I'm trying to work out when we'll be missing any of our national team players. Here's what I've got so far. Feel free to post additions or corrections. United States: No games scheduled this year. Canada: September 15 (vs Germany), friendly. France: August 21 (vs Iceland), August 25 (vs Croatia). Both games are WWC qualifiers. New Zealand: OFC Women's Cup, Sept 27-Oct 8. Continental championship and WWC qualifiers. Remaining FCGP games: Aug 01 Aug 07 Aug 14 Aug 22 Aug 28 Sep 01 Sep 05 Sep 11 Playoffs: Sep 19 (3 vs 4) Sep 22/23 (2 vs 3/4) Sep 26 (1 vs 2/3/4) There appears to be a good chance that we'll be without Camille Abily for the FCGP games on Aug 22 and 28, since France plays an important game on Aug 21 and a potentially important game on Aug 25. If France defeats or ties Iceland on Aug 21 the Aug 25 game become meaningless, so there might be a chance Abily will be released. If not, her participation for FCGP on Aug 28 becomes uncertain. Additionally, if France advances out of their group, there would be another round of playoffs (a home-and-home series) to qualify for the WWC, with both legs scheduled to take place in September. I can't find exact dates yet, but there seems a pretty decent chance that, if we make the WPS final we'd have to play it without Abily. Canada's friendly with Germany on Sept 15 has some chance of making us do without Sinclair and Chapman for a game or two, but it probably won't. Since it is a friendly, both players should be available to play for FCGP on Sept 11. Further, if we keep up our winning ways we won't have to play a game on Sept 19 (3rd place vs 4th place), which would mean the Canada game will have no effect on FCGP. We can't afford to count our chickens just yet, however. The New Zealand situation is a little harder to unravel. The WPS championship game is on Sept 26, and the Oceania Women's championship begins on Sept 27 in New Zealand. There's no way Ali Riley would be able to play on both Sept 26 and Sept 27, especially given the vast time difference. Further, since these games are WWC qualifiers, New Zealand has the right to call up Riley well in advance of the game -- I think it's 5 days in advance. However, we can hope that NZ would be flexible without Riley, for the following reasons: 1. In the long run it does them good to maintain a cooperative relationship with club teams. Being hard-ass about it would make teams less likely to sign New Zealanders in future, hindering the long-term growth of the NZ women's program. 2. The tournament is 2 groups of 4, followed by semi-finals and a final, meaning you can finish 2nd in your group and still advance. Thus, even if NZ lost their opening game without Riley, they'd still have a good chance to win the tournament. 3. Come on, if you can't beat the freaking Cook Islands or Vanuatu despite missing your first-string left back, you probably don't deserve to go to the WWC anyway.
Play-off dates are 11/12 and 15/16 Sept for UEFA. Whatever the result of Iceland France, I believe Camille will stay with the team because we need as many points as possible to make sure, we are seeded for the play-off as the top 4 teams are seeded and will play the bottom 4 team who qualified. And we will want to avoid Sweden.
Thanks! That's actually really great news for FCGP. It's not so important to have Abily for every regular-season game, but the fact that the UEFA playoffs will be over by Sept 16 means that if FCGP are lucky enough to make the WPS final on Sept 26, there's no reason Abily should not be able to play.
That Championship Season Assuming FC Gold Pride will be celebrating a wonderful victory on September 26, a little birdie tells me that a very happy Ali will fly off to NZ to join the Football Ferns the following day. The kiwis are strong favorites and are most unlikely to be upset in game 1 of the qualifying tournament (which Ali will miss.) It will be a great opportunity for Coach Herdman to try out one of the U20 players fighting for a spot on the World Cup squad.
That's great news! Please give my thanks to the birdie. Now we just need to concentrate on getting at least 14 points from our remaining 8 games, and we'll be playing for the championship at home and with a full-strength squad.
So just to update the status here... FCGP now has 5 games remaining: Aug 28 - Atlanta (Away) Sep 01 - Sky Blue (Away) Sep 05 - Boston (Home) Sep 11 - Philadelphia (Home) Sep 26 - WPS Championship (Home) With first-place in hand, only the Sept 26 game is actually all that important. As for possible conflicts: Canada still has an away friendly scheduled with Germany on Sept 15. It would be nice if members of WPS playoff teams were not called up, but even if Sinclair and Chapman get the call they should be back in plenty of time to prepare for the final on the 26th. France has qualified for the UEFA playoffs. They will play important games on Sept 11 or 12, and Sept 15 or 16. Abily will undoubtedly miss FCGP's final regular season game on Sept 11, but she should also be back in plenty of time to prepare for the WPS final. New Zealand has World Cup qualifiers scheduled for Sept 29 (vs Vanuatu), Oct 1 (vs Cook Islands), and Oct 3 (vs Tahiti). A little birdie has previously assured WhatsBruin that Ali Riley will be allowed to play in the WPS final on Sept 26, even though New Zealand would technically be allowed to call her up before that date to prepare for their match on the 29th. Brazil presumably does not have any games this year. Marta should be available for all our games. USA has friendlies on Oct 2 and Oct 6. I suspect US Soccer will bend over backwards to avoid disrupting preparations for the WPS final. All our US player pool players (Barnhart, Buehler, Boxx, O'Hara) should be available.
A little more info on the Abily situation: France has been seeded in the UEFA playoffs, so they will face an unseeded team (one of: Denmark, Italy, Ukraine, Switzerland) in September for a spot in the WWC finals. If they lose, they would then enter a playoff for the right to play the third-place finisher in CONCACAF for another spot in the finals. The first game of the playoff would be on Oct 2, which is only 6 days after the WPS final. Hopefully France (if they are unlucky enough to lose their first-round tie) will not try to call up Abily before Sept 26.
I think we will qualify directly and you don't have to worry the release period is 5 days so tahtw ould be the 27th if September.
For now, Camille is rejoining FCGP in Atl & NY & will then fly back out for WNT duty. Probably will not see her until after Sept 12th. And Sinc & Chappie will go to Germany for a quick WNT game - and then return for the finals.
New Zealand squeaked out a 14-0 victory over Vanuatu today in their first WWC qualifier. Ali Riley made it back in time to start the game, although she was subbed out at half time with the Football Ferns already leading 7-0. Presumably they want to make sure she's good and rested for Papua New Guinea.