 27 winner vs. June 28 winner)

  • BD: USA over England
  • 538: France over England
  • AC: England over France
  • LL: USA over England

July 3 (June 29 winners)

  • BD: Australia over Germany
  • 538: Germany over Australia
  • AC: Germany over Australia
  • LL: Germany over Brazil

MEDALISTS (1st- and 3rd-place games)

  • BD: USA, Australia, England
  • 538: France, Germany, England
  • AC: England, Germany, not picked
  • LL: USA, Germany, not picked
1
us soccer, women's soccer

U.S. Soccer: The game is not the same

Posted on by Beau Dure

Let’s skip the intro and get right into it …

You may want to refer to the original, because this is a paragraph-by-paragraph response. Miki Turner has done some of the screenshots already, so expect to see his Tweets throughout …

(NOTE: When I say POINT here, I don’t mean my point. This is what USSF is arguing. As you’ll see, I find at least one of those points baffling.)

POINT 1: The games are different. Paragraph 1:

U.S. Soccer denies the remaining allegations in this paragraph and states that under applicable international rules, the players on the USMNT are forbidden from playing on the USWNT, that the USWNT and USMNT play at different times, in different locations, against different opponents, and are comprised of athletes who have different obligations, are compensated in fundamentally different ways, and enjoy different benefits; thus, USWNT players have no male “counterparts” who play for the USMNT.

The “forbidden from playing on USWNT” might be legally necessary, but it’s not a great way to start this if you’re trying to win over the public (which may or may not matter).

But the important part here is valid: Women’s soccer and men’s soccer are different. They work just as hard, yes. The games they play are different.

Then after the boilerplate stuff (yes, Alex Morgan exists and lives in town X and has played for the national team; Megan Rapinoe exists and lives …, etc.), USSF expounds upon that point.

Paragraph 39 of the WNT complaint talks about “the same job duties” and “similar working conditions.” It’s one of the weakest arguments the WNT raises, and USSF denies it in full.

And see Paragraphs 44-50, which surprisingly don’t go into much detail.

POINT 2: Hey, we didn’t say that …

USSF claims it has never “admitted that it pays its female player employees less than its male player employees and has gone so far as to claim that “’market realities are such that the women do not deserve to be paid equally to the men.’” The precise language is “U.S. Soccer denies the remaining allegations in this paragraph.” It’s Paragraph 2. Get used to seeing that phrase more and more.

Similarly …

POINT 3: No, the WNT’s revenues aren’t higher than the MNT’s. Except occasionally.

And this …

(The key part there is the smaller of Miki’s screenshots — I hate the way Twitter embeds restate the tweet to which it responds.)

POINT 4: The pay structures are apples and oranges.

“U.S. Soccer further states that no pay comparison can be made between the USWNT players, who earn guaranteed salaries and benefits, and the USMNT players, who are paid strictly on a match appearance fee basis.”

That’s Paragraph 51, and it’s restated in different words in the next two paragraphs.

Paragraph 54 of the WNT complaint is simply ridiculous. The claim that USSF denied the WNT’s request for equal pay is only true if the WNT asked for a contract without its salaries and benefits. (See Paragraph 62 below.) The claim that the WNT isn’t paid for games against teams outside the top 10 is absolutely wrong because, again, the women are on salary. They get paid even if they’re not called up for a game.

The next WNT argument is that a “similarly situated” MNT player would make much more than a WNT player (Paragraph 58). USSF reiterates that it’s simply not comparable.

What about charter flights? Paragraph 72 says “there are many factors” that determine charters. What I’ve been told, and what makes sense to me, is that the WNT hasn’t had charters because they simply don’t travel as a team. They flew to Scandinavia as individuals. The MNT has had situations in which it flies from qualifier to qualifier or Gold Cup game to Gold Cup game. This year, with the World Cup, expect WNT charters. (If they don’t do that, yikes.)

POINT 5: That’s simply not true

I’m guessing we will see the men’s CBA entered into evidence at some point here.

Then who rejected what?

Paragraph 62, WNT complaint:

During collective bargaining for a new contract, USSF rejected requests for compensation for the WNT players that would have been at least equal to that afforded to the male MNT players.

Paragraph 64, USSF response:

U.S. Soccer denies the remaining allegations in this paragraph and states the USWNTPA consistently rejected all proposals for a “pay-for-play” structure similar to the one in that the USMNT players accepted during the 2017 CBA negotiations.

I’m a little surprised no reporter who has the time to really dig into this (read: not me at the moment) has found out whether the WNT has ever asked to go without salaries and get the MNT pay structure.

POINT 6: Head-scratchers

USSF denies that it has complete control over whether the WNT plays on turf? (Paragraph 68)

SUMMARY

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women's soccer

Any defense for USA’s World Cup roster?

Posted on by Beau Dure

At the Total Soccer Show, Daryl Grove and Taylor Rockwell seem worried.

At The Guardian, Caitlin Murray seems slightly skeptical.

At The Equalizer (paid content), Chelsey Bush laments the absence of Casey Short.

At Soccer America, Paul Kennedy sees a couple of surprises.

At Twitter … no, I’m not going there.

I’m probably less worried than the Total Soccer Show guys, but they raised some interesting questions that I figured I’d tackle one by one.

Only one left back (Crystal Dunn), and she’s best in the attack? When is left back not a concern for almost any team? You don’t have to be left-footed to play left back, but it helps, and lefties are maybe 20 percent of soccer players. An NIH article finds only 8.2 percent of people in general are left-footed, though another 30.2 percent are “mixed-footed.” The study did not, however, ask participants to demonstrate this by putting a 30-yard cross into Alex Morgan’s path.

But Tierna Davidson can fill in. Once Kelley O’Hara is healthy, she would be an option, especially given the surplus of right backs.

All of which, though, leads to another question …

Only seven defenders? Some stories report the roster announcement as Ali Krieger over Casey Short. I don’t think it’s that simple. Krieger and Short are both deserving. So why not take both?

You can have eight defenders by answering the next question …

Why seven forwards? To be picky, “forward” isn’t necessarily a position as much as it’s an attitude. The difference between a 4-5-1 and a 4-3-3 is really how much ground you want the wingers to cover.

Also, Carli Lloyd isn’t exactly a stranger to midfield, so if she needed to play a No. 10 role, she certainly could.

But with such an attack-oriented team, it’s worth looking around the front line and midfield to see if anyone could way to bring aboard Casey Short as an eighth defender. And as great a story as she has, I think Jessica McDonald is the odd person out.

Where’s the backup defensive midfielder? Julie Ertz is unique. You don’t see a lot of center backs moved up one line on the field.

But who jumped in as the defensive midfielder in 2015 to replace the miscast Lauren Holiday? That would be Morgan Brian, the surprise pick for this roster only because she hasn’t been fit recently. Another option is Allie Long. In a pinch, Lindsey Horan.

It’s a pity not to see McCall Zerboni simply because she has fleshed out her game so nicely at an age in which most players consider themselves finished products. I always saw her a “physical” presence in midfield, and she’s still typically at or near the NWSL lead in fouls committed. (Horan and Long aren’t far behind.) But she has become a deft possession-oriented midfield as well, attempting and completing far more passes per 90 minutes now than she did in 2016.

For sake of argument, let’s compare Zerboni and Long’s numbers.

Make of that what you will.

So your tl;dr recap: I’d have taken Short instead of McDonald just to have another defender, but other than that, I don’t see any glaring holes. And that attack is about as strong as you’ll ever see.

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us soccer

Should men’s and women’s national teams start playing “B” games?

Posted on by Beau Dure

Two bits of news, ICYMI:

  • CONCACAF will play along with the global effort to have a “Nations League,” a promotion/relegation competition that basically replaces friendly games.
  • The U.S. men played in Portugal with a bunch of young players, earning a 1-1 draw and stirring up a bit of optimism for the future.

Take the second part first because it applies to a long debate in women’s soccer. The U.S. women have long been accused of having a stale player pool, giving few opportunities for players to gain experience. (This topic was one of my first pieces for The Guardian.)

Things have changed a little bit. The new collective bargaining agreement isn’t public, but it’s apparent that some of the restrictions previous coaches faced in calling in new players have been eased.

Still, it’s hard to imagine a U.S. women’s team like the men’s team we saw in Portugal. Here’s a rough attempt to come up with such a roster. You’ll see the men’s players first, with their ages, clubs and number of caps (thank you, Soccer America), and then I’ll try to come up with their female analogues. Some of them are inexact (I really had to mix up specific midfield roles).

GK: Ethan Horvath (22, Club Brugge/BEL, 2). Jane Campbell (22, Houston, 2)

GK: Bill Hamid (26, FC Midtjylland/DEN, 3). Yes, two goalkeepers in one game. Hamid has just moved from D.C. United, where he came up through the academy.  Adrianna Franch (27, Portland, 0)

RB: DeAndre Yedlin (24, Newcastle United/ENG, 49). This is a tough one. Yedlin is well beyond the “prospect” stage, having already played in a World Cup. He’s not on the way out, like (don’t shoot the messenger) Ali Krieger. Let’s say Kelley O’Hara (29, Sky Blue, 104)

CB: Matt Miazga (22, Vitesse/NED, 4). Emily Sonnett (23, Portland, 12)

CB: John Brooks (24, Wolfsburg/GER, 33). Like Yedlin, he has already played in a World Cup, so this is a tough one. Since we went with an experienced right back, let’s take a less experienced center back who’s closer to Brooks’ age: Abby Dahlkemper (24, N.C. Courage, 13)

CB: Cameron Carter-Vickers (19, Sheffield United/ENG, 1). Tierna Davidson (19, Stanford, 0)

LB: Eric Lichaj (29, Nottingham Forest/ENG, 14). Jaelene Hinkle (24, N.C. Courage, 8)

LB: Jorge Villafana (28, Santos Laguna/MEX, 15). Lauren Barnes (28, Seattle, 0)

RM: Tyler Adams (18, New York Red Bulls, 1). Jaelin Howell (17, Real Colorado, 0)

DM: Danny Williams (28, Huddersfield Town/ENG, 23). Allie Long (30, Portland, 33)

LM: Kellyn Acosta (22, FC Dallas, 17). Lindsey Horan (23, Portland, 43)

LM: Lynden Gooch (21, Sunderland/ENG, 2). Christina Gibbons (22, Kansas … um … Utah?, 0)

AM: Weston McKennie (19, Schalke/GER, 1). Brianna Pinto (17, CASL Elite, 0)

AM: Alejandro Bedoya (30, Philadelphia, 66). Kristie Mewis (26, Houston, 15)

F: Juan Agudelo (24, New England, 27). Crystal Dunn (25, Chelsea/ENG, 57)

F: C.J. Sapong (28, Philadelphia, 3). Jessica McDonald (29, N.C. Courage, 1)

F: Dom Dwyer (27, Orlando, 4). Kealia Ohai (25, Houston, 3)

So that’s a WNT without Naeher, Sauerbrunn, Ertz, Lloyd, Morgan, Rapinoe, Heath, Leroux or Press. (Also, oddly, without Mallory Pugh or Andi Sullivan — I simply didn’t find the proper place for them, though I would fully expect to see them in a “youth movement” lineup.)

Would we like to see that? The U.S. women don’t play many friendlies like that. In fact, none.

But pretty soon, the U.S. men also might not have that chance. The Nations League may wipe out available slots for friendlies. Every game may count for something, so experiment at your own risk.

Incidentally, someone asked about a Nations League for women. Can you imagine the U.S. women going to play on a bumpy, overgrown field in Trinidad or the artificial turf in Saprissa? Those are the stadiums they roll out for men’s World Cup qualifiers — can you imagine where they might put a women’s Nations League game?

So how will the national teams develop players?

Perhaps it’s time to bring back an old idea — the national “B” team. The USA-Portugal game might be a great example, and if you can’t do it in a friendly ….

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pro soccer, women's soccer

Attendance check: Club over country?

Posted on by Beau Dure

Attendance at last five Atlanta United home games:

July 4: 44,974
July 29: 45,006
Sept. 10: 45,314 (first game in new stadium)
Sept. 13: 42,511
Sept. 16: 70,425

Attendance at last five Seattle Sounders home games:

July 23: 43,528
Aug. 12: 43,350
Aug. 20: 40,312
Aug. 27: 51,796
Sept. 10: 44,697

Attendance at last five U.S. men’s national team home games:

July 15: 27,934 (Gold Cup; Cleveland)
July 19: 31,615 (Gold Cup quarterfinal; Philadelphia)
July 22: 45,516 (Gold Cup semifinal; Arlington, Texas)
July 26: 63,032 (Gold Cup final; Santa Clara, Calif.)
Sept. 1: 26,500 (World Cup qualifier; Harrison, N.J. — sellout and a loss)

Attendance at last five U.S. men’s national team home friendlies:

Oct. 11: 9,012 (Washington)
Jan. 29: 20,079 (San Diego)
Feb. 3: 17,903 (Chattanooga, Tenn.)
June 3: 17,315 (Sandy, Utah)
July 1: 28,754 (Hartford, Ct.)

Attendance at last five FC Cincinnati (USL) home games:

July 29: 23,548
Aug. 5: 25,308
Aug. 23: 20,058
Sept. 2: 22,643
Sept. 16: 30,417

Attendance at last five U.S. women’s national team home games:

April 9: 11,347 (friendly; Houston)
July 27: 15,748 (Tournament of Nations; Seattle)
July 30: 21,096 (Tournament of Nations; San Diego)
Aug. 3: 23,161 (Tournament of Nations; Carson, Calif.)
Sept. 15: 17,301 (friendly; Commerce City, Colo.)

Attendance at last five Portland Thorns home games:

June 28: 16,199
July 15: 16,804
July 22: 18,478
Aug. 5: 18,243
Aug. 19: 19,672

What’s going on here? Do we officially care more about club soccer than international games? How can the Thorns outdraw the women’s national team? How can Atlanta, Seattle and Cincinnati outdraw men’s friendlies?

 

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