Who gives a crap how Press will do with Marta. It's about making this league be here for awhile. Which means we need the best American players to play in the new league. Little girls and players coming up don't want to go play in Sweden. So hopefully players like Abby and Alex play in the new women's professional league. Which will draw more fans and keep league stable.
Little girls don't know who the ******** Press is anyways, so I doubt they'll be turned off by her absence. We know Leroux's in and I'd be deeply surprised if Morgan and Wambach aren't as well. Those are the biggest faces, minus Solo, who's as much a PR liability as a plus.
(Emphasis added.) Are you sure about that? If there is an opportunity to go to Europe for a while and get paid for it, wouldn't a lot of young people want to do that? In fact, wouldn't a lot of families consider that a great educational and cultural opportunity for their daughters? If I were a parent with a top level soccer daughter, that's how I would think about it.
(Emphasis added) You and TsovLoj are talking about two different demographics, methinks. His "little girls" would not be "top level soccer [girls]" - if a girl can be recognized as 'top level', then yes she probably knows more about the USWNT than just the big-name players - but she's probably also a high schooler by then (not 'little' anymore) since you don't get the interest- and skill-level-differentiation before then.
press is doing the smart thing. with last year's performance, she very likely got a good contract with tyreso - much more stabilizing than switching back to the unsure nature of what's happening here at home. her agent probably has some idea or had to do some educated guessing as to how much ussf will be paying their allocated players, and advised accordingly. i'm reasonably sure that sermanni will want to see what she can do on the bigger stage with the wnt. i'm looking forward to it. (one bonus for me is that there will be another allocated player in the ussf 24 who would very likely not have been subsidized if press had come over).
Amen! Amen! That's what I've been saying. But I keep getting shot down for my opinion. Glad someone else feels the same.
It would be interesting to see how many women currently under contract in Europe were in the WPS. It seems most of them didnt decide Europe or Japan was a better place to place, but with the collapse of the WPS it became the only option.
Found this tidbit about Stephanie Cox that has allocation implications: 1) she is seemingly 5 months pregnant and 2) she would like to play for a pro team in Seattle. http://www.egcitizen.com/articles/2012/12/27/sports/doc50d8a01fc5835992821039.txt
Doesnt the first exclude the second? She was with the Sounders last season. Wonder if she is on the allocation list.
It would be crazy if they completely shock us with this allocation list. They could have like seven players (of the 24) that are completely out of nowhere (aka young players we would have never expected yet). But you never know.
"Being five months pregnant, she admittedly may not be ready to play right away." I initially read this as a comment by Cox, that she may not play the first season. I would have thought she would have been allocated. She was a contracted player in '12, thus at least under the old agreement, she would be out on maternity leave in '13, and, then, I thought, offered a contact in '14 and (if this is what the USSF will do in the future) allocated in '14. Maybe a labor lawyer can help, but I would think a maternity clause like the old one would continue into new agreements.
I wouldnt expect too many changes to the contract other than the money aspect. Mostly it's money, number of games, bonuses, pool size, stuff like that.