2003 USWNT Schedule

Thanks for the info Wolves_67!!!

The Big Sleazy!? Where would they play down there? I don't think neither NT's have played in New Orleans before.

Wednesday. Thank God this really doesn't interfere with the WUSA season.

This is on a Saturday. Damn.

Saturday as well. Double damn. Where would they play? The USWNT has never played in SLC. Rice Eccles Stadium perhaps? The site of the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics? SCHWEET...I'm driving down there!

Sunday.

Monday. Yay Home Depot!!!!

I am guessing these two Cali matches may be part of the Nike Cup before they head to China.

Wednesday.

Sunday.

I would assume the last two dates are somewhere along the Sun Belt or perhaps the Left Coast?

That is a pretty ambititous domestic schedule leading up to China huh?

 

I hope that one of these a typo. Or would there be some reason for the team to place Iceland twice in a row?

 

Re: Re: 2003 USWNT Schedule

One is, often, a "closed door" and the other open to the public.

With the extreme weakness of the teams the US is playing, except for Canada and England, none are even remotely a challenge. It could be just to build goal totals for players so they look better on paper.

Clearly US soccer and the coaches do not believe the women need to prepare against the best possible teams for the WWC.

No, China, Norway, Germany, Brazil, or any other team with even an outside chance at the title.

The men did a MUCH better job in their run up to the cup finding good opponents.

I guess US soccer cannot get top teams to travel here and we do not wish to go there and to heck with good preperation.

We are so great we don't have to get ready, the other teams will just roll over and play dead for us. I'm thinking of Rocky where the "champ" assumes that he can win on his rep without hard work.

 

Re: Re: Re: 2003 USWNT Schedule

Yeah but that's usually within a day or two of each other (look at Russia in 2001 when they came here). There is a two month span before they play Iceland again. I doubt any of the Iceland matches are a closed door match.

With regards to prepping against the tougher teams...

The USWNT heads to China next month to play Germany, Norway, and China and then in March the USWNT participates in the 87th annual Algarve Cup.

 

What's the source of this schedule? Was it published somewhere?

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: 2003 USWNT Schedule

Who you paly 6 months before the cup is virtually meaningless. It is who you play in the last 3 or 4(maximum) months that prepair you for competition.

The trip to China and the Algrave are good for selecting the final roster spots BUT even that is questionable. Several last minute decissions have to be made that make a HUGE difference in the WC and the players need to play together, in mostly a final lineup, close to the WC against top teams like the men did, for at least half of games, against Italy, Germany, and and others in the last two months before the cup.

There is no one in this schedule that should give the US any trouble except Canada, and that will not be a good run up to the cup.

With this schedule, unless good teams are added later, the US will go into th WC very soft.

The excuse of the WUSA playing is just CR*P. The men were in the middle of the MLS and they pulled it off. The women should be at least as able. Of course the men's staf were intellegent enough to set the games so that players could handle both but Ape and co do not seem to have that level of competence.

 

I'm not worried about travel arrangements. I just want know a source for the speculation. Some of the dates were previously announced in Soccer America. Did you make these up yourself?

I mean, two post-World Cup dates. Are you kidding me? Sorry if I sound a bit incredulous, but I'm wondering if this info comes from the foreign fed(s)? You found it in some obscure spanish language footy newspaper? Someone with in the USSF shared this info with you?

Where? Otherwise, the majority of this info is worthless BigSoccer conjecture.

I mean, scheduling post-World Cup games at this point. Puhleeze.

 

Andy, I did not notice that the last two were post WC, good catch.

That makes the schedule even weaker with no games against top teams in the last 4 months and the best team in this group is England, a fairly(very) weak side, and they are set over 4 months before the cup.

I guess, if these teams are correct, the USSF believes we are so good we don't need any real games.

I hope you are right and this is NOT a correct schedule. If it is we may not even get to the semis.

Of course there is the one "tbd" team, maybe that will be a team with some skill. But, more than likely, it will be American Samoa.

 

It could also be, simply, that other top teams do not want to pay the expense of coming to the USA to play the USWNT.

Notice that all of the games are at home. Is this just a home game list? Other tournaments such as Algarve may provide some other top competition. Don't rush to assume that the games shown below are the only ones the USA is going to play.

This inconvenient set of facts may interfere with some posters' rush to excoriate Heinrichs again, but so be it.

 

I recall someone mentioning that the USWNT was only going to play 11 or 12 matches before the World Cup. I see 8 matches on the above list that are scheduled before September 24th. That leaves a maximum of four matches to play that aren't listed. I'm going to assume that is either the Algarve or the Four Nations tourney.

Playing in either of those tourneys will match us up against the best teams in the world. Playing the best teams in the world all year before the WC isn't necessary to know how far along the skill of your team is, in my opinion. Feel free to disagree.

All I'm saying is, don't blast Heinrichs when the season hasn't even begun. Contrary to popular belief, she's not stupid. Let the woman work.

 

I was beginning to think I was the only one who held those views, Alana.

 

I would rather not see them end up with a similar schedule to the one they had in 2000...If you recall, there were times when they looked absalutely exhausted, because the schedule had them playing on average 1 to 2 games a week. Or 34 Matches I beleive there abouts anyway,before they even played in the Olympics..all I know is it was an insane number of matches. and completely un-necessary.

 

In 2000 it was necessary to play that many matches because there was no WUSA. The men went through the same process from 1991-1994 with something like 40 matches in a single year.

You won't see as many matches because players have club commitments.

For a point of reference, the men played 21 matches in 2002, including 5 in the Gold Cup, 5 in the World Cup and 1 post World Cup.

Sachin

 

20 Internationals, plus the MLS All-Star game and and some scrimmages..

 

Well I hope the DATE changes and NOT the venue. I assume this game will be at Mitchell...problem is NY Power will be AT Carolina on the 12th...wouldn't it make more since to have a doulbe header and hopefully get some of the NYers out to Mitchell!

 

Nah, I think plenty of people think that way. They don't say it, but they think that way.

 

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my sentiments exactly milbrett- this would be great.

 

Recently I read an article written by Michelle Akers on USA Today's site. She claimed the schedule leading up to the 2000 Olys was too exhausting and compared the state of the team then with their state leading up to the '95 World Cup. She also implied that team chemistry was damaged somehow. I don't know if she thought that was Heinrich's doing, but she expressed concern about the team being burned out by the time the World Cup starts.

 

Looks like they decided on Charleson over the Big Sleazy.

6pm ET on ESPN2.

 

Re: Re: 2003 USWNT Schedule

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