In the finals of the NCAA Tournament in 2002, in overtime, Portland's GK (Lauren Arase) went out with a concussion and right to the hospital. Opponent was Santa Clara. Portland brought in a walk on GK, Kim Head, and the Pilots ratcheted down to protect her. A few minutes later, on a steal and centered ball from Kristen Moore, Christine Sinclair scored the winning goal for the Pilots first national championship. Kim Head had played maybe 30 minutes in goal in her entire college career.
That Portland vs. Santa Clara match is still the most exciting NCAA soccer championship match ever played.
Anyone know if there's a deadline for teams to finalize their rosters? Thorns owner has tweeted that their GM and coach have some difficult decisions coming up as they finalize the squad. He seems to have a penchant for tweeting about something that's about to happen in the next couple of days.
How is Portland having a difficult time finalizing their roster? They only have 22 players (max right now), and that includes Tobin Heath and Amber Brooks, who won't be there on opening day, therefore they only have 20 players for the start of the season (shown below). There's no reason to cut anyone as of now, until they officially sign anymore discovery players. F - Morgan 96, Sinclair 97, Foxhoven 87, Weissenhofer 87, Radovcic 83, Shufelt 82 MF - Long 90, Washington 88, Kerr 89, Edwards 91 D - Ellertson 90, Buehler 90, Dalmy 89, Marshall 99, Kat 87, Sandoval 86, Saucedo 85, Avant 85 GK - LeBlanc 87, Barker 80 That's 20 players. When Heath and Brooks come back, they will then have to cut at least two players above. So maybe they're talking about which 18 (or less) players above that they will sign to a full year deal, and which 2 (or more) above they will keep on partial terms, until Heath and Brooks are back. Also, Portland hasn't used any of their "two" additional allowed international slots. They need to scope the globe, and see if they can bring over a top notch international midfielder. It would complete their team. Nikki Washington is injury prone. They also need to think about bringing in another backup goalkeeper, to challenge Roxanne Barker. This team still has some potential flaws to address.
There are no assurances Heath or Books are coming back. They have signed contracts elsewhere, so they can't sign with the Thorns according to FIFA. And contracts are for the season, so if they sign someone else, they will need to pay their contracts whether they cut them or not. That comes out of the salary cap and doesn't leave money for Brooks. So, Brooks at least, is frozen out for the year if they sign someone else, and Heath would get whatever the allocation is, but no more from the club. So we will know shortly if Merritt thinks Cone's pick of Brooks was a wasted pick. Heath is a bit more problematic.
It seems really early to me to be thinking about finalizing rosters... Isn't that not supposed to happen until preseason is over?
From US soccer on the subject: Is there a limit on how many players may attend training camps?Each team may begin training camps with no more than 32 players on its preseason roster. When do training camps begin?March 11, 2013. Can teams have fewer than 20 players on their rosters?Teams can have no fewer than 18 players on their rosters and no more than 20 at any given time during the season.
I doubt it. I think some of the teams (another made a similar statement to the Thorns) may be wanting to limit the numbers at camp. They don't have to have 32, that's the maximum allowed. For expense reasons, I wouldn't be surprised if some teams have camps close to their roster limits. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if some teams have camps at their roster limits with maybe one or two extras (e.g., an extra keeper to provide a competition for selecting a #2 keeper). I think we have to remember, the name of the game here is having expenses that are sustainable over the long term.
Nothing major here, but a nice summary of all the minor news that's kinda flown under the radar: http://equalizersoccer.com/2013/02/26/the-lowdown-an-early-look-at-nwsl-rules-and-tiebreakers/ I really dislike the fact that H2H is the first tiebreaker, and that there's not "make good" rule for cards, but otherwise it's all good.
A good write-up, about what each team needs and wants: Part 1: http://www.pitchsidereport.com/2013...ts-before-the-2013-season-begins-part-1-of-2/ Part 2: http://www.pitchsidereport.com/2013...ts-before-the-2013-season-begins-part-2-of-2/
Not great news for the Sky Blue organization and fans today: http://www.ussoccer.com/News/Womens...per-Jill-Loyden-Breaks-Bone-in-Left-Hand.aspx
I have read multiple blurbs online now (more than one) that state the league will be streaming every NWSL match, for every team. Two possibilities here. Either all the franchises bought in, or it's a league wide decision. Or both. This is in addition to television coverage, which nothing official has been announced yet. Speculation is that there will be some televised matches, but certainly not every match will be televised of course. Every match is streamed, though, no matter whether it's being televised or not. Subject to change, until anything is officially announced, since these are just blurbs. If the league has indeed decided to stream every match, they need to create a platform similar to MLS Live. Every match, live and on-demand, with all kinds of flexibility for fans.
I read it on a couple different sites including twitter. I didn't save the links, or the verbatim text. However, I did a search on tumblr now to see what I could find, and just found this a few minutes ago. So this is like the 3rd place I've seen this now. http://mrizt.tumblr.com/post/44380817504/streaming-tv-news
More links: http://theamericanpitch.com/2013/03/06/nwsl-vs-wusa-looking-back-and-looking-ahead/ "While the NWSL has yet to announce any national television agreements, most if not all games will apparently be streamed online, giving fans around the country and beyond the ability to see the games." http://www.prostamerika.com/2013/01/23/seattle-reign-to-play-at-starfire/76570 "He also revealed that NWSL was negotiating a national television deal with four stations and he expected a game of the week type program. He doubted there would be any local tv deal for Reign games but every match would be streamed live online." http://uswntvideos.tumblr.com/post/44381334960/streaming-tv-news http://iknowimwright.tumblr.com/post/44382503916/streaming-tv-news "All NWSL games will be streamed online. It was a universal decision across the league. So yes you will be able to watch all your team’s games. (yay) There will be some games televised. That will be determined soon. My guess if any games would be nationally televised- Fox Soccer will broadcast the games."
Reporting the same rumor does not equal multiple sources. It equals spreading a rumor multiple times in the same post! Telling the same lie multiple times does not make it true. Same thing with rumors!
*LINK* http://www.EqualizerSoccer.com The Equalizer Soccer dot com website is down. Did they forget to pay their GoDaddy bill?