The opening match of the 2011 WWC has already set a new attendance record for women's football in Europe. http://www.fifa.com/womensworldcup/organisation/media/newsid=1353144/index.html
According to http://www.cypruswomenscup.com/ Canada has been drawn with England, Scotland and Italy in the Cyprus Women's Cup (held at same time as Algarve Cup, 2nd-9th March). Group 1 Canada England Italy Scotland Group 2 France Netherlands New Zealand Switzerland Group 3 North Korea South Korea Russia Northern Ireland Not sure what they will do with Group 3 - the teams in that group (with the exception of Northern Ireland) are all at a similar level to the Groups 1 & 2 teams, but the schedule is 2nd, 4th, 7th March (group games) and 9th March (classification games). If it follows the same pattern as the Algarve Cup, we'd have the winners of Group 3 playing off for 7th place against the best placed bottom side in Groups 1 and 2. Doesn't seem very fair to North Korea, for example.
Kara Lang to announce her retirement. Story from CBC http://www.cbc.ca/sports/soccer/story/2011/01/04/sp-soccer-canada-lang.html
The CBC has broken the story that Morace wants to step down as head coach after the World Cup. http://www.cbc.ca/sports/soccer/story/2011/02/04/sp-carolina-morace.html Certainly not good news with the senior team making so much progress and the youth teams still needing to find their direction.
On another, but possibly related, issue, the CSA voted for governance reform today. There's a twitter stream from Kara Lang @karalang15 which reports from the meeting vote by vote.
Further on the post above, this is Jason de Vos's article on the vote http://www.cbc.ca/sports/blogs/jasondevos/2011/02/a-historic-day-for-canadian-soccer.html and the statement Kara Lang was going to make at the meeting but was not allowed to http://www.cbc.ca/sports/blogs/jasondevos/2011/02/kara-lang-speaks-out-on-csa-reform.html Kara also briefly addresses the Morace situation. An article discussing some of the issues involved in her decision is http://communities.canada.com/thepr...l-funding-at-root-of-morace-s-complaints.aspx
Canada's schedule for Cyprus Women's Cup. 2nd March v Scotland in Larnaca 4th March v Italy in Nicosia 7th March v England in Nicosia 9th March - placement match If Canada finish in the top 3 in their group, they will play one of France, New Zealand, Netherlands or Switzerland in the placement match. If they finish bottom of the group (unlikely), they will play one of Russia, Mexico, South Korea or Northern Ireland in their placement match.
The discussion on the Morace situation gets heated, allegations fly. http://www.canadiansoccernews.com/c...mands-the-other-side-of-the-story#new_comment
http://tsn.ca/soccer/story/?id=352875 CANADA'S WOMEN'S SOCCER TEAM THREATENS BOYCOTT The Canadian Press 2/7/2011 TORONTO -- The Canadian women's soccer team is on the verge of mutiny. The women say they won't play another international match until the Canadian Soccer Association brings coach Carolina Morace back into the fold. Morace announced last week that she will leave after this summer's World Cup, citing differences with the governing body of Canadian soccer. "She's changed our program, she's changed our team," captain Christine Sinclair told The Canadian Press. "We can compete now with the world's best. And it's something we haven't been able to do in the past. And now to have this coach threaten to leave, we can't let her just go." "We have a shot at something great," she added. "And we have the coach to allow us to do that. It's hard as players to see our organization not really support us, not really support our coach. It's a difficult position to be in." The 25 Canadian women have also retained legal counsel over their unhappiness at what they call the ad-hoc compensation that has been offered in recent years by the CSA. The women say they will train, but won't play international matches until the coaching issue is resolved. The decision was unanimous, according to Sinclair. They plan to board a plane Friday for a training camp in Rome with Morace but say they will refuse to play in the Cyprus Cup tournament, which starts Feb. 28, until the coaching issue is resolved. "Ideally we go to Rome and then we go to Cyprus and we play the games," said Sinclair. "But we can't let this go on any longer and we feel like it's our time to make a stand." A CSA spokesman said the association had reached out to Morace in the hope of speaking to her. The impasse comes at the worst possible time. The CSA is in the midst of bidding to host the 2015 Women's World Cup. cont'd
The CSA has apparently made some sort of offer on the contract issue. http://www.thestar.com/sports/socce...ous-women-s-soccer-team-lacking-sinclair-says
I just felt like bringing up this news item I saw on AllWhiteKit about the deal the German Women's team struck for the WWC: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,14817439,00.html AllWhiteKit has done a good job of linking to the media stories on the Morace situation. CSA officials are going to Switzerland to discuss the bid for the 2015 WWC with FIFA. They are saying they will meet with Morace in Italy. The Canadian team arrived there Saturday. I expect a resolution will be forthcoming. Either the CSA will make enough moves, or promises, to sway Morace to change her mind, or it will soon become clear that the rift is too wide and there is no chance of her staying. In the latter case I would think that Morace tells her team that there is no point to a boycott because her decision to resign is firm.
No roster announced for the Rome camp but OSU reports that Chelsea Buckland is there: http://www.osubeavers.com/sports/w-soccer/spec-rel/021411aac.html It's great that Morace can keep an eye on these players who don't have YNT experience. Maybe she heard about her through the Whitecaps coach. Buckland probably has too much tact to ask Morace how she could be good enough for a senior call-up now when she wasn't good enough to be looked at for the U-20s last year.
Roster for the Rome camp (and presumably something close to the active roster for the Cyprus Cup) is up now. Kelly Parker is still absent. Besides Buckland, familiar faces. No U-20s this time.
Kelly Parker is in Rome although she's not on the official roster. The CBC and Sportsnet will broadcast live all matches of the 2011 WWC: http://www.cbc.ca/sports/soccer/story/2011/02/17/sp-cbc-sportsnet.html CBC and Sportsnet are both on basic cable (for most viewers, I think) so no need to subscribe to any extra channels.
Noticed that former CNT player Sasha Andrews is on the preseason roster of the Boston Breakers. Best of luck to her.
I am going to the game tonight between England and Canada will let you know what I have seen during the game.
3 words : ultra defensive and clinical ! 4 shots 2 goals and 2 players doing the work Matheson and Sinclair. A 4-1-4-1 very disciplined and italian style.
Morace said it was the first time they had played that formation. Glad to see her show her tactically more conservative side. The WWC trophy visited Canada on its tour. Morace remains mum about her situation. http://www.ottawacitizen.com/sports/taste+World/4427877/story.html Meanwhile, a short item on Emily Zurrer. Notice she outscored Sinclair at the Cyprus Cup. It's probably a good sign to have the scoring spread around. http://www.cbc.ca/sports/soccer/story/2011/03/12/sp-soc-zurrer.html
The 4-1-4-1 formation will be very appropriate against Germany and it's good that they used it in this tournament to get comfortable with it, even if it meant fewer goals scored. Morace also had the team trying out defensive techniques against the Brazilians at the Sao Paolo 4 Nations. They held the Brazilians to a scoreless draw with a team made up primarily of non-starting players. I think it is unfortunate that Canada didn't get to play the French. It has been a while, and it would have been good to have a look at them before June.
I can tell you the Canada team has done their homework and did some video recording of France's games as their video analyst was just behind me at the France-New Zealand game.