short contracts, player uncertainty, and even folding of teams (knock on wood let's hope not) is normal in a new struggling league. employment rights will improve with league prospects and a players union. but employment rights are not normally great when employment itself is uncertain.
Coach Harvey still racking up those awards. Congrats to her! ICYMI, #ReignFC's Laura Harvey was named @FA Coach of the Year last night. Read more → http://t.co/MEcRGA3iEG #Proud pic.twitter.com/1Wcwf8uuNF— Seattle Reign FC (@reignfc) December 6, 2014
Jeff Kassouf @JeffKassouf 29m29 minutes ago Stephanie Cox takes high school coaching role, but per article wouldn't be sole head coach until 2016: http://www.gateline.com/2014/12/17/3545718_us-professional-cox-joins-gig.html?sp=/99/1490/1498/&rh=1… #USWNT #NWSL
Well if its in the Fall it prolly doesnt interfere with club too much. Maybe Ellis has made it clear she isnt in the NT plans.
Steph is great. With her parents who took in many, many foster children as Steph grew up, it's no surprise that family and working with young kids is very important to her. Somehow, it seems right that she would put family and working with kids above everything. I agree it will be sad if we don't get to see her more on the field, as she's a truly elegant player, but three cheers for her!
I have not heard anything about an FA WSL player going to sign for the Reign. All my sources indicates many transfers inside the FA WSL
A much underappreciated player, I suspect she'll be a great coach. I think she was one of the biggest casualties of Sermanni's firing. He rated her and her technical ability and style of play. Ellis clearly doesn't. It's surprising to me that Ellis seems to want to emulate the Reign's style, but isn't interested in Cox, Reed, Winters, Goebel.
Of course Steph was a major piece of the U of Portland total demolition of UCLA in the 2005 NCAA Tournament championship game. Maybe Ellis still is hot about that game.
cpt, honestly, please let's not even joke like that because there are people who actually believe it. Whatever her faults as a coach, that's not one. Otherwise, why is she playing Rapinoe so much? She practically has the system designed around her as much as anybody. She's playing Press. She capped Ashlyn Harris who denied UCLA the tying goal in the 2006 College Cup. She gave Cox a shot, as did Sermanni, but obviously both coaches were trying out lots of players for LB. It was a speed vs technical issue with Cox and I don't know the right answer because I love the way Cox plays for Seattle.
In her Inside Reign feature, Cox said Ellis told her to work on her defending. Whether that means speed (which she really can't do anything about) or actual defending, I'm not sure.
What Cox said in the interview was she asked Ellis why she was not called in and Ellis said "Oh Steph there's no question about your talent, it's just defensively..............." Cox has 89 senoir team caps; 79 games in the WPS and the NWSL, and according to the interview, is considered to be one of the best tactical players by her Reign team mates, and Ellis has the gall to say her defense is not up to snuff. Compared to Who? I call BS.
I think this perhaps is reflection of the lack of respect that technical and tactical skill still receive, in this country, in the women's game.
Krieger, Rampone, Brunn are true defenders. USWNT hasn't had a true defender at LB since, uh, Stephanie Lopez Cox.
there's a minimum speed requirement which keeps increasing in the women's game, and which cox lacks. this is the way I see it. jill probably sees it the same way. tech & tact keep getting more respect. you could see it in french's choices for the u20 wc team. but her team was lacking in the speed department, and floundered from the very first minutes of the first game, when the starting left back, who was supposedly the technically superior player, got repeatedly beaten for speed, and had to be benched, iirc, for the remainder of the tournament. horan was another one of the main players showing a speed deficit. this is why she is not an nt solution at this time. cox increasingly cannot defend the international speedsters as well as kling, chalupny, ohara, and dunn can. that's why all those girls are ahead of her, while we depend on the attack to score goals without her sweet left peg's contributions - something I believe they can do. i see no mystery in steph's exclusion from recent rosters.
I do not disagree about the need for speed, but if that is the case, Ellis should just flat out tell her she is not fast enough, period; don't say she lacks "defensively." Also I can only guess, but if Ellis were a truth-teller, she would say to Steph - Laurie Chalupny is going to be the LB and your skill set/experience is limited to a) defense, and b) primarily LB, and the team needs more flexibility from the players who are not starters. If I am Steph and Ellis plays the speed card, then I challenge with: "Show me." "Show me on video where my speed has resulted in a dangerous chance or a goal, and show me how often that happens." My guess is the tapes don't lie, and they probably debunk, for Cox at least, the presumption that Cox does not have enough speed. .......the fewer times you get caught out of position, the fewer times you need raw speed to recover...... If Ellis tells the truth, that Chalupny will be the LB and Cox is not otherwise versatile enough, THEN, I have to agree. I would make the same decsion, keep and start Chalupny and leave Cox off the roster. As Shakespeare wrote: "...at the length, truth will out."
there's no code there. we really do not know the exact words ellis used. iirc, cox did not quote her. but telling a tech/tact player like cox she lacks defensively means for a left back that she's just not fast enough. that was what i understood from it. if steph doesn't get that then she's dense. just off the top of my head, i remember thomis getting past her easily. she probably knows what her deficiency is. it's gotta be plain to see in every nt camp.
Don't want to melt into a discussion about a subject that I don't know very well (USWNT defenders and Cox's assets), but I only chime him to say that honestly Thomis would get past a boatload of defenders. I'd say past quite all of them. Élodie Thomis can have many limits to her gameplay, but for sure she's currently one of the fastest players on earth in the women's football, period.
On June 14 the US beat France 1-0 and Solo made one save (no indication of defensive lapses there). Cox played 90. Thomis was subbed OUT at 54 min - must be she was tearing it up vs. Cox. On June 19 US drew France 2-2. Thomis played 90. Cox did not play, and was not even on the bench. Ok, I went to the tape. The one save Solo made was on a counter when Thomis blew by, but did not gain separation from Cox. Cox stuck with her and so kept Thomis at full speed, resulting in a heavy touch and a fair to poor angle for a shot on the goal (that's what a defender is supposed to do when they get beat). Thomis' shot was point blank at Solo, who made her one save of the game. It was probably the play you rememembered. My conclusions: Thomis is faster than Cox; Thomis is faster than many players -see blissett's comment above. Cox did what she had to do to keep Thomis from getting clear enough to make a sure goal. You can tell - I think that Ellis and other's belief that Cox is too slow is not well founded. She is fast enough to do the job.
Interesting discussion about Cox. She is not as fast as some of those competing for a WNT roster spot, but speed is not the end all and be all and I could certainly see games where tactics would be better served by her skill set. She doesn't rely on speed, rather positioning. She intercepts a lot of those enemy passes because she's in the right place. I have seen her caught upfield, but that's why you have other defenders. If you are defending as a unit, the risk is ameliorated. So, I guess, I do think Ellis's comment was probably meaning something else, other than pure defending. In Sundhage's day, it was clear that Cox didn't fit the one-on-one bruiser type defender that Sundhage preferred (LePeilbet, Beuhler). I think lately US soccer culture prefers the hardnosed players, although I get that as well because a truly good technical team needs an abundance of technical players.
Who would have thought my little comment would have garner such frank discussions, good job guys. On another note, three additional Reign (Lauren Barnes, Winters, Mathias) players were name to the U-23 squad for camp in the coming days. Never mind the fact that they are all over 23 but I think the main point is that they will be having a joint session with the full team so there's a chance some of them could be called into the full camp. From my point of view, if they all perform according to their abilities in camp, here is what I think are the chances of each being called into the full camp is base on what I think the team needs at this moment: Keelin Winters - So we all agree that Winters should have been included in the team a while ago in the defensive holding role. It is not too late to accomplish that. I really believe if she have a good showing in camp that she could be invited to join the full team. It also helps that she is familiar with the 4-3-3 formation. The problem with the current 4-3-3 formation for the NT is that Ellis is not deploying the players in the right position based on their skills and deficiencies. If you start with a middle three of Holiday, Rapinoe and Lloyd, the last two tends to always drift forward leaving Holiday stranded as the only player in the middle, thus exposing the defenders. This is where I think Winters can help. Start with a midfield three of Winters, Holiday and Lloyd and if Rapinoe is to start, play her up top. Winters will naturally stay back. Holiday is discipline enough to stay back when asked to do so. If Lloyd and Rapinoe will end of forward anyways, just play them there is they are going to be included in the starting 11. Lauren Barnes - Another lefty which is always needed. I see her as a younger faster version of Cox but at this point, Cox is still a better natural defender than Barnes. Her preferred position is LCB which Sauerbrunn already has a lock on. She however can play at left back if needed. She is an excellent one-on-one defender with adequate recover speed if needed. Most times her good positioning does not warrant it. As for where she could fit in the team, her best shot is as backup LB first or if needed backup LCB. Given that Dunn really con not stay healthy for any extended period, I would be really worried if she is our first choice in a tournament that we are expected to potentially play 7 games in a short time on turf. Ohara also is not a good enough defender on the international stage. Kling really should be a backup for Krieger on the right side. Merritt Mathias - I must admit to not knowing much about her (that will change this year obviously) but from what I can remember, she played RB/RWB (?) for FCKC. I know her to be a really tenacious defender and have good speed. However, I think Krieger pretty much have the right side on lock down and so does HAO. This is why I'm also not moaning about Elli Reed not being called in.
still think cox fails the minimum speed requirement for an international left back. the requirement is now higher than it used to be. cox 2.o - fails the minimum pace requirement for the international game. not sure of the talent level of either of these two.
1. For Keelin, yes she is not pacy enough for the international game but Lloyd can't exactly play all 7 games if it comes to that and I think Keelin can be a capable backup in certain situations.
Speaking of Winters and on a more happier note, she got engaged. Congrats to the happy couple!! 550849456552562688 is not a valid tweet id