That's correct. The best players on that team were 2 UNC players and one FSU player. On the Stanford side, not a factor in the outcome of game agaiinst Sweden, but was I the only one that saw how off O'Hara was when she came in to make an impact.
Kool-aide a) I have a neutral approach to UNC but do you really think the amount of UNC players on the field determines a World Cup result? As far as Anson, I respect everything he's done and his being able to come up with a dominant college soccer system that has a sole purpose of winning NCAA games. b) The most successful era of our WNT is when the rest of the world was far inferior and not putting in the resources they do now. When other countries decided to commit to Women's Soccer, they caught us. c) They've had technical players but its not through development while at UNC. Talk to Anson, read his books and watch his videos. The technical side isn't close to the focus. A player's natural ability can't be credited to the program. Did you see Tobin and Casey before college? d) Relying on it and doing it are two different things. When Pia talks of "attacking wide" constantly, playing long from the back and using a large target FWD, that's pretty obvious. Doesn't mean they are good at it but they can still try it as the focus.....and are. Are you watching the games? e) Got it. So relating no UNC players on field July 6 to losing is OK but relating UNC players on field to U20 failure is not?
F. UNC didn't lose to WF in the ACC tournament. They tied them 1-1. G. UNC was fielding a team from which they lost 5 WPS players (Harris, Heath, Nogs, Engen, and Eveland), 2 starting underclassman (Bronze and McDonald), one starting senior with an MCL injury (Givan), and one starting senior with an unknown but career-ending injury (Hawkins). They got walloped by a Notre Dame team. No doubt. They also somehow managed to tie the "pre-ordained" (I'll use Coach Waldrum's words there) 2010 National Champion Stanford (beautiful soccer's poster child). What is the point of that? Given that the US has only won 2 of 5 of the previous world cups (both on home soil), where do the expectations come from? What is the base-line for the continual assertion that the US is "falling behind"? What is the starting point from which we've fallen behind? Was it the 1999 team that as far as I can tell rostered 8 Tar Heels? The 2003 team that rostered 5 Tar Heels? Is it the youth teams records internationally? I think I'll wait until the USWNT team loses against Brazil, England/France, and/or certainly Germany before I declare the 2011 athletic and unsophisticated team a disaster. I'm sure I'm not the only one hoping they can eventually tell the detractors to stuff it.
Enjoyed your additions, GoCourage Point of order. Perhaps I'm misreading. But only 1 of the USA's WWC wins was on home soil. Two of 5 have been held in the USA but 1991 was held in China. eta: The 1991 roster of 18 players had 9 Tar Heels on it. The 1999 roster of 20 had 8 Tar Heels on it. 1995's 20 had 7. 2003's 20 had 6 2007's 21 had 5. (assuming I can count properly) And oh how I wish Chalu was bossing the USWNT midfield. And that Tarpley wasn't injured.
Thanks for the technicality but UNC didn't play in the ACC final and thanks for the all the other reasons for losing. And, if you can't watch the NT program and see we've been surpassed, then enough said. I want the US to win too. But, stop being a fan and watch the team play.....they are struggling.
Thanks for the weak comments and not being able to see how Nogueira, Averbuch, Engen, Heath, Tarpley, O'Reilly, Chalupny, and Kacey White (for examples) developed at Carolina. If you can't see that, enough said because you clearly haven't actually watched the team play. As for the WNT struggling? It is a team built on Wambach. Blame Carolina for that? Blame Carolina for ARod not being able to get a shot on frame? Or having one viable distributing midfielder (who also happens to be a Carolina product, Chalupny) in the WNT program? Thanks for the technicalities. Again, I'll restate my question in clearer English. What is the starting point from which we've been surpassed? What are the criteria for being surpassed? I'll be more than happy to eat crow if they lose to Brazil. Will you?
I screwed up 2008 & 2010 earlier. Given the legion of data that you keep tract of and follow RPI, records, etc. you're allowed a mix up I have no excuse, really. just a brain fart Here's a fun fact. You know who has previously attended Barcelona practices and has implementing their drills & methods into their own team's practices? Anson.
Where did I say that? I posted something I saw as a humorous bon mot. A joke. A funny haha. A jesting joust. You then waded in w/ precious little humor. I suppose I could have gone the Roy Williams "Fact:..." "Fact:..." route instead of the alpha list
Depends what you think those players developed at. Playing with the nuances and skill for the world level of the sport? No, they didn't. This goes back to the original tweet. So, O'Reilly on the field and we beat Sweden? Come on. It's a two-way street. It's a pompous thing to allude to and not fair to the players who didn't attend UNC. Get off your high horse. Surpassed? U17s don't qualify for WC, U20s eliminated in quarterfinals and Full team having to play-in to this WC while also being two days away from the earliest exit ever from a WC. Is that English clear enough? And, let's not mention the 2007 result v Brazil. All that from a country that used to dominate and be #1. That's regression. Yes, if Brazil wins, I will admit my utter shock and eat more then crow. And, I don't care that a player blogs about what Anson watches and tries in a practice. You think UNC will change its 25-30 year, direct 3-4-3 system of winning to a technical based, short interplay 4-3-3? Yeah right, that is comical.
North Carolina had eighteen field players play over two hundred minutes last season. But don't let facts get in the way of a good rant.
Whoops, I think I misinterpreted your comment above. My bad. But seriously, laying all of the USWNT's problems at the feet of North Carolina is oversimplifying the matter to a ridiculous extreme.
That'll teach me to forward on a joke. Some people read WAY too much into things. And take jokes WAY too literally.
Yeah, I'm shocked that you would suggest that. So you don't actually get to watch how the UNC seasons progress do you? So we can conveniently ignore the results at the Olympics or the friendly against Germany or the Algarve cup or the fact that we ARE still in it or that we in fact DID qualify. Just the fact that we lost to Brazil in 2007 and ALMOST didn't qualify for 2011. That's enough. So the baseline is "USED to dominate" like in 1999(?) when they weren't even expected to win (read the ESPN article) or 1996 when they didn't win... or even the three years of WUSA (2001-2003) when the international players like Riise, Smith, Pinchon, Sissi, Pretina, Prinz, Aaron were pretty darn dominant. All that history must postdate the US dominance, right? The only history of the U-20s I can find goes back to 2002, the US won the 2 out 5 since then, including the first in 2002. Is that dominance or again are you saying the dominance predates the 2002 records that I can find for the U-20 World Cup? As for the U-17, I can only find history since 2008 and the US didn't win it then. So there must be more history to that tournament than what is published on the FIFA site. Have any links to that information? Certainly there must be a LOT of results from U-17's for comparison so we can see how each country has developed their young players. Can't wait for the link. I can't find FIFA ranking before 2003 and the US has been (and still are in the top 2) basically since that time. Is that dominance? Is so, I guess they haven't dropped from the graces of dominance until they fall out of those rankings? Or maybe the rankings don't represent the 2007 0-4 loss to Brazil as heavily as you seem to? Maybe we should use as a measure the Algarve Cup, since some older records are available there. The US finished 1 or 2, 9 out of the last 9 years (2003-2011). The 9 years prior to that (1994-2002)? They finished 1 or 2, only 3 times (6 times they didn't). So clearly based on the Algarve Cup, the dominance MUST have been either before 1994 or from 2003-2011, right? Except that we lost to Brazil 0-4 during that time. Darn... that leaves me completely confused about your "used to dominate and be #1" statement. So can I make THAT English clearer? I'm still lacking an answer to my question what's lead to the belief that the USWNT is must accomplish so much more than they've accomplished to this point. My history following the team only goes back to the very late-90s (e.g. I was rooting more for Parlow, Roberts, and Fair during the '99 WWC than I was for Hamm and Lilly). I'm very excited to be educated about how you've formed your opinion.
GoCourage, the first 2 women's youth world cups (2002 & 2004) were U19 tournaments. FIFA didn't add a U17 for girls until 2008.
You guys didn’t know that UNC only recruit’s athletes that are big, fast, strong and don't actually have soccer skills. That’s how your average UNC hater views the program. Yet a player like Ranee Premji starts for the Tar Heels. She is so much bigger, stronger, and faster than everyone.
"That'll teach me to forward on a joke." I thought it was funny quip. I did not realize there was such tension about UNC strength. My first reaction to the 'notarheel' observation was that the college game has increasingly gained depth and that choosing who gets on the WNT is increasingly more subjective due to comparatively equal players. and there could be a west coast nat champ this year, who knows. and what is wrong with athleticism anyway? cross training in sports is awesome at the college level. go USA!
WOW!!! I've been off line for 24 hours and a giant brouhaha occurs based on a comical (she thought) quip by a 20 year old on a tweet! Amazing!
What?! All there is to see here is a pompous UNC soccer fan trying to understand the superiority complex of a USWNT fan.
Oh yeah! I, too, have been gone for a bit. Amazing to see how much traction this got on a thread marginally related to the (yet unstarted) 2011 season... Maybe a bit less raw red meat in some of our diets? At any rate, I'm glad that it is now resolved, given that the US beat Brazil. Even though there were few Tarheels on the field, and those who played were pretty quiet, it was a pleasure to watch the other women on the team play like the Tarheels they had always secretly wanted to be. That (thanks, Julie Fowdy) "bit of bite"; the athleticism; the endurance; the refusal to accept defeat in the face of a superior team and insurmountable odds; that Tarheel ability to snatch undeserved victory from the very fist of the better team-- it DID show the Tarheel stamp. Nice to know we still got it, even if we have to do it mostly by proxy through players developed in other programs. . I hope G4Allies is oK? A bit of Hoisin sauce sometimes makes the crow go down easier... P.S. Lets not lose our sense of humor. I thought Bartok's post was harmless, and quite funny in a partisan UNC sort of way. IMO, you would need to have your hackles up to take offense. After all, there are only 3~4 Heels in a fifty plus 2011 WWC field of current and former NCAA players-- how serious can she be?
At least I don't have to eat crow since the US didn't win, based on what I was told in a previous post. It was great for the US to advance, no doubt and especially in lieu of the Brazilian antics. But, in the big picture, it's to tough be excited about the overall state of women's soccer with these performances. I hope folks at US Soccer can look past whatever results are final and look at the actual performance of coaches and players. In 1994, Brazil won a World Cup but it didn't go over well with their Federation based on how they achieved it. Maybe we can learn a little from that if we win this thing. At some point, quality has to be present on a consistent basis. The "American way" that is all over the press is something to be proud of but is not the way to build and develop a world soccer culture. Technical speed and quality has to become a fabric and, if that can happen, added to the "American way?" Then you're on to something.