Freedom Insider

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.

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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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With less than 24 hours before the 2010 WPS Draft gets underway, I thought it would be interesting to look at the various mock drafts on the Internet to see who the experts think will be heading to DC.

Bleacher Report kicked things off on Saturday with a 3-round mock draft conducted through Twitter. Bleacher Report’s Freedom beat writer Kat Galsim took the reigns of the Freedom, along with a couple other teams, and had the Freedom choose FSU and Freedom W-League midfielder Becky Edwards with the No. 7 pick. Here’s Kat’s take on the mock draft.

Kat followed up her debut as a mock GM with a great piece on Jim Gabarra and the draft process. As is the norm, Jim is not tipping his hand at all, except to make the obvious point that drafting Edwards would be good because of what it says to the players in the Freedom’s youth system. The other tidbit in there is that the Freedom will be looking to improve the defensive side of the ball, especially with the recent addition of Norwegian forward Lene Mykjaland.

WPS reached out to their stable of experts and got their views on how the first round would shake out. These drafts have the Freedom selecting one of Ali Riley (Stanford D), Casey Nogueira (UNC F) or Brittany Taylor (Connecticut D).

The Equalizer’s Jeff Kassouf has put together a great “On The Clock” series, recapping each team’s needs and he took on the Freedom on Tuesday. This series is worth checking out. Jeff followed the series up with his own mock draft and he too has the Freedom taking Edwards.

Soccer America has its take on the 2nd WPS draft up on its site and they have Freedom taking UNC midfielder Nikki Washington.

I personally am not even going to try and pretend I have any idea how the first round will play out but I will say this – knowing Gabarra’s style, I believe he will take Edwards with the No. 7 pick.

Regardless of what happens tomorrow, it should be a pretty exciting day. And to make sure you don’t miss a minute of the action, the Freedom has set up its own page so you can track all the action as it happens on Twitter.

Make sure you check back here for reaction on the Freedom’s draft.

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It finally happened; the Washington Freedom made their first addition to the roster this offseason when the team announced Wednesday it has signed Norwegian forward Lene Mykjaland.

The last team in WPS to add a player to the roster this offseason, the Freedom were finally able to close a deal over one year in the making.

You may remember that Mykjaland was a post-draft discovery claim of the Freedom last year and it seemed like she would be coming to join the Freedom until setbacks in the ability to offer her a contract pushed her to stay with her Norwegian club, Roa IL, for one more season. With that contract set to expire, apparently she is now ready to move to WPS.

Even though she is only the second Norwegian to sign with a WPS club, Mykjaland won’t be a complete stranger to the Freedom as both defender Becky Sauerbrunn and midfielder Sarah Huffman have played with her in the past.

It should be fun to see how Mykjaland improves the top scoring team from last year. This signing may have been a long time coming but it’s nice to see it finally happening.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

I am warning you now that there may not be much posting here until January. So to add a little more to this post, here is a link worth checking out.

Economy does not affect SoccerPlex (Gazette.net) – Nice to see the home of the Freedom is doing well and will be adding a video screen this year.

As always, feel free to discuss anything WPS related below and I hope everyone has a safe holiday season. And don’t forget, you can get more frequent updates from me on Twitter (@FreedomInsider). See you in 2010.

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I saw this on Big Soccer yesterday and felt it was worth reposting here.

Looks like Lene Mykjaland has had a change of heart about coming to WPS.

She has some things to look forward to in the autumn, like a possible professional career in Washington, USA. “It’s exciting and I hope something will come of it. It would be great to try myself out in the USA next year. It looks better now than when Washington were in touch last year”, said Mykjåland, without developing the point.

As well as decisive matches in the Toppserien, the Cup and the Champions League, Mykjåland is waiting for the next discussions with Washington Freedom. Three weeks ago she was ‘drafted’ by the club, which means she can not go to another American club in preference to Washington. Mykjåland’s contract with Røa finishes next season, but has a clause that she can go to a foreign club before that.

http://fotball.adressa.no/eliteserien/article152795.ece

The comment was Mykjaland would have come over last season if the league hadn’t taken so long to allow players to sign, but it looks like Mykjaland is making good on her previous comments. Adding Mykjaland would give the Freedom depth at forward and I would be inclined to believe that she would split time with Lisa De Vanna in Jim Gabarra’s 4-4-2 system.

This move probably limits the amount of time Rebecca Moros will play at forward but that might be a good thing given how shallow the midfield is at this point. Now all we need is for the move to actually be official…

WPS FREE AGENCY

I thought it might be a good idea to recap the free agency action so far. I won’t include either trade in this section, but I will include more info than what is on the league’s transaction page.

FC Gold Pride
Signed M/D Candace Chapman (Boston)

Boston Breakers
Signed F Tiffany Weimer (FC Gold Pride)

Philadelphia Independence
Signed D Heather Mitts (Boston)*

*This move has not officially been announced by the team but if the coach says it’s a done deal then I won’t argue.

Not a whole lot of movement on the free agent front yet but with big names like Leslie Osborne and Carli Lloyd still out there, we can be assured that there still are some moves to be made.

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