The US WNT Olympic Roster has been announced

buehler over krieger!!

this was my only question mark. but as i thought about it last night, i realized that krieger hadn't played with this team much, so i thought buehler would get the nod.

 

No surprises. I'm glad the alternates are going to Europe with them in July. I'm hoping they will stay and train with the team, too. You just never know when someone will go down with another ACL injury.

It's funny. Many of the "older" players that are going to shine under Pia are the same players that I was un-impressed with under the Ryan era.

 

I think this is the best possible team Pia could've chosen from the pool of players available.

 

Great lineup. Cox must be on Cloud Nine. And lest we forget, the alternates as well as Osborne and Whitehill are great players too.

 

you know this? how?

as i look at the list, these older players played well under ryan too. they have carried the team for several years now.

i just hope the team can go past where they went in the wwc and bring home the gold.

 

What an emotional rollercoaster for Cox! One minute she's sent home, devastated, likely not even an alternate. A month later she's on the team. It's a nice story.

 

I wish I could find the main bio page. I'm getting rusty on some of these girls. I'm surprised to see Bueller on there, but I hope she does well. My parents live in Del Mar.

 

Which players are those?

 

tks mook

 

Am I the only one who would respond “Hucles”?

For all the criticism of Ryan, Pia takes 14 of the 15 players who went to the World Cup and are able to play this year, excluding Scurry as an alternative, plus Mitts who would also have gone.

 

How is this relevant. Those of us who have been critical of Ryan, criticized his tactics or lack thereof, not his team selection. I wouldn't expect a huge turnover in the player pool in the year between the World Cup and the Olympics. There will likely be more turnover after the Olympics.

 

On the podcast, Sundhage has some interesting things to say about Hucles' development. Paraphrasing, Hucles has really gotten exponentially better recently, especiallly in terms of speed and varying of play.

 

Only if you think a "nice story" includes 2 ACL tears by teammates. Don't get me wrong, I think she's a decent player and I hope she does very well in the Olys.

I agree casoccerdad47, those who expected major roster changes in this very short window btwn the WWC and Olys weren't being realistic. Evan Pia stated that the lack of time btwn the two for adjustments is one of the shortcomings/weaknesses of this team. Of the 13 players on this roster who were on the '07 roster, several were underused (at best) and have had a great year this year.

Time will tell as to whether this team will win gold or not. However, I think we've seen some much needed tactical and philosophical changes. In the conference call on the podcast, Pia mentioned the need for speed and shape/tactical variations in the international game. We've also seen this team make positive adjustments at half. All improvements, imo.

Shout out to GLBryan for the Wagner question, too. As we though, the Peace Cup games were her last chance. Did she really play out wide at one point in the Peace Cup? Pia mentioned it. That's an interesting thought.

eta: Here's a quote sheet from the players.

 

Hucles is the first name. I agree with the quote from Pia about Hucles exponential growth as of late.

Wagner is next. I think that she has never played to her potential. She was once the up and coming golden girl of women's soccer, but due to injury or the team system or some other reason I do not know of, she was never quite that player. When I saw her play in the final at the Peace Queen Cup, I could finally see what she was capable of. She may not be there yet as far as health, but she brought something different to the game that seemed to be missing.

And finally we have Kai and A-Rod. Kai didn't get the playing time and Ryan wrote off A-Rod because she missed training for school. I know these 2 players aren't "older" but they are definitely benefitting from the change as well.

 

What do you mean kai didn't get playing time? what have you been watching over the last few years. You can criticize ryan for his playing style and maybe a couple of other things, but giving new/ younger players a chance is not one of them.

 

Mookie makes a good point. It's not that Ryan didn't call younger players into camp, it just seems like he didn't inspire/motivate/develop players. Early analysis seems to indicate that Pia has this going for her. I'm optimistic she can continue this trend.

 

To be fair to Wagner, she has never been put in a position to run a team by either Ryan or Hendricks. Both disdained the concept of a playmaking Mid in favor of the "direct" style of play. (You know, boot the ball OVER the midfield, Those players don't do anything but take up space on offense)

If she did anything but boot the ball in the box for a forward to run under she got the hook.

Ali is a great creative playmaker--USE her like one and see what she can do...

BTW, today's European final was a great example of how a creative midfield can tear apart the "direct" style of play.

 

nobody slept on kai except kai herself. she was pushed a lot by ryan to improve too and she kept not taking the game and her fitness seriously. i don't know that we can credit her (and lloyd's) improvement just to pia when young players simply have an unpredictable learning curve. these players are simply improving as they should with another season of soccer under their belts.

now, for older players like hucles i'd give just about all the credit to pia. hucles is not a young player being brought into the team. i can't see any other reason for her improvement other than the new coach (and of course the player herself simply deciding to step up her game - we tend to forget that players are free moral agents and make decisions on their own as well).

i don't remember this at all. i remember wagner being given full reign to quarterback the game. but she kept losing the ball because she needed too much time on the ball to make her exquisite plays. and when she had to play defense she just looked like molasses as players kept pulling away from her. but she was given a lot of chances.

she was injured a lot in 2007, and by that time lloyd was already getting good. but in 2006 she played 21 out of 22 games starting in 19 of them and playing most of the game most of the time even going the full 90 a few times.