Harvey don't exactly have a good track record of singing rookies. In recent memory only Frisbie I can remember being signed. I may be forgetting rookies from year 1 though.
This isn't actually correct.. In 2013, the Reign signed their 1st round (Christine Nairn), 3rd round (Kristen Meier), and 4th round picks (Haley Kopmeyer). Only their 2nd round (Mallory Schaffer) went unsigned. In 2014, they signed Megan Brigman(Second Round) in addition to Frisbee(First Round). They didn't have a pick in the third round and did not sign their 4th round pick (Ellen Parker). So, out of 9 players the Reign drafted (including 2015), they have now signed 6 of them and I think this year's 4th round draft pick (Kendall Romine) is still with the team..
Well maybe it's a feeling thing because if I look at that list, the only player that saw regular minutes (apart from Frisbie) will be Nairn and maybe Kopmeyer.
Seattle's problem isn't signing their draft picks. It's identifying and picking players who will be productive members of the team and stick around for more than 1 season. Even Kopmeyer who is back with the team now was waived. Only two players from their 2013 & 2014 draft picks have made the team and not been waived Nairn and Frisbie, and both ended up traded before they could get a 2nd season with the team. And of the ones that made the team, Nairn is really the only one of that ever got a significant amount of playing time. Compare that to Chicago, which has a 100% rate on their 2013 & 2014 drafted players making the team and returning for a second season. (This is not to say Chicago is better, merely an example to show how Seattle's priority is not it's draft picks)
Doesn't sound good for poor Solaun. Around the 1:00 mark in this clip Harvey mentioned that she might have damaged her ankle ligaments. I'm hoping it is not very serious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=69&v=Qikmg9SNABc
Well Fishlock can't exactly make that decision until after the 2016 season as we still have her rights for 2015 & 2016. And if Laura and co can get her to leave Frankfurt while they are in the semi's of the CL in a year when Seattle COULD probably handle her absence for a month, I doubt they will release her early. So if that is the case, what you are really asking me is if I can foresee Fishlock leaving Seattle to sign for Frankfurt once her contract with Seattle is over. The answer from me will be no. I follow Fishlock as well as other players on Twitter and the love Fishlock have for Seattle is unbounded (maybe less than Foxhoven who just vowed to walk through walls for Harvey but you get the point). During her entire stint at Frankfurt, not once did I get the impression that she would prefer to leave Seattle to play there. It's from little things like her profile picture being of herself playing for Seattle or the fact that majority of her tweets were about Seattle or her team mates in Seattle. When she spoke about Frankfurt, it was either about the weather being too cold or how awesome her roomie Vero is (which for some reason always makes Angerer mad). Than there are major clues like getting her partner Corsie to move across the ocean to play for Seattle. Which might be for how awesom Seattle is or they want to be closer. I doubt she will do that only to pack up and leave a year later and go to Germany which will mean they both have to find clubs to sign them. Finally, as I mentioned a while ago, she did an interview where she said at the end of this year she would have decided on her options for retiring from club football and the choices were USA and Australia. I do not doubt that she love Australia but if the NWSL is still going strong, I don't see her packing it to go across the end of the globe to play for just 3 months in the year.
I have no doubt Fishlock loves playing in Seattle but she also loves playing all year. My questions r: Will Fishlock be able to play in Frankfurt if the NWSL season forces her to miss the transfer window and is she planning to see out the rest of the UCL with Frankfurt?
1. I don't see why she can't play in Frankfurt after the NWSL season. There is nothing stopping them from signing her on loan when their transfer window is open and she can join when the NWSL season is over. Presumably this is what happened last year as I can remember during one of the late season regular season game, Coach G mentioned how several of the Reign players will be going to Germany. So I can't see any reason why this can not be the case again this year, do you? 2. You must have miss my earlier comment stating her LOAN spell is over. Her last game was last week when they lost 2-1 to Postdam in the German cup. Here is the lady herself tweeting a few minutes ago NOW ... Get me on that REIGN TRAINNNNNNN .. Choooo Choooo @SeattleReignFC 🚂🚂🚂 !?!?— Jessica Fishlock MBE (@JessFishlock) April 6, 2015
Yes I missed that...good to have her back. As I recall Frankfurt refused to do a loan this time but Fishlock's contract was structured with certain out clauses. As to Fishlock missing the transfer window at the end of the season, that was a concern expressed by her.
I personally do not think Fishlock will be playing in Europe again. I think the only reason she went there was because Australia had an abbreviated season. I think she will return to playing the NWSL/W-League schedule again.
I think the issue that came up on the Thorns thread and is here as to Fishlock is: Are NWSL teams going to keep taking players on loan where their primary teams are elsewhere or are they going to move away from that and insist on being the primary team for their players, thus controlling whether the players do or don't get loaned to other teams -- and thus controlling whether the players are here for the entire NWSL season subject only to national team commitments? That seems to be at least the direction some teams are taking, and it seems to me to be a very good thing. Fishlock is a prime example of why it's good. She's great for the NWSL and we want her here and Seattle, for the time being, has it set up that way.
The problem with new Thorn philosophy, and I dont disagree with it, is it's hard to demand to be the primary team when u r only willing to pay for five months service and have salary cap restrictions to boot.
True. It depends, of course, on what a player could earn elsewhere as well as on other factors such as whether the player would like to spend some time in the US, whether there is a good additional employment opportunity in the US or in the competing team's country, etc., etc. But, apparently the Thorns think it's a viable approach.
France will play Russia Fri 22nd of May ( Chateauroux) and Scotland Thu 28th of ( Nancy) as part of the WWC warm up— Sylvain Jamet (@S_Jamet) April 7, 2015
Blaze posted the final roster above, but here's a different look of the same: As for starting 11 tomorrow? All the Europeans (except for Veje who joins July 1st) appear to be in town and ready to go, so I'm guessing no big surprises: Solo Reed/Fletcher/Barnes/Cox Winters/Fishlock/Little Mathias/Yanez/Rapinoe
Good article in the Seattle Times (online) by Jayda Evans. I don't know what kind of coverage the Reign received preseason and leading up to the season opener but at least, for now, it looks like the Seattle Times has a reporter assigned to cover them. Hopefully local news coverage will help the Reign. The opening day attendance of 2600, while not horrible, was disappointing.
The Reign should do a better job of making sure their games don't run up against the Sounders.. While the Sounders were out of town, the game was against the Galaxy and kick-off was only a few minutes after kick-off for the Reign game.. I would not be surprised if the bars around Seattle Center were quite full of people watching the Sounders games and if the Reign had started the game at 1 or 7, then those people could have gone to the Reign game and then watched the Sounders game. I saw a number of comments from Sounders fans that were annoyed by the start time and saying they would have gone to the game if it wasn't at the same time.
First off, this was a great game to watch. For a first game of the season, the quality was quite high and the pace as well. Apart from the Dash/Spirit game, all other games this weekend looked like it was played in slow motion. The Flash came strong out of the gate and it reminded me of a Ronda Rousey fight where her opponents always stormed out only to be arm-bared into submission 14 seconds later. The Flash and in particular Leroux was really pushing the pace right of the gates and was controlling the game for the first 5 minutes. The Reign weather that stormed and once they got control of the pace, they were able to neutralize the Flash's pace. In the first half, it was really weird seeing Little so far out on the wing. What was also strange was that it was on Rapinoe's side of the field and she is someone who don't need the help. She really was not needed there. I expected her to help out on the right where Mathias and Reed where struggling to get past the half way point against a rookie. For this reason, we barely got anything going in the middle which had acres of space In the second half, Little return to her normal position and we were able to finally exploit that and the right side which by my calculation is where all the second half goals came from. Overall, I was more impressed with the offense in this one game than most of last year. The offense was quite multi-faceted as the team was able to break the defense by the long ball (goal 1), intricate passing through the middle (goal 2, 4, 5) and great wing play (goal 3). What's also impressive is they were all in the run of play, unlike last year. As for the defense, what can be said. They were solid through out and effectively (except for the mental lapse that led to the only goal conceeded) contained the Flash speed. Solo really didn't need to make any difficult saves. What she needs to work on though is clearing the ball effectively when under pressure.