Tag: women’s soccer

soccer

A few questions and answers on ‘Enduring Spirit’

Posted on by Beau Dure

Stumbled into a few questions and comments on Enduring Spirit and figured I’d answer them here. Feel free to ask more — I’m easy to find. Also, check out my Q&A from earlier in the week with Caitlin Murray.

Will the book be available on (Nook, Apple, PDF, print, stone tablets)?

The Nook edition is up now. It’s on its way to the iBookstore and Kobo. I may look into Google Play as well. If I do anything in print, it’ll be a limited-edition thing. I could see trying to combine it with more photos so that it would have added value for people who already shelled out the $5.99 for the ebook, but that’ll cost more — photographers have every right to be paid for their work.

Speaking of photos, what’s your deal with that cover, anyway? Why pick on Alex Morgan?

I’m not. I don’t. Alex Morgan picked on me after I joked about U.S. women’s national team players expecting favorable calls from refs, which is her prerogative. As I said at the time she shot back at me on Twitter, I think she’s a great player and a future U.S. captain.

I picked this photo because (A) it’s the photo that drew the most attention during the course of the season and (B) it shows the defiant resilience of this team, standing up for itself against the best in the world.

When I designed the cover, I did so with the intent of drawing attention to Diana Matheson’s face. I wasn’t drawing attention to the name “Morgan” on the jersey — at one point in the process, it was obscured, and I didn’t even realize it was there in the final edit.

But you hate Portland!

No, I really don’t. If you read the book, you’ll find the Thorns draw a lot of flattery. They’re a class organization.

Why didn’t you do more analysis?

Interesting question, and perhaps I miscalculated. In reporting the book, I tried to take out the Heisenberg/Schrödinger/quantum physics observer effect and make myself part of the scenery. I dreaded the notion that people might act differently because I was on the field. (A few people have assured me that they were the same whether I was around or not.)

In writing the book, I figured people wanted less of me and more of the players. And I figured people might want to draw their own conclusions on what happened. It’s really not up to me to tell you whether Ashlyn Harris’ comments were fair to Mike Jorden. If I felt I had additional information that wasn’t readily available, I gave it.

But I might have been wrong. If you’ve read the book but still want my take on something, let me know.

Were you worried about losing credentials if you wrote something negative?

Not really. I have no idea what I’m doing in terms of coverage next season, but I think it’s fair to say I won’t be making serious money doing it.

Why didn’t you go into more detail on (Topic X, Y or Z)?

In most cases, that’s what I have. The Spirit kept some things in the locker room, like a lot of teams do. Women’s soccer teams are especially guarded in my experience. Hope Solo’s career of public statements is the exception that proves the rule.

I know there are plenty of people who think they know some behind-the-scenes information that wasn’t in the book. In some cases, I also heard that but couldn’t verify it. In other cases, it’s utter bunk. To give one example: A team that has an openly gay captain isn’t steering away from gay players. That’s nonsense. I can’t really go into more detail because we generally honor players’ rights to private lives (see the hand-wringing over whether to “report” the Abby Wambach-Sarah Huffman wedding when players were openly talking about it on public social media).

In some cases, I was able to press for more detail. Ken Krieger was willing to talk about players’ desire to bring him in to help out.

But in general, I wasn’t in investigative mode. The goal of the book was to capture the spirit (sorry) and sacrifice of soccer players trying to build a new team and a new league while being paid tiny salaries. I tried to get to know each player, and I’d like to think I was somewhat successful in doing that and getting across a little bit of their personalities. Controversies arose, of course, and I did what I could to explore them. In a lot of cases, there’s a lot less controversy than some fans think. I spent a lot of time talking with players and coaches on topics that didn’t make the book because there just wasn’t any substance to write about.

Not always, of course. Perhaps someone from a different vantage point can come in and get more dirt about the coaching change. That’s fine. A variety of voices is always better than one.

So why WAS Mike Jorden let go?

I think the players’ perception was that he wasn’t adequately preparing them for games. Was that reality? I don’t know. I didn’t look at his game plans, and a lot of elite-level game-planning is going to go over my head, anyway. But that’s the kind of perception that essentially becomes the reality. If players don’t think they’re being prepared, they’re not. That could be Jorden’s fault for not doing a great game plan, it could be Jorden’s fault for not communicating it well, or it could be that players were just tuning him out for whatever reason.

I wouldn’t judge Jorden too harshly. Even the best coaches in the world get fired sometimes. He hadn’t had much trouble in his previous coaching gigs, and people speak well of his integrity.

What about the other coaches?

I never got much of an answer on why Kris Ward was let go. Players seemed to like him — he was warmly greeted on a couple of returns to the SoccerPlex. I think they wanted a fresh start and felt it would be best if Mark Parsons came in without anyone left over from the previous regime other than Lloyd Yaxley, who was clearly well-liked as the goalkeeper coach and could also help out elsewhere.

I didn’t do much to find out the story on German Peri. He wasn’t around that often when I was there, and I didn’t see much interest in finding out why he was dismissed with Jorden and Ward.

One aside I’ll toss in: NCAA rules prevent someone from being a college assistant coach and a pro assistant coach. That’s ridiculous, and it’s affecting multiple people associated with the Spirit. Hayley Siegel is virtually a player/coach in the organization, but she can’t be officially recognized as such as long as she’s also at Georgetown. Add that to the list of Jay Bilas’ complaints with the NCAA.

Who was the funniest player on the team?

Emily Fortunato, the trainer. Closely followed by Conny Pohlers.

But why do you really hate Portland?

Because CPC stopped wearing her hats.

No, seriously — I don’t. Read the book and see for yourself.

Any other questions?

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soccer

The skill of Abby Wambach

Posted on by Beau Dure

Abby Wambach has an indomitable will. She has the ability to raise her game when the stakes are higher. She works hard and inspires others to do the same.

But let’s remember one thing: She’s also a danged good soccer player.

Seems obvious, doesn’t it? But it’s too easy to forget. Too easy to think of her accomplishments as a simple function of a single-minded willingness to stick her head wherever it must be to meet the ball. Just as Brian McBride was called “McHead” — sometimes affectionately, sometimes not — in deference to his ability to score goals with his noggin and take a few facial reconstructions to do so, Wambach’s general soccer skill is overlooked as people marvel over the intangibles that sportswriters and ad agencies build into mythology.

Wambach, first of all, is perfectly capable of scoring magnificent goals without her head. Heading (sorry) into 2013, she had only used her head for 66 of her 152 goals.

Look at this:

Now consider this: This year, Wambach passed (geez, another horrible accidental pun) Tiffeny Milbrett for third place on the all-time assist list. (She’s roughly 40 behind Kristine Lilly and 80 behind Mia Hamm, so let’s not restart the #ChasingMia hashtag just yet.)

Some of those were surely with her head. To repeat myself: I’m not sure TV does justice to her ability to flick the ball into the path of an onrushing teammate with her head.

So let’s finish up by talking about her aerial ability. First of all, it’s not always that high in the air. Sure, she can outjump people to score. But she’s just as likely to score on a diving header, which requires an uncanny sense of timing.

And when she makes that dive, look at what she can do.

Even if that was Wambach’s FIRST goal, not her 158th, you’d have to say she’s a skilled player.

So as U.S. Soccer (women’s and men’s) tries to change its approach to develop more skillful players, not just athletes, Abby Wambach is and will continue to be someone to emulate.

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Drawing a line in the stands: Leroux, Day 2

Posted on by Beau Dure

Yesterday’s Sydney Leroux saga had a few predictable outcomes. Late in the day, we heard Leroux wasn’t specifically talking about the game in Toronto on Sunday — in fact, she says the atmosphere there was great! “A positive step forward for women’s soccer,” even.

Of course, by then, it was too late for the Toronto crowd. Many of the mainstream media stories on the web have been updated with Leroux’s clarification — she was talking about an older game in Vancouver, plus Twitter — but a lot of headlines still reflect what her tweet implied: The crowd in Toronto was using racist chants against her.

To respond to one of yesterday’s comments — I don’t see such accusations as “minutiae.” I’d rather be called a bleepity-bleep whatever than a racist. I’ve been called a racist before. It hurts. It cuts to your soul. It is not an accusation to be tossed around lightly and then say, “Oh, I meant those OTHER guys.”

So that’s one lesson learned, and it’s one of many excellent points in Richard Whittall’s column, “Some lessons from the Leroux saga.”

Another lesson is aimed squarely at Canadian fans, in response to attitudes like this:

I’m not going to walk around asking Canadian players what they think of their fans tossing out the c-word and b-word. They shouldn’t have to confront this themselves. Those of us with Y chromosomes should simply know better.

As Whittall put it:

That the rest of the world has set a low bar in acceptable bounds of player abuse isn’t a great reason for Canadian or American fans of womens soccer to do the same.

I’m also still befuddled by people trotting out the notion that this sort of thing happens in men’s soccer all the time, so there’s some sort of double-standard in place. “Balotelli does it” is one of those arguments. Yes, and Balotelli is one the most controversial, if not the most reviled, soccer players in the world.

Europe offers plenty of soccer traditions to emulate. Balotelli’s behavior and fans hurling sexist epithets aren’t among them. Or maybe one day we’ll end borrowing another European tradition — forcing teams to play in empty stadiums.

So, moving forward, we can hope Leroux will quit throwing gasoline on the fire with poorly chosen celebrations and poorly focused accusations. She has made plenty of enemies of non-racist, non-abusive Canadian fans who may have defended her in the past.

But as fans, we all need to take a step back and think about the limits of our fan passions. The Voyageurs immediately spoke out against racism, and that’s terrific. It’s not, however, the end of the conversation about what’s acceptable in the stands.

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The Leroux celebration and unwritten rules of sports

Posted on by Beau Dure

Crash Davis, Bull Durham: What are you doing? Huh? What are you doing standing here? I gave you a gift, you stand here showing up my pitcher? Run, dummy!

Sports have written rules and unwritten rules. The written rules tell you the size of the field, what to do when a ball becomes defective in the course of play, what sort of socks aren’t acceptable, etc. The unwritten rules tell us so much more:

1. Hockey fights stay on the ice. The book The Code: The Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NHL had all sorts of amusing anecdotes, my favorite being the one in which the guy losing a fight yells, “Loser buys the pizza.” The guy who’s winning says, “Well, I think you’re buying.” Then the losing fighter yells, “Yeah, but the winner buys the beer!”

Then there’s this, in which a veteran hockey enforcer gives an opponent a chance to impress his coaches:

I’m not saying the code makes a whole lot of sense. But it exists.

2. When a soccer player is down on the field, someone will kick the ball out of play so the trainers can run on the field. Then the ball is returned to the other side. That’s not in the written rules. Players do that on their own.

If you missed yesterday’s arguments after the USA-Canada women’s soccer match in Toronto, here’s the deal: Former Canadian U20 U19* striker Sydney Leroux, who has endured all sorts of abuse on Twitter and heard it from the crowd all day yesterday, scored a garbage-time goal for the USA and celebrated by waving the USA badge at the crowd and shushing them.

Canadian commentators weren’t happy. “Classless,” said Craig Forrest on TV. At TSN’s site, Gareth Wheeler summed up the unwritten rule in this case:

An act as such is an absolute no-no in soccer.  You don’t pay homage to the badge against your former team, let alone the country of your birth.

This rule was at the heart of yesterday’s Twitter arguments. A lot of WoSo fans insisted that they’ve seen men celebrating the same way, taunting fans, etc. Two issues with that:

1. It’s rare to see players doing such things, as Wheeler says, “against your former team, let alone the country of your birth.”

2. If, say, an English-born player did while playing for Scotland against England, that just might make the news. The ensuing riot certainly would. And you’d have plenty of English commentators calling the act “classless” or worse. I couldn’t find specific examples, but I think that’s because it just isn’t done. More common is the example of Polish-born German player Lukas Podolski, who scored twice against Poland in Euro 2008 and refused to celebrate at all.

So as with a lot of Hope Solo’s controversies, the “sexist double standard” argument doesn’t hold water. (And as someone who greatly appreciates men’s AND women’s soccer, I get rather irritated with false stereotypes in either direction, and then I tweet too much and get unfollowed by a bunch of disgruntled people. Sorry about that, though I’d also suggest getting Hootsuite and making a few lists so you can tune it out when some people in your feed start a lively discussion that you’re not enjoying. In any case, I’ll wrap it up more quickly in the future so you don’t have to adjust your timelines. All that said, I found a lot of the discussion helpful as I tried to clarify the situation, so thanks to those who stuck around.)

I haven’t seen much reaction from Canadian players (if you see more, please leave it in the comments). But here’s Christine Sinclair:

“Maybe not the classiest of moves,” Sinclair said of Leroux’s gesture. “She scored on us and an individual can do what they like. I probably wouldn’t have done the same, but we move on.”

Did the celebration arguments overshadow the game? Well, yes. But aside from Alex Morgan’s superb goals and the solid defense of 17-year-old Canadian Kadeisha Buchanan, it wasn’t much of a game. Canada brought a lot of emotion but little else.

Cathal Kelly:

Playing for the first time since that notorious night in Manchester, Canada showed little of the jump they’d displayed there. Nearly a year ago, they’d gone straight at the best team in the world. They’d played with abandon. It was a bar brawl.

Now in front of a boisterous sell-out crowd at BMO Field on Sunday afternoon, they tried to muscle the Americans out of their rhythm. This was a planned assault, and as plodding as that sounds.

Tactically, it was smart. Aesthetically, it was turgid. Functionally, it was useless.

The atmosphere was promising. The passion many WoSo fans have yearned to see at their stadiums was finally there. I thought it was clever to hear fans counting to six, a reference to the puzzling free kick that helped the USA in that Olympic semifinal, every time U.S. goalkeeper Nicole Barnhart had the ball.

So if you want me to respond to a comment, do it here. Out of deference to those who are done talking about this, I’m not going to bring it up again on Twitter.

I think the last word on Twitter should go to Heather Mitts:

Yes, they do.

Postscript: As I was writing this post, Sydney Leroux started a tweet with “When you chant racial slurs.” Plenty of Canadians, including some I know to have been at the game, vehemently deny they heard anything of that nature. If she heard it from one person one time, of course, that’s too much. But in light of Boston Breakers fans (ironically, Leroux’s NWSL team) being unfairly smeared as racist in a fairly prominent book, I’m not about to do the same thing to Canadian fans. I think we can agree that the overwhelming majority, somewhere between 95 and 99.99 percent of people in BMO, would abhor such things.

Sure, I’ve seen the video in which one guy is recorded yelling a couple of nasty (sexist, not racist, not that one is “better” than the other) words. That’s bad. But that’s not a “chant.” A chant involves many people saying and repeating the same thing.

I can’t say Leroux heard absolutely nothing, and I’m sure she’s received all sorts of abuse from random racist morons on Twitter. I don’t mean to diminish that or excuse it. But I’m not going to give any credence to the thought that racism was widespread at BMO yesterday until someone produces evidence to the contrary.

Now back to the NWSL, where we’re still taking up a collection to pay the fines of Seattle staffers complaining about a call that was, indeed, quite wrong.

*Correction: Leroux played youth soccer for Canada before FIFA adjusted its age ranges. She was on Canada’s U19 World Championship team in 2004. Some trivia: Her teammates included Robyn Gayle, Sophie Schmidt, Emily Zurrer, Jodi-Ann Robinson and Golden Boot winner Brittany Timko. Among the U.S. players: Ashlyn Harris, Rachel Buehler, Stephanie (Lopez) Cox, Becky Sauerbrunn, Amy Rodriguez, Yael Averbuch, Nikki Krzyzik, Angie Woznuk and Megan Rapinoe. Other teams: Veronica Boquete (Spain), Simone Laudehr (Germany), Celia Okoyino da Mbabi (Germany) and Marta (Brazil).

Germany needed a late equalizer and penalties to get past Nigeria in the quarterfinals, but the high-scoring team beat the USA 3-1 in the semifinals and took the title against China 2-0. Third-place game: USA 3, Brazil 0. The highlight for Canada: Coming back from 3-0 down to draw Germany 3-3 in group play.

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Washington Spirit vs. Portland: The real deal

Posted on by Beau Dure

I had a lot of fun tonight on Twitter at the expense of the fans and the ref fawning over Alex Morgan tonight at the SoccerPlex, where attendance was one starting lineup north of 5,000.

But the takeaway from tonight’s game is this: The Portland Thorns aren’t just hype. They’re great.

All the preseason attention went to the star-studded attack allocations — Alex Morgan and Christine Sinclair. They showed their skills, with Sinclair fully capable of being a playmaker as well as a target player.

Get past them, and you run into WPS/PSG veteran Allie Long in midfield. Then you hit former U.S. U-20 captain and two-time WPS champion Becky Edwards. Attack the wing, and you run into former U.S. defender Marian (Dalmy) Dougherty. Go up the center, and who’s that making the recovery and clearing the danger? Just national teamer Rachel Buehler.

And you have Nikki Washington, who scored the game-winner in the Thorns’ 2-1 win with a terrific far-post shot after Washington’s Ali Krieger coughed up the ball.

Even the relative unknown — Meleana Shim — played a terrific game Saturday night.

That’s just not fair.

You can’t hand the NWSL trophy to Portland just yet. Kansas City matched up well with them in the season opener. On a given day, Sky Blue or Western New York could give them a run. Maybe Boston, too.

The Spirit made a game of it. The home side (yes, Alex Morgan fanboys — Washington was the home side) had seven shots on goal to Portland’s five. Portland’s opening goal was a penalty kick awarded dubiously after Morgan seemed to be offside, was barely fouled and may or may not have been in the box. Ashlyn Harris was sufficiently incensed by the call to get a yellow card for dissent for her protests before and after the PK.

Fans will be happy to know Harris and Morgan hugged it out in the SoccerPlex’s main building after the game. The Thorns were gracious winners all the way around. When asked if the Thorns did anything to slow down Washington’s all-world midfielder Diana Matheson, coach Cindy Parlow Cone (can we just call her CPC from now on?) said, “I don’t know if there’s anything to slow down that girl. She’s all over the field.”

CPC also singled out the Spirit defense and holding midfield. By name. She listed everyone and apologized for not being able to come up with Domenica Hodak’s name, even though Hodak was making her first start. Quite a change from her old coach, Anson Dorrance, who refers to people as “that girl who used to score a lot against us” or “that other girl who used to give us a tough time” or “that tall girl.”

She might be a rookie coach, but CPC is an early front-runner for coach of the year. She says the right things, she’s intense at the right times, and this team is tactically sound.

And she believes firmly that, despite her team’s unbeaten record, the NWSL is a league of parity. “With only eight teams, every team is really good, and the Spirit is no exception. We were lucky to get out of there with the win.”

Lucky to get the PK call, maybe, and perhaps lucky that Krieger had an off night with a costly turnover. But the Thorns are surely a bit farther along in their development than the youthful Spirit.

Washington coach Mike Jorden sees the work to be done. He made the crowd-pleasing move of starting Caroline Miller ahead of Tiffany McCarty, but Miller was just as tentative as McCarty has been.

Jorden has plenty of options up front, but as my D.C. media buddy Aaron Stollar pointed out tonight, he doesn’t have that one player that requires constant attention from the defense. The Spirit has been most effective with players like Matheson, Stephanie Ochs and Lori Lindsey drifting into the attack. If Miller or McCarty can develop into that dangerous forward, the Spirit will be much better off.

On defense, Candace Chapman was once again on the bench despite pregame claims that she was available to play. But Tori Huster is growing into that center back role. After a strong performance against Abby Wambach and a more difficult time against Sky Blue last week, she had a terrific game against the big-name Thorns offense, making a few timely interceptions and generally minimizing the threats. Ashlyn Harris made one big save, but that was on a long-range Christine Sinclair shot.

Morgan had a few words with Domenica Hodak after a mild foul, then a few more with Diana Matheson after an even milder foul. She just shrugged it off as getting fiesty. “As players, we know that we need to put a good product on the field. We don’t get paid to go out there and fight, we get paid to go out there and play.”

Matheson’s late PK goal was just what the game needed, just enough to remind the crowd that the home team is worth supporting even when someone with nice hair isn’t on the visiting team. The big crowd, packing the SoccerPlex’s stands and the hill with the beer garden, deserved some late drama.

I’ve been insisting that you can’t write Washington’s name in Sharpie at the bottom of the table. I still believe that, especially after Boston’s demolition of Chicago today. They’re still due another couple of players — Chapman, Mexican midfielder Teresa Worbis, and an unnamed Europe-based defender. But it’s also a matter of confidence. The sooner the Spirit get that first win, the better they’ll be.

Until then, Washington fans should just take heart that they’re seeing some good games in a great facility. Enjoy.

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Washington Spirit vs. Sky Blue: Welcome back, Gabarra

Posted on by Beau Dure
Lori Lindsey's long-range shots are getting closer and closer. Photo: WashingtonSpirt.com/Tony Quinn
Lori Lindsey’s long-range shots are getting closer and closer. Photo: WashingtonSpirt.com/Tony Quinn

“I was here really early so I didn’t go in the wrong locker room,” said Sky Blue coach Jim Gabarra, the only head coach in the 10-year history of the Washington Freedom.

He chatted with Washington Spirit assistant Kris Ward, who coached in the Freedom’s once-sprawling club structure, as he strolled to the bench. He raved about the Maryland SoccerPlex facility that hosted the Freedom from 2004 onward and still bore a couple of its logos until a few weeks ago.

And he watched his Sky Blue team beat the Spirit 2-1, remaining unbeaten on the season.

Gabarra’s team had a good sense of where to attack the Spirit. They earned an early corner kick, conceded a bit too easily, and sent towering defender CoCo Goodson into the box to head it past Ashlyn Harris. Their speedy forwards harassed midfielder-turned-center back Tori Huster.

But the Spirit contained Kelley O’Hara, who started at forward rather than the backline and spent a lot of the game running at Kika Toulouse, not Ali Krieger. O’Hara managed to cut back and shoot a few times, but they were harmless shots that didn’t trouble Harris. And O’Hara’s frustration boiled over a couple of times — she earned yellow for a rash challenge that left Toulouse sprawled on the grass. The speedy Lisa DeVanna, a former Freedom forward, and the formidable Danesha Adams were a handful.

The shot count, particularly in the first half, was lopsided in Sky Blue’s favor. But Harris didn’t have to pull off anything as spectacular as the big stop on Abby Wambach’s header last week. Sky Blue was willing to shoot from anywhere, but aside from the two goals on which she had no chance, Harris easily had the angles covered.

The Spirit found forward Tiffany McCarty a few times, once on a beautiful bending ball from Stephanie Ochs that would’ve put McCarty one-on-one with goalkeeper Brittany Cameron if not for a dubious offside call.

But McCarty was unusually tentative when sprung free by peripatetic Spirit attacker Diana Matheson or when handed the ball by a Sky Blue error. Some fans yelled for McCarty to be subbed out, though we don’t know how many of those fans are Virginia supporters who wanted to see Caroline Miller.

In any case, those fans got their wish in the 71st minute, and Miller provided instant offense off the bench. She turned Christie Rampone — yes, longtime U.S. captain Christie Rampone — in knots before forcing Cameron into her best save of the night.

Another subplot of the night: The Canadians, who set the stage for the midfield rivalry on Twitter:

Matheson and Sophie Schmidt battled in midfield a few times and scored two of the game’s three goals. Matheson, as she was in the first two Spirit games, was the team’s sparkplug all night. We the media (sadly not including a newspaper or TV representative) chatted with captain Lori Lindsey about the team’s formation — it’s either a 4-4-2 with McCarty and Matheson up front, a 4-2-3-1 with Lindsey and Julia Roberts holding behind Matheson and two wingers, or a 4-4-1 + Matheson covering the entire field.

Lindsey’s influence on the field is perking up. She’s helping the Spirit win more midfield battles, and she had some threatening long-range shots, as you’ll see in the highlights:

Things you might not have seen on the broadcast or the highlights:

– Toulouse left the game briefly after tangling with O’Hara, then removed roughly 800 feet of gauze from her leg. She’s still dealing with a preseason knock.

– The ref (correctly) stopped play when Krieger took a throw-in while a stray ball was on the field. The stray was removed, Krieger got another ball, and a ballgirl raced out to grab the ball Krieger had thrown to the other half of the field. Then the ballgirl tossed another ball to Brittany Cameron. Thankfully, Cameron saw the ball with her peripheral vision and booted it back, avoiding further delay.

– I have no idea what to make of this, though I’m guessing they loved it in the crowded beer garden:

Next up for the Spirit: Portland visits. They’ve sold 3,500 or so tickets. Get there early and get your barbecue and funnel cakes.

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A few NWSL rules

Posted on by Beau Dure

The “peculiar case of Elizabeth Guess,” as All White Kit’s Chris Henderson so aptly put it, has raised a few questions about the new rules in this new league.

After asking around a bit, I can pass along the following:

– Injury replacements: One player on disabled list for at least 45 days? No replacement. Two players? League discretion. Third? Roster relief. But not necessarily salary cap relief.

Teams can do whatever they must (within salary cap) to dress out two goalkeepers for each game.

– Waivers: Teams have to submit a “waiver request” to release a player. Every day at 5 p.m. CT, the league will send a list of waived players to every team. Teams have 24 hours to make a claim, or else the players become free agents.

– Allocated Player trades: Must trade U.S. player for U.S. player, Canadian for Canadian, etc. “Future considerations” heading to Chicago in the Keelin Winters deal must be a pretty good player.

– Discovery Players: Allowed four through March 24. After March 24, teams can have a total of six.

– Call-up during national team absences: This one seems pretty well-known, but just to confirm — teams can call up amateur players to replace international players. They can’t be paid. (The rules don’t mention college eligibility, which is an NCAA issue rather than an NWSL issue.)

– Trade deadline and roster freeze: July 31, 5 p.m. ET

– One non-roster rule: The first tiebreaker is head-to-head. Second is goal difference, then goals scored.

Any questions?

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NWSL preseason wrap: Keep calm and carry on

Posted on by Beau Dure
The Maryland Soccerplex's Field of Dreams. My cell phone camera can't do justice to this beautiful field.
The Maryland Soccerplex’s Field of Dreams. My cell phone camera can’t do justice to this beautiful field.

In May 1996, one team had established itself as the doormat of a new league. Its big-name allocations turned out to be out of shape and disinterested. Its defense was horrible. The team started 1-6.

The league itself had a front office that kept a lot of central control, with a lot of personnel decisions falling into the hands of its deputy commissioner, Sunil Gulati. National team players were the stars, but they missed much of that first preseason, and teams were barely acquainted with each other.

Major League Soccer turned out to be OK. Gulati lost his job but is now president of U.S. Soccer, which has taken a direct role in launching the National Women’s Soccer League.

That team? Well, they won the U.S. Open Cup. And MLS Cup. And the next MLS Cup. And the 1998 CONCACAF Champions Cup. And the 1999 MLS Cup. It’s D.C. United.

So that’s a roundabout way of saying it’s a little absurd to break out Seth Davis’s Sharpie and write down any team in last place in the NWSL’s debut season.

I’m sure I’m developing a rep as a Washington Spirit apologist, and it’s fine to apply all the standard disclaimers because I’m writing a book about the team. That said, a few facts bear repeating:

1. No team has played anything like the murderers’ row of preseason games the Spirit endured. Five games, all against top-class NCAA competition. Three of them in a week with a limited number of players available. By comparison, Portland, Sky Blue and Boston have been virtually invisible, with one or two preseason games. So we’ve had plenty of chances to dissect the diluted Spirit’s apparent weaknesses, while we know virtually nothing about the rest of the teams. (See the unofficial crowd-sourced tracking of preseason games at BigSoccer.)

2. Few teams have had a chance to play with their full rosters. The U.S. and Canadian national teams have been busy. Mexico has had some idiosyncrasies in clearing its players to play (something that deserves a more substantial investigation).

3. As we saw with many MLS teams in Year 1, we’re going to wait a while for some players to come back from Europe. And some teams may have midseason overhauls.

Add all of this together, and there’s no reason to assume the 2013 Washington Spirit will resemble the 2011 Atlanta Beat. (Which, incidentally, won all five preseason games — then one out of 18 in the regular season.)

And it’s only fair to apply such caution to the league as a whole. MLS had more than two years to prepare after winning its sanction in late 1993. The NWSL is throwing everything together as we go, and they’re doing so with low budgets.

History tells us to be patient. And history tells us things can be different when the federation(s) is(/are) working hand in hand with a new league from the outset.

So call me Pollyanna if you like, both about the Spirit and the league. I think cynicism is too easy, and it’s unfair to pile the dirt on teams and leagues that have yet to complete a regular-season game, much less a season. If you do so, may the ghost of Juan Berthy Suarez haunt you forever.

(Shameless sort-of plug: Google Books has posted parts of my MLS book, including a few bits about the disjointed opening game.)

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Washington Spirit vs. Maryland Terrapins: Forget about it

Posted on by Beau Dure

On paper, it doesn’t look good for a pro team to lose to a college team. Particularly one that isn’t renowned as a national title contender (though that could change this year). Particularly when other NWSL teams are mopping the field with their college opponents.

But we have to repeat that the Washington Spirit that lost 2-0 at Maryland tonight is not the Washington Spirit team that will take the field in 10 days or two months. The Spirit dressed 15 players, then scratched Tiffany McCarty, who joined Colleen Williams, Kika Toulouse, Danielle Hubka and Candace Chapman as injury absentees. Holly King is back in college in Florida for another few weeks, and four players are away with the USA and Canada.

Not that the Spirit were particularly pleased after this encounter. Grumpiness spread over many of the players — aside from all the Maryland alumni posing for pictures with their former teammates.

Quick aside about that: Maryland has some passionate soccer fans who don’t seem to realize who played for their team last fall or two years ago. They yelled for the current players by name and argued with the officials. Sure, the game had no PA announcer to give the names of the players and rev up the voice for the Terp alumni. But I spoke with a group of fans who didn’t know the names Domenica Hodak or Jasmyne Spencer in the first place.

Spencer barely knew her teammates’ names, having just joined the team at the pregame meal. She got a good long run at forward and posed a few problems for her former defense, but the Spirit attackers weren’t quite in sync. Individually, many of them played well — Caroline Miller came close to settling some old ACC scores singlehandedly, and Stephanie Ochs was solid on the wing and in the middle. The chemistry wasn’t quite there, which is bound to happen to a team that just brought in a forward three hours ago. And as solid a worker as Spencer is, a 5-1 forward may not be the best target for an aerial cross. They’ll need to rework that alignment.

Surely some of the issues will pass. It’s easy to see how the missing players will fill important holes:

– Maryland got most of its chances on counterattacks. They easily could’ve won 4-0. But will the Spirit give up those chances when Ali Krieger and Robyn Gayle (and Candace Chapman, if healthy, and possibly Kika Toulouse) are at the back? Probably not.

– The Spirit had a lot of possession but lacked that incisive pass. Enter Diana Matheson, now busy with Canada.

– McCarty was the driving force behind the Spirit’s win over UNC. She also wasn’t on the field for this game.

So what do we know from this game, one of three games the Spirit will play in seven days with 14-16 players? Not much. About as much as we know from Major League Soccer’s preseason, which is generally an audition period, or Major League Baseball spring training, which is basically a feeding frenzy for shady collectibles dealers.

Some of the players on the field tonight won’t last past Monday’s roster cuts. Others will be typical rookies with moments of brilliance and a few growing pains. In the end, the Spirit will forget about this game — just as Maryland’s fans who attended tonight have apparently forgotten Spencer, Hodak, Skyy Anderson and Olivia Wagner. (Spencer took it in good humor. Might have a chance to post quotes tomorrow.)

As for the opening game April 14, I think everyone has two requests. Warmer and less windy.

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FIFA boldly … asks for clarification on Nigeria’s lesbian ban

Posted on by Beau Dure

The Nigerian women’s soccer team went into the 2011 World Cup with the momentum of having ousted lesbians from the team.

The FIFA response at the time: “Huh? What? Oh. OK, we’ll talk to the coach.”

Now, with reports that Nigeria has banned lesbians from all levels of football, FIFA … wants clarification.

The issue has deep roots in Africa, where legal bans remain and men still use “corrective rape” to try to convince lesbians to change.

So, once FIFA gets its “clarification,” the question will be whether FIFA wants to make a statement — one that may force some attitudes to change.

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