Freedom Insider

I have been trying my hardest to avoid the generic link posts as they don’t seem to be all that popular around here but with all of the snow and issues I have had personally related to the snow, I felt like this was the easiest way to get something new on the blog until I could put together something more substantial.

Also, I am still updating Roster Tracker – the Sol disbanding really throws the whole thing off – so it probably won’t be updated until after the start of camp. My apologies, but if you any suggestions on any changes or additions that should be made to the file let me know via the comments or the contact page.

Ok, enough stalling. Here are the links:

In Their Free Time, with “Bookworm” Christen Karniski – Christen may be a free agent but she is also a dear friend of the Insider. It’s great to see her get some time on the web.

Frankfurt verlängert vorzeitig mit Krieger – According to Google Translate, Krieger means Warrior in German. And according to this article, defender Ali Krieger has renewed with FC Frankfurt until 2012. Who knows what that means in terms of her coming back on loan but we won’t have Krieger as a full time Freedom player until after that.

WPS Committed to Supporting Nationwide Campaign to Address Childhood Obesity – Briana Scurry recently visited the White House to help First Lady Michelle Obama kick off her campaign to fight childhood obesity. Great exposure for the league.

Freedom Futures Point The Way Forward – The W-League squad is churning out future WPS players. It appears Jim Gabarra’s model is having a good effect on the league.

Again, I will try to keep these types of posts to a minimum. And as always, if you have anything you’d like to see discussed, drop me a line.

Bookmark to:

Now that the drama has subsided, I guess it’s finally time to take a look at how the Freedom roster is shaping up for the 2010 season.

But before we get to far let’s look at those who are already under contract for 2010:

F: Lisa De Vanna, Lene Mykjaland, Abby Wambach

M: Brittany Bock, Sonia Bompastor, Jill Gilbeau, Sarah Huffman, Allie Long, Rebecca Moros, Homare Sawa

D: Becky Sauerbrunn, Alex Singer, Cat Whitehill

GK: Erin McLeod, Briana Scurry

*From what we have been told by the league, those selected in the dispersal draft were under contract for 2010, although Nigerian International Faith Ikidi (the Freedom’s second round dispersal draft pick) is under contract in Sweden. This move means the Freedom relinquish the International rights to Nilla Fischer, also under contract in Sweden. Previously the Freedom had held the International rights to Louisa Necib.

**Note: While she is not under contract right now, expect D Ali Krieger to rejoin the Freedom at the conclusion of the German Bundesliga season. Last year she joined the team in June.

The Freedom entered the offseason with most of last year’s roster under contract again for 2010 but with the unexpected disbanding of the Los Angeles Sol, the number of open roster spots the team has to fill has decreased while the caliber of the competition trying to win spots has increased.

The lone signing before the draft was that of Norwegian forward Lene Mykjaland, a player the Freedom have been trying to get to the U.S. since before the 2009 season. Mykjaland adds even more firepower to the dangerous duo of Wambach and De Vanna, and if Jim Gabarra decides to play a 4-3-3 at any point this season he will be able to put a huge amount of pressure on any opposing defense.

After losing Lori Lindsey and Sarah Senty in the expansion draft, it was clear the biggest needs the Freedom had entering last month’s draft were a defensive midfielder and a defender. Gabarra addressed defender with his first pick, selecting Nikki Marshall from Colorado. Gabarra followed that up with midfielders Carly Dobratz (Washington State) and Beverly Goebel (Miami) with his next two picks and went defender in the fourth round with Kristi Eveland out of North Carolina.

Before Thursday’s dispersal draft I would have guessed the team’s top four draft picks would have been locks to make the roster with the final three picks – GK Lauren Robertson, M Mara Osher and F Caitlin Miskel – all having a good shot to earn a spot on the developmental roster.

With the addition of Bock, Gabarra has stayed true to his philosophy and added another player that can be plugged in anywhere on the field. Obviously Marshall has the inside track on one of the remaining roster spots and two of either Dobratz, Goebel and Eveland should finalize the 18 woman roster. There is still a chance someone like KJ Spisak or Freedom W-League standouts Brittany Tegeler, Katie Watson or Kimmy Germain earn a developmental roster spot but it looks like preseason camp will open with a fairly completed roster.

And hopefully that roster is good enough to get back to the playoffs and make a run at the 2010 WPS Championship.

Bookmark to:

WPS opened its version of free agency on Wednesday and while there appears to be plenty of impact names on the open market, everything has been pretty quiet since the opening of the market.

Granted, it took the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL years before their offseasons became just as important as the regular season but you would think with the number of well-known stars out there, something would have happened by now.

For those of you who haven’t checked out the list, some of the big names on the market include Han Duan, Cristiane, Formiga, Daniela, Carli Lloyd, Leslie Osborne, Aly Wagner and Heather Mitts. Apparently Chicago is hoping to bring back Cristiane, but other than that, things have been pretty quiet.

The makeup of the current roster suggests there are about five full roster spots open at this point and I would hope the team would choose to fill those spots between free agency and the draft, and not necessarily through tryouts (although Kristin DeDycker was a great tryout pickup last year).

Given that, I would imagine the team hopes to fill one of those roster spots with either Lene Mykjaland or Louisa Necib, given that the team retained both of their rights again this season. Given the fact that Mykjaland almost came over last year and that Becky Sauerbrunn is playing with her Norwegian club right now, I would say it is more likely we see her.

So with four spots left, the topic becomes who should the Freedom go out and get? Should they go after one of the big USWNT names out on the market? Or should they make a couple of small moves to improve the depth of the squad? One other name I noticed was on the market is Christie Welsh, a former Freedom W-League player. Could there be a reunion with her in the near future?

If I am Jim Gabarra, I bring back Welsh, consider giving DeDycker a full roster spot and potentially look for a defender either in free agency or in the first round of the draft. With the addition of Mykjaland that could be going a little attacker heavy but with Ali Krieger hopefully coming back midseason, maybe the Freedom defense can hold out long enough for the cavalry to arrive.

The potential is there for a big move to be made, but as I look around the league I fear things are shaping up for the Freedom to have the quietest offseason of the league. Regardless, it will be fun to sit back and watch things unfold.

So now I open the floor up to you – who do you think the Freedom should sign this offseason? Vote in the poll or leave a comment.

Bookmark to:

Well, I am finally over the bug/virus that wiped me out for all of last week so now comes the task of getting back to business as usual.

Apparently the new way to break news in WPS is in 140 characters or less … or at least it is that way for the Freedom. Over the course of the past week we have learned via Twitter that the team has retained the rights to International players Lene Mykjaland and Louisa Necib and that the 2010 options for Abby Wambach, Homare Sawa, Lisa De Vanna, Erin McLeod, Rebecca Moros, Sarah Huffman, Becky Sauerbrunn, Allie Long, Jill Gilbeau and Alex Singer have been picked up.

Don’t bother looking for that news on the team web site, it has only been mentioned on Twitter and on the team’s Facebook page.

For those of you looking for something longer than 140 characters, check out this article on the W-League combine. Coach Jim Gabarra is quoted throughout and it looks like 4 of our W-League players (Jessie Wolfe, Kimmie Germain, Katie Watson and Brittany Tegeler) were there to participate. As of Tuesday morning the WPS Draft is still 108 days away, but it is never to early to speculate who from the farm team might make an impact in WPS this year.

Finally, a bit of sad news out of Germany. According to this article (which is very poorly translated via Google’s translate page), Ali Krieger has yet again broken her foot. There was no mention of how long she will be out but this is not good for her. If you remember, it was her recovery from a broken foot last year that got Frankfurt FC to loan Krieger to the Freedom in the first place but with her contract up in June, you have to wonder what will happen. This situation bears watching.

Ok, enough from me. As always, feel free to leave a comment or you can send me an e-mail through the site’s contact page.

Bookmark to:

Part 1: The 2009 draft
Part 2: Roster review

As I continue this look back at the 2009 season, I thought it made the most sense to recap the season with a Top 5 moments post and a Bottom 5 moments post. Obviously, this post will be the Top 5. Two caveats to this list before we begin. First, there were definitely more than 5 great moments this season, I just felt these were the season-altering moments. Second, I included the buildup from last year in this because one year ago, no team had a single player. So to go from a team in name only to the conclusion of the first season in less than 12 months is a pretty significant feat and is an important part of what happened in 2009.

Ok, on to the moments.

5. Abby Wambach hits her stride after scoring her 100th goal wearing a U.S. uniform

Freedom fans were excited to see the star that had developed right before their eyes was returning to her roots to anchor the newest version of the Freedom but it was a rough go for Abby Wambach to open the season. Wanting to put the nasty leg injury that kept her out of the 2008 Olympics behind her, Wambach found it tough to get back to form and opened the season with only two goals in her first 16 games.

Something changed for Wambach though during the last four games of the season and I believe the goal she scored on July 19 in front of her hometown crowd in Rochester (No. 100 for her international career) finally relaxed her enough that she returned to D.C. finally able to pass the hurdles she had struggled with all season. She returned to score 5 goals in the season’s last 4 games, including 2-goal efforts against Chicago and Sky Blue FC, on her way to helping the Freedom clinch the No. 3 seed in the playoffs. That final outburst also made Abby the team’s leading scorer in 2009, finishing with 8 goals.

4. Freedom finally record first shutout

The 2009 season for the Freedom seemed to be filled with multiple hurdles the team struggled to get over. One of those hurdles was recording a shutout. Having to use 3 goalkeepers to start the season, partly because of Erin McLeod’s delayed arrival, the Freedom opened the season as the team to allow the most goals and most goals per game, a stat they would never overcome in spite of also scoring the most goals during the regular season.

Looking to fix the leak in the back, Jim Gabarra finally got one of his prized pupils – USWNT pool allocation Ali Krieger – on loan from her club in Germany to help fix the problem. By combining Krieger with McLeod and moving French international Sonia Bompastor back to her natural position of defender, the Freedom posted their first shutout of 2009 on June 13 against Chicago in one of the team’s 3 doubleheaders at RFK. The downside though was that the offense failed to score, meaning the game ended in a 0-0 tie. Sonia would subsequently be moved back to the midfield role she manned all season but after finally posting a shutout the Freedom would go on to post 3 more during the season. Not bad for a team allowing 2 goals per game up to that point.

3. Freedom pick up first WPS win

As that old cliche goes, it is never a matter of if but a matter of when. The Freedom had to keep telling themselves that as they started off the season 0-2-1 and had never led a game at any point so far in the season. With Abby having failed to score and with a goal differential of minus-4, using the term rough start might have been too kind. Then came the fourth game of the young season, a cross-country trip to the Bay area of California to face FC Gold Pride.

With a change at goalkeeper and with Sonia gone to play for the French national team, the pressure was on the Freedom to make something happen. Abby did that by scoring her first goal of the season, which coincidentally gave the Freedom their first lead of 2009. That’s only half the story though. After going up 3-1 in the second half, FCGP rallied to tie the game at 3-3 and it appeared as though the Freedom would need another week to notch that first win as the game headed to stoppage time.

With a free kick the only thing left to wrap up the contest, Cat Whitehill booted the ball into the box to the head of one Abby Wambach, who put the ball past Nicole Barnhart for the win. That goal would be the first of many late-game goals the Freedom would score this year to either win or tie up a game. After numerous wins in WUSA and the W-League, the Freedom now had a win in WPS to count among its accomplishments.

2. Abby returns to her professional roots

Ok, this post may seem like one big “Abby Wambach is great” post but this her return to D.C. was huge for the franchise. While this happened in the offseason, Abby’s acquisition (even coming off of a leg injury) made every fan in town feel that maybe things wouldn’t be so different with the new league after all. If Abby had come back and played with LA for instance, every D.C. would have felt betrayed and many of the diehards probably would have turned away feeling the league was stacked against the only team to wait out the return of pro soccer.

Abby was one of the faces of the Freedom when the WUSA was forced to take a hiatus and when she came back, much of the local attention the team had earned during those days started returning as well. There were many other players who played an important role on the field in the Freedom’s playoff run, but no one else has Abby’s off-the-field impact.

The only reason this event doesn’t rank No. 1 is because of what her return brought during this first year.

1. Freedom make playoffs and host first ever WPS playoff game

While the path taken to get there and the end result weren’t the prettiest, the fact the Freedom made the playoffs in the league’s first season is huge. Between piecing this roster together – including adding many pieces after starting the season – struggling to find offense, struggling to find consistency on defense, struggling to pick up that first win and having to wait until the final game to lock down that playoff berth, the Freedom managed to hold on and finish third in the inaugural season.

Compared to the WUSA days, in which the Freedom ended that first season with only 6 wins fielding a squad that featured Mia Hamm, a playoff appearance is a good accomplishment. There is still plenty of room to improve for 2010 but the base is there to build on and all of the hard work Jim Gabarra and Clyde Watson put in while waiting for this return was well rewarded with the playoff berth.

Those are my Top 5 Freedom moments for 2009. Next week I will give you my Bottom 5. In the meantime, let me know what you think of my list. Was something ranked too high? Too low? Did I leave something better off the list? Let me know in the comments. And make sure you take a moment to vote in the new poll on the front page.

Bookmark to: