The book is only at Amazon for now. But you don’t need a Kindle to read it! Amazon offers apps for every platform you might possibly have — tablets, phones, laptops.

Over the next few weeks, I will be working to make it available on other ebook platforms. I declined Amazon’s exclusivity offer, which includes a couple of incentives, so that I would reserve the rights to publish it elsewhere.

I might do a print version at some point, but it would be a limited run. If you have any thoughts on what might make a print version worthwhile, let me know.

The good news is that the ebook is only $5.99.

I thanked 91 people by name in the acknowledgments at the end of the book, but I could’ve gone on and on. Thanks to everyone who has taken an interest in this book along the way, and I hope you enjoy it.

The book is still on pace to be released Oct. 15, though after yesterday’s malware and erotica incidents, it might be Kindle-only for the first few days. I will still release it on other formats.

Today’s excerpt includes part of the entries for two days as the Spirit prepared for its first game at Boston. (Yes, I saw the feedback from people who wanted something more soccer-related. Enjoy.)

Wednesday, April 10

Warm weather had finally arrived at the SoccerPlex. And still Chantel Jones was wearing long sleeves, not wanting to scrape up her arms on the sand lurking beneath Field 5’s grass.

The competition was no longer within camp. The players had all earned their spots on the team. The focus was now the Boston Breakers. Before warmups, Mike Jorden used some cones to demonstrate a few points about Boston and their likely starting formation. Players also realized they had another source of information in Jasmyne Spencer, who had been in camp with the Breakers. After a bit of chatting, the consensus was that the midfield and the backs were vulnerable. Given the presence of Sydney Leroux up front and Heather O’Reilly on the wing, that seemed to be an obvious conclusion just by process of elimination.

Kris Ward put the team into a 1v1 drill, with the attacker trying to beat the defender and then the goalkeeper. Lori Lindsey screamed at herself after missing; Kika Toulouse was unhappy with her own defending. Caroline Miller was sharp, as was the predatory and clinical Tiffany McCarty. From the goal, Chantel Jones quipped to her former ACC rival McCarty that she was getting flashbacks.

The roster was complete, but still far from full strength. Candace Chapman and Robyn Gayle sat out the first phase of practice. Colleen Williams had at last been cleared for a little bit of activity and immediately reminded everyone what they were missing with a few powerful finishes, but after a few minutes, she was back with the trainer in distress and frustration.

Gayle joined the fray in the scrimmage, with Jorden admonishing her to take herself out if anything hurt. She was able to get wide, but her teammates had trouble finding her.

The highlight of the short-field, small-numbers scrimmage: Jasmyne Spencer, one of the shortest players in the game, looped a header over a bemused Lloyd Yaxley.

The Spirit players still barely knew their own capabilities, much less those of the Breakers. Diana Matheson summed up what she knew about Washington’s first opponent:

“They’re in Boston, they’re called the Breakers,” Matheson said. “I know the Canadians on the team.”

“All the teams are a little bit up in the air right now,” she conceded.

Friday, April 12

The last practice at home before the first road trip was intense.

Lori Lindsey spoke up as the defense ran through a ball-movement drill. “Are we gonna talk about that?” she yelled toward the coaches. The question was Kika Toulouse’s positioning. “If that’s HAO (Heather O’Reilly, the national team veteran Toulouse would likely face on the wing), she’s going to get in there all day,” Lindsey protested.

The water break turned into a tactics discussion. Players held six separate conversations about positioning.

The team quickly went over free kicks. Five players lined up as a wall. “That’s the five in the wall?” Ashlyn Harris asked. Yes, came the reply. “With that height?” she asked with some disdain. Diana Matheson, posing an obstacle of barely 5 feet at one end of the wall, laughed a little.

By this point, it was clear Alina Garciamendez would not be joining the Spirit. A release from the Mexican federation listed the 12 Mexican players who would be in the league, including the as-yet-unreported Teresa Worbis for the Spirit. But it also mentioned four players who would not join their NWSL teams. One failed to finish rehab from an injury. Two others flunked physicals. And Garciamendez chose to sign with Frankfurt after finishing her education at Stanford.

So other than Worbis and “Unnamed Euro,” the practice included everyone who was going to play for the Spirit in the foreseeable future. And everyone was facing reality.

Ali Krieger summed it up: “Now it’s like, ‘You know what? This is real. This is really happening. We have a game on Sunday, and we have to bring it.’”

The national team defender had seen some improvement since her departure for national team duty. And she didn’t care about preseason results, thinking back to how little they meant in WPS.

“The year New Jersey (Sky Blue) won, they lost every single preseason game. Those preseason games were a great test. Everyone needed to play. Not many of those players may play during the season. They’re test games, they’re friendlies. You beat teams 8-0, that’s not fun either. So these tests are really good for us.”

Krieger was still a relatively young player but had more club experience than most of her national teammates. She had played for several incarnations of the Washington Freedom, including the WPS team on a brief loan in 2009. She had spent most of her professional career with Frankfurt in Germany.

Frankfurt is a perennial power in Germany, with wealthy ownership willing to pay a full-time professional salary for most players. Some had other jobs, out of necessity or affectation. But she was happy to play at home — or at least within commuting range.

“I’m in Northern Virginia. I feel it’s healthy for me to live away from the workplace. My friends live in the area where I am now. It’s really nice to get away and have a social life. I always want that part of my life to always be there. So I have work and soccer in one place. It’s nice to have some separation and live outside of this area.”

The book Enduring Spirit: Reviving Professional Women’s Soccer should be available Oct. 15, barring any last-minute editing questions or complications with converting my draft to e-book format. By popular demand, I’ll make sure it’s available somewhere other than Amazon, though it’ll go to Amazon first.

Over the next week, I’ll release a couple of excerpts. Here’s one.

Friday, July 5

The bus wasn’t evil this time. A couple of players used the overhead sleeping compartments — Diana Matheson had trouble climbing up but had plenty of room to stretch out. Conny Pohlers was eager to watch Wimbledon on the satellite TV, but with Novak Djokovic and Juan Martin del Potro’s match stretching for nearly five hours, the team tossed in a few episodes of Modern Family.

This was the one road trip of the season in which I would stick with the team the whole time. With Lori Lindsey’s encouragement, I said hello to the team when we got on the bus and reminded them what I was doing. Most players tuned out, but Chantel Jones was quick with a couple of questions. I told her Colleen Williams had suggested a title.

“What was that?”

“Sexy Soccer,” I said.

“Sexy FOOTBALL,” Ashlyn Harris admonished, clearly preferring global terminology over Americanized alliteration.

Mark Parsons was staying busy. He and Lloyd Yaxley worked their way through some videos on the bus. His scouting gave him confidence that he imparted on the team at a brief practice on the sweltering field on the fringe of New Jersey suburbia. “I could not feel better about how this is set up,” Parsons said in a practice that emphasized the positive.

Harris may have grown up in Florida, but she was no fan of the 90-degree heat and high humidity. “It’s so hot,” she moaned to Ali Krieger in the hotel lobby before practice. “I already feel sick.”

She also wasn’t a fan of the artificial turf on which the Spirit was training in the midst of a complex, like the SoccerPlex, that had several grass fields. “My feet are burning,” she muttered as she trudged off to work with Yaxley and Chantel Jones.

But the grass was long and apparently off-limits. And Parsons thought the turf, much more forgiving than the Dilboy Stadium carpet, was pretty good for the technical training they were doing. They were working on turning before the pass arrived so they’re in better position to play the ball. Not trapping THEN turning. He said they’ll clean it up over a couple of weeks.

And Harris got into the swing of things when the teams played a modified scrimmage at the end of practice. She loved seeing a chip from Diana Matheson and kept encouraging her teammates.

Pohlers raced back to the bus after practice, trying to catch the rest of the Wimbledon men’s semifinal. But Andy Murray had already won the fourth set and the match.

The team dinner drew unanimous approval. A modest-looking Italian place served superb salmon, chicken and pasta to a happy team.

Most of the players and coaches had asked very little about how I reached the point in my career at which I thought following a soccer team around would be a good idea. Parsons was an exception, asking me tons of questions about my soccer background and my career. I was happy to talk, but then I was the last person with food on my plate. Conny Pohlers, clearly ready to get back to the hotel, started teasing me about never finishing my dinner. I gulped down my food, and we left.

That evening, Parsons held a meeting free from any talk of tactics or technique. It was team bonding time.

First up was an exercise of finding words that best described the team and its goals. It looked like a corporate exercise usually imposed on baffled or jaded employees, but the team was into it. Holly King offered “resilient,” which several people misheard as “Brazilian.”

Harris, always in intense in games and focused in practice, showed a softer side. She considered the team a family and gave an emotional speech about how important that sentiment was.

And Harris’ words inspired a new team catchphrase: “Family! Together! We will fight!”

Then Harris got back to her competitive instincts in a raucous game of charades, with Parsons providing movie titles to act out. The goalkeeper was up first and may have bent the rules, grabbing a prop to use as an eye patch. Her team immediately got it: “Pirates of the Caribbean!”

Ali Krieger had a tougher task. She let her hair down and pranced around like a beauty pageant contender. Her team didn’t get it. Two other teams yelled out for the steal: “Pretty Woman!”

Colleen Williams and Jasmyne Spencer connected easily. Williams mimicked a free kick. Spencer: “Bend It Like Beckham!”

Parsons raised the ante with a speed round, in which each team would do as many movies as possible in a limited time, and the veterans heated up. The normally reserved Candace Chapman used much of the available floor space for some animated acting, and Kika Toulouse quickly got three of Chapman’s assigned films. Lori Lindsey let loose a “BOOM, BABY!” after getting Snow White from Chantel Jones’ clues. Diana Matheson got her team into the final with a convincing portrayal of the Titanic sinking.

Pohlers was eager to participate, making up her own titles in between rounds. But when the time came for her to go, she stuck with typing and drawing a computer with her hands. The film was The Notebook. She was unaware of the English word “notebook” when not followed by “computer.”

The final teams:

– Lori Lindsey, Tori Huster, Holly King, Lindsay Taylor, Chantel Jones

– Diana Matheson, Colleen Williams, Jasmyne Spencer, Lupita Worbis.

Parsons made it winner-take-all. Whoever guessed first would win the title for her team.

Krieger and Harris volunteered to be the actors. Each veteran drew hearts in the air, then turned as if beginning a swordfight.

Chantel Jones shouted the winning word.

“BRAVEHEART!”