PBP: USWNT WWC '11 Final Roster

That's easy. Stipulating that Brazil, Germany, England, Nigeria, and Australia are the fastest teams, the USA won't advance far enough to meet them.

 

yeah, maybe they should give Morgan the chance to start...

 

At least Abby sort of acknowledges that they can be beaten by Sweden and N. Korea on any given day

 

No.

I think it's 3 out of 3. But these are still middle of the pack teams for speed in the context of the World Cup.

 

Did they say anything interesting at the beginning of the chat?

 

I've argued against it. But I may be changing my mind. Just the experience of those first WPS games, and doing well, is big in my mind. I wish she had at least half a season of those games but... looking at kool-aide's comparison with the 2008 roster is just depressing. The only place where we can reasonably hope to be significantly better than we were in 2008 is with her.

I'm depressed.

 

Gosh, do I dare say it?

It's not like any of us has been saying this wasn't going to be at least semi-tough.

 

No one expects winning a major international competition to be a cakewalk. It would be nice though, now that the roster is set, if the US coaching staff would pick more effective formations and tactics and not make this World Cup more difficult than it already is. (For example, maybe straying from the 4-4-2 or perhaps never putting LePeilbet at outside back). Trotting out the same lineup or formation throughout a grueling tournament isn't going to help the cause.

 

She is now and congratulations to her, and I would be surprised if it wasn't the GK coaches call.

I like the idea of doing it now and getting it out of the way so the players can stop worrying about it and start wrapping their heads around Germany.

There is only one coach who has been in two Women's World Cup finals. Last week he said women peak around 27 (or 28 can't remember).

You want your Alex Morgan's to keep the locker room fresh, and your Christie Rampone's to keep it real, but I'm not sure you can target a better average age.

 

Screw that. Harris comes up big in the big games and she's proven it a number of times. With North Carolina, in WPS last year, and (I believe) with the U20s.

And she has the unique background of having done it as a sub as well (Dorrance platooned his GKs at North Carolina for a while when she was recovering from her ACL injuries - Harris would come in for the 2nd half)

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I'm a big Val Henderson fan being UCLA and all that, but my respect for Ashlyn Harris is tremendous. It would be hard for me to be objective if Val was in the mix but I would have no problem with people taking Ashlyn over Val.

 

This isn't correct. Wait until you see the other teams rosters.

I loath Pia.

Yes, great article from Yael - She is a quality person.

 

I question this. Not questioning that the peak age is 27 or 28 but whether the average should be that. The problem is once you go past that peak, it seems you tend to go downhill a little faster. The downhill slope is steeper than the uphill side.

I'm speculating here or repeating what I take to be conventional wisdom. If true, then of course you want players 27 or 28, but the average should be less than that.

 

Jacqueline Purdy piece on ESPN.

and their wire service piece titled "Hope Solo Returns for World Cup"

They must love that up in Boston BreakerLand

 

Just to be clear, the average age you were responding to (26.6) is not the average for all players on the squad (which is 27.4). It is the average age of the players on this squad who were not on the 2008 Olympics roster. That there is so little difference between the two illustrates that there is little real new blood; the first-timers are mostly drawn from players who have already been on the fringes of the national team for many years.