PBP: USWNT WWC '11 Final Roster

Question. Would a failure to get out of the group be a good or a bad thing?

 

It's hard to see how that would help the WPS. And without the WPS, it's hard to see how the WNT has the potential to develop further.

 

Mookie, u can plus 1 me on that too.
"why do you have to watch women's soccer? UGGGHHH" "what's wrong with you" "you're waking up at what time to watch women kick a ball?"

I'm not on Tweeterworld. what was said between Lloydster and Hansolo?

I 100 percent reserve the right to make analysis of any of our national team players in any sport. We are not making personal attacks on the players, nor would I ever. I will critique their game though, heavily. I think it's safe to say every girl on the team is a quality person - sans Pia. ;-)
I can't stand her right now and would like to verbally engage her, but I refrain.

 

I've been reading the twitter conversation between those fans and Hope Solo and Carli Lloyd. I find it a little silly that those players feel the need to acknowledge the fans (but I agree with the fans completely). To me, Solo and Lloyd's defensiveness means they actually find truth in the comments. If someone told a player who was confident in herself or her teammates that they better put up or shut up, she'd laugh it off and move on, not have a twitter battle. I hope they realize that criticizing players for their performance or coaches for their coaching isn't the same thing as criticizing someone's character.

Let's hope instead of engaging fans on twitter, Lloyd or Solo runs back and tells Pia about the criticisms of this team, and Pia has an epiphany.

Also, can someone tell me why mainstream sports media who cover women's soccer don't write about the things we notice? Is there some unwritten rule that the US team can't be criticized? I find it hard to believe that soccer journalists haven't noticed the same problems all of us notice game in and game out. Aside from Kate Markgraf and Tony Dicicco, I can't think of many people I've heard outside BS comment on this team's shortcomings.

 

haven't we been asking, even begging for non cookie cutter players?

and for hope solo type twitter responses?


my opinion:
this team (except for loyden) is exactly the team i thought would be picked.

i couldn't see how ohara could make the team. she's not better than hao, heath, or rapinoe, and she can't fit into any other position.

i couldn't see how averbuch (admirable dedication from her) could make the team. she's not better than lloyd or lindsey, and she is not a dmid or a wide mid. again, just my o.

otoh, i'd have tried out other people who i have hawked on this board at right and center back, but the coaching staff see these players more than i do, and have their performance stats staring them in the face every day. if they were too old and slow i don't think they'd be on the team.

my own opinion is that the u.s. is not producing the same % of world class players like we did when we started out ahead of the world's women. so, even if this is the best "team" according to pia, i'm not sure we're good enough.

but i'm a fan, and i'm optimistic.

u! s! a!, u! s! a!, u! s! a!

coaching is always hazardous to your (reputation's) health. dicicco's coaching has looked positively pedestrian recently. his wc pronouncements may sound rather empty if he doesn't win a few games.

 

Ads13, i like your post. - the press/people do wear baby gloves w/ these girls.

i just joined twitter to see what they are posting. It's kind of shocking. Very 13 year old school girl. These are the girls of character that Pia wants to lead USA to a gold? It really just shows their insecurity. All the "critics" said were comments about Lloyd losing the ball often in the midfield and the same players as 08 predictably being chosen for this WC.

This is what Lloyd last wrote, which is odd? :
"I'm not here to play for anyone but my teammates. The real ppl know what I can bring to the table n how I play."

You're playing for America!!, not just your teammates. Is this some sort of sad sorority?

 

U.S. mainstream media only covers the WWC and Olympics. When they cover these two tournaments, they purposely stay oblivious to the truth, mostly to feed off the last remnants of the hugely successful imagery created by the WNT of the 90's.

Like everybody else, the folks behind the current WWC media agenda think it's easier to live on the lie. Easier than having to promote and deal with the reality of the current WNT program. The big paradox is that the coverage of this WWC will be the best ever, at a time when the U.S. is at it's most vulnerable. They can't hide those facts when the tournament begins.

No amount of patronising inane fluff talk can cover the obvious faults of the team if they fail to lift the trophy in 2011. So it doesn't help either that by lacking creative stars and much flair, and based on how they currently play, USA can't even win over viewers on ideological style points either. This is why certain players have now all ready begun to lash out at the slightest hint of fan criticism.

Nobody wants to see poor or negative play from a high ranking team, especially when that team can't even justify it's ugly nature with major wins. You play ugly, you better win. In a far better developed soccer America, fans and the WNT players will fully understand that logic.

Crazy thing about this 2011 side is that the pressure and expectation to not only win, but win pretty, is coming from a very deluded coach. Right now just trying to win ugly is already looking like really hard work, but the coach is adamant they do both. Players snapping at loyal fans for mentioning things related to this problem, is just a bad sign of what's possibly to come.

 

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Are you done weaving your conspiracy theories, yet?

You want to know what the "WWC media agenda" is? To make enough money to cover the costs. Which also happens to be the "NBA media", "NFL media", "MLS media" agendas, too.

The biggest problem is that fans of women's soccer as a spectator sport have shown time and time again that they're not interested in paying for anything. Not willing to pay for media when it covers women's soccer, and not willing to support the advertisers that do cover the freight. Heck, they (if you look at the four digit attendances at most WNT games over the last five or six years) barely show up for the actual product in person any more.

I'm a huge supporter of the women's game. During the seven years I published the ECG (2000-2006), there was women's soccer articles in pretty much every issue. I only made the mistake of putting women on the cover once. Well, I did layout a second issue with women on the cover, but that issue never got got published.

Until fans of women's soccer buying media, they're only going to get dribs and drabs - and most of that from unpaid bloggers.

I'd love to see more media analysis and coverage, too. But it doesn't come for free.

 

so we can call these women out when they are not being real and then call them out and criticize them again when they are real?

qft!!

 

It has nothing to do with whether she can prove us wrong or not.
She can be a bad coach or good coach ... but you can not make comments like that.
It's like saying people cheat or steal, you can not make jokes like that.

Brooklynsoccer, I read some of your posts, many of them are mediocre, but you are a cheat.








BTW, I am not really serious.

 

Women's professional sport is a nascent market. And there is some great women's content like SheKicks (FairGame) and Our Game. Quite a step up from WSW (which was wonderful). It will be a great market and evolve in it's own time and I look forward to watching it grow.

 

I agree with this post, 90%.
Pia said she did not pick the best players but she picked the best players that can play together, if that is true, she should have done 2 things:
1) Since we have slow backline, add a player who may have less skill and tactical savy but more speed and hope her teammates back her up while she helps them out with her speed, eg Wilson or McNeill
2) Our midfield has trouble holding the ball, add a player who maybe not as strong and big but with good ball handling ability, eg, Tina Dimartino.

 

Could it be that most folks don't think the sky is actually falling?

This board has become devoted to the collective prediction of impending disaster; the outside world doesn't see it that way. Partly the outside world
doesn't see it that way because they don't look at it much, but mostly I think it is because the folks on this board look at it constantly and and support each other in point of view until it reaches the point of feedback-like screech. Molehills become mountains and winning ugly becomes losing.

Someplace out there is a group of fans of the Spanish men's national team who talk every day about how lucky their team was to win the world cup when thay weren't very manly, just passed the ball around a lot instead of knocking people down like the big strong admirable Dutch team they should play more like. Honest-- there is such a cluster somewhere, I promise you.

This board is a cluster here about our favorite team, and as whole it has become so devoted to the notions that we are ancient when in fact we are a bit oldish, that we are slow when its more a matter of not fast, that we score so little we'd be better off without our top scorer, that our coach makes so many wrong decisions that she must be selling us out, that x player at y position is so bad that we'd be better off taking y player from x position and converting them (unless somethng like that is tried and doesn't work immediately in which case it was stupid in the first place) that our formation is what's keeping us from controlling the midfield (although it is a formation normally chosen to increase the chances of controlling the mdfield) and so on and so forth.

I think folks here see any thing that's not going well, big or little, and construe it through their personal senses of how things should be done, and then support each other in criticisms until Chicken Little becomes God.

I have my stuff too--I wish we had just committed to Cox on the left; she's the best option. I wish I knew why Le Pielbet seems to be a turnover goddess this year. I am concerned that this team has some potential to have the same kind of health issues April's did. I wish Angeli hadn't gotten hurt. I am aware we don't control the midfield very well and think we won't no matter what the formation...

More to the point, I don't think this team is as good as the last three or four. We just don't get to have half the best players every cycle. Its a transitional team-- the next Olympic team will be much younger, of that I am sure. The following WC team will likely be of a similar average age but more uniformity and will probably be a better team overall.

But this the best team we have, and it is good enough. If you want a guarantee, get a Westinghouse. I feel reasonably confident of our prospects, see no reason to think that Brazil will be as good as their last three teams, and think Germany is not quite the Colossus folks credit them as either. I'm much more concerned about the overall strength of the field than I am about the supposed leviathans. Look out for the ones with nothing to lose.

I think the Italy series SHOULD have brought home to all of us, not how poor the US team is, but just how good the team that didn't get in is. If that wasn't enough, then the England game should have rung that bell; I said two years ago that England was my dark horse to win it all, and see no reason to change that belief.

All well and good-- but I will point out that I said on the eve of the Olympics that I was confident we would win it even without Abby, and we did. I say now that barring further injury, we CAN win the WC this time, and I look forward to watching the attempt.

If you want a guarantee, go be a Yankee fan.

 

I can't agree with this analysis. The quality of the players coming out of the college system, flawed as it is, continues to improve. Where there used to be one or two players graduating with the potential to be a WNT player, now there are half a dozen or more who could make a credible case.

The WNT is failing to develop its youth, plain and simple. The starting WNT roster has no business playing and winning every friendly. It's a meaningful, tiring exercise that breeds complacency. The veterans shouldn't need the practice, particularly with the domestic league playing at a high level. Rather, the young players need to take the field and demonstrate what they can do with and for each other and their country.

 

Thanks for that. I too get tired of people feefing off of each other's negativity.

 

I don't know what you are looking at but DiMartino isn't in Lindsey's league, IMO. Last weekend's game was especially telling. She can run around with the ball quite well, but doesn't seem to know when to dish or gets it taken away b/c she's held too long. She could be a very good distributor but she needs some work, and that takes time. She's not ready for international duty.