Freedom Insider

Thought I would kick the week off with some updates, beginning with the WPS All-Star game. After falling behind 2-0 in the first half, the WPS All-Stars scored 4 unanswered goals to beat visiting Umea IK 4-2 in Saint Louis yesterday. Freedom All-Stars Abby Wambach and Cat Whitehill came in to play the entire second half, a half that saw Christine Sinclair score the game’s final two goals in the span two minutes.

It was good WPS won this, especially since Umea IK is Marta’s former team. The three-time FIFA Women’s player of the year did WPS proud with a goal and an assist.

SAUERBRUNN TO NORWAY

I had heard something about this last week and now it is official. According to the Roa IL web site, Freedom defender Becky Sauerbrunn has been loaned to them for the fall. Hopefully this means good things in terms of a relationship between the two clubs as the Freedom are probably still trying to secure the services of discovery player Lene Mykjaland. With Sarah Huffman having played for Roa last year and Sauerbrunn playing this year, hopefully this is the right step to adding more firepower to the Freedom front line.

YEAR-END AWARDS

WPS announced its 2009 award winners Saturday night in St. Louis. It is probably no surprise that the league’s leading scorer, Marta, was named the 2009 Michelle Akers Player of the Year along with the Puma Golden Boot. Up for three awards, mom-to-be and Sky Blue FC player-coach Christie Rampone was named the Hint Water Sportswoman of the Year.

Other award winners were Hope Solo (Goalkeeper), Amy LePeilbet (Defender) and Abner Rogers (Coach), none of which should come as a surprise.

WOMEN’S EURO UPDATE

After falling to Germany 5-1, France advanced to the quarterfinal round of the tournament after tying Norway 1-1 on Sunday. France, Norway and Germany all advanced from Group B with the next round scheduled to run Thursday and Friday. As long as Sonia Bompastor remains in the tournament we will continue to provide updates.

WAMBACH CONVERTING FANS

I’ll finish this post with an All-Star story from the league site. Apparently Abby doesn’t care which team you root for, she just wants you buy tickets. Scroll down to the bottom of the article to read about the encounter.

I will still continue to post here multiple times during the offseason. Just because the players are taking a break it doesn’t mean things stop happening.

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They waited until the final game but the Freedom finally got themselves into the playoffs, and earned a home game in the first round for their troubles.

With a 3-1 win over Sky Blue FC on Saturday, Washington forced SBFC to be the team seating bullets and handed control of the final playoff spot to the Boston Breakers. The Breakers couldn’t capitalize though, and so we will have a rematch of Saturday’s match this week, with the game scheduled for 4 p.m. at the Maryland SoccerPlex.

If Abby Wambach can take control of this game early like she did last week, there is no reason the Freedom won’t be heading to St. Louis to take on Athletica next Wednesday.

W-LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP

Bad news for the W-League team. Hosting the championship game on Friday, the Freedom let an early lead slip away and eventually fell to the defending champion Pali Blues 2-1. These two squads now have a bit more history as the Blues knocked the Freedom out of the W-League playoffs last year.

OTHER NEWS AND NOTES

With a roster littered with European players that will be unavailable for the game, WPS announced roster replacements for the league’s All-Star Game on Aug. 30th in St. Louis. For the Freedom that means U.S. National Team players Abby Wambach and Cat Whitehill will be part of the team that takes on Umea IK on Sunday, Aug. 30.

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What a crazy weekend for the Freedom. Here are some links from the 1-0 win over Saint Louis and an update on the W-League team’s run to the playoffs.

Starting off with the doubleheader at RFK – wow!

I missed the game live because my wife had me take her to go see a teen-aged wizard trying to save the world, but I caught the replay on Comcast later that evening … or I should say I caught the replay of the first half. For whatever reason, when it came time for the second half to start I found myself watching the second half of D.C. United’s 3-1 win over Colorado.

So when I read the Washington Post recap of the game the next morning you can imagine how shocked I was (as I imagine everyone else was as well) at the fact that goalkeeper coach Nicci Wright finished the game in goal … and preserved the shutout. Talk about practicing what you preach. I had joked with Nicci before about being the only keeper standing for the Freedom by the end of the season but little did I think it would actually happen.

The other thing I liked seeing on Saturday was Homare Sawa’s first WPS goal. Most of us have been talking about how she needed to actually be a part of the offense and she finally found the back of the net in a critical game. Apparently that goal was part of a pregame promise Sawa made to Abby Wambach, Cat Whitehill and Erin McLeod in e-mail form. It’s also nice to know that the goal means we are the only team this season that hasn’t lost to Saint Louis.

Outside of the game Saturday there was some craziness as well as the cast from “The Real World” took in the doubleheader. Apparently the big story here though is that Glory and the show’s producers went at it.

Backing up to pregame Saturday, Paul Tenorio of the Post wrote an excellent piece on Sonia Bompastor. Freedom fans have been saying this for a while now but she really is making a name for herself with this new stage and most of the Freedom fans I run into can’t have a conversation about the team without mentioning her. It’s nice to see that she’s getting the recognition she has earned from her play on the pitch.

Speaking of recognition, it was also nice to see Abby scored her 100th international goal in front of her hometown crowd in Rochester. Interestingly enough, that goal was scored against Karina LeBlanc, who has stonewalled Abby on multiple occasions in 3 WPS games this year.

And to wrap up my WPS updates, something I neglected to mention last week (partly because it was released Friday afternoon on the East Coast – something WPS does frequently) is WPS All-Star voting is now open. So let’s do like the fans of the other pro leagues and stuff the ballot boxes with votes for Freedom players. It’s the American thing to do.

W-LEAGUE

So it’s official, the Hudson Valley Quickstrike Lady Blues have clinched the W-League regular season title, finishing 1 point ahead of the Freedom. Washington still makes the playoffs, they just don’t get an automatic bye to the final four.

After the 0-0 tie on Thursday, the Freedom won their last two games in convincing fashion, beating the Connecticut Passion 4-0 on Saturday and the Long Island Rough Riders 7-0 on Sunday. USLSoccer.com is down right now so I will update with links to the boxscores and the schedule once they are up but according to Freedom coach Win Puffer the team will be playing in Atlanta this weekend.

Ok, that’s enough from me right now. Let me know your thoughts on what’s going on in Freedom country, it might be time to hear from someone more than me…

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