Freedom Insider

The Washington Freedom announced its 28-woman preseason roster yesterday along with the preseason schedule, so while the team is getting ready for 2010 down in Dodgertown, I figured it was a good time to look at who is on the roster. If you want a complete list of rosters, WPS web guru Amanda Vandervort has a full list of links on her personal blog.

Also, I want to apologize for the state of the Roster Tracker but the Sol disbanding really screwed things up. I am trying to find a way to display all of the rosters, along with the way each player was acquired by its current team without making it look like a fourth grader took a highlighter to my spreadsheet, highlighting everything but the conjunctions like “and” and “but.”

Ok, here’s the roster (from the Freedom’s site, most of which we already knew):

2010 28-Player Preseason Roster

(Players with numbers listed after their name are in attendance at the Florida Preseason Camp)

1. Marisa Abegg – 27

2. Brittany Bock – 5

3. Sonia Bompastor – 8

4. Mary Casey

5. Kristi Eveland – 23

6. Jill Gilbeau – 3

7. Beverly Goebel – 6

8. Sarah Huffman – 14

9. Christen Karniski

10. Madison Keller – 26

11. Allie Long – 9

12. Nikki Marshall – 17

13. Meagan McCray – 0

14. Erin McLeod – 18

15. Caitlin Miskel – 12

16. Rebeca Moros – 19

17. Mara Osher – 24

18. Lauren Robertson

19. Becky Sauerbrunn – 22

20. Homare Sawa

21. Briana Scurry – 1

22. Alex Singer – 21

23. Brittany Tegeler

24. Lisa De Vanna – 11

25. Abby Wambach – 20

26. Christie Welsh – 13

27. Cat Whitehill – 4

28. Jaimel Johnson – 2

I can’t say I’m terribly surprised by any of the names on the list and it’s good to see that some of our homegrown players such as Christen Karniski, Brittany Tegeler and Madison Keller are getting another chance to stick with the team. Karniski and Keller were both developmental players last year while Tegeler was among the final roster cuts from preseason last year.

Looking at some of the other rosters I can’t helped but feel that the Freedom failed to improve as much as every other team this offseason. The unexpected addition of Bock certainly offsets what was a quiet offseason for the Freedom but with teams FC Gold Pride adding Marta and Camille Abily, Saint Louis adding Aya Miyama, Shannon Boxx and Lindsey Tarpley and the Independence acquiring Karina LeBlanc, Heather Mitts, Lori Lindsey and Amy Rodriguez, I can’t help but think how much tougher the league will be this year and I am already questioning if this roster will be strong enough to hang with these revamped squads.

New faces popping up on the roster this preseason include Marisa Abegg (drafted by FC Gold Pride in 2009) and goalkeepers Mary Casey (former GK for Maryland who was drafted by LA one week before the team disbanded), Meagan McCray (another FC Gold Pride castoff) and Jamiel Johnson (formerly of the Breakers and Red Stars). I have no idea what the team needs so many goalkeepers for in camp but I bet at least one of this group makes the team as the developmental keeper unless 5th round pick Lauren Robertson can outplay them all.

Names that are noticeably absent? Freedom Futures GM Joanna Lohman (in camp with Philly, don’t know what that’s about), goalkeeper KJ Spisak (in camp in her hometown of St. Louis) and midfielder Kristin DeDycker.

One final roster note of interest for former WUSA Washington Freedom fans – midfielder Jen Grubb is in camp with Sky Blue FC.

To keep up with the Freedom while the players are away, make sure you are checking out the team’s official blog. Here is a quick recap of Day 1. And for those of you looking for WPS Fantasy Soccer, apparently that is on the way as well.

Now that you’ve heard what I think about the preseason roster, tell me your thoughts. Is there anyone your surprised to see isn’t back? Do you have any concerns about having six goalkeepers in camp? Let me know in the comments section below.

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Yesterday’s news that WPS is discontinuing the operation of the Los Angeles Sol is a huge blow to the league. It’s bad enough the league has taken on the inherit challenges that come with trying to establish a successful soccer league and successful women’s league in the U.S., but to lose the team that dominated the regular season and had the most talented female player on the planet on its roster looks really bad.

If this was the NFL, NBA or MLB, the franchise could have been saved for a while a new owner was found (that’s how we here in Washington got our baseball team after all) but because WPS is only one year old, the option of the league running the franchise is simply not an option.lo

Jeff Kassouf of The Equalizer has attacked this story from all sorts of angles and it is worth checking out his various posts on the topic to get a more complete picture of how this news impacts everyone involved.

My personal, shortened take on this situation is that WPS and its franchises have been in survival mode since the league formed and there will continue to be casualties as the league tries to take hold. I personally have been one of these casualties. You can’t take these things too personally though because everyone making the decisions is just doing what they think will help this thing survive.

As the fallout of this situation continues to ripple throughout the league, the excitement many players and fans felt after the recent draft has been altered. As has been mentioned elsewhere, mid and late round draft picks will now have a tougher fight for a roster spot and players who were on the fringe last year will probably be headed back to the W-League or WPSL to wait until the next round of expansion opens more slots.

The impact on International players will be even more severe, given that teams are still limited to five active International players and most squads have already filled those slots. If you look at the Freedom’s roster, do you cut loose Lisa De Vanna, Homare Sawa, Erin McLeod, Sonia Bompastor or the newly signed Lene Mykjaland if you can bring on Karina LeBlanc or Aya Miyama? Glad I am not the one that has to make that call.

This situation may actually benefit the Freedom in a way also. With the Freedom Futures of the W-League under its umbrella, Jim Gabarra and company will be able to bring in more players, place them on the W-League squad and see how they perform in Gabarra’s system without having to use a pro roster spot. Obviously this is a blow to the players since the Freedom Futures is a completely amateur squad, but I bet there are plenty of players out there willing to play one more year as an amateur if it increased the odds of being raised to pro status in 2011.

As I have also seen mentioned, the problems with the Sol are in no way a reflection of what’s going on with WPS. The spin WPS is using is that it did add two expansion teams this year before this situation went down and if you look at the players brought in this offseason from overseas, there are plenty of people who believe this league will still succeed.

The thing that we need to do as fans though, is actually make sure it does.

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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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The last time these two teams played – only a couple of weeks ago – it set me off on a rant about how I think Washington-Chicago is the first league-grown rivalry in WPS.

Given the opportunity to finish a game at full strength, the struggling Red Stars did what every good rival does, rises to the occasion to give the other team all it can handle (and in this case Chicago became the first team in WPS history to erase a deficit and come away with win).

Makes you wonder what would have happened if those other games had been finished at full strength. I’m not going to go into the game itself – if you need info check out the WPS story here – but as you know, I will offer my thoughts on what happens next.

First, it was nice to see Abby Wambach get back on the board. That was much needed and hopefully that gives Abby the confidence she will need this weekend when finishing against Karina LeBlanc of LA, who has made more than one great save against Abby.

Allie Long has had one roller coaster of a season but it seems the team is lost without her. The Freedom have won games without Sonia Bompastor, without Abby and without Erin McLeod (although not many) but the team has struggled since Long broke her toe. Apparently she has more of an effect on the team than we thought.

The Freedom have now lost two straight heading into their final matchup with LA. The Sol have beaten the Freedom twice by a combined score of 5-0 but both of those games had the Freedom making the cross country flight to LA. Will that flight have any affect on the outcome this Sunday? If the Freedom continue to play like they have the last two games, then probably not. I still think Homare Sawa needs to step up on the offensive end for the team to even have a chance but I will get more into that in the next day or two.

And on a slight tangent, according to Steve Goff of the Washington Post, Wednesday’s move to waive Joanna Lohman was to clear a roster spot for Sarah Huffman, who went down the first week of preseason with an ACL injury. There is a hope that Huffman will be back in time for the playoffs and she could be a spark for the team at that point. Of course, the Freedom need to remain in contention in order for that plan to work. The idea is for Huffman to help ease the loss of Sonia Bompastor, who would miss the playoffs and All-Star game for the European Championship.

This is an important stretch for the Freedom (of course what stretch of the season isn’t important) and how they respond Sunday will give us a realistic view of what the team could accomplish if they even make it to the playoffs. Of course maybe getting to the playoffs in the third of fourth position is a safer proposition if you believe in curses.

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For in depth recaps of Saturday’s 1-0 win over Saint Louis check here, here and here. What I want to do today is run down a couple of thoughts I have after this match.

• The addition of Ali Krieger can’t be under estimated. In two games since joining the club, the defense has allowed 0 goals. In the 9 games before adding Krieger, the team had given up 18. Erin McLeod should get a lot of credit for the goal differential turn around as well but it appears Krieger was the final piece of the defensive puzzle.
• Scary thought: Washington is tied for the league lead with 17 goals scored but has played two less games than the other leader Los Angeles. This is in spite of the fact that Abby Wambach has only scored two goals, both in the same game. If Wambach finds her goal scoring ways soon, Washington could have an offense as dangerous as LA.
• 8 players have scored goals this season for the Freedom, 6 of which have scored 2 or more goals this season. Among those yet to score for the Freedom is Homare Sawa, who has taken 12 shots – fourth most of any player in WPS without a goal. Ironically, country mate Aya Miyama leads WPS has taken a staggering 31 shots without scoring a goal.
• Heading into the season most people would have given Saint Louis a goalkeeping advantage given they had Hope Solo, arguably the best keeper in the world, to handle the position. In two games against Saint Louis, Washington has scored 4 goals on Solo. In contrast, Karina LeBlanc, the backup keeper for the Canadian national team has shut out the Freedom twice in 2 games.

Washington has a short week this week, taking on Boston at Harvard Stadium on Wednesday. The game will be on Comcast SportsNet and will be followed by the CSN special on the team, Freedom Reigns. Catch them both.

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