The 4-4-2 list has dropped and it has to be remember it reflects this year as opposed to just best players but it is was pretty interesting to me. https://www.fourfourtwo.com/us/features/fourfourtwo-usas-50-best-american-womens-players-2017?new
Couple things I noted. 1. Jane Campbell seems to be the US #3 but didn't make the list that included 6 GKs. Oversight or is she really ranked that low? 2. Highest ranked GKs were Franch #20 and Naeher #21. This is a far cry from the days when Solo was considered one of the best players on the team. 3. Zerbonni #18, Sonett #19, Menges #22, Krieger #23, Hatch #25 and DiBernardo #27 seem high enough on this season's list to at least be getting regular looks. Add in the facts that the midfield had a lot of injuries and Outside Back has basically turned into trying to build players from kits. 4. Also interesting that in a program always dominated by forwards that after Morgan #1 the only other true forward in the top 10 is Press #7
It looks those who did the write-ups on the individual players were on the panel that did the rankings. Not a bad group. There are some, though, that seem not right to me, at least based on WNT performance. For example, Taylor Smith looks far too high up on the list, at least based on her performance v Canada. But then, they're talking about the whole season, which actually is the more correct way to do it, and she did look much better earlier in the year. But she still seems awfully high. I'm just using her as an example.
What I find curious about Press and Morgan being ranked so high is that by far the most goals scored by the Nats in 2017 were by midfielders, and Ertz and Dunn scored as many goals as Press and Morgan.
Smith had a good season for her club and a break thru onto the NT with a few starts. Still it would be interesting to know if they voted by position or just ranked players
The format is really bad. If u go to the bottom of the page it is much easier to open the 2016 results than stay in 2017. 1 Morgan, 2 Mewis, 3 Ertz, 4 Rapinoe, 5 Sauerbrunn 6 Horan, 7 Press, 8 O'Hara, 9 Heath, 10 Dahlkemper 11 Williams, 12 T Smith, 13 Lloyd, 14 Dunn, 15 Pugh 16 Lavelle, 17 Short, 18 Zerbonni, 19 Sonnett, 20 Franch 21 Naeher, 22 Menges, 23 Krieger, 24 Hinkle, 25 Hatch 26 Brian, 27 DiBernardo, 28 Harris, 29 Huerta, 30 Klingenberg 31 Sullivan, 32 long, 33 Barnhart, 34 Colaprico, 35 Groom 36, Ohai, 37 MacDonald, 38 Overmuch, 39 Rowland, 40 Gibbons 41 Gilliland, 42 O'Reilly, 43 Nairn. 44 Salem, 45 Brooks 46 Leroux, 47 A Smith, 48 Sanchez, 49 Rodriguez, 50 Barnes
Very enjoyable read. I respect the opinions of all the authors who contributed. It is a difficult task to rank players in soccer, because the positions are dissimilar and require traits that don't lend themselves to direct comparison. But they did a nice job. A few quibbles, i.e. Taylor Smith being too high, but kudos to this panel of writers.
Really cool read. Much respect to the authors. But as we all have opinions, I had to make my own rearranged top 20 list! 1 Morgan, 2 Mewis, 3 Ertz, 4 Rapinoe, 5 Sauerbrunn 6 O'Hara, 7 Heath, 8 Dahlkemper, 9 Dunn, 10 Pugh 11 Horan, 12 Press, 13 Lloyd, 14 Lavelle, 15 Short 16 Williams, 17 Zerbonni, 18 Sonnett, 19 Franch, 20 T Smith
And in a similar list thing, I was looking at the current fan voting which makes up a percentage of the CONCACAF Awards. The highlights at this point PotY Morgan 49% .........Kerr 41% GK Franch 54% .........Harris 43% (No one else more than 1%) Defender Krieger 80% Midfielder Long 37% ................Nieto 21% ................Fleming 11% ................Ertz 11% Forward Press 32% ...............Marta 24% ...............Morgan 22% Also worth noting...most of the leaders is the first candidate on the list and it is a little confusing getting the other candidates to come up
Coincidentally, USSF just announced their nominees for Female Player of the Year, and the five are #1-6 on the FourFourTwo list, only omitting Sauerbrunn: Morgan, Mewis, Ertz, Rapinoe, and Horan.