This Spring
If there are no challenges, one is asked, how great will be the accomplishments?
The National Women’s Soccer League will begin play on April 13 with eight teams. No doubt all eight have already had to make adjustments to rosters that began with players allocated from the national teams of the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Injuries, overseas professional commitments and retirement, as well as one pregnancy, have impacted those rosters.
The Seattle Sounders knew from the allocation that Megan Rapinoe would be playing in France during the first half of the NWSL season, but surgery on goalkeeper Hope Solo’s wrist was a surprise. She’ll be out of action for several months.
Like Rapinoe, Portland Thorns FC allocation Tobin Heath is also in France playing with Paris Saint Germain. She’s miss the start of the NWSL season.
The Reign lost another allocated player when Amy Rodriguez announced that she and her husband are expecting their first child.
Mexican forward Teresa Noyola will also join Seattle a couple months late as she completes the season with her Dutch club.
Sky Blue FC lost its goalkeeper when Jill Loyden suffered a broken hand during the Algarve Cup in Portugal. That same week midfielder Carli Lloyd, scheduled to play for the Western New York Flash, went down with a broken bone in her shoulder. Both will miss 4-6 weeks of the season ….at least.
The Boston Breakers had counted on Heather Mitts to provide experience on defense, but she decided to retire from soccer as a player after 137 appearances for the USA.
At the end of January, U.S. defender Amy Lepeilbet had surgery for a torn ACL in her knee, which will keep her on the sidelines for 7-8 months. She’ll miss the 2013 season with the Chicago Red Stars, who also anticipate the Shannon Boxx will start training in mid-April due to “personal reasons.”
Six of the eight clubs have worked some preseason games against top collegiate teams around the Algarve Cup schedule. The Breakers and Portland Thorns FC are the last to schedule preseason games.
Boston has a preseason game set with Sky Blue, and Portland will play the University of Portland Pilots before the first of April.
The Washington Spirit have hosted NCAA D-I runnerup Penn State and the ACC’s Duke Blue Devils, getting a 1-0 win over the Nittnay Lions and a scoreless draw with Duke.
Olivia Wagner got the game winner against Penn State.
Sky Blue knocked off St. Johns University 5-0. Kelley O’Hara got the first goal and may be asked to play up front for her pro team after settling in at left back for the U.S. WNT. Kendall Johnson and former Auburn All-America Katie Frierson each had two goals in that win.
The Seattle Reign FC took a road trip for their preseason. They were scheduled to play three games in Japan. They won the first, lost the second and have one more to go.
The Red Stars faced one of the top defenses in NCAA by squaring off against Marquette, but still came away with a 2-0 win. Alyssa Mautz scored both goals, one in each half.
FC Kansas City opened its preseason with a trip to the University of Missouri in Columbia. Without the U.S. allocated players, KC was led by Mexican forward Renae Cuellar, who had a goal and two assists in the first half to take a 4-1 lead into halftime. The game ended 6-3 in favor of the NWSL squad.
WNT Collective Bargaing Deal
U.S. Soccer and the U.S. women’s team have reached an agreement to terms of a new collective bargaining agreement through 2016. This set in motion the arrival of the U.S. allocated players to their respective National Women’s Soccer League teams.
“We are pleased to have concluded this agreement in a timely manner,” said the joint statement from the players association and US Soccer. “It took a little longer than we had hoped given the complexity of the issues involved, but we are happy it is now behind us.”
Each of the eight NWSL teams will play 22-game schedules, evenly split with 11 at home and 11 on the road. The top four teams will qualify for the NWSL playoffs Semifinals are set for Saturday, Aug. 24, with the winners advancing to the championship game on Saturday, Aug. 31.
The season opens on April 13 with Portland playing at Kansas City.