PBP: USWNT WWC '11 Final Roster

Agree 100% on this.

 

This combines WNT players who don't play as much as you think they should and WNT players playing out of position with WPS standouts who deserve a chance but have not received it yet.

Let's take the WPS players first. Falk (way too slow and injured now), Ellerston, Wilson and McNeill do not excite me and I would much rather see Engen or Taylor. I think you are 100 percent right about taylor being a better option at outside back than Engen, which is why she would be my replacement for Mitts. But they are both on the WNt player pool so how is that not getting a fair shake, which implies that Pia didn't even look at them. She did and went with more experienced players. We might not like the decision, but it's not like she didn't give them a chance.

Central mids. I agree completely about Edwards. But living in Philly, I don't think Lindsey is even the best CM on her club team (Farrelly). Sure she's a good passer but she is quite slow and I much prefer Averbuch, Edwards and Lloyd. I also agree that Boxx has slowed greatly in recent years and that concerns me a heck of a lot more than Lloyd, who has been the team's leading scorer this year. But would you have not picked Boxx for WWC or would you bench her? That's a tough one.

DiMartino would have been my choice over O'Hara as Tarpley's replacement for the reasons you stated. But she did get a look and the staff chose to go in another direction. I think she is more of a wing than attacking mid cause of her size.

On players playing out of position, that was due largely to injury and also experimenting during friendlies. Averbuch was capped 10 times last year, including five starts, and most of that came at CM. She had her chance and Pia went with Lindsey for WWC, right or wrong.

And who are the other LB options she could have tried over Buehler (who is back at CB after just a game or two outside I think) this year? Rampone maybe?

As for Cheney at wing, that was just 30 minutes or so in a Japan game and was designed to get her on the field. Otherwise she has played strictly at forward. I think you really have explained her unique strengths as a player well. I actually liked the way the team functioned when Abby was hurt and you had her, ARod, Morgan and Lloyd providing the offensive punch. Cheney is much more of a complete offensive player than Abby. But can Pia bench Abby or even not play her 90? Another tough call.

I think WPS has allowed players to develop but it has only been less than three years so we might not see all the fruits of the league for WNT just yet. But young US players are getting chances to play against top talent and that's good enough for me. Why call in someone like Masar if you already know that you have four or five forwards ahead of her on the depth chart. You would just be stringing her along, taking her needlessly away from her club and taking time away from all of the young forwards we have like Morgan, ARod and Cheney.

As for some of those players you mentioned being out of form, I disagree with a few of them. Lloyd has not been out of form this year and Cheney was the second-leading goal scorer on the team last year. What are these stats you are talking about?

Maybe you are right about complacency with some of the top players. I'm just not so sure there are that many superior options at this point. For a meaningless friendly, I wouldn't mind using your strategy to motivate a vet. But I would be more reluctant to do it with younger players like ARod, Cheney and Heath, because I would want to see them play as much as possible and would not want to play with their heads when I know they are going to be a big part of the future.

 

I didn't say players in other countries didn't go to college or hold down jobs. I was saying that was nothing equivalent to NCAA caliber competition in other countries.

I did not mean to say they couldn't ever get out of school commitments; I said they cannot always get out of them. Nor do they always want to. It depends on the kid, school, time of year and opportunity presented.

 

1. The "rarely used" Lori Lindsey has appeared in 7 out of 10 games this year.

2. Averbuch has appeared in three games this year, none of them on the wing.

You are entitled to your own opinions. You are not entitled to base them your own facts.

Osborne to my eyes is not the player she was before injury; she is very tentative offensively. Every feed from her is thought about twice, and every one is two feet to the "safe" side when it comes-- which amounts to arranging for someone else to be charged with the turnover.

She'll get over it; but there's no reason to let her do so at the National level.

That's my opinion, based on watching her. I do not claim it as fact.

I also think it is a little odd to argue that Arod and Cheyney are out of form --despite their statistics-- yet that Masar wasn't playing at a similar level to present her first year, because she didn't happen to score. The stats may be evidence or they may not, but you seem to want them to trump observation when it fits your prejudice one way and not when it fits one the other way.

Just my opinion. I don't claim it as fact.

 

No I am not. I didn't even mention the leagues. I guess I am saying that D1 NCAA is probably a higher level of competition than foreign universities. I'll match a good ACC or Pac10 team up against a German or Swedish college team any day.

But you just made my point. In Europe, they play in leagues when they are 18-22 yrs old for the competition. Here, when it comes to women's soccer, almost every WNT player I know of played D1 for four years. It is the training ground that leads to pro soccer.

Paul Riley gave an interview last year where he expressed some surprise/dismay about the American women's approach. It was almost like he was calling for something like what MLS does with academies and Gen Adidas rather than have them go to school for four years. Only problem with that is that so few players make it professionally in the women's game that it does not make sense to forfeit a free college education for a program like that.

Again, I was talking about the role NCAA serves here compared to the role college soccer serves in other countries.

And again, I did not say they couldn't get out of a commitment for USWNT but then it's also very rare that a college kid gets that kind of invite. Maybe one or two a year in all of NCAA. I was saying some kids might CHOOSE to stay in school depending on the time of year and the nature of the invite and the kid's natural inclinations.

For example, hypothetically, if Pia called Leroux this November and said she wanted her to participate in a training camp to be considered for a friendly roster, Leroux might stay with UCLA as they are getting ready for the NCAAs. But if Pia called over the winter with an invite for a camp leading up to a tourney, Leroux might jump at the chance. Who knows, every kid is different. But I know a lot of them that really value education and also want to honor their scholarships and be there for their teammates.

 

This is a nonsensical argument. You can't name a European college that plays women's soccer at any kind of competitive level because soccer in Europe is played at the club level from age six to the pro's. This is true whether you are talking men or women.
Even if they play sports in Europe at a university, they are individual club sports.

I'll match a good European age level club team ( say, Ümea or perhaps Sunderland) against any ACC OR PAC 12 team any day, or against almost any USA club.


If you want to compare, be realistic. Pick the best of each system.

 

This would be a very unusual occurrence. What does occur, occasionally, is that there are negotiations between the national team and the college coach over the amount of time the player will be away from her college team. It also depends on what the upcoming national team event is going to be -- for example, a simply friendly or World Cup qualifying. It is a very rare occurrence, however, for a college player not to go at all when called to the national team (I don't recall ever hearing of such a case). It's very rare also for U-whatever players not to go when called, although teams like the U23s tend to call non-college players for camps during the college season.

 

There was at least one case.

A UCLA press release said Lauren Cheney declined for academic reasons when she was called up right at the end of the NCAA season. As CTP says, it wasnt for a qualifier, though. I bet it happens more often, we just don't get press releases about it.

Sinclair took a full year National team redshirt one year to avoid the issue, and was restricted her sophomore year in the number of camps that Canada called her to. Her college team also held her out of some games her sophomore year (2002, which was a championship year for UP).

Also, during the runup to the u20 World Cup in Chile, the registrar at Portland restricted the number of camps the underclassmen ( Reed, Winters) could go to in preparation for the cup. Enyeart, being an upperclass student, was not restricted.

 

I feel like I was kind of lured into the comparison. My original point up thread was that the American system is one where high school/ODP is followed by NCAA scholarships, which bring extra complications when young players are balancing the college season/ school and WNT opportunities. I was saying that it is a different soccer culture than the one existing in Germany, which, as you correctly stated, is dominated by clubs rather than NCAA. I still say there is less complication in plucking a kid out of a Euro club for national team duty than plucking one out of NCAA in-season.

Wouldn't you also think that Pia might not even bother calling some -- not all certainly -- kids during NCAA season. I would think that they might have some kind of understanding that the kid wants to honor her commitment to the school and her teammates.

 

Interesting blog entry from Stephanie Cox:

http://portlandpilots.com/news/2011/5/26/WSOC_0526115409.aspx?path=wsoc

 

Actually, it was for January or February camp. I'm pretty sure finals were over. I think she had catch-up work to do. There was a lot of gnashing of teeth in December when the team was announced and she wasn't on it, but the camp wasn't until later.

I'm also pretty sure it was in her junior year, so graduation wouldn't have played into it. Her eligibility after 8 months of playing soccer might have been an issue, though.

 

But again, my original point was not that Europeans don't have to balance things at that age. The original topic was why German players start on their national team earlier than ours do and you've turned it into a life balance debate that I want no part of.

I merely said there was a different soccer culture here and that it was easier for Europeans to play on national teams at that age because they did not have to deal with NCAA. In Europe, club and school are separate. Here, school and college soccer are under the same bureaucratic roof and that comes with unique complications.

You sort of put me on the witness stand and took me for a ride. First you asked if I was saying that Europeans didn't hold jobs and go to school at the same time. Then when I said that's not what I was trying to say, you asked if I was trying to say that European leagues were inferior to NCAA, which, again, I was not trying to say (although Cliveworshipper makes a good point that I probably should not have compared NCAA with European university athletics). I certainly could have articulated my point better.

Of course some elite players like HOR that excel at a young age have been asked and accepted WNT invites-- even during NCAA season. But I firmly believe that WNT coaches also reach understandings with some players and their college coaches before a college season starts about the player's availability in the fall or during finals like Mookie said. And that would not make the press because an invite was never actually extended.

 

In the United States, a player almost has to play college soccer to continue through the national team system, to have a chance to play in WPS, etc.

There is no such intermediate step in most other countries. If they're good enough, they will start playing at the top club level against the best competition their country has to offer...and a chance to immediately impress a national team coach.

So I'll put this question out there, disregarding everything else that a college education brings to the student, does college soccer develop a player's talents enough to warrant four years of their soccer careers? Meanwhile, their counterparts in Germany, Brazil, Sweden, Japan, etc. are already playing against top level competition for those four years. Again, I'm not making a judgment, I'm just asking the question for opinions.

 

Again, it's not a comparison. An NCAA player gets an education, presumably. A European club player gets an education in spite of soccer, not because of it. For all but 40 or so players each year, I think it's a better deal for NCAA players.

NCAA soccer is NOT intended a a path to the national team by either the NCAA or USSoccer. The make decisions pretty independent of each other. Just a look at the conflicting rule books will show you that. They don't even play the same game.

Free substitution, fixed clock, etc, do not prepare players for the international game. Neither does 20 games a year Over only 11 weeks( a club player will play three times that many games) Neither does expecting half of those games to be played with one day of rest. Neither does limited practice during the non competition season. Neither does the restriction of movement from team to team. Neither does age restriction. Neither do a whole list of other issues.


Either the NCAA will change to better prepare players, or the best players will not pursued NCAA ball. That has already started on the men's side with PDL. The BYU men don't even play NCAA ball, but only play in the PDL. At least a couple of other programs are considering the switch.

The women will not be far behind, and from the history with the men, neither the NCAA nor USSoccer are much interested in a joint effort. The NCAA's main concern is about keeping title IX numbers up, not developing players for the international game. That's only incidental to the mission. To pretend otherwise is folly.

 

We're really diverting from this thread's topic, but what the heck, it's pretty exhausted anyway.

Regarding Euro women's soccer, I don't know the extent to which England is a special case, but ...

Two years ago, my wife and I (and my sister-in-law) were in Yorkshire staying with a family that had two sons and a daughter, roughly 13 (son), 11 (daughter), and 7 (son). (They were Newcastle fans.) The boys were into sports, and the girl was athletic, and I asked the parents whether the girl played soccer. They were familiar with girls' soccer in the US and told me that in England, it was nothing like in the US. They said that only the very rare girl played soccer in England and gave me the impression (I think quite sadly from their perspective) that it was considered quite odd for a girl to play soccer. I don't know what it's like elsewhere in Europe, but if it's anything like in England, then it's very hard to do a comparison between soccer development in Europe and in the US.

Now, before you tell me these parents didn't know what they were talking about, I should tell you that the mother had been a professional soccer player.

 

Maybe the thread's wandering but still there's very good discussion here, as for example Cville KC's comment above (and quoted below).

Like you, I'm not making a judgment. I don't know.

Carry on.

 

I am an American that lives in Germany. My kids (daughter & son) grew up here playing soccer in the German club system and then went back and played college soccer. I would say nearly every boy plays soccer in Germany. For girls, maybe only 20%, but the ones that do play very seriously and their system is run like the boys.

 

Which brings us to why there is no PDL in the USA women's game, I guess.

 

Not to scare the shit out of you all but Germany highlights of their last match is up:
http://tv.dfb.de/index.php?view=3403

Popp and Kulig looked really great. Two young players for Germany who have really been developed over the last three years by their amazing coach, Silvia. If Pia had half her ability we'd be in better shape.

Remember when Morgan and Leroux were more talented than Popp and Kulig three years ago.. now? shit.

Notice both Popp's and Kulig's finishing on both their goals. SICK. both are mids too.

I don't believe NCAA is the highest competition for 18-22 year old women. Perhaps 15, 10 years ago, but now? No.

(Grings should have had a hat trick too) They are going to be so fun to watch.
Also, those brazillian highlights posted were great. who is that new fast winger they have?

 

Popp's finish on the final goal was fantastic. Very tough to execute well, and she did. The biggest difference I see between the Germans and the U.S. team is the off-the-ball movement. The U.S. seems very static in comparison; too locked into their rigid formation.

Not that it matters, but Germany's two-tone kits are very ugly. I would assume they'll be wearing their traditional white and black kits on home turf.

What Brazil highlights are you talking about, Brooklyn?