No game thoughts or analysis yet? Should be good match between two talented teams. I am guessing a 2-1 win for Pride and counting on them for a crisp possession game. If Pride play their normal style and can control tempo of game, then they should fare well. Key question - which Chicago team will show up? The strong version that beat Boston badly last wkend or the anemic version of earlier games??
Looks like we'll be missing a starter or two due to injury. From the WPS roster report: Ashley Bowyer takes Abily's spot on the game day roster. With Abily out, perhaps we'll finally get to see if Gulbrandsen can run the midfield. She could just slot right in for Abily: [LINEUP-4-3-3]Marta, Sinclair, O'Hara, Dew, Gulbrandsen, Edwards, Riley, Buehler, Graczyk, Wilson, Barnhart[/LINEUP-4-3-3] (Though the diagram does not show it, Dew and Edwards would play behind Gulbrandsen.) Another option -- as much as I hate to say it -- would be to start Sinclair, Milbrett, and O'Hara up front and move Marta to midfield, though that idea didn't work out so well in the season opener: [LINEUP-4-3-3]Milbrett, Sinclair, O'Hara, Dew, Marta, Edwards, Riley, Buehler, Graczyk, Wilson, Barnhart[/LINEUP-4-3-3] (Again, Dew and Edwards are behind Marta.) A third option, which could be kind of interesting, would be to switch to a 4-4-2: [LINEUP-4-4-2]Marta, Sinclair, Gulbrandsen, Dew, Edwards, O'Hara, Riley, Buehler, Graczyk, Wilson, Barnhart[/LINEUP-4-4-2] (All of the above assume Chapman is out. If Chapman is healthy, obviously she'd get the nod over Wilson, with Graczyk sliding outside.) ~~~ As for Chicago, I really like the team they are putting together over there. I wish them good luck, except when they are playing against us.
Abily is out 4-6 weeks with a fractured ankle. Just a wrong turn on the turf at practice Wed night. I am very bummed!
Bosio could also replace Abily. Montoya has been speaking very highly of her and she has been Abily's sub almost every game.
"Saturday night, Milbrett and O'Hara, the savvy veteran and the rising star, scored to give the first-place FC Gold Pride a 2-0 victory over the Chicago Red Stars in Women's Professional Soccer at Castro Valley High. The Pride (4-1, 12 points) won its fourth in a row, including all three of its matches at Castro Valley, after dropping its season opener 2-0 at Saint Louis. For O'Hara, it was her first WPS goal. She had 26 goals in 26 games last year while leading Stanford to a 25-1 record. This goal, in front of an announced crowd of 3,153, came off a nifty give-and-go from second-half substitute Kim Yokers in the 79th minute as O'Hara blasted a shot into the far corner from the right. Marta started the sequence with a pass to O'Hara." "The Pride missed on a penalty kick for the second straight match." http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_15048800 Milbrett missed the PK...
This makes me angry. Having trained and played on turf myself its a nightmare. I understand for financial reasons but for football reasons and players health turf is a no no.
Anybody at the game that can give a first person analysis would be appreciated... how was Gulbrandsen?
Gulbrandsen looked good and brought with her a certain poise and maturity that one would expect from an international player. She played with confidence and handled the ball well. Thought she looked strong at times and then at other times just disappeared out there, but overall would give her a good grade.
Pride of the West On a frigid "Frisco" night the Pride of the West dominated from the first whistle. The team looked on fire in their special scarlet kit and eventually the center ref. saw red as well. Thankfully Tiffeny muffed her pk to keep the game interesting well into the second half. However, with the red card, Chicago's fate was sealed. (I offer a simple rule. Let the player who drew the foul take the penalty kick.) Of greatest interest was the tweaking in the line-up that Albertin employed to deal with injuries to Chapman and Abily. (By the way, the turf. v. grass issue is not yet resolved. Experts have opinions but the data on injuries is statistically inconclusive.) Tiffeny played what appeared to be her first game ever in the mid-field. While there were poor touches and sometimes she was more forward than the three forwards, I thought this was a great experiment. Her speed, intelligence energy, skill with the ball, and finishing remind me of the Tiffeny of the last century. Give her a few more starts and a lot of video to watch and she will be pressing for a place in the starting mid-field except perhaps against a large and powerful group of mid-field opponents. If anyone was worried about Solveig after mid-field problems in the one game she played, these doubts were put to rest. She was calm on the ball, quick, precise, strong defensively and looked as good as a gold medalist and captain of one of the world's top teams should be. We will see a lot more of her. Congratulations to KO for her first goal in the WPS. She is not an up and coming star, she is one already. Barnie is also showing her class. In all the games that I have watched she has made at least one very fine save. We are really lucky to have her minding the net.
The team looked very crisp the first half. As with the other games, in the beginning of the second half, they seemed to lose it a bit. Then, unlike th eother games, after about 15 minutes, they found it again. It was VERY nice to see the team show up for both halves. One note--what is with the other teams skipping autograph alley? The kids I brought waited patiently at the last two games, and yesterday only Loyden signed authographs.
One more thing . . . I was glad to see Milbrett starting, though, unfortunately, I think it was a result of Abily's injury. Does anyone else get the feeling that Montoya has something (age??) against Milbrett? Just throwing it out there for discussion . . .
I would say no; I don't think Montoya has anything against Milbrett. He did start her on opening day, after all. But after that disastrous loss, changes had to be made: we had to add a d-mid, which meant there seemed to be no way to get Marta, Sinclair, O'Hara, and Milbrett all on the field at the same time. Given that restriction, I think it made sense to bench Milbrett since she's the least likely of those 4 to be able to play a full 90. After the injuries to Abily and Chapman opened up a couple of spots in midfield, Montoya again turned to Milbrett. This time she was slotted into an unfamiliar attacking midfield role, and she did brilliantly. (Actually I find FCGP's formations kind of hard to figure out - very fluid, lots of on-the-fly switching -- but my best guess is that Milbrett was nominally in the midfield.) Anyway, it seems to me that Milbrett is definitely in the mix, and it would not surprise me to see her get more playing time in the coming weeks, especially now that she's shown she can be effective in midfield. On another note: I see there is some buzz about Milbrett's goal being an early Goal of the Year candidate, and it's hard to disagree. It's certainly the most impressive one I've seen to far. On yet another note, how about Kelley O'Hara for player of the week? She drew a PK, made Milbrett's goal with a nice one-touch pass (no official assist since it took Millie two tries to finish it), and of course scored a goal of her own. Not a bad night's work.
I agree about Milbrett's goal being a goal of the year candidate. I've watched the video clip on the wps site a couple of times now. The contrast/brightness sucks for that one part but damn that's a good goal. The short video clip shows some really nice off the ball movements, but this season the clips tend to accentuate the good play of the home teams and show little of the away teams. On the flip side, based on the video, that pk call looks very soft. Will someone who was at the game describe what they saw? What the video showed me was two players side by side running for the ball and Dieke w/ a shoulder charge -- which is legal. Even if their feet got tangled that's not something that (imo) should have been called. Home cooking (or old school stereotype about Cali soccer being different than the grittier/more physical east coast soccer)? And really, why/how in the world has a team owned by a software family located in a big IT area not managed to get their entire games online? Maybe the CRS staff can share how they got all CRS games webcast. The lack of webcasting for FCGP is a big time lost opportunity, imo.
From last night's game: See full size version here. And yes, she wore that shirt for the entire game. Does WPS seriously allow religious slogans on official game uniforms? You would think they would want to steer clear of the sort of religious and political controversy that might alienate fans. Also, what kinds of proselytization are allowed? Does it have to be pro-Jesus, or do anti-Jesus people have equal free speech rights to use their uniforms as political billboards?
From another shot in that set of photos (great photos btw) it looks like it is under her jersey. . . but still.
It was a shirt under her game jersey. I'm not sure if it was a joke t-shirt that I've seen soccer and hockey keeper's wear before or a religious statement. Here's an example of the joke t-shirt: http://www.crazydogtshirts.com/servlet/the-1676/jesus-saves-soccer-t/Detail
Wow! I saw that photo linked to in a CPC thread, and this is the first I realized it's not an undershirt, it's the actual jersey. EDIT---No it's not, according to a previous poster. I am a big fan of free speech, but I believe there is a time and place where such privileges end. I am an atheist, and a fairly outspoken one. However, I'd never wear an atheist shirt to a WPS match if I wanted, say, a photo with a player after a match. If I saw her on the field still wearing that jersey, I'd either not ask for a photo, or have it be a close-up. I respect her, and I respect her choice of religion, but I am a little bit uneasy.
