A number of favorable comments about Prinz in this article: http://www.soccer365.com/US_home/WUSA/page_26_40306.shtml
Birgit Prinz & Hege Riise Here's a couple of good quotes from the article that Heeligan2 posted the link for: Along with Germany, Norway has also consistently had one of the top two or three national teams in Europe for many years. It is no coincidence that the best team in the WUSA has both the player of the year from Germany and from Norway on their roster. Hege Riise created a lot of the scoring opportunities for Carolina this past season and as everyone who follows the Courage knows, Prinz did an excellent job converting those opportunities into goals.
Yeah, but Prinz is going to find the second go-round in WUSA a lot tougher than the first. Don't think seven coaches aren't watching and rewatching the last two games we played against Atlanta. Without a top level professional league in womens soccer, most high level players only played eachother a few times a year - with precious little other exposure. The 87 game WUSA season lends itself to really discovering strengths and weaknesses. Sharolta Nonen completely owns Birgit. Birgit does not like physical contact. Remember she started taking all of the corners when she joined the team. It was obvious that Marcia told her to stop taking them, but suddenly Birgit started hanging around the near 18 yard line setting up for the short corner. Not exactly what we would want from an imposing goal scoring force. Nonen destroyed her in the game in Atlanta, and Birgit wouldn't go anywhere near her in the semifinal game. Obviously she has the ability to take punishment and dish it out. She got whacked around in the final (Gabarra obviously watched those tapes) and still played well. If Birgit doesn't toughen up and show that she's not bothered by the physical contact, she's going to get hack-a-shaqed all season long. The non-Courage danger is that should she respond (and I hope she does) she may be unstoppable come WWC-2003....
Courage - Beat Rivalry This is an excellent observation. Did you happen to watch all four of the matches that Carolina played against Atlanta? Prinz didn't join the Courage in time for the first match vs. the Beat, but did play in the second Atlanta match and scored one of the goals in a 3-1 victory. There was a huge difference between those second and third matches vs. the Beat which were both played in Atlanta. The physical play of the Beat in that third match really frustrated Prinz and by the end of that match Birgit was extremely upset. As I recall that was also the match where TR totally lost it at the very end and got a red card and had to miss the next match at home vs. Washington.