Freedom Insider

In case you missed it last week, WPS released the full schedule for 2010. And while there are a couple of times still being sorted out (the last two weeks are flex games for Fox Soccer Channel, allowing them to pick the best matchups those weeks) it is pretty safe to say the last big piece of the 2010 puzzle has finally been placed.

I don’t want to make too much of the actual games themselves because the big games will be determined as the season progresses, but I did want to share a couple of things that stand out on the Freedom’s schedule.

• This had been revealed previously but for the second season in a row, the Freedom will be in the opening match. However, this time around they will only play one day before everyone else as opposed to playing a week before everyone else and then having a bye.
• It looks like another doubleheader with D.C. United is in the works on May 1, the only dates both clubs are in town. Currently the place and time are TBD.
• The Freedom will have five FSC appearances and this year they are a little more spread out. Last year FSC showed most of the team’s early matches (which was bad because the team got off to a pretty bad start)  and after a July 5 match against Los Angeles, didn’t see show the Freedom again until the playoffs.
• The All-Star game has been moved to June 30, an odd time considering most teams will have played 3-4 days before and get back to work 3-4 days after.
• The July 4 game against Sky Blue FC will be a tough sell, even with the defending champs. Hopefully the team gets some fireworks lined up for the families it hopes to attract to that game.
• Once again the team gets a rough schedule towards the end of the season with the Freedom playing three road games in 11 days. Add in that the second game of the trip is out to California and the team could be pretty wiped by the time the third game finishes in St. Louis.
• The Freedom will get plenty of looks at the expansion franchises as they play the Beat and Independence four times each and every other WPS team three times. In most sports that would be a good thing but looking at the way Atlanta and Philly are built, they may not be your typical expansion clubs.

This schedule should make for an entertaining 2010 and hopefully it will end in a longer playoff run than 2009.

Finally, one day after announcing the signing of Christie Welsh, the club announced 2010 first round pick Nikki Marshall has signed. Only a couple of spots remain on the 2010 roster.

Bookmark to:

Because of all of the roster spots the Atlanta Beat filled last week and the trade between FC Gold Pride and Los Angeles, I thought it was a good time to once again update the Roster Tracker. Everything should be current and just in time for the WPS Draft on Friday.

If any other roster moves occur before the draft, make sure you check back Friday morning for the latest info.

Bookmark to:

I apologize I haven’t posted before today but I’ve been out of commission with some sort of bug or virus. And I apologize that this post won’t have more of my rambling (or maybe that’s a good thing) as I am still fighting this illness off. With that said – onto the links:

• As expected, Sweden’s Caroline Seger was the first pick in the International Draft held Tuesday. It was a European invasion as 3 players from Sweden, 2 from England and 1 each from Switzerland, Denmark and Iceland were selected.
• Rumors of Peter Wilt’s force out in Chicago seem to be premature as Beau Dure of USA Today tells us via Twitter.
• FC Gold Pride seems to be the first team making offseason moves as they exercised the options on five players.
• And finally, on the lighter side of the news – Abby Wambach showed up at USWNT camp with a new dog, 10-week old Bulldog puppy named Kingston. Hey, this is a Freedom blog after all so I had to get something Freedom related on here.

That’s it on this end. Have a great Wednesday (or whatever day you are reading this) and I’ll try to have something more thought-provoking next time.

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:

I hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend and I apologize for not having posted anything since last Friday. I was hoping to have the next part in my season recap series up but I will probably wait until Friday. Meanwhile, I saw this item posted on the Women’s Soccer USA blog and wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts.

Before I talk about the content, I wanted to say that while it may drive us crazy that this “anonymous” blogger never really cites her sources, most of what she says often turns out to be true. I have an unconfirmed feeling this person is someone in the WPS league office, especially given the fact the blog posted nothing between March 5 and August 22. That said, onto the claims.

So again, if these claims are true, many teams could be headed for some big shakeups this offseason. Looks like things are a mess in the Bay Area if four internationals and a fifth player all want out. That does not bode well for FC Gold Pride.

Apparently finishing at the bottom of the standings didn’t bode well for Red Stars players either. Moving Carli Lloyd to Sky Blue FC or Philly would be a big get for either club and Lloyd would be the highest profile player traded yet.

One thing that is truly troubling from this article is the number of international players who look like they will not return. Between the four from FCGP, three from Chicago and Han Duan from LA, the talent the league worked so hard to secure is now leaving in droves. I wonder if some of the same things that kept Lene Mykjaland away from the Freedom last year have now driven these players away. I guess it would be possible some of these players want to stay in the U.S., but the wording in the post makes it sound like Frida Ostberg, Caroline Jonsson and Duan are not coming back to WPS.

The last piece of info, according to this blog, is that Philly will make Sweden’s Caroline Seger the No. 1 pick in the International Draft.

I realize there isn’t much (any) Freedom specific news in my post this morning but given the rumors floating around, that is a good thing. That said, don’t be surprised to hear of a Freedom transaction or two this offseason. With Jim Gabarra running things you know there is something up his sleeve he’s just waiting to pull. I thought he would’ve done something last year to land Christie Welsh or something but he hasn’t showed that card yet.

The expansion draft is a little over 6 days away, so sit back and enjoy the ride. Things should really start to heat up once Philly and Atlanta get some players. In the meantime, leave a comment and start a discussion on these rumors or any others you might have heard.

Bookmark to: