Whooops! That's really... how can i say?... sooooooo bad! Still because of the MagicJack's mess? I'll go reading the WPS thread, but I really can't believe it. I just can't believe it. A base of hundreds of thousands of players, some of the best footballers, not only from US but from the whole world, a team that won two WC and 3 Olympics, and just crushed all opposition to qualify for Olympics again and defend its title, and they CAN'T MANAGE TO KEEP A FRIGGIN' PRO-LEAGUE ALIVE! I am outraged.
Canadian Finn Kylla Sjoman from Doncaster Rovers Belles is transferring to Herford (according to an article in yesterday's Neue Westfälische Zeitung, which I've only seen linked but not read, and it's no longer available ).
Kelly Smith is tweeting that she's looking for a new club. Maybe she could score a couple of goals for Frankfurt? With Ali Krieger injured, they might be able to find a job for Alex too... But somehow it all seems wrong to be picking over the WPS's bones and redistributing all those players.
Yes, it seems so... Although totally out of place in this thread, I'd like some american players to try Japan's Nadeshiko League (maybe INAC Kobe Leonessa or NTV Beleza can afford to pay a WPS star).
The U.S. national team members will still have a guaranteed pay check through their central contract system, so it's the internationals and USA's own domestic talent that will now have the biggest concerns. If the people controlling WPS would have announced league suspension earlier, it would have allowed more players to make good deals with new teams. Now though with the European transfer window about to end, I don't see many interesting moves taking place. It would have been really interesting to see what Frankfurt, Potsdam, and Wolfsburg, would have done if WPS let everybody know players would have been available weeks ago.
There is no common European window: the Swedish and Norwegian deadline for player registration is March 31. Of course, since teams are already in pre-season (particularly the ones playing in the Champions League), a lot of the signing has been done already. Although LdB Malmö are already wringing their hands and claiming near-bankruptcy, I wonder if they're out trying to scrounge up a sponsorship deal to get Melis back? EDIT: Damn, this really shouldn't be here, should it? Bah.
the problem is that in the US pro sports are considered a business and women's football, while it makes excellent sport, will never be more than the very dodgiest of business models. i imagine they were in denial so deep it made mohole look like a molehole. for french D1 there is no window at all, the only restraint is that players cannot play for more than one league team in a given season. the same for the CL, no woman can play for two teams in the competition in the same season; there are also UEFA deadlines to submit your group of 25 players but for the quarterfinals on that date is March 12 so theoretically OL could sign all the WPS players they want and play them both domestically and in europe. they've got the do-re-mi for it too. of course you're right that these clubs would have a much better chance of landing americans than OL. astonishing. i like germany as much as the next fellow (a good deal better actually; the average frenchman without ever setting foot over the rhine is thoroughly convinced it's ghastly) but the germans saying, "wie Gott in Frankreich" can be narrowed down to make the city of lyon the precise nombril du monde. which doesn't prevent the average american having the same eeewwww attitude my compatriots so ignorantly exhibit towards deutschland. bah indeed! of all the neurotic debilities on the internet being subject-retentive is the very worst. let a thousand digressions bloom!
OurGameMagazine reports that Naeher re-signed with Turbine Potsdam so Potsdam has a goalie now at least...
Good for her & them. Glad they were able to get that done quickly. I'm still pissed & depressed. Fool me once...fool me twice...smh.
OK, but I don't think we'll see too many teams with places available for new players. European leagues are predominantly used as development centres for young talent, with a small but growing elite group of teams per league stockpiling all the top domestic, and international talents, in hopes of Champions League success. American girls without U.S. central contracts need as many options as possible, because it's the WPS international contingent that will get the best offers first. Instantly losing Germany for most, if not all of them now, is pretty disappointing. Isn't that true for most football clubs though? Only a very small niche of global mega clubs can be run as money making machines, while the rest have to whore themselves out to enthusiastic, eccentric, or questionable, money men looking for a new arena to fluff their ego's. Interesting that you mention this, because from comments I've seen you would think no WPS = no women's football anywhere. Some fans of WPS simply don't realise, or rate, European football as a place of serious competition. Like you, I reckon most will tolerate Germany, scratch their brow with thoughts of Scandinavia, figuring leagues like France's D1 to be absolutely . It's not dead, things are simply on a Magic Dan induced hiatus. It's not the right thread to say this in, but I'm betting the USSF won't be too disappointed about getting the residency system back in place though
Two. Brett Maron also signed. But when Naeher called them, Potsdam started on the paperwork immediately (says womensoccer.de), and while Maron has a contract until the end of the season, they're planning to offer Naeher a longer contract now to have some competition on that position. As for Glasgow's Lisa Evans, the same article says that Potsdam doesn't consider this a try-out, she's just practising with them for a few days. They've got enough forwards, Schröder said, if anything they could do with a defender.
Just to clarify, since you quoted my post... I didn't say there would be lots of teams available. In fact, I said the opposite.
Bless her little dodgy haircut: Sally Shipard to Bayer Leverkusen. Expected to land there any day now.
The womensoccer.de article about Shipard's transfer refers back to this interview in The Daily Advertiser (Wagga Wagga News...). Be sure to take a look at the hair.
Well, I surely missed something over the last months... In this interview Shipard implies that she's going to play at Olympic games in London. hadn't Matildas lost their place to North Korea during asian qualifier tournament? Obviously something has changed and I am not aware about it? Proabably North Korea was recently disqualified from Olympics, since it was already banned from WWC 2015? Or what did happen?
She also implies that she'll be playing among girls who'll be going to London - there aren't so many of those in Germany though.
Ok, that's quite unfortunate from her too. But when she says things like: Well, she seems really persuaded that she's going to play in London Olympics in earnest. Unless she really means that she's actually going to London to WATCH Olympics. But it really sounds misleading... Maybe she was deliberately fooling the interviewer, who didn't know anything about the real thing? Or it was a case of an ignorant interviewer who misunderstood everything? Well, the only thing I REALLY hope is that she doesn't believe she's qualified for Olympics and she's not instead. It would be sad to watch her landing in London all smiles and giggles and saying: "Ok, in which stadium are we going to play?... I mean... In which one...? ... err... we... are going to play... aren't we?... "°_° ... aren't we?... sniff..."
Great interview with Sally Shipard before her departure to Germany (and yes, she does realise she won't get to play in London ), by Danielle Warby from the Sporting Sheilas. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s45mNUutg8k&feature=youtu.be
Ok, when I heard her say "... the fact that we're not going to the Olympic games..." I felt quite relieved... She looks like a funny person, makes a lot of faces and I did indeed notice her hair.
I didn't read it like that - but that may well be because you don't too often hear people tell you they are.
What did you hear it as? I thought it was particularly funny that she thought she'd have to be using the phrase a lot .
"Ich bin kalt" = "I'm cold, but I don't know how to say it properly in German" ("Ich bin ganz kalt" is quite idiomatic for something like "I'm frozen through". "Mir ist kalt"= "I'm cold". "Ich hab kalt" = "I'm cold, and I'm speaking some southern German dialect" /German lesson of the day) I guess she's been watching weather forecasts from Germany. She was wondering somewhere whether her body had ever been exposed to "minus" temperatures.