I cannot get enough of this video: We love this video 1000%@Maria17_7 found out she was heading to the @chiredstarsPR surrounded by her teammates at @SCUWomensSoccer. #NWSLdraft pic.twitter.com/yrUhHbulGm— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) January 11, 2019 So cool.
As mentioned above all teams have tryouts in March; many players do get picked up through tryouts -- it is a harder route (and even harder financially) but it does happen frequently. In addition most (all?) teams have reserve/practice teams that they build from those try outs and when there is a need during the season they pull from those reserve squads. Being a World Cup year with starting players away, that's going to happen. Finally, you can assure her that the draft is not the end for the drafted players either, even less so than in other leagues. Only a dozen or so players drafted last year were actually signed. So i would agree with what Siberian says above, target a team (or three) who she's interested in because of specific coaching, philosophy, geography or just fandom go to the tryouts and make an impression.
I'm sure the Thorns will, too. And, going to open tryouts is not necessarily a waste of time, especially with this being a Women's World Cup year. A number of players in the past came to the Thorns through tryouts. They're not all still with the Thorns, but some of them still are playing on other teams.
I just read (John Lipsitz) that Tierna Davidson will not be allocated by the NT. I have no idea whether this is true or not. So, a question. Could she now return to college for her senior year? Or is she, by virtue of being drafted, a professional and not eligible to play for Stanford? If I were her, and I wasn't allocated, I would go back and finish college.
Wow that's crazy. I thought one of the reasons why she decided to go pro early was due to her being allocated by US soccer. Personally, she should have finished her degree at Stanford, I mean how do you go three years of hard work and exceptional college club play and dump Stanford for the NWSL?
I think she'll play in the NWSL regardless of being allocated or not, just for development reasons leading up to the WWC. Also I still think, if she is and remains healthy, she'll make the WWC roster. Really the reason for turning pro now is the WWC and making the roster with all of its salary and potential bonuses. The allocation money is small potatoes in comparison.
You've missed something. Nothing, in all of this, says she can't finish at Stanford. She may need to miss the balance of the current academic year at Stanford, which makes sense if she is going to be on the roster for the World Cup. But she can go back and finish in the Fall. If she's going to be on the World Cup roster, which appears to be the case, then she needs to be playing serious soccer from now until then. Given the NCAA's rules, she can't do that at Stanford. So, go pro, play for Chicago and then for the USA, then go back to Stanford and finish her degree.
not sure that would be the wise move. I'm sure her stanford education figures that allocation is not where the money is this year. (allocation will, in fact, become less and less important as the nwsl grows). i'm certain she believes in herself and is sure that she'll be allocated next year. the key thing is that it would be foolish for her to play college soccer this year and leave all that wc and victory/consolation tour cash on the table. + as cp points out, nothing that she's doing suggests that she's not going to return to stanford to finish up.
A little update on the Mace vs Sky Blue FC situation. It seems like whatever they tried offering her wasn't good enough and they just lost their top pick. She is going to Australia and after that season ends, she's deciding on either Sweden or England. Good for her and sucks to be SB but my question is will she be hurting her chances of getting another opportunity on the Nat'l team if she plays internationally or since she's already on Jill's radar does she not have to worry about not getting looks? Also does she have an opportunity to come back to the NWSL if something like LAFC gets a team and she's looking on trying out for that team or another one? Little Sunday night breaking news. No. 2 overall #NWSL Draft pick Hailie Mace is in Australia where she will join Melbourne City. After that it looks like Sweden and England are in play.As reported following the draft, Mace has no intention of playing for Sky Blue FC— Dan Lauletta (@TheDanLauletta) January 14, 2019
I guess Mace's move is yet another sign that SkyBlue FC basically won't exist in season 2019 because no player will actually report, will they?
Mace wasn't going to be on the WWC team this year, so if she goes to Europe for a year, or maybe even two, it probably won't hurt her WNT chances, whatever those chances might be. She seems a little bit of "flavor of the month" among posters -- see Erica Tymrak -- so I'm cautious about whether she has real chances or not. She isn't committed to Europe yet. There's supposed to be something going on with Sky Blue that we haven't heard about yet. Maybe her holding out is part of the process pushing things towards a big change. The numbers say it's very hard for just-out-of-college players to get significant playing time in the NWSL. So, until the NWSL expands, the script for new players may be, "Play somewhere else, prove yourself, and then see if you can sign with an NWSL team." This suggests that the USSF should have a long run interest in continuing support for the NWSL, keeping it healthy, and supporting its expansion.
LAFC having or not having does not change anything (well unless SBFC is acquired by them). As long as they offer a contract to her (and there's no reason to suppose they wouldn't), SBFC will retain her rights. So if she comes back to the NWSL she will have to play for SBFC unless SBFC trades her rights. Well, I guess another possibility is that LAFC could pick her up in the expansion draft, but with SBFC's current roster, it's hard to imagine she wouldn't be protected.
Players who desperately want into the league but can't make other teams may view Sky Blue as a last-choice option. But yeah, actually fielding a team is starting to look like a stretch for Sky Blue. No organization needs to field a competitive team to stay in operation, but they do need to field a team period.
Until the day after the championship match at the end of the season. Unless she is offered a contract and refuses to sign in which case they retain rights until the NEXT season preseason. The rights to any college players selected in the NWSL College Draft shall be assigned to the drafting Team’s College Protected List until the end of the season ... If a player is offered a Standard Player Agreement but does not sign it, she shall remain on her drafting Team’s College Protected List until the beginning of the following season’s preseason.
Oh wow, that is a win-win for draftees. You don't have to stay with a team that drafted you and given that most rookies don't play much in their fist year anyway you can just go over seas for a year or two. Good way to expand your game as well.
Until you find out your discovery rights are held by whatever team has the worst record (or however it was that the Breakers ended up with Brynjarsdóttir's rights)... And if that's SBFC... well that's not gonna work out so well.
Yeah that would suck but I would assume theres a shelf life on teams holding onto to discovery rights of a certain player without signing them. I think that would explain why Seattle was able to sign Kellond-Knight after NCFC weren't able to. So long story short it could take maximum two years of exhile to escape a bad team.
Here's a question. R the bonuses available to players not under USSF contract? Ive always assumed they were but as they r part of the NT contract maybe that isn't true. The big question for Davidson is how quickly she can force a contract thru service days accumulated. With 10 pre WC games on the schedule ud think if she is rostered for all of them they will be forced to offer her a contract.
The big thing is here forcing a contract thru accumulated service days. Of course there is the risk she could fall out of favor or get injured and miss a lot of pre WC rosters. Other than the money down the road Im not sure I see an advantage to playing in the NWSL to get ready for WC. Considering the 10 match schedule it doesn't sound like any of the WC rostered players will be sending significant time with their clubs before WC
First, allocation and USSF contract are not the same thing. Plus, it was reported at the last CBA signing that the overall number of USSF contracts will be dwindling (reduced by a an unknown amount at unknown periods of time), but anyone on the WWC roster will get all of the bonuses, including the bonus of just making the roster, as well as the salary that accrues just from days with the team. The point made above was that she wouldn't be able to accept most of the money and bonuses if she remained amateur (i.e. a college player). (Some she would be able to accept, under NCAA rules, but from what I understand, not a big chunk of it.) It's still more and at a higher level than the scrimmages and mostly player-led practices that she'd have at Stanford during the spring. The move also allows her to tighten her focus on soccer, at least for this lead-up to the WWC, without being distracted by everything else that goes on in college.
IIRC it was announced at the NWSL Draft that Davidson has only a semester of work left at Stanford to get her degree. Easy enough to fit in.