Category: Opinion

Who Should Make the NWSL All Decade Team?

Posted on by Backline Soccer

As we head toward the end of the seventh season of the NWSL we happen to also be heading to the end of this decade. And who doesn’t like a ceremonial team to celebrate that passage of time?

Ceremonial teams are tricky things to construct. Do you pick the very best in each category? Do you try to create the ultimate team out of the players offered? Do you go with who you think of personally, or do you gather other people’s ideas of who should make it? Do you list just the starting XI or do you select the full team?

After thinking about the possibilities for this team in just the midfield alone I decided I needed some help. And help I was thankfully able to find. I managed to convince 18 women’s soccer writers and media folks to take a survey. I offered them the cloak of anonymity with the option to speak up if they wanted to out themselves as having participated.

To decide who would be on the survey I went back to the history books. I took players who were voted Player of the Week and Month, players who made the first and second XI at the end of each NWSL season and anyone else I thought should be included. I also left a space for my helpers to submit anyone I’d forgotten. There was a vote for the starting player in any position and then another spot for a backup. Players were awarded two points for a starting vote and one point for a vote as a backup. And before I get comments, they had to have played at least three seasons in the NWSL to be included.

I was fully ready to override the group if I felt someone wasn’t included that I felt worthy. But it turns out after I tallied all the votes I agreed with them without having to use any executive overrides. Always a good place to be.

As for the team itself, I decided to break NWSL roster rules and go with 23 instead of the current max of 22. I am always going to include an extra goalkeeper when I can and there was a tie for second place in the goalkeeping ranks anyway. So, why not?

The Goalkeepers

         Starting goalkeeper: Nicole Barnhart

         Backup goalkeepers: Alyssa Naeher and Michelle Betos

         Goalkeeper that just missed the cut: Hope Solo

Nicole Barnhart is arguably the greatest goalkeeper in NWSL history. With her two NWSL titles (2014, 2015 – both with FCKC) and her work for the Utah Royals FC it’s hard to argue against her being the net-minder on an All Decade Team. Since she won Goalkeeper of the Year in 2013 she has been a force in the back for both FCKC and The Royals.

Behind her in the depth chart, Alyssa Naeher and Michelle Betos tied on points with eight each. Naeher did have more first place votes for what that’s worth, three to two.

Both Naeher and Betos have seen significant minutes in the league over the nearly seven year history of the league. Both have been solid to exceptional during those years. Both players also have NWSL Goalkeeper of the Year awards under their belts as well. They are solid, what moer can I say?

Overall the goalkeeping is locked down with these three on the roster.

The Defenders

         Starting defenders: Becky Sauerbrunn, Abby Erceg, Lauren Barnes, Steph Catley

         Back up defenders: Ali Krieger, Emily Menges, Abby Dahlkemper

         Defender(s) that just missed the cut: Casey Short and Christie Pearce

I did not plan to have two center backs and two outside backs in the starting four. That was just a happy accident of voting and of who was selected. Have to love it when things come together like that.

Let’s get this out of the way first and foremost. Becky Sauerbrunn is the best defender the league has seen, questionable Defender of the Year award in 2015 not withstanding. She might be the very best center back the US has ever produced and in the conversation for the top center back ever in the women’s game. Abby Erceg has been consistently one of the top defenders in the league and, based on countless hours of watching her play with Dahlkemper who is much closer to Sauerbrunn’s style than people give her credit for, would be a well suited partner in central defense for Sauerbrunn.

Lauren Barnes gets the call as an outside back that can play center back or a center back that can play outside back depending on when you last watched (Seattle) Reign FC. Steph Catley has graced the pitch for Portland, Orlando and the Reign over her time in the NWSL. And when healthy, sometimes a bigger question than others, she might be the most dynamic outside back in the league.

We need to talk about Emily Menges. She is the only field player on this roster that doesn’t have a cap with their national team. She has been one of the very best in the league since she entered it in 2014 and really should be in the McCall Zerboni/Jess McDonald category of NWSL players who played themselves into national team contention.

Ali Krieger and Abby Dahlkemper round out the defense. Krieger has been consistently one of the top outside backs in the league, and can play center back in a pinch. Dahlkemper has only been in the league since 2015 but in that time she has helped her team win two league titles, one shield and been to the NWSL finals three straight times.

The Attackers

          Starting attackers: Sam Kerr, Kim Little, Lauren Holiday, Christine Sinclair, Tobin Heath, Crystal Dunn

          Back up attackers: Jessica McDonald, Jess Fishlock, McCall Zerboni, Megan Rapinoe, Amy Rodriguez, Lindsey Horan, Christen Press

          Attackers that just missed the cut: Allie Long and Lynn Williams

I’m going to level with you. As I was putting this together I ran into the age old problem of “is Tobin Heath or Megan Rapinoe or (insert player here that you have a question about) a forward or a midfielder” and that problem drives me a little crazy. So I decided to put attackers together and I think it still came out with a good mix between the true forwards, the wide forwards/midfielders and the central midfielders. These attackers are some of the best players to play soccer in the last 15 years, let alone just in a single league.

Do I really need to explain why Sam Kerr is on the league’s All Decade Team? Kerr has been the strongest attacking force in the league over the last three years. Hat tricks, four goal games and back flips are all in Kerr’s toolbox and she seems to be able to bust out the incredible at will.

Every active player to make this 23 player roster is still in the NWSL except Kim Little. Little is still playing for Arsenal over in England. While her first World Cup surely didn’t go the way she wanted it to, Little can still show off her skills. Skills that made her one of the most entertaining players in the NWSL back in 2014 – 2016. Netting 32 goals in 63 games in a league as competitive as the NWSL is an incredible work rate. Little was part of a Reign midfield that dominated for two years. And while she never lifted the NWSL Championship trophy, she left deep marks on the league even three plus years later.

Lauren Holiday is the only retired player on this list. I don’t know if I am capable of putting into words how good she was. She spent large amounts of her national team career being consistently one of the very best players on the field while not playing in her best position. But in the NWSL for FC Kansas City? She was able to take the league by the horns and win back-to-back titles in 2014 and 2015 against a Seattle Reign team that dominated the regular season. Her skill at making others better while always being three steps ahead made her undeniable when she was on the field. And unforgettable when she finally stepped off of it for the last time.

Is there really anything to be said about Christine Sinclair that hasn’t already been written? Smart, strong on the ball, ruthless in the pursuit of her team finding a way to win, she is a player’s player. A captain’s captain. She has lead the Thorns since the day she reported to Portland, and I can’t imagine the team without her leading them out on the field. A double league champion who is just class all the way with her skill at finding a sliver of space or an open teammate.

There is no player in the NWSL as adept at being frustrating to watch one moment while delighting fans the next like Tobin Heath. Heath can put in a cross like few others this league has seen, and this league has seem some wonderful crossers. And her free kicks and set pieces aren’t bad either. Her opening goal in the 2013 NWSL Championship Game was one of the most beautifully executed free kicks that also happened to be the winning goal.

2015 was the year that much of the league met Crystal Dunn for the first time. She had an MVP and Golden Boot year in 2015. Her performance in the 2016 NWSL final alone (where her two goals weren’t enough to hold off the Western New York Flash) would have kept her in everyone’s mind. But since heading to England to play for Chelsea, returning stateside and joining the North Carolina Courage she has looked like one of the very best players the league has had with a ball at her feet. Dunn can play anywhere you ask her, and in some games has lined up in three or four different spots. This league has helped a lot of players find out who they really are on the field and Dunn is no exception.

In 2013 it was the Chicago Red Stars and the Seattle Reign. In 2014 it was the Portland Thorns. In 2015 the Houston Dash. 2016 the Western New York Flash and then finally the North Carolina Courage. Jessica McDonald has spent her career going around the league and has now found a home in North Carolina. Assists, goals, defending on set pieces because of her size, she can do it all. The last three seasons we’ve seen her come into her own under Paul Riley’s style of coaching and the league is frankly better for having McDonald as a super star in it.

Jess Fishlock is the one Welsh player you may have heard of who isn’t Gareth Bale. She is a nightmare for other teams to play with the fire of a dragon hitting you with each tackle. She was a big reason for the domination that Seattle had during the regular season in 2014 and 2015. And consistently one of the hardest players to play against in league history.

A lot of what I said about Fishlock also applies to McCall Zerboni. A tough player who tackles hard and has willed her team on to greatness. One of the very toughest players to have played in the NWSL. Since 2016 she has bloomed into one of the very top defensive midfielders the league has ever had.

Megan Rapinoe can ball. When healthy – and in the last few years there have been questions around that during her time with the Reign – she has helped the Reign become one of the most successful teams in the league. A skillful mix of creative and tough with flashes of brilliance that can knock the socks off of any defender, Rapinoe keeps making her mark on the league every time she steps on the pitch.

When it comes to the post season Amy Rodriguez is perhaps the most dangerous forward the NWSL has ever seen. And during the regular season she’s no lightweight either. With her unpredictable style on the ball, her lightning quick speed and her ability to find a way to get the ball in the back of the net more often than not, Rodriguez has gathered two NWSL titles in her time playing for FC Kansas City. And she is still scoring goals as she plays for Utah.

I am not sure that any other player has shown up in the NWSL and said “this is my league now” the way that Lindsey Horan has. When Horan came over from Paris Saint-Germain in 2016 to the Thorns there was a level of excitement. And in her roughly 70 matches for the Thorns she has shown she deserves to stand with the giants of the NWSL midfield already. Horan became the first NWSL MVP that was not also the Golden Boot winner after a spectacular 2018 season. Give her another decade in the league and she is going to jump even higher on lists like this.

While she’s never been to an NWSL final there have been few forwards in league history more deadly when the ball is at their feet than Christen Press. She demands respect from anywhere south of the midfield point as she can, and will, take shots from distance. Averaging about a goal every two games during her time in the NWSL is going to get defenders paying attention. And even still it is rare Press has a prolonged scoring drought.

The Lineup

For the starting XI I decided to go with the top point getters in each category. Thankfully it does make a pretty convincing lineup.

Though I will admit if I were to take a look at the full 23 I might have a slightly different group as my starting XI in order the make the best version of it.

What did I get right? What did I get wrong? Who did I forget to add to the 23? Who would you take out? Who might end up on the team for the next decade? Comment below with your thoughts.

The Game Changers: Week 13

Posted on by Backline Soccer

The Game Changers is a weekly series looking at the most important results each week. Each section will look at one team and how its win, loss, or draw impacts the season.

Week 13 in the NWSL has come to pass, and as teams prepare to welcome back their U.S. Women’s National Team players, the NWSL standings are starting to look a little more familiar. Following this week’s action, the North Carolina Courage are back on top of the standings. They are tied in points with the No. 2 team, the Portland Thorns, who has arguably had one of the better runs during this World Cup. Nothing is surprising at the bottom of the table, as the Orlando Pride and Sky Blue are tied for the lowest amount of points. They are still five points behind the No. 7 Houston Dash, but in recent weeks, both teams have started to improve. Here is the full list of results from this week’s matches: 

Sky Blue vs. Utah Royals (1-0)

North Carolina Courage vs. Reign FC (2-0)

Houston Dash vs. Chicago Red Stars (0-1)

Portland Thorns vs. Orlando Pride (4-3)

Sky Blue wins again

It’s kind of astonishing to think that Sky Blue has had more victories in the two weeks since Head Coach Denise Reddy’s departure than they did under her entire tenure as head coach. But, it’s true. Following their 2-1 victory over the Chicago Red Stars last week, Sky Blue earned a 1-0 victory at home over the Utah Royals. It was the opposite of what you usually expect from Sky Blue: instead of playing an even game and giving up a late goal, they played a fairly even game and found a way to win. And these two victories are against decent teams. 

While the Utah Royals dominated possession in this game, Sky Blue had twice as many shots and four shots on goal. They forced three saves from goalkeeper Nicole Barnhart and only needed Kailen Sheridan to make a save once (probably a nice change of pace for a goalkeeper who usually is the only thing standing between her team and total annihilation). I think it’s a stretch to say this Sky Blue team is “good” but for once, they aren’t miles away from everyone else. In fact, I’m not even sure they’re the worst team in the NWSL. What kind of a run can they put together in the latter half of the season? 

The Utah Royals drop more points

The Utah Royals haven’t won a game since their 1-0 victory over Sky Blue on June 15th. Now, they find themselves outside of the playoff picture: granted, only five points behind the No. 1 North Carolina Courage. They are winless in their last three games and they have also failed to score in those three matches. They have never been a high-scoring team, but something has to change if they want to stay in the playoff picture. 

The Utah Royals will benefit from the return of players like Kelley O’Hara, Becky Sauerbrunn, and Christen Press. But the points they dropped in this World Cup period may comeback to haunt them at the end of the season.

The Portland Thorns find a way

If the Utah Royals and others have been struggling without their national team players, the same cannot be said for the Portland Thorns. They have only two losses on the season and have had no problem picking up points even when they are missing most of their Starting XI. They are only going to get better when players like Lindsey Horan, Emily Sonnett, and Adriana Franch return to the team. 

The match on Sunday in Providence Park against the Orlando Pride was a back-and-forth thriller. While the Thorns dominated most of the first half, they only had one goal in the third minute from Hayley Raso to show for it. In the second half, the Thorns scored first in the 58th minute via Midge Purce. Then, three minutes later, Marta launched a rocket past Britt Eckerstrom. Five minutes after that, Christine Sinclair made it 3-1 for the Thorns, but just two minutes after that, Emily Menges scored an own goal that tightened the gap for the visitors. In the 90th minute, Erin Greening scored for the Pride and thought that might be enough to get the visiting team some desperately needed points on the road. But Tyler Lussi did not agree. In the waning final seconds of stoppage time Meghan Klingenberg sent the ball into the box on a corner kick, Lussi got her head on the end of it and sent the ball past Orlando Pride goalkeeper Haley Kopmeyer. Despite the wildness of the match, Portland found a way to win. 

 

How to Love Your NWSL Team When it Doesn’t Love You Back

Posted on by Backline Soccer

When I was 19, I saw Brokeback Mountain for the first time. I felt my heart crack open when Jake Gyllenhaal’s Jack Twist told Heath Ledger’s Ennis Del Mar “I wish I knew how to quit you.”

I didn’t know that years later I would whisper that same phrase every time my team gave up stupid goal after stupid goal.

I love the Orlando Pride.

I have loved them since they were a whispered rumor on the wind. I have loved them through the floral snapbacks that sold out in ten minutes. I have loved them through the social media hashtag #NippleFC. I have even loved them as the front office put together the most hodgepodge group of players known to man. I have loved them through the trades that broke my heart and the signings that made me scream from the rooftops. I have bought merchandise, tickets and posted them all over social media. I love this team.

The problem is that even as I love this team, this team does not love me back. It’s taken some time but it is time to accept that. It’s time to accept all these awful turn-overs and silly giveaways. It’s time to accept the terrific shots on goal more often than not turn out to be nothing more than shots to the parking lot. It’s time to accept that the majority of the starters just need more time and room to grow. It’s time to accept that maybe the front office needs to blow the roster to Kingdom Come and rebuild. 

If you saw the Portland vs. Orlando game, then you saw maybe the greatest game the Pride has had since 2018. Rallying back from a 2-0 deficit to tying the game 3-3 in stoppage time was nothing short of magnificent. But to do that you have to ignore how those three goals came about. Haley Kopmeyer had one of the biggest brain farts I’ve seen since AD Franch picked up the ball and Alyssa Naeher sent that back-kick ball to Jenni Hermoso.

Allowing Portland to get on the board so early was a sign of things to come and going into half time only down one goal was strictly thanks to God’s infinite mercy. Marta, who seems to be returning to her goal scoring form, had enough of her team and sent in two bangers to make it 2-2 early in the second half. Portland would score again and then Erin Greening would begin her legacy, tying the game 3-3 in stoppage time.

And just as I’m getting ready to celebrate getting a point and being  obnoxious to all my coworkers, Portland would get that last second goal thanks to Kopmeyer once again being asleep at the wheel. She was so bad I’m beginning to think she’s color blind and thought the Portland players were actually her real teammates. I spent the rest of my shift pouting and finally having a come to Jesus talk with myself about Orlando.

It’s time to accept that no matter how much I love this team, it’s just not a very good team right now. And that’s not fully on the players. Marc Skinner came in with a good pedigree as a coach and a very specific game plan. Maybe if given enough time, he can get all the players to do what he has been drawing up for them to do. Given time the front office can change and make solid improvements to the roster to give help to the players who we all know can be great. Given time, this team can and should make it back to the playoffs and beyond.

Given time, this team will love me the way I love it. 

The Fans of Women’s Soccer: the Diehard, the Casual and the Social

Posted on by Backline Soccer

I spend a lot of time thinking about women’s soccer. It’s part of the job when you are someone who writes about women’s soccer.

I think about fans and the community around women’s soccer a lot too. It’s a community that is as diverse as it is dedicated. As adaptable as it is aggressive in its willingness to proselytize the good world of women’s soccer.

Women’s soccer and its fans have struggled during modern history due to a delightfully toxic mix of negligence from those charged with growing the game and being ignored by those who have the ability to invest in the teams that make up different leagues around the world or national teams. To be very clear the game has not struggled because the players are poor at playing soccer or because people have an inherent disinterest in women’s sports.

Fans have been pushed off and pushed away because of lack of access or lack of care taken with treating them with any kind of respect. And the ones who have survived that shuttering of fans have been left with the memory of a bitter taste in their mouth.

There are flavors of fan in women’s soccer like there are for just about any sport. We talk often in the extremes when it comes to fans or we talk about the most passionate fans without talking about the others. We hold up and praise the diehards, we often bash the casual fans for not being diehards and we disparage the social media fans as not being good enough.

When we talk about women’s soccer fans as a whole we talk about how they are rabid. Ever hungry for more. More access to games, more access to merchandise, more access to the sport they love, more devoted to the players whose jerseys they wear – if and when they can find them, and if they come in their size – on their backs.  And honestly all women’s soccer fans share a hunger for more. Because over and over we have seen if you give women’s soccer fans even an inch they will pay you for the suggestion and one day there will be a foot. And, if you give them a foot, they will prepay for the full mile for themselves and all of their friends. They will fly across the world for the national teams they love, they will spend hours on public transport getting to games, they will go above and beyond for the sport and the players.

But there are limits. The very first pro women’s soccer game played in the US after the USWNT played in and won the World Cup in France saw just over 1,800 fans show up. And while the two-win Sky Blue FC and the somewhat boring Utah Royals FC are not the marquee showpieces for the league right now, it does sum up the limits of the fan base. A fan base that cares about the quality of organizations, and has a long memory when they have been mistreated or forsaken. But they also have an endless willingness to forgive, to show up, to support teams and players if just the bare minimum is shown in terms of effort.

If you boil the fans of women’s soccer down as far as you can get you can find three general forms left. The diehards are the type that can tell you who scored in the third place game for the USWNT back in 1995 or the play leading up to Tobin Heath’s free kick in the 2013 NWSL Championship game. The casuals usually can tell you the current happenings in the sport, but may stumble on the history or push the sport aside as life gets in the way. The social fan – nope, I refuse to use “stan” here even if you are all thinking it – says Megan Rapinoe is their favorite person in the media right now, have a shirt with her face on it and think her goals in the World Cup were amazing but it’s a love that is as fleeting as a viral video.

The social fans can turn in to casual fans and the casuals to diehards if they are given a chance. If they are given a reason to go from supporting just the national team, which has been around for 30 plus years, to supporting an NWSL team that may or may not be there in five years or three years or even next year. It is easier to invest your time, your social media posts, or money for a jersey or a ticket into a player like Alex Morgan or Megan Rapinoe because the USWNT isn’t going anywhere. The national team might break your heart, but it isn’t being disbanded anytime soon. And fans can shift between all of these stages from time to time. Pushed away by overzealous diehards or pulled in by the ones that understand how to speak their language so to speak. There are other types of fans, shades that bleed from one color to another like the lines between red and orange and yellow bleed together on a canvas.

Right now women’s soccer in the US, and really around the world, is at a crossroads in terms of how they draw people in. Not just the diehard fans and not just the social fans, but how do teams draw in the mass of casual fans and get them to give a damn long term? How do you turn someone who has a general idea of what is going on and make them passionate a year from now, five years from now when there are so many others sports and so much other entertainment in the world?

That is the billion dollar question, right? The men’s side has figured that out by and large around the world. They have multi billion dollar clubs. They have transfer fees that make MLB contracts look like chump change. They have full stadiums and professional accommodations.

The answer to all of this might be as simple as investment spent to raise the tides and to lift all the boats up. It likely is more complex than that as oversight and accountability have to come into play after all the negligence we’ve seen over the years has rotted the core in places.

The biggest asset that women’s soccer has right now is the players who play the sport, but the second is the fans who will be there in one form or another as long as there are balls to kick into nets and defenders trying their hardest to stop that from happening. The fans have shown in one form or another they will show up, show out, retweet, talk about and be there when the Yanks come marching in or the Riveters march to Providence Park. Given half of a half of a chance they always will.

Christen Press and Rose Lavelle Pull Up a Barstool and That’s Not Great

Posted on by Backline Soccer

Women’s soccer is funny sometimes. There are funny things that happen in and around women’s soccer (or women’s sport in general) that are odd when you compare them to men’s sports.

Women are often scrutinized for the things they chose to do on a level that is comical at best and deeply unfair at worst. Megan Rapinoe swears and we must think of the children, but if LeBron James then he’s just being passionate. Alex Morgan sips tea after scoring it is arrogant, but look at any NFL game and you will see nut grabbing and planned celebrations nearly every touchdown or sack. 

Things like Rapinoe and Morgan celebrating publicly and proudly are harmless. Even if we must think of the children, and we so often are told we must in women’s sports, at the end of the day these players have no more a duty to think of the children as Charles Barkley did in 1993. If little Timmy or Susie hears Rapinoe drop an F-Bomb or see’s Morgan sipping some tea, they will be fine. I promise you a life of crime does not lay ahead for anyone seeing what Rapinoe and Morgan have done.

It is a problem though when a women’s soccer player does a gross thing. Because we’re so often called on to defend the silly or the meaningless or to think of the children when they do step over the line we don’t always want to point out the gross thing they have done.  The same people who would, rightly, defend Morgan’s celebration or Rapinoe swearing may not know how to react. The problem is in the case of the gross things, they shouldn’t defend the players even if it feels like the Rapinoe and the Morgan thing all over again. 

And that brings us to Christen Press and Rose Lavelle.

Christen Press promoted Barstools brand during the parade in New York City during her Instagram takeover just days after they won it all sends people to the Barstool social media. People who had either never heard of the company or who wouldn’t have followed them before did. It grew their brand.

Rose Lavelle went on their Pardon My Take podcast to “talk about the World Cup, how soccer works, Cincinnati and scoring mad goals” according to Barstool. People who were searching for Lavelle or the USWNT or anything to do with the World Cup may have found and tuned in. They may go back for more episodes. 

The debate about the differences in impact of taking over an Instagram for an hour and being on an episode of a podcast is not one I am interested in having. If you want to say taking over an Instagram is worse, sure, go for it. If you want to say being on a podcast and interacting directly with people who work for the site is worse, fine by me. In the end both are bad. Because Barstool Sports is terrible. And don’t take my word for how bad Barstool Sports is, check out Stop Enabling Barstool’s Shit and Inside Barstool Sports’ Culture of Online Hate: ‘They Treat Sexual Harassment and Cyberbullying as a Game’ if you want a taste of why they are terrible. 

We put more pressure on the USWNT to get things right more than most other female athletes and most female athletes have pressure on them to get things right more than most male athletes. We expect more from them in terms of being role models and giving the perfect quote, the perfect sound bite, the perfect performance in their public lives. It’s not fair to them. It is 100% not fair at all.But they also shouldn’t get passes when they do gross stuff because some men do it too. 

Press and Lavelle working with Barstool Sports is very bad, horrible, no good. There is no way to spin it in a way that it becomes somehow neutral, let alone positive. I want to be clear that we don’t fully know if it was Christen Press or her team or Rose Lavelle or hers that reached out to Barstool or if Barstool reached out to them. USWNT Press Officer On Christen Press’s Barstool Sports Partnership: “Something Seems Amiss!” shows how unclear it all is. But at the end of the day even if the players knew nothing about the site they were connection themselves with, their names are now linked when someone Googles their name. At the end of the day, team or player, the player’s name is the one that is out there.

Women and women of color have a lot of pressure put on them that isn’t fair. But I do not think it is unreasonable to expect them to not work with and promote sites that actively harm and harass others while wrapping what they do is a goof and just for fun. I get the urge from their fans to defend them the way they often have to defend female athletes just being themselves. But working with companies that don’t gleefully harass women isn’t unfair pressure, it is basic respect. 

I’m disappointed in Press and Lavelle as someone who supports the USWNT and who believes in the calls for equal pay and equality the team has been pushing for years at this point. I don’t expect everyone on the team to be Rapinoe or Ali Krieger when it comes to politics but I do expect more than endorsement of sites like Barstool Sports. 

I really do hope they figure out what they did sucks, honestly tell us they are sorry and they do things that suck less in the future. 

The Game Changers: Week 12

Posted on by Backline Soccer

The Game Changers is a weekly series looking at the most important results each week. Each section will look at one team and how its win, loss, or draw impacts the season.

Before the U.S. Women’s National Team won their fourth World Cup title on Sunday morning, there was NWSL action on Friday and Saturday nights. As players continue to return from their World Cup teams, the Starting XI’s across the league were beginning to look a little more familiar. And this week’s action was full of goals. Marta scored two goals for the Orlando Pride in their 4-3 victory over the Washington Spirit. Sky Blue managed to find two goals, earning a surprising 2-1 victory over the Chicago Red Stars. But it was Kristen Hamilton who took the prize this week with four goals in North Carolina’s 5-2 win over the Houston Dash. Here is a complete list of results for this week:

North Carolina Courage vs. Houston Dash (5-2)

Portland Thorns vs. Reign FC (0-1)

Chicago Red Stars vs. Sky Blue (1-2)

Orlando Pride vs. Washington Spirit (4-3)

North Carolina Courage look dominant again.

The North Carolina Courage are still missing many of their World Cup stars, including Sam Mewis, Abby Dahlkemper, and Jess McDonald. But that didn’t stop them from putting back five goals on Friday night against the Houston Dash. Without a doubt, Hamilton dominated the night. She scored her first goal in the 5th minute, then tacked on another one in the 18th. Kristie Mewis cut the home team’s lead with a goal of her own in the 24th minutes, but Lynn Willliams came back less than ten minutes later with another goal for North Carolina. Kyah Simon knocked one more back for the Houston Dash in the 43rd minute, so the two team’s went to the half with a scoreline of 3-2. But if the Dash thought Simon’s goal was the beginning of their comeback, they were mistaken. Hamilton scored two more goals in the second half in one of the most impressive individual performances of the season. North Carolina won 5-2. 

The Courage were starting to look a little more vulnerable in May and June, with a couple of draws and even some losses. But in this match they returned to their dominating form for their second win in five matches. Is this the Courage returning to the form we expect from them or just an excellent performance from an individual player? We’ll have to wait and see.

Sky Blue beat the Chicago Red Stars 

Sky Blue earned their first win of the season on Saturday, defeating the Chicago Red Stars 2-1. While the Red Stars created more chances and had more possession, Sky Blue was able to better capitalize on their chances. Raquel Rodriguez scored first for Sky Blue in the 23rd minute, and tacked another goal on in the 81st minute from Jennifer Hoy. Goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan, back from her World Cup stint with Canada, made seven saves for Sky Blue, only allowing one late goal from Danielle Colaprico. Sky Blue earned the victory.

Former head coach Denise Reddy was not the only problem at Sky Blue. But the fact that the players won their first game without her doesn’t quite seem like a coincidence either. Sky Blue has a talented roster that should be performing better than they are. Will the on-the-field problems finally change with Reddy out?

Orlando Pride win in high-scoring match

The Orlando Pride also earned a win in their Saturday match; their second win of the season and their first at home. The goals started early, with Bayley Feist giving the Washington Spirit a 1-0 lead in the 7th minute. The Orlando Pride haven’t had much of a comeback mentality this season, but they equalized in the 21st minute with a goal from Chioma Ubogagu. Just five minutes later, Rachel Hill got her first goal of the season and the Pride were up 2-1. But less than four minutes after that, Chenya Matthews scored for the Spirit and the two teams went to the half with an even 2-2 scoreline. 

Marta clearly wasn’t happy with that, and for the first time this season, we saw the Brazilian attacker step up when her team needed her. Marta scored her first goal in the 48th minute, putting the Pride up 3-2. Then she added on another one in the 78th minute. The Spirit were able to score a stoppage time goal, but it wasn’t enough, and the Pride won. 

Ironically, Marc Skinner wasn’t on the field for this game. Instead, he watched the game from a suite at the stadium and relayed feedback to them at the half. What does it mean when the Pride’s highest scoring win of the season was also played without their head coach? And will the team get better when Alex Morgan, Ali Krieger, and Ashlyn Harris return to the squad? Lots of questions still surround the Pride, but a four-goal game and a win is at least a sign of life.  

The USWNT Are The Girls Next Door Grown Up

Posted on by Backline Soccer

I read during this World Cup that the USWNT aren’t the girls next door anymore. They have shed their images in the wake of comments made by Megan Rapinoe, Ali Krieger, Alex Morgan and others.

When I read that I can’t help but think of my grandmother.

My grandmother was a baseball person. She watched the Yankees nearly every game for 50 plus years, she was the commissioner of the young leagues or on their board for 30 plus years, she kept score for the baseball team when she was in high school. She loved baseball and it’s in no small part to her why I love it too.

Watching the World Cup this year and the personalities that make up the USWNT, I can’t help but think how much she would have loved this team.

My grandmother was a business woman and a sports fan, politically active and as take no nonsense as they come. She grew up in a time when if a woman worked it was on the family farm or maybe taking in wash or sewing. They did not open a farm equipment business and spend 30 years going all around the world for Case Tractors with their husbands.

In her day women just didn’t speak out against the town plowing the churches parking lots for free or write letters to the editors of the local paper in support of LGBT rights or freedom of expression before it was more normalized.

The more Megan Rapinoe speaks and the more she stands up, or kneels, for what she thinks is right, the more I can’t help but think just how much my grandmother would have loved this team and maybe Megan Rapinoe most of all.

I think she would have looked at Rapinoe with her pink/purple hair, her outspoken nature and her ability to ball the fuck out and I think she would have smiled. She would have seen Alex Morgan sipping tea and she would have cheered her. Because women being badass and saying “fuck it, I’m going to do the damn thing” crosses generations.

One of my great frustrations with how the USWNT has been marketed is that they push the family friendly, girl next door, no controversy here narrative. They do not push how outspoken, how radical, how progressive these players are.

It really feels like after a lot of years of letting the bland, vanilla narrative crafted for them to live, the team has collectively said “fuck it, we’re going to be as powerful and smart and queer and radical and whatever else we want to be and if you don’t like it that’s not on us that’s on you”. And it’s wonderful.

My grandmother will have been gone for 12 years this September. But watching this team, seeing them do what they have done and speak out like they have, it makes me think of her and smile.

Stop Complaining about the Qualification Process for the Olympics. It’s Fine.

Posted on by Backline Soccer

Two of the world’s four best teams will not be competing in the Olympic Women’s Soccer tournament in 2020. France and Germany, due to their elimination in the quarterfinals of the World Cup, have also failed to qualify for the Olympics. This has provoked some consternation and confusion, as well as quite a few demands for changes to the system.

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Unfortunately, as is often the case when Americans jump into situations to offer their opinions, it’s quite a bit more complicated than this.

There isn’t time to run a fair European qualification process

It certainly is strange that European teams don’t get a separate qualification process for the Olympics. It feels like double jeopardy: fail in one tournament, and you’re also blocked from the next.

But there is a pretty obvious explanation why they do it this way: the steady march of the clock. UEFA already runs full qualification campaigns for the World Cup and the European Championship, which take up the vast majority of available time. World Cup qualifying didn’t finish until November of 2018, and Euros qualifying begins in August of 2019. That’s next month!

Compare to CONCACAF’s qualifying process for the Olympics, which is theoretically spread out over a few months but for all realistic purposes takes place in a single two-week tournament. Teams from Central America and the Caribbean go through their own mini-competitions for the privilege of making that final event, but the US and Canada—far and away the two best teams, and the ones overwhelmingly likely to actually make the Olympics—jump directly into the competition at this final stage.

UEFA can’t do something like this because they have close to 50 teams, of which 15-20 could realistically challenge for a spot. It takes time, a lot of time, to whittle that down using any kind of fair process. And with the Olympics coming just twelve months after the World Cup, that time doesn’t exist.

The alternatives aren’t really any better

UEFA could try to create a modified system – maybe inviting a certain set of the top teams in the World Cup to play a mini-tournament. But this doesn’t really resolve the underlying problem of double-counting success and failure. Plus, it’s arguably equally cruel to the teams who outperformed their competitors at the previous tournament, who would now be forced to do it all again. And it would still eat up a decent chunk of time that isn’t really available. European leagues, after all, run through the fall and winter and expect member countries to follow the FIFA calendar. There really isn’t time for even a two-week break.

One change that would slightly ease this process would be to expand the field for the Olympics. Twelve teams is a weird number for a tournament, especially when geographic balance is enforced so rigidly. If it grew to sixteen, you could add two more European teams, guarantee a second spot for Africa, and allow a third Asian team to fight the playoff against South America. The men’s tournament has 16 teams, so there’s no good argument against allowing the same number on the women’s side.

But lack of good arguments has never made much difference when it comes to the Olympics’ organizers, who are not going to want to bring in 72 more athletes and schedule six more matches. And there’s no guarantee that they’d allocate the slots in a way that makes sense. And even if they did, it would just mean five European teams get selected through this process, without actually fixing the underlying time crunch.

The Olympics is a second-tier tournament, and that’s okay

So we can try to improve the system. Or we could just accept the reality that the Olympics isn’t as big a tournament as the World Cup, and never will be. That they ever seemed comparable is really just a historical accident. In the 1990s, when professional women’s soccer was barely a dream, every international tournament was an opportunity for real competition. And women’s soccer was added in 1996, in the United States, at a moment when American audiences were primed to grab hold of it. So it was a big success.

But as the pool of competitive nations grows, it’s far outstripping what the Olympics can offer. And so it can’t really be a true international tournament. In 2020, it will be without France and Germany. But if they had made it, we would have lost the Dutch, or England, or Sweden. Spain and Norway won’t be there. There will be no Argentina, no Scotland, no Denmark. We might see a playoff between Cameroon and Chile, with the loser missing out. These are all teams that could add a lot to the tournament.

Rather than lamenting all these absences, we should just get comfortable with the reality: the Olympics is a second-tier tournament, and that’s okay. It will still involve 12 very good teams, all of whom will do everything they can to win it. A gold medal will still mean a lot. But it simply isn’t the pinnacle.

Europe already has its own second-tier tournament with the European championships. And given the expanding quality of European women’s soccer, you could potentially argue that the Euros are equivalent to the Olympics at this point. Which actually creates some nice symmetry. European teams all get their own high-quality tournament to compete against each other. And the Olympics is a tournament for the rest of the world, with a few European teams invited to the mix to keep everyone honest.

Somewhat by accident, the Olympics has ended up being a very useful alternative for non-European nations that aren’t members of a federation deep enough to generate a meaningful tournament.

So if the system for picking which European teams come to play with everyone else in the Alt-Euro competition isn’t perfect, it’s just not that important. They have their own big event coming up a year later, and it’s not worth them mucking with their calendar to sort out their Olympic entrants. 

None of this was designed this way. But it’s worked out that way. And we should just accept it for what it is, instead of trying to fix the unfixable.