Lindsey Tarpley, Chicago Red Stars
Saturday, April 4th
Chicago Red Stars @ Saint Louis Athletica 8pm ET
*Goal.com Preview
Sunday, April 5th
Los Angeles Sol @ Sky Blue FC 4pm ET
*Goal.com Preview
*OurSportsCentral Preview
Boston Breakers @ FC Gold Pride 6pm ET
*Goal.com Preview
*OurSportsCentral Preview
-Televised on Fox Soccer Channel
-We will hopefully post a link to watch it online
In a great unfortunate accident, I fell asleep halfway through the LA Sol versus Washington Freedom match up. If there is one thing I am willing to bet money on though, don’t let this match be the standard for future matches. In both a good way and a bad way.
First, the good way. Read the rest of this entry »
14,832 filed in for the inagural WPS match.
For official highlights from womensprosoccer.com click here.
Article from Goal.com summarizing the match.
Article from the NY Times summarizing the match.
Article from USA Today on match with player and coach quotes.
The Los Angeles Sol defeated the Washington Freedom in front of 14,832 fans. It was a good day for the WPS, but we don’t want to build it up too much. I’ll add my thoughts later if I get a chance.
*EVENT OVER
You can check out the innagural WPS match with Wambach and Marta over at JustinTV. http://www.justin.tv/xyyz
The latest FIFA Women’s National Team rankings were released, and there is nothing too interesting about it to be honest except for the former World Champions Norway dropping 3 spots to 9th after losing three straight games at the Algarve Cup. Norway is historically the 3rd best team in the world behind the USA and Germany, with a world cup title, a runner-up finish, and two fourth place finishes in the five women’s world cups.
In late 2008, Read the rest of this entry »
We knew the creation of the Women’s Pro Soccer league would benefit players and national teams alike. It seems that is only part of the plan for the Canadian Women’s National Team. They see a new era ahead of them, and you can read about it here. Points of development:
- Players developing and playing at a higher level (WPS)
- Increase and retention of young soccer players
- More technical play from players
Check out this coverage of the Los Angeles Sol, with comments from Stephanie Cox, Marta de Vieira and coach Abner Rogers. Unfortunately the english translation of Marta actually sounds quieter than Marta herself, so it’s a struggle for us english speakers.
I love the use of technology. When it comes to soccer in the United States, a large part of it has lived on the internet. The rise of the US Womens and Mens National teams along with professional leagues since the early 90s has parralleled this amazingly powerful and cheap way for soccer coverage and discussion to live and grow. BigSoccer, Facebook, Youtube, blogs, streaming matches, I used them or still do use them quite frequently to follow soccer both home and abroad. I was extremely excited to hear that MLS would be doubling the quality of their online streamings of games. But when I heard that the WPS was going to have in-game tweets from players, I felt uneasy. I knew the first place I had to go is Amanda Vandervort’s blog, where of course the top post was a collection of all the people and players that could be followed on Twitter.
Amanda is a no doubt a up to speed tech guru, and I see the sense in having certain people of WPS having blogs and twittering, but I do not like top executives, coaches twittering, nor do I like the idea of players twittering during games.
First, Twitter is for a small quick snippet on the go. For me, if an executive or coach has something to say it should be thought out and have a certain amount of depth to it. Not a 140 byte length snippet. In my opinion, those people should use blogs.
Players could and should use it. I can see it being a useful thing to have players post tweets throughout the week like “ankle is still sore, saturday is still a maybe” or “very positive in training to day, ready for Sunday”. It could even be a personal message like “tonight is a pasta night”. I am totally against (until proven wrong I guess) the idea of players tweeting for the sidelines of a match. I think is not where the focus of the players should be, and it opens up a whole can of worms for what they could say, how it would be interpreted, what kind of statements would you get from bench players, and why would you follow thoughts of a bench player when the game is going on.
I enjoy twitter, and have signed up to the WPS feed, and probably to others, but not all of them. What do you think?
Christine Sinclair is ready to build on her success.
*If you are interested in the Canada v. Japan match up at BMO Field, tickets have gone on sale.
Can’t wait to see some WPS action? This should help curb your hunger until the season kicks off. Looks like WPS coverage is going to live primarily on the internet and youtube accounts are being set up to post WPS videos, so I’ll try to track those and post good ones that I find.
