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:

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:

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.

Bookmark to:

From the league office this evening (of which I will have my reaction and possible implications for the Freedom tomorrow):

WPS Discontinues

Operations of Los Angeles Sol

Dispersal Draft Scheduled for Next Week

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (January 28, 2010) – After several weeks of negotiations with a potential new ownership group fell through at the last minute, Women’s Professional Soccer discontinued operations of the Los Angeles Sol on Thursday. The rights to the 19 players currently held by the Sol will be dispersed during a special draft for the league’s eight franchises on Thursday, February 4 and will be announced later in the day.

“While it’s regrettable to lose the Los Angeles market as part of our WPS footprint, we are pleased to have two new teams coming into the league in 2010,” said WPS Commissioner Tonya Antonucci. “The league and our ownership committee worked incredibly hard over the past month to complete the transaction. In the end, we ran out of time and came up short of where we needed to be funding-wise for the Sol in 2010.”

The Los Angeles Sol had been under custody of the league since late November when AEG gave back its ownership stake in the team to the league.

“Ownership changes are part of pro sports, particularly in a young league, and we have made solid progress in growing WPS from where we were last season,” said Antonucci. “We believe Los Angeles is a healthy, viable market for women’s pro soccer and a city where our league can again thrive with an LA franchise in the future.”

The league will now feature an even eight-team, single table format for the 2010 WPS Regular Season with more details of the 2010 WPS Season to be unveiled next week.

“All the team owners and members of the Board are confident that this setback will be quickly overcome by the exciting developments that the league has in store for the 2010 WPS Season,” said WPS Board Member and Atlanta Beat Chairman T. Fitz Johnson. “This includes two new franchises, the debut of a brand new stadium built specifically for WPS, a longer regular season and an even better product on the field with incoming talent from the college ranks and the many top internationals that have been signed in the off-season.Without question, this season is poised to build on our successful launch year.”

Several of the Los Angeles players, including WPS All-Stars Shannon Boxx and Marta, are signed to multi-year, guaranteed contracts, and are expected to play in WPS for the remainder of their contracts with other WPS teams following the dispersal draft.

The dispersal draft will be held next Thursday with the eight franchises selecting players from the Sol roster over three rounds in the following order:

Round 1
1.    Atlanta Beat
2.    Philadelphia Independence
3.    FC Gold Pride (Bay Area)
4.    Chicago Red Stars
5.    Boston Breakers
6.    Sky Blue FC (NJ/NY)
7.    Washington Freedom
8.    Saint Louis Athletica

Round 2
9.    Saint Louis Athletica
10.    Washington Freedom
11.    Sky Blue FC (NJ/NY)
12.    Boston Breakers
13.    Chicago Red Stars
14.    FC Gold Pride (Bay Area)
15.    Philadelphia Independence
16.    Atlanta Beat

Round 3
17.    Atlanta Beat
18.    Philadelphia Independence
19.    FC Gold Pride (Bay Area)
20.    Chicago Red Stars
21.    Boston Breakers
22.    Sky Blue FC (NJ/NY)
23.    Washington Freedom
24.    Saint Louis Athletica

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: