Freedom Insider

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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By StarCityFan

Washington Freedom (4-2-3, 15 points, 3rd place) at Philadelphia Independence (5-3-3, 18 points, 2nd place)
Saturday, June 26, 6 p.m. EDT
John A. Farrell Stadium, West Chester University, West Chester, PA
All-time series: Tied at 1-1. Freedom won last meeting 2-1 on May 30

Philadelphia’s head coach Paul Riley has to be the front-runner for WPS Coach of the Year at this point. He’s taken other team’s cast-offs, interspersed them with some outstanding but previously unclaimed internationals, and produced a collection of players who don’t realize they’re supposed to be sitting at the bottom of the league like a proper expansion team.

The Independence, in fact, are in second place in the league, four points behind FC Gold Pride and three ahead of the Freedom, though it must be pointed out that they’ve played one more match than the former and two more than the latter.

Two key players in this surge are Lori Lindsey and Amy Rodriguez, neither of whom had great success with their original teams last year. Lindsey was a decent but not outstanding midfielder for the Freedom in 2009, finishing with two goals and an assist. There are many fans who objected to her being left unprotected in the draft, but I think few would argue that she would have prospered in Jim Gabarra’s system to the extent she has in Riley’s. For Philly she already has two goals and five assists, behind only Abby Wambach in the latter category, and was named the WPS Player of the Month for April.

Rodriguez’s turnaround has been even more impressive. Highly touted as WPS’s very first pick in the general draft, she accomplished very little in 2009, scoring a mere one goal under Tony DiCicco’s tutelage. For Philly, she has three goals and two assists just in her last four matches. She’s in a tie for second-place in the league in goal-scoring with four and is in fifth place in assists with three. She was named the WPS Player of the Week in Week 8 for her goal and assist against Sky Blue FC.

Another player to watch is the statuesque Allison Falk, perhaps the only player in the league who can compete with Wambach for headers, and who has two goals and an assist despite being a central defender. Internationals of note include forward Lianne Sanderson of England, midfielder Caroline Seger of Sweden, and Canadian goalkeeper Karina LeBlanc.

And when those players are unavailable, you have someone like Danesha Adams coming out of the woodwork. With many of the European internationals away for qualifying, Adams got her first extensive playing time of 2010 against SBFC last weekend and came through with a goal and an assist.

In fact, one factor that might make the Freedom’s job easier is that the Indies will be playing their third match in eight days, while the Freedom are coming off a bye week. If endurance becomes any sort of factor, the Freedom should come out ahead. A win would put the Freedom into a tie for second with two games in hand and keep them from getting too far behind FCGP.

Freedom Roster Changes

Rather than review the Freedom players and what they need to do yet again, I’ll share yesterday’s exciting news on the roster front. I’ll get the depressing stuff out of the way first, as Lisa De Vanna and Briana Scurry have been diagnosed with season-ending injuries (leg and head, respectively) and will not be back this year. On the positive side, rookie M Beverly Goebel has been rewarded with an upgrade to a full roster slot for her very capable performances this season. And to fill the developmental slot left open by that move, the Freedom have signed 2009 WPS All-Star and fan favorite Brittany Klein.

Klein is one of those players who’s very easy to root for. At only 5’3″, she lacks the size and strength to get her way through brute force, but she works hard and gives her all on the field every game. A Red Stars fan on Big Soccer commented, “If the rest of this team played with half the intensity of Brittany Klein, we’d be talking of a repeat title.” Touted as an extremely accurate passer as well, she had the most minutes of any Chicago player last year, scoring one goal and three assists from her midfielder position. I would not be at all surprised to see her contribute similarly to the Freedom during the remainder of the season.

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So, right after I write a huge post on the Freedom not making any drastic moves in the wake of Athletica folding the team goes out and adds rookie GK Ashlyn Harris.

Aside from making outspoken UNC alum and Freedom D Cat Whitehill happy, this move actually makes a lot of sense. Primary backup Briana Scurry has been out injured since she started the April 25 loss to Philadelphia and won’t be able to return until June 5, so adding the 19th overall pick in the 2010 draft to push current backup GK Meagan McCray seems like a good idea.

To make room for Harris on the roster the team waived Maryland alum GK Mary Casey and placed forward Lisa De Vanna on 30-day IR.

WELCOME STARCITYFAN

Any fan of the Freedom is probably familiar with StarCityFan and so it is with great excitement that I announce that he will be contributing here to Freedom Insider. I don’t think I’ve met anyone, save Jim Gabarra and Clyde Watson, who knows more about the team than he does so I am excited that he will be helping me out. In fact, his first post is a preview of Saturday’s match against first place FC Gold Pride and will be up later today so make sure you stop by and visit again later.

LINKS

I know, twice in one week, but here are some articles worth checking out before the next time the Freedom take the pitch.

• Injuries, new schedule offer challenges for Washington Freedom (Potomac Soccer Wire) – Finding homes for the suddenly unemployed stars of WPS wasn’t the only challenge the league faced as a result of Athletica folding. Joe Dougherty has a nice breakdown of how the newly revised WPS schedule now affects the Freedom.
• Women’s pro soccer: Hard-working McCray looking for opportunity with Washington Freedom (Marin Independent Journal) – Speaking of backup GKs, here is a great feature on Meagan McCray. If she isn’t one of your favorite Freedom players yet, just check her out on Twitter and get back to me in a week.
• Goal.com’s WPS Player Of The Week: Abby Wambach, Washington Freedom (Goal.com) – Abby’s having a record-breaking season and May only ended on Monday.
• Our Game Magazine: A Player-Produced Publication On Women’s Soccer (Goal.com) – If you haven’t checked out the newest publication devoted to women’s soccer, check it out. This piece is Goal.com’s write up of the mag, which released its first issue this week. It is run and written by a bunch of Breakers players but we won’t hold that against them…yet;)
• On television, highlights of women’s sports are running low (Washington Post) – Columnist Sally Jenkins has a great piece talking about the lack of women’s sports highlights on the evening news and SportsCenter. Of course, WPS fans already knew this but it’s nice to see someone actually calling TV media out.
• W-League Team of the Week (USLSoccer.com) – The Freedom Futures are represented again this week, and this time F Omolyn Davis nabs Player of the Week honors. Congrats to Davis.

One last thing – if you haven’t voted for WPS All-Stars yet, today’s your last chance to do so. Erin McLeod has had a remarkable season so far but is in danger of not making the game. So at the very least go vote for Erin.

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So, did anything exciting happen to you this Memorial Day?

This will be a combo post – reaction to Sunday’s win and links to everything else going on.

First, it’s great to be in sole possession of second place after Sunday’s 2-1 win over Philly. And it’s even better to think the Freedom are quickly becoming a powerhouse in the league. It does seem the team followed this same pattern last year – struggling out of the gate before heating up, moving up the standings and then cooling off – but it also seems like it is happening a lot faster this year.

Instead of rehashing everything that other writers have said, I will just make three quick points:

• Sarah Huffman is one tough player and she is appearing more and more to be that link the team was missing last year.
• Erin McLeod has to the be the most underrated GK in WPS. Aside from the misplayed ball that squirted in late for a goal, McLeod had a stellar performance once again and really should have earned her third consecutive shutout.
• The camo uni’s were pretty sweet and they definitely need to make another appearance this season.

Now bring on FC Gold Pride and hopefully first place.

LINKS

Here are some articles worth checking out – both Freedom and WPS style.

WPS Monday Kick-Around: Off contract compensation a talking point amidst Athletica debacle (The Equalizer) – A different take on what may have happened in the demise of Athletica. Jeff is one of the top WPS beat reporters and this is truly another great find by him.

Beat agrees to terms with Solo, Ellertson, and Aluko (Atlanta Beat web site) – You knew this was coming given the free agent status of all Saint Louis players, and the first three to sign decided to stick together. If this doesn’t solve Atlanta’s problems I don’t know what will.

Abby Wambach now third-highest scorer, named athlete of the week (USA Today) – Playing on national team duty the week before, last week was honor Abby Wambach week. Regardless of the fact that it wasn’t for her play with the Freedom, it’s nice to see Abby get the ink.

Player Profile: Abby Wambach (All White Kit) – Jenna at AWK also caught the Freedom bug this past week and out together more than one piece on the team.

Casey Signs With WPS’s Washington Freedom (UMTerps.com) – Mary Casey has gone from the Sol to the Freedom to unemployed back to the Freedom with the injury to Briana Scurry.

W-LEAGUE LINKS

W-League Team of the Week (USLSoccer.com) – Freedom Futures players D Molly King and M Furtuna Velaj were named to the W-League’s Team of the Week for their performances in the win over the New Jersey Rangers.

Wildcats, Freedom Futures Play to 3-3 Draw (USLSoccer.com) – Freedom Futures salvage a tie with New Jersey Wildcats on an Omolyn Davis goal in the 60th minute.

That covers what I had. As always, if you have anything to add post it in the comments section. Finally, I want to add content more frequently to the blog but because I don’t have the time to add what I’d like, I wanted to see if there was anyone out there who would like to contribute to Freedom Insider by way of writing the previews and providing more timely recaps. If interested, use the contact page to send me an e-mail with your contact information.

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Last week it was a 3-1 win over the expansion team to the South. Yesterday, it was a 3-1 loss to the expansion team to the North. Tell me if you’ve heard this one before.

All it took was one week and one sloppy game for all of our opinions surrounding the Freedom to change but because it’s only Game 3, we must remember not to over analyze. So, to make sure we keep things in perspective I am going to post my recap in bullet points, to make sure I keep things simple.

• Bri Scurry is a great person but she just can’t play a full 90 anymore. I remember Jim Gabarra telling me right after he made the pick his reasoning for drafting Scurry in the 2009 draft, fully confident she still had something to give. Talking to Bri you know the desire and the competitive attitude are still there but she just isn’t the GK we saw dominating every stage she played on just a few years ago. McLeod has been stellar but with a D still learning and a GK that can’t dominate on her own anymore, the team will be in trouble every time McLeod is not in net.
• Abby Wambach is back! We knew she was more comfortable and confident towards the end of last season but her start to 2010 has been fantastic. Abby doesn’t need to score goals to be dangerous, especially when you have some of the top strikers in the world making runs with you.
• I hate to say it but congrats to former Freedom players Lori Lindsey, Jo Lohman and Sarah Senty on being in the Starting XI for the Independence’s first win. All were important parts on Sunday and Lohman and Lindsey really seemed to hurt us on the offensive end.

Those were the initial things that jumped out at me from the various stories and tweets I read. If any of you were at the game and have something to add please do.

Oh, and as a bonus, make sure you check out this column from the Deseret News in Salt Lake City. I actually worked for the Salt Lake Tribune right out of college (so it somewhat pains me to promote the competitor) but this is a piece any women’s soccer fan should enjoy reading.

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