Norway coach: "The short WUSA season is negative for young players"

oh, oh, they are on to us!

 

that what i had in mind, why don't WUSA add more games and also MLS for that matter.

 

maybe he just tried to find some excuses after we beat them last time.

 

Prior to playing those friendlies in Minnesota, Norway's record against the U.S. was 18 wins 13 losses and two ties, so I hardly think that Norway has to make any excuses for how they have played against the U.S. over the past 18 years.

 

Um, money would be the reason. Hello???

 

I feel like Coach Åge Steen does make a valid point because all of the Norwegian players who don't play in the WUSA are on a year round schedule. The Norwegian league extends from April though October/early November. After that the training for the most part moves indoors and after taking a few weeks off for Christmas and New Years, the Norwegian clubs play a full indoor schedule and then after that they go to La Manga Spain for several weeks of outdoor training late March/ early April and then they start their next season. I'll check with my sources over there, but I don't believe that the Norwegian women players are completely off for more than two or three consecutive weeks at most during the year.

What needs to happen IMO is for the WUSA and "Toppserien" to work together more closely. Hege Riise was really disappointed after the 2001 WUSA season because she wasn't allowed to go back "on loan" to Asker and play out the final 4-6 weeks of the Norwegian season. Interestingly enough it was the Norwegian Fotball Federation that prevented Hege from playing for Asker after Carolina had agreed to Riise's request. Perhaps there is some compromise agreement that can be worked out so that the WUSA Norwegian players can return to train with their former clubs and perhaps at least play the indoor schedule during the long WUSA break.

 

Uh, maybe because there are only a certain number of days in America when you can realistically play soccer in this country and hope to have people pay to come watch it. So unless you want teams playing Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday, it is what it is.

Oh, and there's the fact that they'd lose a bunch more money, as well.

 

i agree, but anyway for young league, its not bad at all, maybe someday if this league makes it, more games will means more money. I'm wondering if they do good with souvenirs sales (t shirt etc), because this will generate lots of money for the team, selling souvenirs (+ tv contract) is the backbone of team's financial in every sport organizations.

 

no offense or anything but, eventhough Norway has winning record against US but, in general USA plays better than NORWAY, thats what matter to me, i know winning a match is a plus but, i better watch great match w/out goals than ugly matches w/ buch of goals.

 

The only point I was attempting to make with my original post is that Åge Steen does not have to make any excuses for the way that Norway has played against the U.S. I agree with you that some of Norway's victories over the U.S. haven't been all that "pretty," but you need to give some credit to this small Nordic country that they have found a way to consistently defeat a country like the U.S. that has roughly 70 times as many people as Norway and probably over 1,000 times as many women soccer players.

 

I haven't heard all that much about Steffi Graff since she retired from playing tennis other than she married Andre Agassi.

However, I believe that FFC. Frankfurt only agreed to let Steffi Jones and Birgit Prinz play in the WUSA under the condition that they go back to Germany and play for FFC. during the WUSA off-season. Knowing how hard she trains, I'm sure that Birgit is quite satisfied with this arrangement.

 

i was watching the bio of steffi Graff on tv when i wrote that, Steffi seems to be a very common name in Germany beside Muller just like Olson for Norwegian or Cathy in US, I guess...,

 

Not to mention that Title IX thing.

For developing players, the WUSA season is far too short and I'm glad someone at Steen's level is mentioning it. Steen is merely stating a fact - regardless of what reasoning goes into the WUSA season being the length it is, it is too short for developing quality players by itself.

 

Ouch!! Nordic names ending in "son" are typically Swedish or Icelandic whereas those ending in "sen" are almost always Danish or Norwegian. I would have to agree that Olsen and then also probably Larsen are the most common last names that you find in Norway.

 

Great point about Title IX. I honestly don't know how such a small country like Norway has managed to stay so competitive with a large country like the U.S. for so many years because the Norwegian Fotball Federation is not getting a lot of help from the Norwegian government for women's soccer.

There was some talk of increasing financial support from the government after the gold medal victory in the Olympics, but I'm not sure if that ever actually happened. Perhaps Bauser knows something about this.

I will double check with one of my sources who plays in Norway, but I believe that the top paid players in Norway make less than WUSA minimum and that only a handful of star players like Solveig Gulbrandsen and Bente Nordby are making enough money to barely get by without having to have a second job. I believe that a lot of the players in "toppserien" are also students who mainly survive on student loans.

 

He is absolutely right. The season is too short. We really should play from February to September if we don't go to a Fall to Spring schedule which really we could do certainly weather wise. I mean we in Philly got more snow than we usually do but still we don't get too much. And in Boston and New York surely they can clean up the fields for the games. Also we should for sure start up a U.S. Women's Cup for all of the teams: W-League and WPSl. Include the Canadien teams. Bring WUSA teams to the heartland. Maybe make the U.S. Women's Cup matches on various weekends throughout the summer. There are currently about 41 teams in the WUSA, W-leagues and the WPSL. Let's start up a cup. Have the Cup matches on one weekend from May to September with the final on Labor Day Weekend. Qualifications rounds will take place in April between the teams in the WPSL and the W-leagues. Narrow it down to 32 somehow. Then once a month the teams will play in a cup match. We have to find a way to bring the WUSA and professional women's soccer to a larger group of people throughout the U.S. and Canada. The WUSA teams would start in the round of 32. Carolina Courage v Charlotte Lady Eagles.
San Diego Spirit v Denver Lady Cougars. Bring the WUSA and women's professional soccer to more people and without adding more teams, a Cup which is well-advertised, can begin the journey. By the way, since the 1970s, the Norwegian FA doesn't think in terms of Men's soccer and Women's soccer. They think just in terms of soccer. That's why Norway has a huge infrastructure of girls and women's soccer especially for a country of its population.

 

For those that do not know there is no reason to "start" a US Women's cup, it already exists. The WUSA teams have chosen to not participate, which seems to have killed the competition.

I find US Women's cup results for every recent year up to the start of the WUSA but, based on a quick search, I can find no reference since then.

It seems that the "job" of the WUSA is to reduce the total number of games for post college women players.

Around the world men play many more games than the women. They are aided by roster size to allow these games to be played without excessively straining the players. Teams can, and sometimes do, play completely different lineups in cup games than they do in league games. Most, at least, change 30% of the players.

While the small roster sizes should be taken into account and the women should NOT play as many games as the men they do need more games.

I favor lengthening the season by about 25% and reinstituting the Women’s Open Cup. This should provide enough game play without taxing the players more than the men currently are.

I believe that women are able to play as often as men the difference is only driven by roster size. Total game minutes should be as close to the same as possible for the good of the players and the development of the sport world wide.

If the WUSA cannot add game and will not add the Open Cup back into the schedule maybe an informal league can be started something like baseball's "Hot Stove League."

Of course this league would be a "bare bones" league and would not have much financial backing butit could be the source for the "extra" games needed for development.

There would be logistic problems but it could be centralized in The west or the southeast or even south central in Texas.

It would be like an extended training camp.

Just think about the lack of play players world wide have right now except for the elite that are on national teams.

 

I thought that many of the European players complained about playing more than one game in a calendar week. So now they should play what they think is an exhausting schedule over even a longer period of time?

 

Actually I believe that some of the European players who were complaining about the WUSA schedule don't have a problem with the number of matches played, they would just like to see the schedule spread out over a longer period of time. In Norway you have 10 clubs in the "Topp" league and each club plays all of the others both home and away for a total of 18 matches. In Norway this 18 match schedule is played over about 6 1/2 months as opposed to the WUSA regular season schedule of 21 matches played over just 4 months.