Freedom Insider

Yesterday’s news that WPS is discontinuing the operation of the Los Angeles Sol is a huge blow to the league. It’s bad enough the league has taken on the inherit challenges that come with trying to establish a successful soccer league and successful women’s league in the U.S., but to lose the team that dominated the regular season and had the most talented female player on the planet on its roster looks really bad.

If this was the NFL, NBA or MLB, the franchise could have been saved for a while a new owner was found (that’s how we here in Washington got our baseball team after all) but because WPS is only one year old, the option of the league running the franchise is simply not an option.lo

Jeff Kassouf of The Equalizer has attacked this story from all sorts of angles and it is worth checking out his various posts on the topic to get a more complete picture of how this news impacts everyone involved.

My personal, shortened take on this situation is that WPS and its franchises have been in survival mode since the league formed and there will continue to be casualties as the league tries to take hold. I personally have been one of these casualties. You can’t take these things too personally though because everyone making the decisions is just doing what they think will help this thing survive.

As the fallout of this situation continues to ripple throughout the league, the excitement many players and fans felt after the recent draft has been altered. As has been mentioned elsewhere, mid and late round draft picks will now have a tougher fight for a roster spot and players who were on the fringe last year will probably be headed back to the W-League or WPSL to wait until the next round of expansion opens more slots.

The impact on International players will be even more severe, given that teams are still limited to five active International players and most squads have already filled those slots. If you look at the Freedom’s roster, do you cut loose Lisa De Vanna, Homare Sawa, Erin McLeod, Sonia Bompastor or the newly signed Lene Mykjaland if you can bring on Karina LeBlanc or Aya Miyama? Glad I am not the one that has to make that call.

This situation may actually benefit the Freedom in a way also. With the Freedom Futures of the W-League under its umbrella, Jim Gabarra and company will be able to bring in more players, place them on the W-League squad and see how they perform in Gabarra’s system without having to use a pro roster spot. Obviously this is a blow to the players since the Freedom Futures is a completely amateur squad, but I bet there are plenty of players out there willing to play one more year as an amateur if it increased the odds of being raised to pro status in 2011.

As I have also seen mentioned, the problems with the Sol are in no way a reflection of what’s going on with WPS. The spin WPS is using is that it did add two expansion teams this year before this situation went down and if you look at the players brought in this offseason from overseas, there are plenty of people who believe this league will still succeed.

The thing that we need to do as fans though, is actually make sure it does.

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From the league office this evening (of which I will have my reaction and possible implications for the Freedom tomorrow):

WPS Discontinues

Operations of Los Angeles Sol

Dispersal Draft Scheduled for Next Week

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (January 28, 2010) – After several weeks of negotiations with a potential new ownership group fell through at the last minute, Women’s Professional Soccer discontinued operations of the Los Angeles Sol on Thursday. The rights to the 19 players currently held by the Sol will be dispersed during a special draft for the league’s eight franchises on Thursday, February 4 and will be announced later in the day.

“While it’s regrettable to lose the Los Angeles market as part of our WPS footprint, we are pleased to have two new teams coming into the league in 2010,” said WPS Commissioner Tonya Antonucci. “The league and our ownership committee worked incredibly hard over the past month to complete the transaction. In the end, we ran out of time and came up short of where we needed to be funding-wise for the Sol in 2010.”

The Los Angeles Sol had been under custody of the league since late November when AEG gave back its ownership stake in the team to the league.

“Ownership changes are part of pro sports, particularly in a young league, and we have made solid progress in growing WPS from where we were last season,” said Antonucci. “We believe Los Angeles is a healthy, viable market for women’s pro soccer and a city where our league can again thrive with an LA franchise in the future.”

The league will now feature an even eight-team, single table format for the 2010 WPS Regular Season with more details of the 2010 WPS Season to be unveiled next week.

“All the team owners and members of the Board are confident that this setback will be quickly overcome by the exciting developments that the league has in store for the 2010 WPS Season,” said WPS Board Member and Atlanta Beat Chairman T. Fitz Johnson. “This includes two new franchises, the debut of a brand new stadium built specifically for WPS, a longer regular season and an even better product on the field with incoming talent from the college ranks and the many top internationals that have been signed in the off-season.Without question, this season is poised to build on our successful launch year.”

Several of the Los Angeles players, including WPS All-Stars Shannon Boxx and Marta, are signed to multi-year, guaranteed contracts, and are expected to play in WPS for the remainder of their contracts with other WPS teams following the dispersal draft.

The dispersal draft will be held next Thursday with the eight franchises selecting players from the Sol roster over three rounds in the following order:

Round 1
1.    Atlanta Beat
2.    Philadelphia Independence
3.    FC Gold Pride (Bay Area)
4.    Chicago Red Stars
5.    Boston Breakers
6.    Sky Blue FC (NJ/NY)
7.    Washington Freedom
8.    Saint Louis Athletica

Round 2
9.    Saint Louis Athletica
10.    Washington Freedom
11.    Sky Blue FC (NJ/NY)
12.    Boston Breakers
13.    Chicago Red Stars
14.    FC Gold Pride (Bay Area)
15.    Philadelphia Independence
16.    Atlanta Beat

Round 3
17.    Atlanta Beat
18.    Philadelphia Independence
19.    FC Gold Pride (Bay Area)
20.    Chicago Red Stars
21.    Boston Breakers
22.    Sky Blue FC (NJ/NY)
23.    Washington Freedom
24.    Saint Louis Athletica

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A couple of items worth checking out as we head into the weekend.

Potomac Soccer Wire is hearing forward Christie Welsh will be signing with the Freedom before the 2010 season gets underway. I believe someone around here suggested that a while back. The Freedom seem to be pretty stocked at forward but given Welsh’s history with the club, this move should not be a surprise.

More pieces are starting to fall into place as preseason camp gets closer. Today it was announced in a Florida newspaper that the Freedom will spend part of March training at the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Spring Training complex, Dodgertown, in Viero Beach, Fla. The team will be there from March 8-13, playing an exhibition against the Chicago Red Stars on the 12th. Dodgertown will be close to where other WPS teams will be training and of course the weather will be a nice draw.

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Just a quick post to say that draft picks have been added to Roster Tracker. Please note that players have not yet been added to the official rosters as some teams will likely have to make some roster moves in order to add all draftees. As draftees sign contracts with their respective teams, they will be added to the 2010 roster.

As always, comment below and let me know if there are any roster changes I missed.

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I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend and enjoyed the draft on Friday. Now that things are back to business as usual I decided it was finally time to post my thoughts on the draft. This post will be a collection of my thoughts and of links so hopefully there will be something useful for everyone.

To get things going, here is a recap of the Freedom’s seven draft picks from Friday and my initial thoughts.

1. Nikki Marshall, F/D, Colorado – This is the type of player Jim Gabarra loves, one with position flexibility. It sounds like the early plan is for Marshall to be strictly used as a defender (which she has been playing for the U-20 USWNT) but it has to be nice to know that if Wambach, De Vanna and/or Mykjaland all go down, she has the experience to move forward. I was a bit surprised that FSU M and Freedom W-League player Becky Edwards wasn’t selected here but Marshall seems like a solid pick here.

2. Carly Dobratz, M, Washington State – The two biggest needs in this draft were D and defensive M, and Gabarra addressed both with his first two picks. Staying out west for this pick, it appears Dobratz has some offense to her game as she tallied five goals and four assists in 2009. Hopefully her selection will allow Gabarra to get Homare Sawa more involved in the offense.

3. Beverly Goebel, M, Miami – Gabarra went for a second M with his third pick and as was tweeted to me during the draft, apparently it will take at least two players to replace Lori Lindsey. A three-year starter at Miami, Goebel also seems to have more of an attacking nature as her 2009 highlights include scoring a game-winning goal against North Carolina and was second on the team with three goals.

4. Kristi Eveland, D, North Carolina – Women’s soccer’s most prestigious program finally placed a player in D.C. in the fourth round with this selection, and it made former Tar Heel Cat Whitehill pretty happy. On a day where Tar Heels were flying off the board, Eveland should help shore up a Freedom defense that allowed the most goals in WPS last year. Eveland was a four-year starter for the Heels and a two-time ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America first team selection.

5. Lauren Robertson, GK, Ohio State – Smart move by the Freedom here. Obviously we have starter Erin McLeod coming back and legendary GK Bri Scurry coming back but at some point Bri will retire for good and the Freedom will need a backup GK to fill the roster spot. KJ Spisak will probably still be in the mix for the developmental player spot but why not bring in more competition to push for those spots. Robertson appears to be an experienced GK as she started all four years at Ohio State and at the very least should raise the intensity level of the group. Or at least that is what you would expect for someone nicknamed Taz by their Grandma.

6. Mara Osher, D/M, Boston University – Another player that addresses the Freedom’s needs, who just happens to provide the versatility the Freedom roster seems to be known for. Two other things Osher has going for is the fact that she grew up in Rockville, just minutes from the Maryland SoccerPlex and she played for the Freedom’s W-League team.

7. Caitlin Miskel, M/F, Virginia – It took until the seventh round but Gabarra finally added another Wahoo to the roster. Like Osher, Miskel is familiar to the Freedom in that she has previously played for the club’s W-League team and provides the versatility to play multiple positions. Miskel is probably a long shot to make the roster at this point but with the way training camp unfolded last year, we’ll have to see what happens.

Here are some other articles related to the WPS draft and uniform unveiling worth checking out.

Washington Freedom selects Nikki Marshall in first round of WPS draft (Washington Post)

Where were they five years ago? (ESPN.com) – a unique take on Friday’s draft that looked at what each of the 11 first round picks in the draft were up to five years ago. Well worth checking out.

Women’s Professional Soccer Draft Recap (Goal.com)

Marshall Drafted In WPS First Round (CUBuffs.com)

Cougar Soccer Duo Selected in Professional Draft (WSUCougars.com)

Hurricanes’ Beverly Goebel Selected in WPS Draft (Hurricanesports.com)

Seven Tar Heels Chosen In 2010 WPS Draft (TarHeelBlue.com)

Bowyer, Robertson Selected in WPS Draft (OhioStateBuckeyes.com)

Osher, Brown Selected in WPS Draft (GoTerriers.com)

Caitlin Miskel Selected in WPS Draft (Virginiasports.com)

And finally, a couple of videos from draft and the unveiling of the uniforms for 2010. Check out the pinstripes on the blue Freedom uniforms. Are they trying to say they are the New York Yankees of WPS?

Obviously the list above is not all inclusive. I received a list from the league office on the extent of the media coverage surrounding the events Friday and it was a long list. If there is an article or something I missed that is worth checking out, post it below.

I am also finishing an update to the roster tracker and should have that up sometime tomorrow.

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