NCAA, USA Women’s National Team: Press This, Press That

I look at my site stats pretty often, and recently I’ve been getting a lot of queries for Christen Press and her status (or lack thereof) with the USA women’s national team. True, Miss Press has seen a lot of time with the U-23s, but with the USWNT looking awful in recent months, people are paying even more attention to her than ever before. Everyone’s looking for viable options.

Well there’s a newspaper article out talking about how Press is really starting to feel it. By ‘it’ I mean Coach Pia’s neglect, which started to look more and more flagrant and intentional every day that Press laid the college teams in her path to waste and ruin.

It seems unfathomable the school’s most prolific scorer ever would carry such burdens. Some predict she will be one of America’s next great players. But Press has yet to be invited to try out for the U.S. national team and has been left to stress about her prospects.

The news article goes on to say that Bill Irwin, the USA U-23 coach, had already recommended Press for the next step. (One wonders how Alex Morgan managed to stick on the squad when other talents in her age group didn’t. I understand that Kelley O’Hara had that quad injury…and I certainly don’t think Sydney Leroux is ready…but Press hasn’t even had the chance to prove herself.)

I hope that answers any questions about Christen Press making the national team. The answer is: No she has not made the national team, at least not as of the writing of the article, which is quite recent.

What does Christen Press need to do to get a call-up? I don’t know. It’s a long, frustrating road — Alex Morgan is an anomaly — and nowadays with people actually noticing that the the USWNT is in dire straits, the road may not be as short as Press — and we alongside her — would like.

NCAA: Nice articles, and Here we go Irish!

Like, I love you guys, like, a lot

‘Pleasant surprise’ for Irish: About Elizabeth Tucker, or as I like to call her, ‘Little Tucker’.

Quarterfinals loss in conference tournament sparks Irish

Weiss grip

Christen Press leads balanced Stanford: Is mostly about Press, but Fowlkes is a “Swiss Army Knife”. Heh heh heh heh heh…

Roster changes spell success: “Fowlkes is two aspirin shy of a migraine.”

USA U-20 Women’s National Team: Spanish Lessons

Or, “Where the nickname La Princesa probably originated from”.

To do this, we must go back to 2008, to a certain local Chilean newspaper:

"There was a full page picture of her celebrating a goal and the rather large caption read Al Reina hay una Sola, which means, There is only one Queen. She was very embarrassed at breakfast this morning..." --Nikki Marshall (11.23.2008)

A closer look at the caption:

The third sentence is the kicker.

England Women’s National Team: LOL DRAMA

Lianne Sanderson quits England after falling out with Hope Powell

Personally, I feel uncomfortable with Sanderson’s attitude, although I like her well enough with Philadelphia.

If it’s true that Hope Powell constantly gives her the short end of the stick without good reason, then I guess I could understand. It’s clear that Sanderson believes that Paul Riley, at least, gives her a fair shake.

FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup: Let’s Get Ready To Rumble

They're back! Yay!

1. It seems that Nigeria’s U-20 women will compete in the U-20 Women’s World Cup after all, as Mr. Goodluck Jonathan has backed off and let FIFA eat their Swedish pancakes in peace.
2. The United States U-20 women were in New York over the July 4 holiday, and spent it with the DiMartino family (apparently without Tina and Gina, who had a WPS game that day and ENDED UP LOSING TO STUPID BOSTON).

In unrelated news, former Notre Dame Fighting Irish Michele Weissenhofer is at tryouts for SG Essen-Schönebeck of the Frauen-Bundesliga in Germany.

Nigeria U-20 Women’s National Team: Very Crafty Goodluck Jonathan [UPDATED]

It seems that Nigeria’s poor performance in South Africa is putting the U-20 women’s team in jeopardy. The president of Nigeria, Mr. Goodluck Jonathan (straight out of 17th century New England, yeah!) ordered the Nigerian men’s team to sit out of international competition for two years as punishment for their poor showing in South Africa. Now FIFA doesn’t like it when governments interfere in their respective countries’ football federations (although it’s quite impossible in SOME COUNTRIES for the government not to be involved). As punishment, FIFA will bar the guilty countries from any international competition if sufficiently offended. As of right now, FIFA is still deciding whether it’s offended or not…they’re too busy eating Swedish pancakes and swooning over David Villa’s soul patch.

Unfortunately, the Nigerian U-20 women are in danger of losing their spot in the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup this month because of this stupidity, should FIFA ban Nigeria’s teams from playing.

Personally, I sort of doubt FIFA will make that move so soon, with the U-20 WWC so close — they need to finish watching the men’s World Cup and scouting for shitty referees — but we must not forget that FIFA is largely made up of fat old men (too many pancakes for you, Sepp) who have nothing better to do than piss people off, especially when it comes to women’s soccer (and referees).

You Are Useless Sepp Bratter

Although in this case, if FIFA bans Nigeria it will be exactly what the Nigerian president wanted. How very crafty indeed, sir!

EDIT: According to this article, FIFA has given the Nigerian government 48 hours to reverse Mr. Jonathan’s decree OR ELSE. FIFA is now looking into inviting a substitute team to the U-20 WWC, should the Nigerian U-20s be barred from competition. I think that, should FIFA decide to straight swap one CAF team for another, it would appear that either South Africa or Congo DR may be chosen.

WPS: Saint Louis Athletica Shutting Down

Free Kicks blog @ STL Today

Official WPS statement

Goal.com

Fake Sigi investigates the Vaid brothers (I highly recommend, because it reads like True Crime.)

WPS says it thought Jeff Cooper was sole owner of Athletica

Athletica’s game this weekend versus Atlanta is all systems go. After that, it will likely be the end. Atlanta will not be playing a game this weekend, as there will not be a team to play against play the Tampa Bay Hellenic of the W-League this weekend.

Úrvalsdeild: Are You There, Hanks? It’s Us, Your Fans

If we look back at the WPS transactions page, we see that the player who was cut from Atlanta Beat’s preseason roster at the same time as Kerri Hanks was former Sacramento State Hornet Katie McCoy, who is Sac State’s all-time leader in assists.

Sac State had a news release stating that McCoy signed with Stjarnan F.C., the same Icelandic club that Kerri Hanks was possibly going to join. It is probably safe to assume that Hanks and McCoy, having both been released by Atlanta at the same time, probably traveled to Europe together with the same intent. Whether they both signed with Stjarnan is still unconfirmed, as there is obviously no mention of Hanks in the Sac State article. The news release is dated April 14, so if Hanks signed with Stjarnan, she would have signed at or around the same time as McCoy had.

Basically, the article is circumstantial evidence that Hanks may very well still be in Iceland.

Soccerway.com’s women’s football fixtures (the interface reminds me of a betting site) note that Stjarnan F.C. — also known as UMF Stjarnan — begins its season on May 13, 2010, against Afturelding.

UMF Stjarnan appears to be what we call an Athletic Club — that is, other professional sports aside from soccer are played under their name (e.g., handball). This site is their senior women’s soccer team’s section, the one we expect Hanks and McCoy to be on, but it has not been updated since November 2009.

The rosters on Soccerway are not updated either (their WPS rosters are higgledy-piggledy, with 2009 and 2010 rosters mish-mashed together), but I am hoping that will change after the 13th, when the Úrvalsdeild begins play. You can bet that I will be taking more than a passing glance at what goes on in the Stjörnuvöllur, should it be Hanks’ home stadium for the summer. That’s the way it goes.

P.S. The city where Stjarnan F.C. is based in is Garðabær, Iceland — the only city in Iceland that has an IKEA. Yay!

W-League, WPS: A Tale Of Two Keepers

This is Mary Casey.

And this is Karen Bardsley.

Bard, please to be unlocking your twitter, as you could possibly be at the same level of awesome as Kate Markgraf if only the wider world could see.

WPS: On Liz Harkin

One of the top soccer defenders in the country, with an invitation to the women’s national team and a draft offer from a pro team, the Arizona State University senior has finished her collegiate athletic career. But now she’s zeroing in on medical school, studying for the MCAT, shadowing an orthopedic surgeon at Tempe St. Luke’s Hospital.

She’s also completing an internship with Mayo Clinic and working on an honors thesis on emergency medicine in Arizona.

“Student juggles athletics and pre-med studies”, Rocklin & Roseville Today, 17 March 2010.

Did I mention that Liz Harkin is insane.