Three years until Germany 2011. What needs to be done? Who is still around? Coach: Pia will be there barring some unforeseen events. She proved her worth at the Olympics. I would like to see her get a contract through 2011 and be given the authority over all of our national teams. I'd like to see her able to choose which players are called into camp at every level. GK: Lots of depth here. Solo and Barnhart are solid but I would like to see a couple of young goalkeepers developed to bolster depth. Defense: Gotta think that Rampone (36), Margraff (35) and maybe even Mitts (33) will be too old to make the team. This leaves Buehler, Chalupny, Cox. Chalupny might be the next team captain and Buehler needs more time on the field to develop. A team also needs veteran leadership in the center of the defense so I think that bodes well for both. Cox is iffy. Her play has been too erratic and I got to think younger players will push her out of this spot. If Mitts doesn't lose her speed with age she could be a central defender on this team. Midfield: Huge changes here. Throughout the Olympics this line looked the oldest, slowest and was least effective. Wagner, Boxx, Hucles are sure to be gone due to age/injury/performance. Lloyd might maintain her spot as a good attacking option coming off the bench and a player that brings veteran experience. Tobin Heath hasn't played enough to be ruled out or in. The fact that Pia seemed to take Tarpley off first every game suggests she might be gone and my take is she doesn't make it back. HAO does. Her speed and experience will be valuable in a midfield that won't have many players returning. How does Osborne play into the mix? Actually, I think she might be the perfect defensive mid for a midfield of young, speedy, skillful players. Or, I would think of putting her into the central defense. Forwards: Arod and Kai are here for awhile. They both work hard and have proven they can be assets at the international level. Is Cheney the replacement for Abby? Time will tell but I would expect to see her part of the mix. It will be interesting to see how Abby comes back from such a devastating injury. She will be 31 in 2011 so going a full 90 might be difficult, but I would expect her to be there. There is a lot of talent in the US at this position, but can the system develop the skillful players to compliment these three? Biggest challenge of Pia's coaching, I think. Any comments?
I think Abby will be around for a while. If Arod doesn't get better with her decision making, I think Cheney, Heath, Kai, etc will push her out of the starting lineup. It'll be interesting to know if Pia will stick with her 442 'empty bucket'. right Now we seem content to go with ----------------------Wambach------------------------- -----------------------Arod--------------------------- --Tarpley---------------------------------------HAO-- ----------------Boxx---------Lloyd-------------------- -Chups-------Markgraf--------Rampone------------Mitts in the future, I think we'll see ----------------------Wambach------------------------- -----------------------Heath--------------------------- ----Woz---------------------------------------HAO----- ----------------Osborne---------Lloyd-------------------- -Chups-------Whitehill--------Buehler------------Dalmy--- Other players maybe in the mix would be Mitts, Trotter, Wagner, Frimpong(or whatever her new name is), Kai, Cheney, and Cox, to name a few off the top of my head. I cant wait to see Woznuk on the first team along with Heath.
In midfield Pia seems to have them playing four across, rather than a diamond or an empty bucket. Both Lloyd and Boxx get forward a lot, Lloyd more than Boxx.
Way to look ahead casocfan. As far as coach I do not know if the Fed will give that much authority to Pia. Nor do I know if Pia wants that much. I do know the Fed was reluctant to give more power to Klinsmann. For me there a few questions. Will there be a core of players signed to USWNT contracts the way they are now? If so, it is hard for anyone to remake the team. If not, what will the role of WPS be? I thought WUSA was underutilized in terms of finding new players. It was a shame, there were some players starting to develop when the league shut down. Will the USWNT still have the same amount of games? Right now they are essentially a club team and while a pro league increases your pool, it will break the rhythm a team develops. How will club v country conflicts be resolved? What will I have for dinner tonight?
I'd like to see some serious housecleaning done right after the obligatory victory tour: give any player who's likely to be too old or just not good enough to play in 2011 a rousing sendoff and let them retire: Rampone, Boxx, Hucles, Markgraf, Wagner, Mitts, Scurry, Whitehill. Start preparing the next generation now. Worry less about meaningless winning streaks in friendlies and minor tournaments and more about getting young players ready to compete at the highest levels.
I think Ali Krieger will be a big part of the defense in the future, especially if she starts playing club soccer in the WPS instead of in Germany. She was only with the team for the 4 Nations Cup this year, but was still chosen as an alternate for the Olympics. If she'd been available for more of the run-up to the Olympics we might have seen her among the first 18. I also liked what I've seen of Becky Saurbraunn. She should be in the mix going forward too.
I've been a fan of Ali Krieger ever since I watched her score a hat trick in a Washington Freedom exhibition match in RFK. I am so hoping that the Freedom WPS has her on the roster - she's a local girl, so there's a good chance. Becky Sauerbrunn has also done well with the Freedom W-League team this season.
With the new league forming, I think it's hard to say what players will make an impact. Look at the players who were not on the radar for the national team, but because of the WUSA got a shot at the national level.
Funny, that's what I was thinking about Kai. If she doesn't get better, smarter the bench won't be long enough for her. She's had a lot more time than Rodriguez to develop.
Not really they both got on the team around the same time. Tash played alot of college games but she never went for the title like A-Rod had the chance to do. She WAS the Abby of her teams for a very long time, hence her weakness in decision making and play making. Also she took a year off before she started college. A-Rod's had more of a "classic" background. But when you look at where she was last year and where she is now she has made leaps and bounds! (she could finish this year as the team's leading scorer and she's so much fitter) She helped alot in qualifying and at the PQC. She could be better and the scariest thing is that more than likely she will. Give her another year and you might be singing another tune. If she stays as focused as she is now she'll be there in 2011. I believe A-Rod will be there as well. Her main weakness is finishing but as with Tash I really look to her as getting waaay better before the WC. I really see the most shifts being made at midfield and on defense. But Rampone and Markgraf are sages and they're going to be really hard to replace.
I was kinda thinking that same thing. Pia talked, at the very beginning, about how important it was to find a forward that played well with Abby and Kai did that. The two of them played well off of each other. With people collasping onto Abby, Kai was wide open. Now, with Abby gone, (at least, for the time being) Kai doesn't have that partnership which was so effective. So she was literally let loose onto the field, without Abby to reign her in. Kai is a bundle of energy, attitude and flashes of scoring but I think A-Rod had the better tournament and could very well surpass Kai. With Abby missing in action for probably the better part of next year, maybe Pia starts looking for someone that can play well with A-Rod.
A-rod had glimpses here and there but she missed way too many opportunities (although, I think she had the right idea w/ that attempted chip today). That said, she's going to be awesome to watch in the future. No matter how sacrilegious this sounds, I think that A-Rod and Cheney could make for a potentially dangerous duo at the top in the international game. Apparently Kai has that something that many fans seem to like- with the attitude and personality. But I don't see her being a "lock" for too long.
I'm not a big fan of the attitude myself actually. That attitude promptly got Kai a yellow card about 10 minutes after she entered the game. The one thing the US didn't need today was someone to come in and get unnecessary yellows or fouls. I do agree that A-Rod needs to work on finishing because with her speed and work rate, she will continue to create those scoring opportunities for herself. She flat out ran for almost 90 minutes of every game and in that aspect, she reminds me of HAO. I think she's only going to get better and if she develops a good relationship with Cheney, like Kai had with Abby, watch out!!
That's not true. Kai has basically been full time with senior team steadily since 2006. ARod became a mainstay only this year.
They both started playing with the team in 06. KAI didn't really play (if you count coming in, in the last 10 mins as playing) until this year as did Amy. They were both shelved. They really didn't come until their own until this year. I think they'll continue to get better. And I don't believe one can simply count Kai out. But I'm not going to debate it further more, because time will tell.
Kai was in residency for all of 2006 and 2007 and was on the World Cup roster Rodriguez was not. She came in very few times until 2008. Go read their bios on US Soccer. According to the 2008 Player Pool Kai 50 caps and ARod 21, only a handful of Arod's came before this year. Kai has trained much more with the full team than Arod.
I thought Rodriguez was very strong until the final game, when she was pretty effectively bottled up by the Brazilian defenders. I'm not sure if others would do better in that situation. Brazil's field players just played better than we did all over the place. The goalies were the difference. That said, I love Kai's attitude and energy. She is just a big positive out there in a lot of ways. Pia's got some more experimenting to do. She can't depend on superhuman goal-keeping all the time. She has to find a way to get up to Brazil's level.
well back in 07 after the WC, i said every player over 26 had to go. Havent really changed my mind much
Pro'ly close. Pia can now look at our younger WNTs, college games, and the new WPS to cull her team for 2011. The USWNT got players that hadn't been on the radar from the WUSA. WPS may be the real key to building her team.
Wow. Barely 24 hours go by after winning a Gold Medal and we have to be talking about who we want to dump from the team. I can't quite get into that. On the 2004 Gold Medal team in Athens: Brianna Scurry: 33 Mia Hamm: 32 Julie Foudy: 33 Kristine Lilly: 33 Brandi Chastain: 36 Joy Fawcett: 36
I've never, ever been a fan of young teams. If anything, I think a need team needs to have a decent blend of youth and age. If the teams are too young, they have the energy and the raw skills, but none of the on-field, A-team experience that's needed to pull everything together. That's not to say vets shouldn't be cut if they've moved well past their prime, but to cut players just based on age alone is silly.
and since 03, there have been 400 million posts about how the old guard should move on. either they retool, regear, and rebuild from younger players or stick to the same shlt.
thats not what im saying at all. Besides, many of those 26+ from 07 are gone anyway. Pia hs 3 years to blood some new talent and I think thats the future of the team if they plan to take a 3rd cup home.
I am delighted that Sundhage is going to get some time to work with an open player pool. I totally agree with goalieanna that the WPS will define the roster for 2011. It is not possible to say who will bubble to the top. I will say, this should be the end of a dry season! The gals who want to play should be able to find work here in USA (nice ) for a change. Just off the top of my head, I can easily think of about 20 young (ish) players who have not made major radar impact, but who could easily rock the 2011 roster. Some are already in the pool, but an equal number are upperclasswomen at (the few) schools I follow. I'm sure for every name I can think of, there are half-dozen more I'm not aware of. The next world cup should be sweet for the coaching staff-- an embarrassment of riches! A few comments about three relatively untested players in this year's line-up; and their coach: What I love about Sundhage is that she is so obviously intellectually curious about the game and she learns from her experiments: Kai and Wambach "worked well together" because Wambach was a one-woman blitzkrieg. She WAS the offense, so if Kai could put her boots on, they "worked well together". Really, Kai doesn't "work well" with anybody, but she is like a drug-- you put her on the field late in the game and nine other player's legs feel lighter! She is a maniac, and when you put her on the field, the whole team just wants to get a little crazy, even if they are too tired to think. Pia figured that out, and used her to great effect. Kai may evolve into a much more complicated player, but if she stays unchanged from today (and fit), I am certain she can be a huge impact player for the US off the bench in the last 20 minutes for at least the next 5-8 years. And that is only if she chooses not to grow... My main point is-- she won't be cut, because nobody does what Kai does as well as Kai does! Hopefully, we no longer have a coaching culture seeking to force players into a jello mold (We loved you Tiffany!); so there is room for Kai to be a niche player. And she's superb at it! Tobin Heath, "still looking for her first nutmeg of this tournament". And I say (with others) keep looking! She was the youngest player on the roster and in many instances the boldest! She has the guts to go for it. Maybe sometimes that looked naive, but I say applaud the instinct and build the skills-- don't dial her down to some comfortable level of banality (UNC is not going to encourage her to experiment, so the national team better!). Amy Rodriguez, Wizzard! She clearly needs to mature in an international environment, but so much heart and so much initiative in a huge tourney-- she can be a cornerstone of the USA offense when she gets her chops down on the big stage. I think all three of these gals will be around for a while-- much to the benefit of the USA national team.
I would easily play Tarpley at forward ahead of Arod. She's much better. I can see why Tarp played OM in this tournament, due to the depth at OM not being very good. But, all other things being equal, Tarpley is a much better forward than Arod.