Freedom Insider

By StarCityFan

Amazingly, despite the months-long drought of wins, the Freedom are still in the driver’s seat when it comes to making the playoffs. They’re competing against the Red Stars, Sky Blue FC and (just barely) the Beat for the fourth and final playoff spot. If they win out, none of those teams can catch them. That may sound tough, but they’re the only one of these teams that has no more matches against teams that are definitely bound for the playoffs, and all but one of their four remaining matches are at home.

Winning out would give them 34 points, but my prediction is that, given the other teams’ schedules and past performance, 29 would probably be sufficient.

The next two matches, both at home, are key as both are against their primary rivals, the Red Stars this Thursday and Sky Blue on Saturday the 28th. Games like these are six-point swings: the difference between winning and losing is the difference between being three points ahead of the opposition or three points behind. Two wins would give the Freedom 28 points with a road match against Chicago and a home match against a floundering Atlanta squad left. Just one point from either of those games should put them over the top, and if it’s not enough, then at least the must-win final match comes against the seventh-place team.

Sky Blue has a game in hand but a much tougher schedule. In addition to playing Washington here, they face the three playoff-bound teams plus Atlanta in Atlanta, where the Beat have actually been able to win a few. The matches against FC Gold Pride, Philadelphia and Boston are at Yurcak Field, which you’d think would be an advantage but has actually been the opposite. Sky Blue is only 1-4-3 on their home soil (guess they haven’t been paying attention to the “Defend Your Turf” campaign).

The Red Stars, other than the home-and-home against the Freedom, play the Independence and Gold Pride in Chicago and would be fortunate to pick up anything more than single points from each of those matches.

The Beat have a home-and-home against the high-flying Boston Breakers, plus they host Gold Pride and Sky Blue before ending the season at the SoccerPlex. They also have a game in hand on the Freedom but are five points back.

Coloring Thursday’s match against the Red Stars will be World Cup qualification matches by various European teams. Sonia Bompastor will be up with the French National Team, while the Red Stars’ Katie Chapman and Karen Carney will be playing for England. Additionally, the Red Stars will be missing defensive stalwart Kate Markgraf due to a concussion. These are all significant absences. Some have expressed a concern over losing Sonia’s presence in the Freedom attack, but I’m more concerned about not having her there to disrupt attacks coming from Washington’s left flank – many’s the time she’s either singlehandedly prevented balls coming in from that corner, or worked with Becky Sauerbrunn to do so.

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By StarCityFan

Washington Freedom (4-6-5, 17 points, 4th place) at Atlanta Beat (3-7-4, 13 points, 7th place)
Wednesday, July 28, 7:30 p.m. EDT
KSU Soccer Stadium, Kennesaw, Ga.
All-time series: Freedom lead 2-0-0
Last meeting: Freedom 2, Beat 0

Once upon a time this looked like an easy three points. Unlike Philadelphia, Atlanta was behaving like a proper expansion team, losing five matches in a row and being little threat to the competition. Of course, that was before the St. Louis Athletica folded and Atlanta picked up a bunch of their key players: Hope Solo, Lori Chalupny, Tina Ellertson, Eniola Aluko and Aya Miyama.

More recently, alas, it’s Washington that’s looked like the expansion team. Since the beginning of June, the Freedom have gone 0-4-4 and are on a three-game losing streak, while the Beat have gone 3-2-3 and are on a two-game winning streak.

When these two teams last played, the Freedom won 2-0 thanks in large part to a stellar, seven-save performance from Erin McLeod in goal. Unfortunately, McLeod is now gone for the season, and Washington will instead rely on their single pickup from the Athletica refugees, rookie goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris. Harris was the primary goalkeeper for the North Carolina Tarheels her sophomore and senior years and split the time her junior year. She’s also spent significant time on the US U-19 and U-21 teams as well as receiving a callup to the full national team last year.

Players to worry about:

Hope Solo – Despite her well-deserved reputation, the Freedom always seem to have Solo’s number. Their all-time record against Team Solo is 2-0-1, with the draw being the first match between the two teams, in which the Freedom managed to claw back from a 3-1 deficit with a header from Sonia Bompastor in stoppage time to eke out a draw. However, this trend is not something we can count on. If Hope is on her usual form, it could be a frustrating night.

Johanna Rasmussen – With Eniola Aluko away on national team duty and Ramona Bachmann not having much impact so far, the Danish forward is the Beat’s primary scoring threat, though with only two goals on the season that’s not saying much. Still, the Freedom’s defense, backed by a rookie goalkeeper, may be vulnerable.

Kia McNeill – If I were to compose a drinking game for this match, one of the entries would be “Kia McNeill fouls Abby Wambach (Double if she gets carded).” And against the Freedom, McNeill has a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time: Bompastor scored her aforementioned header goal after the ball bounced off McNeill’s head first, then in last year’s match at RFK Homare Sawa’s shot bounced off McNeill’s leg and into the net for the game-winning goal. We’ll have to see if the Hope/Kia curse holds or gets broken.

Players to root for:

Ashlyn Harris – Well, duh! Goalkeeper staffing has been an adventure for the Freedom through much of the WPS era, first with Erin McLeod’s green card issues, then with coach Nicci Wright having to don the gloves when Kati Jo Spisak got injured while McLeod was on national team duty. On the other hand, there seems to be a WPS tradition of unsung goalkeepers rising to the task, with Jillian Loyden last year earning Player of the Week honors when she stepped in for Hope Solo, and Karen Bardsley this year proving to be All-World after Jenni Branam was injured. Let’s hope Harris is another name to add to this list.

Abby Wambach – My impression is that the key difference between the Freedom and FC Gold Pride last Sunday was that their world-class striker was better than our world-class striker. Abby had as many chances at Marta, but they all seemed to go off-target or right to the goalkeeper. She seemed to start off the year strongly but has faded in the stretch. Washington needs a Player of the Week performance out of her again, and soon.

Sarah Huffman – Huffy would be my Woman of the Match from Sunday. Full of energy and all over the field, she worked hard to make things happen. Her finest moment might have been one occasion when she was triple-teamed when deep on the right flank but nevertheless cut and weaved into enough room to get off a promising-looking cross. We need more of that.

The bottom line is that, barring a possible Sky Blue FC collapse, there are no easy points any more. Atlanta has bolstered its lineup, FCGP is unstoppable, Philadelphia is formidable and Chicago and Boston are getting their acts together. Washington needs to do the same if they’re to remain in the playoff hunt.

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By StarCityFan

Washington Freedom (4-5-5, 17 points, 4th place) at FC Gold Pride (11-3-1, 34 points, 1st place)
Saturday, July 24, 7 p.m. EDT
Maryland SoccerPlex, Boyds, Md.
All-time series: Even at 2-2-1
Last meeting: Gold Pride 3, Freedom 2

FC Gold Pride and the Freedom have been going in opposite directions since I wrote the preview for their last meeting: the league leaders have won three in a row to pad their lead, while the Freedom have lost two, holding at the same number of standings points. The Freedom in fact have not won a match since downing the Philadelphia Independence, 2-1, at the SoccerPlex on May 30.

With only 10 games left in the season, it’s crunch time. Starting today, Washington plays four games in 12 days that could decide its postseason fate. By the end of the evening on Aug. 4, the Freedom could at best have 29 points, likely good enough for second place and close to clinching a playoff spot, or they could still be mired at 17 points and needing to win most or all of their remaining games to reach the postseason.

Having to play the first-place team in that situation does not bode well, and against Team Marta (Sol last year, Gold Pride this year), Washington is 0-4-1. However, the Freedom did put on a battle the last time these teams faced each other, roaring back from a 3-0 deficit with two late goals to make the game competitive. And I may be a bit biased, but I think that if Kari Seitz had been refereeing that match, Gold Pride would have finished the game with 9 or 10 players. Seitz, you might remember, had the guts to red-card Los Angeles Sol defender Allison Falk in last year’s championship for fouling Natasha Kai when she was the last defender able to interfere with Kai’s attack on goal. Unfortunately for the Freedom, this referee was not so bold, despite one brazen foul and several very arguable ones in similar situations.

Again, I’d like to see Nikki Marshall up top. She gave the Gold Pride back line fits even in the few minutes she played in the prior match, scoring one goal and threatening repeatedly. With Abby Wambach back, that should give the Freedom the “lightning-and-thunder” combination they’ve been missing ever since Lisa De Vanna broke her leg. Lene Mykjåland, alas, has not been living up to expectations – I keep wondering if our Scandinavian is having issues with the heat of this miserable summer.

Sarah Huffman and Allie Long are back from national team camp and should bolster the midfield. If Marshall plays forward, Kristi Eveland will be in the back line, as she was in the previous game against Boston. The defense needs to hang tough for the full 90 minutes, though I think the key won’t be shutting Gold Pride down (practically impossible with Marta, Christine Sinclair and Tiffeny Milbrett up front) so much as scoring enough goals to stay ahead of them. So I’m hoping for an old-fashioned Washington Freedom 4-3 barnburner. Let’s see if they can chalk up their first-ever win against Team Marta.

P.S. There was a preview of last weekend’s Boston Breakers match, but it vanished in the ether somewhere between my email and the website.

[Note from Jim: It is lost somewhere in the website - I had it all ready to go, hit publish and it vanished. I was away from my computer all day Sunday so I couldn't fix the problem and have been traveling since then so my apologies to StarCityFan and all the readers.]

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By StarCityFan

Washington Freedom (4-3-5, 17 points, 4nd place) at FC Gold Pride (8-3-1, 25 points, 1st place)
Sunday, July 11, 6 p.m. EDT
Pioneer Stadium, Hayward, Calif.
All-time series: Freedom hold 2-1-1 advantage, last meeting was a 1-1 draw

Cutting-and-pasting the information above from the last meeting between the two teams and then modifying it provides some insight in itself. Going into the last meeting, Washington was in second place and only two points behind FCGP. Since then, the Freedom have gone 0-1-4 to drop from second to fourth and fall eight points behind the pace, as Gold Pride went 3-1-1. It would be a nice time to turn that around, but I’m not hopeful.

The spanner in the works is that the US National Teamers have been called into camp. The Freedom will be without Sarah Huffman, Allie Long, and Abby Wambach for this game (and probably the next), while Gold Pride will be missing Nicole Barnhart, Shannon Boxx, Rachel Buehler and Kelley O’Hara. It’s a blow to both teams, but I think more to Washington. We will be without our marquee player and our pesky defensive midfielders while Gold Pride still has Christine Sinclair and Marta. If nothing else, we may find out just how much credit Allie and Huffy deserve for the Freedom’s improved defensive play this year.

To look on the optimistic side, Gold Pride is missing some key players as well. Boxx is simply one of the best midfielders in the world, and it’s a big step down from Barnhart to whomever will be starting in goal instead: Erin Guthrie was selected in the fourth round of the college draft this year, and Brittany Cameron was picked up as a free agent, so unless one of them turns out to be a sleeper like Karen Bardsley, they won’t be nearly as formidable.

For the Freedom lineup, I see Christie Welsh starting in Abby’s position, and perhaps she and Lene Mykjåland can get the ball past an inexperienced goalkeeper – or maybe Nikki Marshall will move up front again and show how she became Colorado’s all-time leading scorer even before her senior year (I was pretty excited by that little experiment – were you?).

In the midfield, I would expect to see Beverly Goebel and Brittany Klein. This might be promising. Goebel’s done well so far, and Klein earned her WPS All-Star position last year through determination and hard work. So perhaps we won’t be in as much trouble as I’m afraid of.

Anyhow, it should be an exciting match, and only the second Freedom road match to be on the Fox Soccer Channel. If any of you want to watch the game with some like-minded souls, feel free to join the Freedom Fighters viewing party at the Murphy’s Law Irish Restaurant, on the west side of Wisconsin Avenue just a few blocks north of the Tenleytown Metro station. See you there!

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By StarCityFan

Washington Freedom (4-3-4, 16 points 4th place) at Sky Blue FC (5-4-2, 17 points, 3rd place)
Wednesday, July 7, 7 p.m. EDT
Yurcak Field, Piscataway, N.J.
All-time series: Freedom hold 2-1-1 advantage (includes playoff match), this is first meeting in 2010

It’s taken almost half the season for the Freedom to get around to playing the defending champions.

There’s been a lot of luck in Sky Blue FC’s season so far, in both directions. The bad luck has been in the injuries and medical absences, with Natasha Kai, Carli Lloyd, and Jenni Branam out with injuries and Christie Rampone out on maternity leave. Possibly to compensate, the karma gods have made Sky Blue opponents prone to shots either off-target or right to the GK. Most significantly though, Sky Blue have serendipitously discovered that their backup goalkeeper, Karen Bardsley, is better than most other team’s starting goalkeeper, as she leads the league in shutouts (5) and saves (56).

But their luck has turned again, as Bardsley broke her collarbone during practice for the All-Star Game and is out for the rest of the season. For the Freedom, this is rather like having a battle with the Death Star on your calendar, only to find as the date approaches that its force field is down, not because some plucky teddy bears destroyed the power station but because a stormtrooper tripped over the cable.

To put it more prosaically, this puts SBFC in a situation similar to the one the Freedom faced at the beginning of the inaugural season, with their starting goalkeeper out and no reliable alternative to hand the job to. As Branam is still out, this makes Kristin Luckenbill the starter by default.

The report on “Lucky” is very similar to the one on Briana Scurry: a great goalkeeper in her time, but now well past her sell-by date. Luckenbill was WUSA Goalkeeper of the Year in 2002 as she helped her team to both the regular-season and playoff championship that year, but she hasn’t shown similar form in WPS. Last year she played about half the season for Boston and ended with a 1.44 goals-against-average. Her fellow keeper, Allison Lipsher, played about the same number of minutes but had a 0.58 GAA. In her only start for Sky Blue so far this season (when Bardsley was up with the English national team), she gave up four goals to the Philadelphia Independence.

Even so, SBFC is not to be trifled with. In their last match, they faced the high-flying FC Gold Pride on the road and managed to shut Marta down while winning, 2-0. With an already potent attack featuring Finnish international Laura Kalmari (4 goals, 0 assists), Brazilian Rosana (3g, 1a), and US national teamers Kai (3g) and Heather O’Reilly (1g, 3a), they’ve just added Italian National Team captain Patrizia Panico, who will be making her first WPS appearance tonight. Additionally, they have three national teamers on the back line in Rampone, Brittany Taylor and Megan Schnur, and solid midfielders in Kacey White and Kendall Fletcher.

So the Freedom may be salivating at the chance to take Lucky on, but they’ll have to get through the rest of the team to do it, and on what may be the hottest day of the WPS season so far – today’s forecast for Piscataway calls for a high of 97 degrees.

Regardless, this is a great chance for the Freedom to conclude the first half of their season on a high note – let’s hope they can come through with a win.

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