Tag: wps

soccer

2011 WPS predictions

Posted on by Beau Dure

Jenna Pel was kind enough to invite me to participate in her roundup of WPS predictions, then even kinder to share the shocking results on her blog. Be sure to visit her blog — compiling something like this can be pain, even when the participants are the easygoing members of the unofficial WPS media, and she deserves the rewards.

A couple of things stood out on the results:

– magicJack is picked anywhere from first to sixth. That’s a reflection of this talented but combustible roster wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a mystery, to butcher the great Churchill quote.

– Western New York also is picked first through sixth, but that’s misleading — all but two of the writers pick the Flash in the top three, with Shek Borkowski providing the dissenting opinion and picking them last.

– Atlanta took 10 of 12 last-place votes. Cross-Conference is much more bullish on the Beat, picking the youngsters (with a quartet of U.S. women’s veterans now on various parts of the talent pool fringe) to finish second.

– Perhaps I’ve underrated Philadelphia, which gets six of 12 first-place votes.

– I’m more confident in my championship pick of Western New York, and I’m befuddled that so many picked Boston to win the playoffs but not the regular season. Western New York and magicJack may struggle during the regular season because they’ll have so many players busy with the World Cup. But assuming they make the playoffs, they’ll be terrors. They can put aside World Cup burnout for 2-3 games.

My more detailed picks are:

1. WNY 10-4-4, 34 pts. – Most talented team, just needs to overcome absences
2. MaJa 9-6-3, 30 pts. – Plenty of talent but potential for implosion with big personalities, no staff
3. SkyB 8-8-2, 26 pts. – Gabarra’s rebuilding looks shrewd. Hunch is they’ll be aggressive.
4. Phi 7-9-4, 25 pts. – Attacking options, solid goalkeeping.
5. Bos 6-7-5, 23 pts. – Solid D, Kelly Smith; questions in goal and midfield
6. Atl 4-10-4, 16 pts. – The good news — their toughest stretch is late in the year, when the youngsters might be ready.

Update: Edited headline when readers informed me that it’s not 2012, and this is not one of my London 2012 medal projections. I’m obviously in a hurry to get to the end of the Mayan calendar to see what happens.

0
soccer

The Freedom of the Majestic WPS FCs

Posted on by Beau Dure

Here’s a quick attempt to summarize what is known about women’s soccer teams in the Washington area as of 5:30 p.m. ET, March 24, 2011:

– The Northern Virginia Majestics, affiliated with the PDL’s Northern Virginia Royals and Super-Y teams, will remain in the W-League, playing to the southwest of DC between Manassas and Dumfries. (See Tweet from @NovaRoyals)

– A new team, tentatively called Washington FC, will also play in the W-League. This team takes over the territory ceded by the former Washington Freedom and will play in the Freedom’s former home, the Maryland Soccerplex, northwest of DC in Boyds, Md.

– The Majestics ownership will be involved with this new team at the Soccerplex, with competitive controls built in to prevent any issues with player movement between the two teams. (Confirmed today with USL management.)

– D.C. United may also be involved with this new team, tentatively called Washington FC, but that cannot be officially announced as yet.

– Meanwhile … magicJack, the WPS team formerly known as the Washington Freedom, may yet hold the door open to play in the Washington area, though their home base will be in Florida. Borislow says he wants the team to play some in the D.C. area but is meeting resistance from Puma. (This from conversation with Dan Borislow today and Potomac Soccer Wire interview.)

– Coincidentally, Borislow’s MagicJacks won the U14 title at the Jefferson Cup, not too far from the Freedom’s former home. (But significantly closer to Manassas.)

Got it? You will be quizzed later.

2
soccer

Could D.C. fans find Freedom in W-League?

Posted on by Beau Dure

Here’s what we know about women’s soccer in the D.C. area and what we don’t know, all leading up to a couple of hypotheticals:

KNOW: The WPS team formerly known as the Washington Freedom is now magicJack’s Washington Freedom. Yes, magicJack … not magicTalk. Dan Borislow, the team owner, says the product name “magicTalk” will be changing.

DON’T KNOW: How many, if any, games this team will play anywhere near Washington. The schedule released today says the following: “The home venue for magicJack’s Washington Freedom will be Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida. The team might play one or two of its home games in the Washington, D.C. area.”

KNOW: Barring an unexpected construction surge, the team will break the record for smallest WPS crowd. Our Game contacted the university’s assistant director for facilities, Mitch Silverman, who said the team would play all of its games at an on-campus stadium that would hold 1,200-1,500 fans. By my hasty calculations scanning through the 2010 and 2009 results, the current record is 1,878.

DON’T KNOW: Whether anyone in South Florida has noticed that they’re getting a soccer team loaded with some of the best women’s soccer players anywhere (Abby Wambach, Hope Solo, Christie Rampone, Shannon Boxx). General news searches for “freedom wambach” and “freedom ‘florida atlantic'” turned up nothing. A search for team owner “Borislow” turned up nothing at the Miami Herald and Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel sites. And these are papers with excellent soccer reporters. That’s how quietly Borislow is doing things.

KNOW: The Maryland SoccerPlex, the Freedom’s home for the last seven years, will be the home field for the W-League’s Washington FC.

DON’T KNOW: Who owns Washington FC. (Yes, I’m looking into it.)

KNOW: Borislow, who bought the Freedom from the Hendricks family (WUSA founders), owns the Freedom trademark and could be stuck with it thanks to the complexities of uniform contracts with Puma. If he were to stop using that trademark, it could revert to WPS. But it’s a little murky from that point.

DON’T KNOW: Whether Borislow could sell or bestow that trademark to Washington FC. When asked if he would be willing to let a new club inherit the Freedom name and the Freedom’s relationships with youth clubs, Borislow said, “I would do anything to help youth soccer.” He wasn’t sure whether he could grant Washington FC the rights to the name.

KNOW: WPS has no leverage with Borislow. He most likely saved the league from extinction. If he hadn’t stepped up, WPS might not exist. And no one in the Washington area did it.

DON’T KNOW: Whether women’s soccer as a whole will be better off this way. I asked aloud on Twitter today whether fans would’ve preferred that the remaining WPS teams simply fold into the W-League, where they can play as professional teams. The reaction ranged from indifference to enthusiasm.

So is the best solution for Washington fans to hope that the W-League Washington FC is run by ambitious folks who can reclaim the Freedom name and build a team that could possibly jump into WPS if the league is healthy down the road? Possibly.

Can they do it?

We don’t know.

3
mind games, mma, olympic sports, soccer, tennis, winter sports

Midweek Myriad: Marta, Nadal, handball, 1260s, etc.

Posted on by Beau Dure

One of the joys of following a hundred sports or so is that you’re not stuck dissecting the Super Bowl to the point that it becomes joyless. Instead, we have all this:

– Marta signs with Western New York. A WPS shocker. Good news from a media point of view because it means more of us will be paying attention to veteran Rochester reporter Jeff DiVeronica, who jokes on Twitter that Marta will push him up to 1,000 followers.

The conventional wisdom would be that Marta would sign with The Club Formerly And Still Partially Known As The Washington Freedom But Also With Magic Jack In The Name (TCFASPKATWFBAWMJITN) so that Dan Borislow would have a marquee player to market in South Florida and perhaps somewhere in Washington once the team hires marketing and sales staffs and finds venues in which to play. Instead, Borislow has given us the best WPS smack talk in the league’s brief history, via Our Game: “This came as a total surprise. I am glad she will be playing in the league. She will discover we are the team to beat, so I hope she is at the top of her game when she plays us.”

For all the talk in MLS about “Rivalry Week,” maybe we should be circling the calendar for TCFASPKATWFBAWMJITN’s visit to Rochester.

– Nadal loses. And it’s a pity. Tennis could use a Grand Slam charge from the charismatic, humble Spaniard, but an injury has derailed his Australian Open campaign. Nadal didn’t want to use the injury as an excuse, but he wasn’t fooling opponent David Ferrer. Class acts all around. (NYT)

– Winter X Games time. And the NYT notes that several more X sports may be joining the Winter Olympic program. No word on women’s ski jumping, though that sport has a better-defined set of rules and so forth.

The Summer Olympics might be too big. The Winter Olympics aren’t, and it’s hard to begrudge slopestyle its place. But if the IOC adds the X sports without women’s ski jumping, the excuses will ring hollow.

– Handball heaven. It’s only $20 away. At least the highlights are free, so I was able to scout semifinalist France in their win over my buddies from Iceland in a rematch of the 2008 Olympic final. (Dan Steinberg also enjoyed covering that team in Beijing and linked to my highest-read blog post ever.)

Iceland plays Croatia for fifth place on Friday. The semifinals the same day: France-Sweden, Denmark-Spain.

– Also this weekend:

  • Cyclocross World Championships. The muddier, the better.
  • U.S. Figure Skating Championships, in my former hometown of Greensboro.
  • Luge World Championships. U.S. sliders not having a particularly good year.
  • Paralympic Athletics World Championships.
  • Millrose Games.
  • Strikeforce: Middleweight and welterweight title fights, plus Herschel Walker.
  • Final weekend of Tata Steel chess classic, where U.S. player Hikaru Nakamura shares the lead in an elite group.
1
olympic sports, soccer

What it takes to make a pro women’s sport work

Posted on by Beau Dure

I’m surprised no one within Google’s almighty reach has invented the word “entitleninement.” A couple of generations into the Title IX-fed growth of women’s sports in the USA, we’re still seeing a few patronizing attitudes.

The College Sports Council often resorts to disingenuous arguments about the impact of Title IX. Internationally, we see many more opportunities for women in Olympic sports, yet women’s ski jumpers have been kept out of the Olympics with arguments ranging from the condescending to the absurd.

Yet the CSC makes a few legitimate points as well, and it takes pains to distinguish its fight to save men’s sports from a fight to deny women opportunities. And within women’s sports, and Olympic sports as a whole, we’re seeing more of a realization of the difficulties of building and maintaining pro competition.

All of which makes softball player Jessica Mendoza’s post for ESPNW rather curious. She explains why she and other U.S. national team players have decided to concentrate on building a pro league rather than playing for the national team, which no longer has an Olympic presence every four years.

The key paragraph:

As much as I want to see softball return to the Olympic Games, there is something this sport needs even more: an opportunity for women to play softball for a living. Not as a side job. Not just recreationally. Instead, they should be able to make a living playing the sport they love so dearly. Softball players shouldn’t have to stop playing at age 22 because there are so few opportunities out there. And they shouldn’t have to live abroad, like basketball players did in the pre-WNBA era, because only other countries’ pro leagues are willing to pay them to play. I have seen more and more women in other sports (snowboarding, basketball, tennis, BMX and golf, to name a few) create opportunities to play for a living because of the professional opportunities they, and sponsors, have created. My dream now is to create these same professional opportunities for every young softball player out there.

That’s ambitious. But is it realistic?

Mendoza cites Billie Jean King as a mentor and gives a brief history of the women’s tennis movement that has proved so successful. Snowboarding also has women’s stars alongside men’s stars, and many Olympic sports have women whose fame and fortune hardly lags their male counterparts. Think Lindsey Vonn, Michelle Kwan, Allyson Felix, Dara Torres, Kerri Walsh, etc.

But at the same time, the LPGA is limping along. Women’s soccer is trying to re-entrench itself in a smaller niche. And most women’s basketball players still go overseas in the WNBA offseason because they’re not raking in the dough while the league tries to keep the ship steady in the USA.

Softball deserves better than it got from the IOC, which has made a mockery of its supposed gender-equity aspirations. But after covering the WPS draft last week in a mid-sized convention room with no players present, I’m not sure I could be bullish on another women’s sports league starting from scratch. And you won’t see any soccer players this summer turning down an invitation to the World Cup to give 110 percent for Sky Blue FC or magicTalk SC / Washington Freedom. WPS made it to a third season only through a couple of owners’ determination to persevere and a couple of new owners’ enthusiasm for moving up to the highest level and, in the case of MTSCWF, promoting a brand name.

If National Pro Fastpitch succeeds, it’ll need either a few benefactors who believe in some combination of the sport itself and the opportunity to get some marketing/self-satisfaction from attaching brand names to it. It won’t succeed merely because that would be the fairest outcome for 22-year-old college softball standouts who somehow deserve a chance to devote themselves fully to their sport. Plenty of people have talents that can’t pay all the bills — in Olympic sports, mixed martial arts, music, creative writing, art … even journalism.

The question will be: How many professional softball players can the USA support? In women’s soccer, we can easily support a national team of 25-30 full-time players, and we’re working on pushing that number to a couple hundred. In beach volleyball, both men’s and women’s, the AVP’s demise has reduced the opportunities so that just a couple of elite teams playing internationally have much of a chance.

Creative solutions can help. Americans are lucky to have college scholarships to provide training environments and an education. Sometimes, an employer like Home Depot comes up with a program to give Olympians flexible jobs to let them work and compete.

Nothing wrong with aiming for full-time professionalism. But staying open to creative business plans will surely increase pro softball’s chances.

9
soccer

Mad about the Freedom? Place the blame on …

Posted on by Beau Dure

Yes, WPS and Washington Freedom fans, I hear you. BigSoccer hears you. The transitional staff hears you. You’re sad that the name may change and that the team may play games in (or eventually move to) South Florida. You’re frustrated that the new owner is talking of upgrading the team to win a championship while having no staff to participate in a free-agent market that has seen much of the team move elsewhere.

What I can tell you is that WPS and former Freedom personnel always stress the same thing in their conversations: Without new majority owner Dan Borislow, this team wouldn’t exist. The league might not have made it to Season 3.

If the doomsayers are correct and 2011 proves to be a sad farewell to what’s left of the Freedom, the blame should fall on the Washington region itself.

Not on the fans, who have supported the team reasonably well given the long drive up I-270 to the Soccerplex. The blame should fall on anyone who had the wherewithal to invest in the team … and didn’t.

It’s not as if this region has no money. Some of the suburbs are the richest towns in the country that can’t be skied or sailed into. Visit sometime, and I’ll drive you past some houses whose mortgage payments make Marta’s paychecks look like sofa change.

But when it comes to soccer, the rich folks and the businesses don’t step up. Ask D.C. United, which really needs a local investor to help out Will Chang, who has put his heart, soul and wallet into the team from across the country. The most prominent local company to step up with United is Volkswagen, the German automaker with a U.S. operation in exurban Herndon, Va.

Washington’s other pro sports teams feature one of the best owners in sports (Capitals/Wizards owner Ted Leonsis, who made his fortune with AOL) and worst (he shall not be named). Leonsis loves his community as much as any owner in the country, but we can’t ask him to buy and finance everything in town.

Two possible reasons why the Freedom eventually turned to an out-of-town savior:

1. Unwillingness to be associated too closely with “Washington.” Everyone wants to live here; no one wants to admit it. The rest of the country hears nonstop chatter from political candidates pledging to change Washington, the supposed cesspool on the Potomac. The region has plenty of big local businesses — contractors, lobbying firms, finance companies, tech firms, etc. — but they make their money nationally.

2. As Kenn Tomasch will surely stop by and point out — this isn’t charity. A lot of investors want to see return on their money.

Maybe Borislow can make his new direction work. If he does, all Freedom fans can do is lament the fact that no one felt strongly enough about the Washington Freedom to help a deeply rooted 10-year-old club turn the corner as it was.

8
soccer

Selling WPS tickets in transition (updated)

Posted on by Beau Dure

In working on a story that I’ll likely publish somewhere between now and Christmas (just in time for no one to see it), I was told by several people that the Washington Freedom were conducting business as usual for the moment.

Nothing was set in stone in terms of changing the name from the Freedom to magicTalk FC, incorporating the name of new majority owner Dan Borislow’s new product. Mark Washo, who had spent the last couple of years as Freedom GM/president, had announced his departure to work for Playbook Management International, was still running the team on an interim basis. The club’s Super-Y League teams went to the North American finals in Florida a few weeks ago and cleaned up, with all four teams making their age-group semis, one falling in the final and two winning the big trophy.

Then late last week, Jeff Kassouf passed along word that the Freedom had laid off their remaining staff.

So, hypothetically, if you wanted tickets for WPS games in the Washington area as Christmas presents, how would you order them? Or how would you contact the team with other questions?

You could order season tickets online, though you may wonder about ordering a 12-game package given all the open talk among league and team officials about splitting the 2011 season between Maryland and Florida. If you call, you’ll find the voice mail system still offering to connect you with account executive Tim Albee or other departmental contacts. Then if you dial the operator, you hear this:

“Experius — may I help you?”

And they’ll kindly transfer you back to the Freedom switchboard if you so choose.

Experius is a company founded by John Hendricks, the Discovery Channel magnate who founded the WUSA and the Freedom. He and his wife, Maureen, sold a majority share of the Freedom to Borislow this fall.

The Freedom roster, meanwhile, is a considerable state of flux — Ashlyn Harris, Allie Long and Cat Whitehill are among those who have gone elsewhere.

Will anyone be in place before the holidays? During? Before next month’s draft?

Updates:

1. There is indeed a transitional staff in place. Some staffers who have been laid off will continue working for the next couple of weeks. So if you order something from the Web site (scarves, shirts, etc.), you should get it.

2. Borislow says the team will give pro-rata refunds for games not played in Maryland. Full refunds will be offered.

3. This from Borislow: “The team will be significantly upgraded and we expect to win the Championship this year.”

7
soccer

Why the Washington Freedom should not collapse

Posted on by Beau Dure

Forgive me for going personal in this post, but it’s important to trace the history here:

A few times in the five-year gap between the WUSA and WPS, I made the trek out to the Maryland SoccerPlex to see the Washington Freedom, still kicking around and keeping the name and flame alive for women’s soccer in the region. In 2004, they were an exhibition team playing against more structured teams such as the W-League’s New Jersey Wildcats, who featured WUSA stars Kelly Smith and Marinette Pichon. By 2007, they were in the W-League with a strong mix of WUSA vets and younger players who would end up on the roster when WPS finally launched in 2009.

It was an admirable effort to keep things going, and they did more than just gather a group of 18 for a matchday. The Freedom built a legitimate club with a well-established youth program.

So when the news came last night from Jeff Kassouf that the Washington Freedom and FC Gold Pride were folding, it’s safe to say my shock and disbelief spoiled an otherwise entertaining MLS playoff game.

Not that bad news from WPS should be a shock. We’ve seen a couple of teams fold, one in midseason. When The Washington Post‘s Steve Goff made a rare appearance at a Freedom game after a season in which several home games were completely uncovered by the Post staff, someone leaked to him the news that WPS commissioner Tonya Antonucci was being pushed out and the Freedom’s owners — the Hendricks family — were uncertain about their commitment for next season. The interpretation of Antonucci’s exit is debatable, and we still have to wonder who in Washington (well, Montgomery County, Md., to be precise) has an anonymous beef with what’s left of the WPS front office. And we have to wonder if that beef is preventing the Freedom from paying the up-front money into an escrow fund designed to prevent a repeat of the St. Louis situation, in which the Athletica disappeared midseason when funding dried up.

After Kassouf’s post, WPS PR consultant Rob Penner, who was traveling, got on Twitter quickly to say there’s no announcement today and that the league’s board is still working to get everyone on board for next season. Kassouf posted a Twitter update saying the announcement of teams folding may be pushed back from Monday but that Freedom and Gold Pride missed October payments. “Miracles ($) needed,” Kassouf concluded.

That’s a fair conclusion. The Hendricks family had been quietly seeking new investors for a while. No organization ever wants to appear desperate, but that search needs to get a little noisier.

I can’t speak too much to FC Gold Pride’s situation, though I’d think the team could find a middle ground between absorbing the brunt of Marta’s salary and going into extinction. Fake Sigi, in a sound summary of the situation, points out that the team was rather bullish a month ago.

Fake Sigi also notes the similarity between MLS 2001 and WPS 2010, which Dustin Christmann also noted on Twitter in response to a curious Goff Tweet saying WPS was “becoming a cause rather a business.” That statement seems a little more applicable to a club like Barcelona, which tolerates a lot of financial risk and operates under the famous “mas que un club” (more than a club) philosophy. Phil Anschutz being the reclusive man that he is, we’ll never know what sort of faith convinced him to lay down the nine-figure investment he made in MLS. And we don’t know whether the Hendricks family keep the Freedom alive through so many lean years because (A) they believed in women’s soccer in the abstract or (B) they expected to make a fortune down the road. Or some combination of the two.

Gayle Bryan, in another excellent summary of what we know and what we don’t, asks the most pertinent question about the Freedom:

The Hendricks have stuck with the Washington Freedom through the WUSA. They kept the team together when there was no professional league and they’ve made it through the first two seasons of WPS. Why bail now?

Indeed — pulling the plug now would seem to be the equivalent of working through a maze, ruling out several possible paths and then saying, “Nah, let’s quit.” WPS is going all-in on the most slimmed-down business structure imaginable for a national league (and if there are no California teams, it’s more of a regional league, with four teams on the Northeast I-95 corridor along with Chicago and Atlanta). Seems only fair to give that structure one year and see if there’s a Women’s World Cup boost, then re-evaluate.

The future for women’s soccer may indeed be what the Freedom and other top-tier W-League teams did from 2004 to 2008. NCAA regulations are getting looser, so putting college players and national team stars in the same league might be less problematic than it has been. The W-League already pulled that off for years, somehow making it worthwhile for a handful of foreign players and fringe U.S. national teamers to play alongside the NCAA’s best.

If that’s the future, the Freedom would be well-placed to thrive. If WPS survives into 2012, the Freedom surely should be part of it.

Keeping a valuable organization alive is no more of a “cause” than keeping MLS alive in 2001. With their backs against the wall, MLS owners (all three of them, at the time) had to figure out how to make things work. Women’s pro soccer backers are at that point now. They know the WUSA model is too big, at least for now. Some think they can go bigger than the W-League.

If Gold Pride can’t survive to make it another year, that’s regrettable. If the Washington Freedom let a decade of history and youth development go to waste for want of one escrow payment, that’s unfathomable.

This region has plenty of money. Surely someone is willing to risk a relatively small amount of it on something that’s already valuable.

Update: Andy Mead was kind enough to pass along the new USL logos, in which the W-League is branded as “pro-am.”

Clarification: There is, as I suggested on Twitter last night, a difference between the Freedom folding the entire operation and withdrawing from WPS. They could give up on WPS now and revert to the W-League, which I’m sure would be happy to have them. I’m not sure that’s the best course of action — they’d surely have to give up Abby Wambach, for one thing — but it’s certainly better than folding up completely.

6
soccer

WPS seasons change: Freedom advance, Scurry says goodbye, Antonucci out?

Posted on by Beau Dure

Updated below with Hope Solo comments, expansion news

The Maryland SoccerPlex is a good bit cooler today that it was this summer. Rather than worrying about heatstroke, those of us in short-sleeve shirts wish we had brought jackets.

As the seasons change, the WPS regular season ended as well, with a thrilling finale, a heartfelt farewell and worrisome news off the field.

With the Washington Freedom possibly needing a win to reach the playoffs, depending on the result in the concurrent Sky Blue FC-Boston game, Becky Sauerbrunn and Abby Wambach found their timing in the 88th minute. Sauerbrunn’s ball put Wambach in space behind the Atlanta back line. Hope Solo, who already had a couple of good saves, came out toward the top of the box. Wambach chipped her national teammate for the goal.

“It’s not really my style of goal, but I’ll take it,” Wambach said.

As it turned out, defending champion Sky Blue never got their goal, and the Freedom didn’t technically need that goal. Wambach says the Freedom players only got a couple of updates while focusing on their own game, but the Freedom were very happy to go through on a high note.

From the pressbox and the Twittersphere, the game was played under a cloud. Anonymous sources told The Washington Post‘s Steven Goff, who was unusually present at the game, that WPS Commissioner Tonya Antonucci would step down. The league office declined comment.

More ominous from Goff’s post: “Current investors, including the Hendricks family, which operates the Washington Freedom, have yet to decide whether to continue funding the league, sources said.”

Players shrugged off the news. Solo was most insistent: “I think you’re going to see a league next season. There are always those rumors. You just go on. I don’t think it’s going anywhere anytime soon.”

Solo and teammate Lori Chalupny started the year in St. Louis before the Athletica folded. Chalupny, icing her shin and saying she’s still awaiting word from the national team that she’s cleared to play for them after a concussion, laughed about all the drama she has endured through the year. She says she isn’t thinking ahead to anything except starting her coaching career with storied St. Louis youth club Scott Gallagher.

Solo said she’s has worse years but this one was up there. “I’ve never been on a losing team. You learn a lot. I don’t regret it. I miss St. Louis, I still have great respect for (former Athletica owner) Jeff Cooper.”

And she insists the Beat will be back stronger. “You can see that we’re going to be contenders next season.”

Meanwhile, Washington prepared a video montage to bid farewell to longtime U.S. national team goalkeeper Briana Scurry. Solo’s thoughts: “I wish her all the best. She’s had an amazing career. Everybody should be applauding.”

The Freedom battled back from a long winless streak this season. One of the changes they made was symbolic: Wambach and Cat Whitehill both wore a captain’s armband, which Whitehill said was designed to make sure everyone kept an eye on the team’s leadership.

Washington had to keep the faith during that drought. Whitehill also talked about keeping faith in WPS while the rumors swirl.

“The confidence comes from the fact that we want it. We believe in each other, we believe in this league, and we’re going to do whatever it takes. We all knew that the first five years were going to be hard. People bought into it, literally and figuratively, and it’s been great.”

Updates: One bit of news in Goff’s post that bears emphasizing is that the league also seems set on expansion to Buffalo/Rochester. Mixed messages, perhaps, or at least a sign of optimism.

Now here’s where it gets curious: A few minutes after Hope Solo told me with a smile that there would be a league next year, she Tweets the following:

Its official, the refs are straight bad. Its clear the league wanted dc in playoffs. I have truly never seen anything like this. Its sad.

A goal taken away with no explanation, one offsides call against dc, many against atlanta. An amazing all ball tackle for a red.

We play with 10, DC with 12. Players punched in the face. Free corners. I am done playing in a league where the game is no longer … In control of the players.

As I Tweeted a few times during the game, the ref had a poor night. But I saw several calls go against the Freedom — two very good shouts for penalties, including one that was as clear as it could be, plus a disallowed goal on what we’re told was an offside call even though a Beat defender joined Solo on the goal line.

Biased? No. But not good. Solo has a right to be frustrated. But is officiating that much better in the Frauenbundesliga? We’ll have to ask Jenna at All White Kit.

Worth noting: The Federation, not leagues, are in charge of refs. Officiating was a particular concern of Antonucci’s.

5
soccer

Briana Scurry bids farewell

Posted on by Beau Dure

It’s startling to hear Briana Scurry get emotional. Throughout her career, from the 1996/1999/2004 triumphs to the 2007 Women’s World Cup controversy, she has always been the calm one. The quiet one, like George Harrison of The Beatles. She didn’t embrace the spotlight like Julie Foudy or Brandi Chastain, nor was she pushed into it like Mia Hamm.

But in announcing her retirement today, Scurry paused and struggled with a breaking voice. The decision wasn’t surprising, but it was clearly difficult for her.

Scurry’s playing days had been winding down since the 2004 Olympics, which she recalled in today’s conference call as a great moment that no one expected outside the players themselves. She took a year off in 2005 and returned to the national team for three games in 2006. In the World Cup year of 2007, she had four starts and one sub appearance before coach Greg Ryan threw her into the fire, starting her ahead of Hope Solo in the semifinals against Brazil. It was an embarrassing moment for the team — Brazil won 4-0, Solo griped with stunning candor, and Ryan lost his job despite losing once in 55 games (45-1-9).

Thankfully, Scurry’s final appearance on a big stage was a win — the USA won the third-place World Cup game 4-1 over Norway. She also won her last start — again a 4-1 decision, over Finland at the 2008 Four Nations Cup. She made four sub appearances the rest of the year, mostly after the USA won gold in Beijing with Scurry’s name listed as an alternate.

When WPS started stocking rosters for its debut season in 2009, Scurry wasn’t among the allocated players. Few people knew of her plans — again, she was the quiet one — until the Washington Freedom drafted her. She explained in the 2009 preseason that she was taking her time in deciding whether to play.

She started the WPS inaugural game, but playing time was scarce after that. Erin McLeod won the starting job for the Freedom last year. This year, she played just 45 minutes. McLeod is out with a knee injury, but Scurry has been hampered by lingering effects from a concussion — a common problem that has put all too many players on indefinite hiatus.

But she said today the concussion was not the determining factor in her retirement. It’s simply time. Yesterday was her 39th birthday — not ancient for a goalkeeper but certainly enough to make anyone contemplate a new direction.

Scurry had two periods of accomplishment that no goalkeeper has exceeded. In the mid to late ’90s, she was simply the best in the world, often unchallenged behind a dominant U.S. team but ready when needed. She and the U.S. team avenged their 1995 World Cup defeat with Olympic gold in 1996 — and yes, she reiterated today that she did indeed run naked through a deserted street to celebrate. Then came the glory of 1999 — the penalty kick save, the World Cup win.

She struggled to get back to form in 2000 and wound up as Siri Mullinix’s backup when the U.S. women took silver in Sydney. But when the WUSA launched the next year, she was more than ready, twice taking the Atlanta Beat to the title game. She was back in the U.S. net for a third-place finish in the 2003 World Cup.

Then came the final run for the great generation of U.S. players — the 2004 Olympics, when the team won gold away from home soil in Greece. That was a final celebration for Hamm, Julie Foudy and Joy Fawcett. (Brandi Chastain and Kristine Lilly, who has inhuman energy for her age, would stay in the game long enough to play in WPS.)

Scurry deserves mention along with that generation. She should one day be in the Hall of Fame along with Fawcett, Foudy, Hamm, April Heinrichs, Shannon Higgins-Cirovski, Carin Jennings, Carla Overbeck and Michelle Akers, who paid tribute to Scurry’s shot-stopping prowess on today’s conference call. (Even with the finicky Hall voters who have yet to get Earnie Stewart inducted, I’d guess Chastain and Lilly will get the call as well.)

Those who thrive on irony will note that Hope Solo, now the Atlanta Beat’s goalkeeper, can keep the Freedom out of the playoffs on Saturday and send Scurry out of the game on a bitter note. Solo won’t have any motivation other than her usual desire to win a soccer game. When Solo visited Washington with the now-defunct St. Louis Athletica earlier this season, she and Scurry smiled and hugged.

The arguments are over. What remains are the accomplishments and the quiet dignity with which Briana Scurry went through her career.

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