Tag: washington spirit

women's soccer

Revisiting ‘Enduring Spirit’

Posted on by Beau Dure

Enduring Spirit failed.

Not just because not many people read it and I lost money on it. I had another book, Single-Digit Soccer, that didn’t sell a lot, but I didn’t incur any real expenses — the cover photo was my kid’s untied shoe with the laces draped over a ball — and I had reasonable expectations. I also have reasonable expectations for my new mini-book, How the Hell Did I End Up Cageside?, which is just a fun look at how I ended up watching people kick, punch and choke each other.

For Enduring Spirit, I paid twice for the cover photo — once for the ebook, once for print. I also paid out of pocket for editing, and I racked up a lot of travel expenses. At least all of that was deductible.

But that’s not the main reason I call it a failure. Nor is the fact that, in the process of writing the book, I made a few enemies. More on that in a bit.

No, Enduring Spirit failed because I didn’t do what I set out to do.

The minimum salary in the first season of the NWSL was $6,000. (Granted, that’s infinity percent of my net proceeds on the book.) I figured I could get players to talk about the challenges of living on what was basically a stipend while they played professional soccer. For whatever reason, I never got much of a handle on that.

The players never seemed to mind my presence, but neither were they eager to share the tribulations they were willing to endure to chase their dreams. I was surprised at times how little interest they had in the fact that someone was writing a book about them. If I’d written about a men’s team, I think a lot of players would’ve been eager to chat me up, get a sense of what I was writing and give me good material for the book. (The only person who did that while I was writing this was Mark Parsons.)

So it didn’t deliver what I was hoping for, and it apparently didn’t deliver what many fans were hoping for. Readers raised complaints about a lack of insight / investigative skewering right away, to the point that I felt compelled to do a blog post in response. Some just wanted a bit more behind-the-scenes insight. Some wanted the pages to run red with the blood of owner Bill Lynch, general manager Chris Hummer and original coach Mike Jorden. The team only won three games, two of them near the end of the season after Jorden was replaced. But players weren’t confiding in me about some horrible secret I couldn’t see, and I doubt there’s anything scandalous beyond simply not doing that well.

In re-reading the book today, I realized one reason I might not have had more to tell. I was there for a practice just before the season opener, and players were a bit more candid during the session than in the midweek training. Lori Lindsey exploded at one point. Ashlyn Harris took issue with the height of the wall they were setting for free kicks — Diana Matheson (not tall) was giggling a little.

For the rest of the season, though, the Spirit laid down one rule: I was not to come to the final practice before a game. Who knows what else I missed?

The Spirit certainly whiffed a bit on free agents and discovery players. Aside from Chapman and eventually Toni Pressley, a good player upon whom the Spirit placed too many expectations, they had too many players who were young, local and overwhelmed. Aside from that, though, I didn’t have any dirt that people were seeking.

The front office’s personnel mistakes were compounded by some bad luck. Candace Chapman was a great defender who couldn’t get healthy, and she had plenty of company among the walking injured. The draft picks seemed pretty good with the available info at the time — if you’d told women’s soccer talent scouts that no one out of the trio of Tiffany McCarty, Caroline Miller and Stephanie Ochs would develop into a potent NWSL attacker, they would’ve scoffed.

But players loved the SoccerPlex, especially the majestic carpet of grass on which they played their games. I didn’t hear complaints about living arrangements. Putting Diana Matheson, Robyn Gayle and eventually Conny Pohlers in a retirement home was certainly unusual, but even a year later, Matheson seemed to have enjoyed it.

I did have one controversy to report, and unfortunately for a lot of fans, it wasn’t about the supposed evil overlords. It was the movement to have Ali Krieger’s father, Ken, to come out and “help” coach the team while Jorden was there. (Must be said, though, that Jorden missed some time with a back injury, so another coach wouldn’t have been a terrible idea — especially given German Peri’s frequent absences for reasons I still don’t understand.) As far as local coaches go, Ken Krieger had as good a resume as anyone — certainly a ton more experience than Parsons, who wound up taking over the team at an age when some people are still living in their parents’ basement but turned out to be such a good coach that the big-spending Thorns lured him away.

Which leads to one thing I hadn’t anticipated: The fan base was changing.

Sure, some fans have stuck around since Hamm, Foudy, Chastain and company introduced a lot of the country not just to women’s soccer but to soccer in general. But there’s also a new generation with different expectations. They’re more demanding. They’re not inclined to heed the counsel of people who experienced the Dark Ages. They’re more cynical. Whatever you write about Ashlyn Harris and Ali Krieger — good, bad or completely neutral — is going to make you a few best friends and a few sworn enemies.

Social media also has dramatically changed things. Amanda Vandervort’s effort to get WPS players on Twitter (Kati Jo Spisak!) has been superseded by players sharing much more of their lives on Instagram — and a lot of fans turning into voyeurs.

You can’t say these fans are worse than previous generations. They’re more devoted. That’s why the boom of 2019 looks stronger than the boom of 1999. Their passion may lead to a lack of perspective and some over-the-top vitriol, but that passion is going to make NWSL pretty strong whenever we can all venture out of our houses again. They’re not really looking for the amusing or mildly colorful anecdotes that I gathered over the course of the Spirit’s season.

And I think that’s fair. Some of the criticism was ridiculous. (“Fan fiction”? Really? What part of this was fiction?) But I really didn’t get much below the surface, scandalous or otherwise, and it’s frankly not my best writing. The game reports that I posted on my blog throughout the season were more entertaining and easier to read.

On Twitter and on my blog, I was accused of being too much of a Spirit apologist at times, and that’s understandable. Seeing a team train can skew someone’s perception of how good it is, and yes, some of the free agents and discovery players were expected to be much better than they were. But I still maintain that if any of the young attackers had panned out and Alina Garciamendez had some to Washington instead of Germany, the season would’ve been considerably better.

And yes — there was always at least one bad call per game involving Tori Huster. Ask anyone else who covered the team that year.

I’m more aggravated that more recent work of mine has been dismissed by large segments of the fan base and even fellow reporters — not just the bevy of younger reporters (some of them quite good) who’ve come from non-traditional backgrounds but also some people in the “mainstream” media. I’ve spent eons digging into financial documents, augmented with a couple of decades of experience and conversations with knowledgeable people, and I can tell you there are some dangers in the women’s team’s (and men’s team’s) pay demands. Someone has to stick up for future generations — it’s ironic that it’s the resident old guy in a women’s soccer community.

But I digress …

So is anything in Enduring Spirit worth reading? I think so …

  • Heather Cooke’s story, from The Real World to the Philippines
  • The aforementioned training session before the opening game
  • Chantel Jones on playing professionally in Iceland
  • Teresa “Lupita” Worbis adjusting to the U.S. at her first practice (and scoring both in practice and a game in front of her parents)
  • Players who turned up on trial
  • Mike Jorden’s insightful use of the word “lollygagging”
  • Several glimpses of the training methods of well-regarded goalkeeper coach Lloyd Yaxley (who, I just discovered, is now also coaching a high school team)
  • The mysterious Ingrid Wells waiver and pickup, which I still don’t understand to this day
  • The water balloon fight (some people found it frivolous, but I thought it was a good way to unwind after training)
  • Several takes on a couple of personnel changes
  • One of my favorite quotes, from Yaxley after being kept awake by some basketball players at the team hotel: “Why would anyone invent a sport so noisy?”
  • A look at the ridiculous postgame routine teams had to go through at Sky Blue

The other thing I noticed on re-reading: I had forgotten how long it took the team to turn around after the coaching change. Everyone loved Parsons from the get-go, and injuries didn’t help, but some of those games were as one-sided as you’ll see in an American professional league. The next year, when Parsons was able to make some personnel changes, the Spirit got a lot better.

And I found one reason why the book seems worse than it is. The last week or so just drags. I understand why I emphasized it so much — the team was finally winning, and it was my last chance to gather material — but that could’ve used some editing.

I’ve slashed the price to $2.99. Judge for yourself while you’re stuck at home.

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women's soccer

Washington Spirit report: Meet the new boss …

Posted on by Beau Dure

Taylor Smith won the ball at the back and surged down the right channel into open space. Mallory Pugh went out wide. A couple of passes threatened to unlock the Utah defense.

I don’t remember exactly what happened next, but it probably involved Becky Sauerbrunn breaking up the attack.

I bring it up because that may have been the only time Wednesday night that the Washington Spirit looked like they had a chance of scoring a goal. Even a glimmer of hope.

Sure, Rose Lavelle had a couple of dazzling moments, pulling off skill moves usually seen only in coaching clinics in which the coaches are trying way too hard to show they can teach some off-the-wall 360 move. (Calling it the “Maradona” is surely ironic these days given that Jupiter would rotate with more speed than Maradona would.) And Lavelle had a good run going until Rachel Corsie committed a foul that would’ve been a 15-yard penalty in the NFL.

But the stats for this one were just ugly for the Spirit, unless you count saves, in which long-serving understudy DiDi Haracic tallied 10 and was a bit unlucky not to have an unlikely 11-save shutout. She at least made Laura Harvey and company sweat on a cool, almost chilly night at the Maryland SoccerPlex.

spirit-shots
Does the “expected goal” (xG) stat ever go into negative numbers?

With that, I have to confess that the headline is misleading. I did not meet the new boss, Tom Torres. I’m working on a story for The Guardian, and my priority was talking with some Utah folks — including Laura Harvey, who told me she used to deliver The Guardian. Small world.

But the Won’t Get Fooled Again reference is apt. This Spirit team isn’t suddenly going to learn to avoid defensive lapses. Nor is the midfield going to provide any meaningful possession.

So I’m still at a loss to explain why the Spirit felt the need to fire Jim Gabarra now rather than offer him a sideline swansong and then perhaps another job in the organization. And I didn’t get any more answers on what was frankly a weird night at the SoccerPlex. Jen Gordon wasn’t there, apparently for the first time since the Spirit’s debut. Neither was Boyd. Good dog.

I’m pondering the quote from Spirit president and interim GM Chris Hummer from yesterday’s post, in which he talked about starting the process for 2019 now. Does that mean interim coach Tom Torres is a candidate?

Torres’ resume isn’t bad. But my sense is that the restless fan base will want a bigger name or more top-level experience. Also, the Spirit may still have trouble shaking the perception that they think they can get by with the coaching talent in the D.C. area. They caught lightning in a bottle with the then-green Mark Parsons, who had been a youth and high school coach in rural Virginia, but the Spirit otherwise have a track record of overvaluing coaches (and sometimes players — the DMV is not California) from this area. It’s understandable in the academy — nothing wrong with hiring a former player like Lori Lindsey or a mid-Atlantic stalwart like Santino Quaranta — but another perspective would surely help. And this team needs it.

Next stop: Audi Field.

0
pro soccer

Does firing Jim Gabarra really help the wayward Washington Spirit?

Posted on by Beau Dure

When the WUSA went away, Jim Gabarra stayed.

He coached a mix of kids and pros who were hanging around D.C., still wearing the name Washington Freedom. He lugged ball bags around the Maryland SoccerPlex. Along with longtime D.C.-area youth coach Clyde Watson, he worked with local youth clubs to create something of a club system. When pro women’s soccer came back in 2009 after a five-year absence, he remained in charge. He finally resigned after the 2010 season, but the Freedom didn’t continue without him, packing up for south Florida to spend a colorful year under the name magicJack.

He was busy with Sky Blue in New Jersey when the next women’s league launched in 2013. But when Portland lured away coaching phenom Mark Parsons after the 2015 season, he returned to the Plex to take up his familiar position on the sideline.

Today, the Washington Spirit fired Gabarra, who leaves behind a underperforming club with bright attacking stars, an in-form goalkeeper and two big questions:

  1. Given Gabarra’s long service to D.C. women’s soccer, did he deserve better than to be dismissed with three games remaining in the season — all at home, one of them at D.C. United’s new Audi Field?
  2. Will firing Gabarra solve anything at a club that has fizzled horribly since it was seconds away from winning the NWSL championship in his first season less than two years ago?

Former Spirit trainer Pierre Soubrier — also the fiance of Crystal Dunn, who won MVP honors with the Spirit in 2015 before moving on — threw what the kids would call “shade.” Then he deleted his tweet. Gotta love screenshots.

An anonymous source gave The Washington Post’s Steven Goff the standard “lost the locker room” quote. Hard to tell how much stock to put in that. In “locker room vs. coach” disputes, the natural inclination is to side with the locker room, but it’s not always right.

The biggest issue, of course, is the scoreboard. The Spirit have two wins, four draws and 15 losses — kept out of the bottom only by winless Sky Blue, coached by former Gabarra assistant Denise Reddy. They’ll need a few results to match or beat their abysmal 2013 season, where a late surge under midseason replacement Parsons saw them move up to 3-5-14. If young superstars Mallory Pugh and Rose Lavelle had been healthy for more of the season, perhaps the team would have more of a cushion above the NWSL basement, but it’s unlikely that the Spirit would’ve made a playoff run.

The timing of Gabarra’s ouster could be related to the upcoming downtown debut at Audi Field. Interim coach Tom Torres surely can’t turn the Spirit into a monster team in five days, but perhaps the recent 4-0 loss in Houston was the sign of a team that had quit on its coach. Maybe a nice, hard-fought 1-0 loss will do more to win over any newcomers to a Spirit game.

Spirit president Chris Hummer, who now assumes the general manager role he also held in 2013 before a two-year exile (disclaimer: I’ve written for Hummer’s SoccerWire in the past), called Gabarra “100% class” and explained the move as such:

We have a horrible record and everyone is responsible top to bottom. 2017 was to be a re-build. 2018 we had a roster that scared a lot of people on paper, but then never got them all on the field at the same time between injuries and call ups. 2019 has to be better, so we just decided to start that process now so we can learn what we can from coaches and players alike in these remaining weeks. All eyes forward.

We have exciting players and a competitive team that has the capability to be very dangerous, potentially in short order. We’re all looking forward to having a BIG night at Audi for our fans and to carry that excitement into 2019 with a winning team again.

We still don’t know if the former U.S. outdoor/indoor national teamer (he was the second-leading scorer, behind Peter Vermes, on the 1989 futsal team that claimed third place in the World Cup) was offered a more graceful exit — maybe a move elsewhere in the organization in advance of three-game swan song that would include the Audi Field game.

IMG_2799
It’s not your fault, Boyd. Good dog.

We also don’t know how many of the Spirit’s myriad problems can be laid at Gabarra’s feet. We just know the list goes on for a while:

– The defense is nowhere near NWSL standard. Goalkeeper Aubrey Bledsoe is the league’s runaway leader in saves with 99, many of them spectacular. (It’s a credit to Bledsoe that the Spirit have only conceded 32 goals, one better than the perplexing Orlando Pride and six better than Sky Blue.)

– The attackers have managed only 11 goals, none since July 7. In an 0-1 loss to Utah, they managed seven shots, none on goal.

– A trade sending Dunn’s rights to North Carolina for then-national teamers Ashley Hatch and Taylor Smith has backfired, with neither player now figuring prominently in U.S. coach Jill Ellis’ plans.

– Top-three draft picks Andi Sullivan and Rebecca Quinn, the former a D.C.-area local who played for the Spirit’s reserves in her summers while in high school and at Stanford, have had little impact, a reminder of the 2013 season in which several players with glittering college resumes weren’t ready to lead the team in the bruising NWSL.

– The reserve team boasted fewer big names than usual, winning four of six games in the anemic WPSL Colonial Conference but losing a 3-0 decision in its playoff opener. (Still, it’s a program that many NWSL clubs lack.)

– The teams entered in the first year of the girls’ Development Academy lagged behind their peers in the D.C. area, let alone other professional clubs’ academies. Starting a program of this sort in a hypercompetitive area is difficult, but that just makes me wonder why Gabarra wasn’t reassigned to an academy role, where he could use his long-standing D.C. youth contacts to win over the scores of skeptical clubs who didn’t want to get involved with the Spirit’s academies in Virginia and Maryland.

The latter two issues won’t draw much attention, but building from within is part of this club’s identity. It worked with the 2013 midseason promotion of reserve coach Parsons, who ditched the club’s overreliance on youth and brought in more experienced players to lead the way to playoff appearances the next two years. It will probably work in the long run with Sullivan, who isn’t yet back to her “old” self since suffering an ACL tear in late 2016 but has already reached the national team and has tremendous potential.

One example of how oddly things have gone this year is the curious case of Maddie Huster, longtime reserve player and younger sister of the Spirit’s last remaining original player, Tori Huster. The Spirit drafted her, brought her in as a national team replacement player in early June, signed her as a full roster player June 29, then waived her July 25.

With so many oddities and mistakes over the past couple of years, the overarching question is how much blame to spread out between Gabarra, Hummer and owner Bill Lynch. The postmortem won’t be fun, but it may be a necessary step in rebuilding the club moving forward. The Spirit should have learned in 2013 that it can’t rely on youth, even if Lavelle and Pugh are world-class players bound for the World Cup next year. They’ll need to convince free agents to come to the SoccerPlex, which has excellent training facilities and a dedicated supporters group but isn’t as glamorous as MLS-affiliated clubs in Portland, Utah and Orlando.

Maybe Gabarra deserved better. The supporters certainly do.

In case you didn’t know, I wrote a book about the Spirit’s debut season, attending most games and roughly 30 practices. I’ve changed the Kindle price to $2.99, but it doesn’t appear to have kicked in yet. Should be changed within 72 hours (by Friday).

2
podcast, women's soccer, youth soccer

Spirit season recap and a post-Vegas anti-cynicism rant

Posted on by Beau Dure

In the wake of the Las Vegas massacre, the Ranting Soccer Dad podcast opens with a few thoughts on why we shouldn’t give up on changing people and society as a whole, either on something relatively trivial like youth soccer or something horrifying like one man’s ability to assemble the weapons to wound 500 people. Maybe we need a little less competition and a little more cooperation to make the changes we need?

Also, a quick recap of the Washington Spirit’s season, in which the team fell from being 30 seconds away from a league championship to last place. Includes postgame comments from Spirit coach Jim Gabarra and the team’s star attacking player, Mallory Pugh.

(Apologies for the drop in volume during the Pugh interview. Also, if you can’t hear Gabarra’s last two words, they’re “No comment.”)

(Featured image from Flickr)

0
women's soccer

Spirit, Reign play a legitimately entertaining soccer game

Posted on by Beau Dure

Things didn’t bode well Saturday. Traffic heading up the Beltway to Maryland was worse than usual. The SoccerPlex didn’t have its usual Ben & Jerry’s cart — Yom Kippur apparently kept the proprietor away.

And Seattle’s Jess Fishlock, simultaneously one of the most inspirational and infuriating players in women’s soccer, started the game by clattering into Washington’s Mallory Pugh, the type of foul that does nothing other than send an early message.

Then a funny thing happened. An actual soccer game broke out. Free-flowing. Long strings of passes. Good runs.

For Spirit fans, it looked a bit like 2016 all of a sudden, with Pugh replacing Crystal Dunn and Meggie Dougherty Howard replacing everyone else. The two rookies carved up the Seattle defense with incisive passes en route to a 2-0 lead.

But the defense certainly isn’t last year’s defense. The Reign got back into the game as Spirit defenders kept whiffing on clearances. It’s the SoccerPlex — a terrific playing surface on which the Spirit play every home game. They should be used to it.

And credit to the Reign. They were pressing. They didn’t want their season to end on a loss. And coach Laura Harvey told us after the game, incongruously given her giddiness after Seattle’s 3-2 win, that she had reminded players at halftime they were playing for their jobs.

So were the Spirit players. Looking ahead to next season, they’ll build around their two sensational rookies from opposite ends of the hype meter — national teamer Pugh, who skipped out on UCLA to go pro early, and third-round pick Dougherty Howard. Of the other 11 Spirit players to appear in the game, who’s guaranteed to return next year? Probably captain Shelina Zadorsky and original Spirit player Tori Huster, who can surely play for the Spirit as long as she wants. Anyone else?

It’s not that the players are particularly bad. As a whole, even with a viable starting XI on the injury report, Washington had a competitive team this season. It’s strange to say for a last-place team, but they overachieved. If you’d told me before the season they’d have this many injuries but would still win five games (two more than the disastrous 2013 season) and score 30 goals (more than Kansas City, Boston and Houston, and only three less than playoff-bound Chicago), I’d have said that’s impossible.

The defense, though, needs to be addressed. I don’t want to speculate on whether Stephanie Labbe will be back in goal for the Spirit — I simply hope she’s happy and healthy. Zadorsky is generally solid, and Estelle Johnson was having a career year until her injury. Other than that, it’s simply not a reliable group of players for this level.

They’ll surely draft Andi Sullivan, who could slot in at center back alongside Zadorsky. But she can have a bigger impact in midfield.

They can’t just draft a bunch of defenders with their surplus of picks and see who emerges. The Spirit have enough youth. If they want their rebuilding project to be 1-2 years instead of 3-4, they need to make a trade or a sign a big-time free agent.

But there’s time enough to deal with that. Tonight, it seems most NWSL fans got an entertaining sendoff to the regular season, a nice change of pace from what’s been a lackluster season marked by cynical play that the referees refuse to stop.

Whatever you think of the Spirit, let’s hope tonight’s slate of games was a nice harbinger of things to come next year.

 

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home, women's soccer

No one injured in Spirit-Breakers game

Posted on by Beau Dure

Neither the Washington Spirit nor the Boston Breakers tanked Saturday night’s game to get the No. 1 draft pick. For once, my prediction was right.

But it wasn’t pretty. I didn’t notice any Spirit Academy kids in the crowd, and that’s probably for the best. You don’t want them to learn anything from this. Two own goals by the same luckless player, former Breaker Kassey Kallman. No shots for the home team in the first half. Fouls that weren’t particularly malicious but just pointless. Passes that clattered into opponents.

The Breakers played hard, and aside from two maybe-overdue yellow cards, they played fairly. Own goals are often a mix of luck and getting the ball in good spots, and the Breakers got the ball in good spots many times in the first 10 minutes of the second half, turning a 0-0 snoozer into a 3-0 game with a bit of life.

And the Spirit didn’t pack it in. Two terrific strikes were called back due to close but probably correct offside calls. The silver lining (coincidentally, the Rilo Kiley song of the same name is now playing on my Spotify mix) for the Spirit: They put the ball in the net four times! Too bad two counted against them and the other two didn’t count at all.

Late in the game, those of us in the pressbox were wondering why Breakers coach Matt Beard was so animated, chastising his team and gesticulating wildly. After the game, the thoughtful and tactically shrewd coach explained that he was legitimately worried that the Spirit might come back, like Sky Blue has on more than one occasion this season. When you haven’t won a road game in a while, a little paranoia is understandable.

So yes, both teams were trying. It wasn’t just a couple of teams tanking to land Andi Sullivan in the 2018 draft. At this point, the Spirit seem destined to land their hometown hero. And tonight, they looked like they needed her. Some of the players on the field simply were not up to the task.

And it’s not as if the Spirit have many other options. They dressed 14 players for the game. (The Breakers, also limping toward the finish line of the season and missing game-changer Rose Lavelle, only dressed 15.)

Coach Jim Gabarra said quite candidly after the game that his team really didn’t have the training they needed to prepare. Too many games in a short time. Too many injuries.

“So you didn’t think it would be a good idea to run your players through a series of intense practice in 90-degree weather with only three available subs?” I asked (paraphrased).

“Probably not,” Gabarra said.

Spirit fans weren’t about to forget the birthday of their last remaining original player, Tori Huster.

Spare a thought for Spirit fans who’ve attended most of the games this season. They’ve seen a lot of bad soccer, and it’s not all from the home team.

Maybe it’s a strange thing to say about a team in last place, but the Spirit overachieved in many ways this season. Stephanie Labbe and Estelle Johnson were having great seasons until they abruptly ended a couple of weeks ago. Arielle Ship was better than expected. Meggie Dougherty Howard was way better than expected — even people who wish the next hurricane would race up the Potomac and destroy the Maryland SoccerPlex because they so despise Spirit ownership have pegged the late third-round draft pick as a solid pick for Rookie of the Year.

But Spirit fans really haven’t been treated to a lot of quality from their visitors, either. Portland showed little in Mark Parsons’ return to the SoccerPlex. Orlando wasn’t quite the Morgan-and-Marta juggernaut they later became. The Chicago Red Stars looked like they were playing old-school roller derby. The best game of the season, oddly enough, may have been the previous Spirit-Breakers game, when Boston goalkeeper Abby Smith flat-out robbed the Spirit (legally) of a win.

Call it bad luck, compounded by some personnel moves that will leave some lasting bitterness. Frankly, the quality of play in the NWSL has been poor this season. If you want to blame anyone, blame the referees who’d rather carry on conversations with players like Allie Long and McCall Zerboni rather than give them cards for any of the 349 fouls they commit each game. That needs to change.

One thing that’s not going to change — the occasional late-season game between tired, ailing teams at the bottom of the table. And if this game proved one thing, it’s that the women’s game is not ready for promotion and relegation, no matter how many U.S. Soccer presidential candidates try to win points by promising it. These coaches can’t afford a training injury, and there’s absolutely nothing to be gained by tossing Rose Lavelle or Cheyna Williams out on the field at this point just so they can avoid swapping places with WPSL champion Fire And Ice SC. (Granted, if the problem with Lavelle is that she’s flying too much, may I suggest a bus with adequate sleeping space? And no, I have no idea what possessed anyone to name a team “Fire And Ice.” Does Shy Ronnie play for them?)

Even in a no-good, horrible, very bad game such as this, you’ll see moments of quality. Smith didn’t have to pull the mind-boggling saves she made last time to get the shutout this time, but she was terrific when she needed to be. Mallory Pugh adds life to any attack, whether it’s the U.S. national team in full flight or whichever players the Spirit can scrape together around her.

The Spirit will be better-prepared when Seattle visits for the season finale. I’m predicting a 6-5 game with 30 saves. We’re due.

 

1
women's soccer

Spirit-Red Stars: A mad night at the SoccerPlex

Posted on by Beau Dure

There’s just a lot of anger in the world right now.

Our president took a break from Twitter ranting to issue the most controversial presidential pardon since Gerald Ford fell on his sword for Richard Nixon, paving the way for a peanut farmer from Georgia to become president and then a truly outstanding ex-president. North Korea, apparently angry about being pushed off the front page by U.S. domestic shenanigans and a hurricane (and a preposterous fight), flung a few more missiles into the sea, which raises the question of how many North Koreans live in dangerous poverty while Kim Jong Un bombs the whales.

And in the ever-argumentative women’s soccer community, Backline Soccer had to deal with online threats after some woker-than-thou “fantasy” writer discovered an old op-ed about Jaelene Hinkle and deemed the entire staff homophobic, which would come as a great surprise to those who know the staff. (Should someone tell him about Orson Scott Card, who actually does work to deny gay rights and about whom he has said nothing on his site?)

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So given all that, perhaps it’s little surprise that the Spirit-Red Stars game, which Chicago desperately needed to halt a skid out of the playoff positions, was a little on the aggressive side. The Red Stars, bringing a talented team against a makeshift Spirit backline, finished the first half with 11 fouls and one shot on goal. (Yes, one. Opta gave Washington keeper DiDi Haracic credit for a save when she pounced on a loose ball in a scramble.)

From the pressbox, it all seemed a little cynical. Time after time, a Chicago player would extend the arms on a shove while the ball was in the air, then turn to the ref in disbelief when the whistle blew.

But most of the physical play was rough but legal. The ref, like nearly every other ref we’ve seen in the NWSL this season, could’ve given out more yellow cards, but give him credit for calling the fouls.

And it worked. The Spirit players were rattled. Tori Huster, the Spirit’s most-fouled player, had a bad giveaway or two after hearing nearby footsteps from Julie Ertz or Kristie Mewis or Danielle Colaprico or anyone else who had knocked her around in the game. (The pressbox consensus seems to be that at least one foul attributed to Mewis actually belonged to Ertz.) Huster participated in a team-high 18 “duels” and only won six of them, a very un-Huster-like performance.

The Red Stars’ goals were the result of good old-fashioned hustle, with Colaprico keeping a ball alive to set up the recently traded Mewis for a goal against her old team and Christen Press finally beating the Spirit’s high line before rounding the keeper. But they were finished well. Things didn’t work for Mewis in Washington for whatever reason, but she can play.

It was a strange night in general. The medical crew carrying injured Spirit forward Arielle Ship off the field took the long way around and was nearly hit by a ball going out of play. (At least Ship was able to go past the Spirit Squadron, which roared for her and got a thumbs-up from the weeping Ship.) The fourth official decided it was cold (a surprise to the announcers who said it was hot and humid) and donned a black long-sleeve top, blending in with the game staff at the middle of the field.

Chicago coach Rory Dames started the postgame inquiries by repeating the first question he was asked.

“Thoughts on the game — it was pretty ugly at times,” Dames said with the expression of a dog that expected a piece of chicken but got tofu. “I would say that with the way they play — they’re very direct out of their end, and they try to get up into your end and press you, and they try to combine with their front players in your end. So there was no reason for us to try to play through their pressure, and nobody the last five games has tried to play through our pressure, so it was always going to be a first-ball, second-ball, ball winning-contest kind of game.”

He didn’t seem too frustrated with the Red Stars’ losing streak heading into the game. Neither did Ertz.

“I don’t think it was necessarily wrought-out frustrations in there,” Ertz said. “We really wanted to win, we really wanted three points. I think everyone does, but especially for us, the points these last few games really do matter for going to the playoffs or not. We wanted to make sure we won our tackles — first ball, second ball, that was a big thing for us — and when that’s your main focus, I think it does become a more aggressive game.”

And yes, the points matter more for Chicago at this point than they do for the Spirit, which was mathematically eliminated from playoff contention but was never really in it this season. In the long run, the Spirit would be better off losing and improving their draft position to make sure they get hometown hero Andi Sullivan, though possible league expansion could throw a wrinkle in that. My guess is that the Spirit will package the pick it received for Mewis with another pick and maybe a player to make sure Sullivan is at the SoccerPlex next season. Let’s be clear — they’re not tanking. They were pushing hard until the last second, spurred by Mallory Pugh, who grew into the game and played some actual soccer amidst the rugby/Aussie rules contest occupying much of the field.

Let’s also be fair to the Red Stars, always a class organization. They figured a choppy game would suit them and they’d be able to go Route 1 to Christen Press at some point. A better team than the Spirit would’ve punished them. A better ref would’ve showed some cards and put a stop to the midfield shenanigans.

Fans got their money’s worth. The weather was nice. The Spirit Squadron was in fine voice. The concession lines seemed to move at a decent speed. And Pugh and Press showed their national-team skills in flashes. They’ll see better games at some point.

The strange, surly night had a perfect capper. Throughout the week, Twitter was been abuzz with the possibility of Stephanie Labbe’s dog, Rio, going out on the field for National Dog Day. I was hoping to meet Rio because I’m a little silly about dogs. One thing I love about my house and my neighborhood is that I can sit in my living room or my bedroom and see dogs walking down the sidewalks. At my elementary school, I earned the nickname “The Dog Whisperer” when I wrangled a dog out of traffic, and all the dogs that turn out at departure time love me.

I met Rio on the way to the postgame interviews. He growled and barked at me. Before you think it’s just me, he did the same to Kevin Parker, one of the nicest guys on the planet.

So, yeah. It was that kind of night. It’s been that kind of week.

Here’s to a better month in September.

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women's soccer

State of the Spirit, Mewis trade edition

Posted on by Beau Dure

You can’t fault the Washington Spirit for trading Kristie Mewis. She’s a strong attacking player who hasn’t been a full-time starter in recent weeks as the Spirit fully embrace their non-contender status and continue to develop a gaggle of young attackers who have been better than expected. She has trade value, and yet it’s reasonable to omit her from the current starting XI.

The question: What are they getting for her, and what does it say about the Spirit’s awareness of where this team really stands?

The early indication from coach Jim Gabarra on Lifetime’s broadcast is that they’re going for even more youth:

Here’s why I’m skeptical: Mark Parsons turned this team around in 2014 and 2015 by trading away a whole bunch of young players for those with more experience. He and fellow English coach Laura Harvey figured it out early on — this league devours rookies. Sometimes, it’s just for a year, and then they figure it out. (See Crystal Dunn, Kealia Ohai, Sarah Killion, etc.) Sometimes, a player whose ACC accomplishments gave Anson Dorrance nightmares simply can’t adjust to a higher level (or playing 90 minutes).

It’s easy to get attached to the 2017 Spirit underdogs. Their third-round draft picks (Arielle Ship, Megan Dougherty Howard) matched up just fine with Boston’s first-round picks in their last home game (to be fair, the Breakers were missing Rose Lavelle, who was resetting our expectations of rookies before her injury). Havana Solaun, all but forgotten in Seattle, has been solid. The Spirit touted Dougherty Howard’s passing acumen in the press release on today’s loss at North Carolina, where the 2-0 scoreline flattered the Courage. Their effort is rarely lacking.

But we saw this in 2013 as well. Some of the losses were unlucky. Injuries took a toll. Unheralded players had bright moments. I was told the passing stats, even more of a secret then than they are today with Opta, made a couple of rookies look fantastic.

Most of those players didn’t last. I count six players from the 2013 roster who are still in the NWSL. (Four of them in Orlando!) That includes three allocated players who had plenty of experience before arriving in Washington.

Several of the young Spirit players are doing better than expected — particularly on offense, which hasn’t been the problem this season. But there’s a difference between overachieving as a rookie or second-year player on a young team and being a true building block of a playoff-contending team in the future.

The Spirit have a glaring immediate need. It’s defense. They’ve conceded 32 goals, second-worst in the league, and goalkeeper Stephanie Labbe isn’t the problem.

That’s not a need that can easily be filled in a draft. Andi Sullivan has some national team experience and strong D.C.-area ties that might bring her to the Spirit even if they don’t get the No. 1 draft pick (if this were MLS, the Spirit would just slap a “homegrown” tag on her and rest easy), but she should really be a No. 6, not a center back.

Now perhaps the Spirit wouldn’t be able to get a starting center back for Kristie Mewis. Or perhaps they have plans to stockpile some younger players and draft picks, then package them together in a trade.

But Spirit fans have to be hoping the team isn’t expecting to take this year’s squad, add a few draft picks and make the playoffs. That’s simply not a realistic view of where this team stands.

 

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women's soccer

Spirit-Breakers, before the deluge

Posted on by Beau Dure

Concentrating on soccer was rather difficult this afternoon. When we weren’t checking updates on Charlottesville, we were checking the weather. A couple of minutes after the final whistle, the SoccerPlex lightning-detection system kicked into gear, and we all had a wet drive home.

But the game deserves some mention, even if it was basically a showdown between two teams battling for eighth place in a 10-team league. It ended 2-2, which won’t propel either team to seventh place, let alone a playoff berth that’s surely unattainable by this point.

Even with only one team below them in the standings, I’d argue both teams have overachieved this season. They’re both young teams, and between them, their injury lists nearly comprise a strong starting 11. But today, the Spirit played inspired soccer in stretches, while the Breakers showed plenty of resilience.

Boston coach Matt Beard wasn’t quite pleased, though — at least, as far as we could tell while conducting interviews in a gym where several youth basketball games were in progress. (As Lloyd Yaxley once put it: Why would someone invent such a noisy game?) Beard’s view: Goalkeeper Abby Smith had a terrific performance, the team took advantage of its opportunities to score two goals, and the Breakers turned the ball over far too often.

Washington coach Jim Gabarra was also unhappy, though in his case, it was his ongoing concern that referees simply aren’t calling enough fouls to protect players. He had a point, in this game and through the season, though Breakers fans may rightly wonder why Caprice Dydasco wiped out Tiffany Weimer twice in the opening minutes. Maybe the Millennials really want anyone over 30 to disappear?

(The ref gave Dydasco a few stern words, which apparently helped. But other players are a little less receptive to the “Hi, could you please stop running over your opponent?” school of officiating.)

Other than that, it’s hard to draw any long-term conclusions from this game. I’d wanted to see if the Spirit’s youth movement was for real, but their younger attackers were a bit erratic today after a busy stretch of games. They were more dangerous when Cheyna Williams came in, and that’s not the first time I’ve said that this season.

I can’t judge the Breakers’ youth movement as long as Rose Lavelle is out. They’re a different team without her.

But both teams have a lot of potential to be better next season. Neither team has had much luck with injuries, and the Spirit could certainly feel they deserved better today.

And it was certainly entertaining. Best of all, they managed to squeeze in the whole game before the storms hit. We were told Lifetime would cut to a movie if the game was scrubbed, and the world doesn’t need that. Seeing a bunch of young athletes with skill and potential was a lot better than that, and it was a nice diversion on a day in which we really needed it.

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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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