Category — women's soccer

The Atlanta Beat is still looking for its first win in Women’s Professional Soccer, and getting it against the Washington Freedom (6 p.m., KSU Soccer Stadium, Fox Soccer Channel) is no small task.

Beat goalkeeper Brett Maron, profiled here by former USA Today soccer writer Beau Dure, appreciates the opportunity to compete at the WPS level after playing in the Icelandic ranks, where she met Beat coach Gareth O’Sullivan.

Maron also appreciates the environment in Atlanta that makes it comfortable for her to be openly gay.

The Atlanta Silverbacks women begin their W-League season at 7:30 tonight at RE/MAX Greater Atlanta Stadium.

Creative Loafing previews a team that reached the semifinals in 2009 and is aiming for more.

On the men’s side, the Atlanta Blackhawks of the PDSL play host to Nashville at 6:30 p.m. Sunday at Alpharetta High School in their home opener.

It was an own goal from Atlanta’s Leigh Ann Robinson early in the second half that produced the only goal of the game in Sky Blue FC’s 1-0 win on Sunday.

The expansion Beat is the only team in Women’s Professional Soccer to remain winless, but the opening of its new stadium at Kennesaw State was a rousing success. An announced crowd of 7,428 turned out on a Sunday night.

Another home game is set for this Sunday, May 16, when Abby Wambach and the Washington Freedom visit in a 6 p.m. game.

There’s been so much written and said about the new Kennesaw State University stadium that will be christened Sunday night in the Atlanta Beat home opener — and will become the first soccer-specific facility built with the women’s game in mind — that I’ll just share with you here all the linky goodness I’ve found:

• World Football Insider

• Goal.com

• SB Nation

• Atlanta Soccer Blog (check out the pictures from last Sunday’s grand opening)

• The Equalizer

• Soccer By Ives

I’ll keep adding more links as I see ‘em.

For the second time in their respective brief histories, the Philadelphia Independence downed the Atlanta Beat 1-0 on Saturday, getting the lone goal of the game from Lori Lindsey in the first half.

It was the last road game for Atlanta before next Sunday’s home opener in Kennesaw, and there’s a grand opening today at the new facility starting at 3 p.m.

You don’t have to get all gussied up, or wear a fancy hat, or gulp down mint juleps — unless you want to — but there’s a little game down at Badgett Park in College Park Saturday featuring two Atlanta sides that might get your Derby juices flowing.

Okay, it’s only a exhibition, but Atlanta FC vs. the Atlanta Blackhawks is part of a full day of action on Soccer in the Streets Day. It’s the closest thing to a soccer Derby that we’ve got around here.

The SITS Under-12 team plays at 1 p.m., followed by its Under-14 team at 3 p.m. with the Derby-of-sorts (Battle of Atlanta?) kicking off at 5 p.m. The Under-19 squad plays at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free for the whole enchilada. Badgett Park is located at 3636 College Street in the heart of College Park.

Our good friend Jason Longshore of SITS talks to the NPSL Insider about his involvement with the FC.

The Blackhawks are back for their second season in the Professional Development League, which is under the auspices of the United Soccer Leagues.

Update: Final score is Atlanta FC 2, Atlanta Blackhawks 0.

Things appear to have settled down in lower-division North American soccer since last summer’s fiasco between the USL and some breakaway owners, including the Atlanta Silverbacks, who may or not be playing in the newly-formed NASL next season.

The AJC talks to the Atlanta-based Nu Rock Soccer Holdings duo who bought the USL stable, a transaction that set off the firestorm, but it doesn’t really express how hostile matters got.

The Atlanta Beat remains on the road tonight, playing Philadelphia in a battle of expansion teams. But the Beat’s new home is just about done, and they’re inviting everyone up to Kennesaw Sunday afternoon to have a look around.

Update: The Beat remains winless after falling 1-0 to the Independence.

The Women’s Professional Soccer league rolled out its slate of home openers for the 2010 season earlier this week, with a couple of glaring exceptions.

One of them, of course, is the Atlanta Beat, which just recently announced plans to play in a yet-to-be-built facility near the Kennesaw State University campus. No timeline was put on completion, but according to The Equalizer, the Atlanta home opener will take place on an unspecified date in mid-May.

The Beat will play its inaugural game on April 10 in Philadelphia, the other expansion team coming online this spring. Here’s a diagram of the stadium seating chart, and other ticket information. The prices shown are for the entire home schedule.

Team and league officials have not indicated when they will announce more information on the Beat home opener, except that it will be after the first of the year.

• In another item of interest to women’s soccer fans, former U.S. great Michelle Akers is having to sell off some of her soccer memorabilia to repair a horse farm she operates in Cobb County. The property was waterlogged in recent flooding in the Atlanta area, and the WPS and her former national team coach, Tony DiCicco, are asking fans to lend her a helping hand.

The estimated costs are $50,000, and Akers did not have flood insurance, like many victims of the heavy rains. Here’s more on Akers’ farm, which is aimed at horse rescue.

The news is now official, and it’s been the worst kept secret on the Atlanta soccer scene for about the last six months.

The Atlanta Beat has announced that it will play its home games at the new soccer complex being built at Kennesaw State University.

Beat owner T. Fitz Johnson proclaims the 8,300-seat facility will be the first women’s soccer-specific stadium in the world.

All team officials previously had said since the new Women’s Professional Soccer League expansion franchise was unveiled in June is that it was looking for a base in Cobb County. Even after Cobb commissioners gave the green light to KSU for the $16.5 million complex.

More here and here.

The Women’s Professional Soccer college draft isn’t until January, so Atlanta Beat coach Gareth O’Sullivan and his rivals were busy looking over W-League prospects this weekend at that league’s scouting combine in Tampa.

The women’s amateur league that includes the Atlanta Silverbacks had 35 of its players drafted into the WPS a year ago. While those numbers won’t be the same, O’Sullivan said he was looking ideally for two or three players to help stock his expansion club:

“The W-League has girls in it that have got a couple years experience, that have been able to, maybe, mature a little bit, get that experience. And I think that’s important. When you weigh up a collegiate player against a girl that has a couple years W-League experience, you’re usually, probably, gonna go with the girl from the W-League.”

Kimmie Germain would love to be one of those girls. The daughter of former Atlanta Chiefs player Kip Germain recorded a video for the USL site as she talked about trying to impress the scouts. Her mother played for the U.S. national team in the mid-1980s, so her soccer pedigree is rather strong: “I think they are looking for something special.”

Ramona Bachmann is regarded as one of the top youth female players in the world, and the Atlanta Beat didn’t hesitate to take the 18-year-old forward in the Women’s Professsional Soccer League’s international draft this week.

But will she be in an Atlanta uniform for the team’s inaugural season in 2010?

Bachmann, who turns 19 on Christmas Day, was voted the Swiss player of the year after scoring 19 goals in 30 matches for Umeå IK, the Swedish champions. That’s the same club that Marta, the Brazilian world player of the year, left earlier this year for the Los Angeles Sol of WPS, where she was the league MVP.

Will Bachmann follow Marta from Sweden to WPS? (ramonabachmann.ch)

Bachmann has turned down a previous offer to come to the United States, but age might have been a consideration.

The players taken Tuesday by both the Beat and the Philadelphia Independence will have to go through the usual FIFA process to transfer, if they so choose, but they are under no obligation to negotiate.

The Beat also selected two of Bachmann’s Umeå club mates, forward Johanna Rasmussen of Denmark and midfielder Mami Yamaguchi of Japan. Brazilian midfielder Maurine Dorneles Gonçalves and Swedish midfielder Therese Sjögran were the other selections by Atlanta general manager Shawn McGee and head coach Gareth O’Sullivan.

But Bachmann especially bears watching, and she knows she does. She has her own Web site, with photos and video clips, including this one (unfortunately, it’s not embeddable) in which she demonstrates some amazing ball skills and terrific athleticism and talks about her game. I’m no talent scout, but this kid looks like she can be one of the best in the world at any age with a little more seasoning.

Who's that fellow with Ramona Bachmann? (ramonabachmann.ch)

And if she does show up in these parts, by all means, Atlanta Beat, promote her like crazy! She’s already doing it rather well for herself, but I see some very good crossover appeal here. Bachmann shouldn’t be just for little girls to emulate.

With 10 players on the roster (here are the players chosen in the expansion draft last week) O’Sullivan continues to scour talent to fill out the squad. The W-League is holding a talent combine in Tampa.

Not long ago O’Sullivan outlined some of his thoughts on starting a team from scratch, and doing it in the Atlanta market:

“Atlanta is a hotbed for the sport of soccer and I believe that with my experience in both collegiate and international soccer, along with the great coaching staff we have put together, we can craft a team that will not only be competitive on the field, but also will be exciting to watch.”

One of the players chosen by the Atlanta Beat Tuesday in the Women’s Professional Soccer expansion draft is very familiar to local soccer fans.

Sharolta Nonen was among the first six players to fill the Atlanta roster, and one of three defensive players.

Here’s the full list of players chosen both by the Beat and the Philadelphia Independence.

Nonen, who played for the original Beat during its three seasons in the Women’s United Soccer Association, comes back to Atlanta via the Los Angeles Sol, which dominated the WPS regular season but lost in the title game. The former Canadian international played in just two games.

Beat GM Shawn McGee and coach Richard O’Sullivan also took the Sol’s Katie Larkin, a combo defender and midfielder. The first selection in the draft was FC Gold Pride defender Leigh Ann Robinson. Forward Amanda Cinalli of the St. Louis Athletica was picked next, followed by Nonen and defender Sara Larsson, also of St. Louis. The final pick was Sky Blue FC Noelle Keselica.

Both teams will be involved in next week’s international entry draft.

I’m not quite sure why, but not only did WPS not provide live draft updates, but it waited to reveal all the results until two hours after the process was completed.

When the unveiling occurred, at the typically slow Web traffic time of 5 p.m. ET, the site stalled and crashed more than once for me. There may be a very good explanation for doing a draft this way, but it escapes me. For a league needing all the good publicity it can get, having a live draft — albeit an expansion one with very few big names on the board — might have been preferable to what just took place.

That’s not all the WPS has chosen to hold close to the vest. Not even the full list of available players is being disclosed:

“Considering that the seven charter WPS teams were each required to leave at least six of their players unprotected in this draft, there were surprisingly few players taken by the two expansion teams. The Philadelphia Independence snatched up seven players and the Atlanta Beat only burgled six before both teams turned up their noses at the remaining offerings, effectively ending the draft early. For a league purporting to showcase the finest female soccer talent in the world, this was not a sterling endorsement from its newest members.

But it’s hard to judge their behavior without being privy to the list of unprotected players, which the league has chosen to keep shrouded in secrecy. Maybe there were only slim pickings on the list or perhaps both teams are waiting until September 30th, when WPS players who were only given one-year contracts last season will become free agents.”

The bigger challenge, of course, is for the Beat and the WPS to make women’s pro soccer stick this time around. They’re facing a daunting business environment made more difficult by the recession.

Staying in business is job one for WPS. Yet there are women’s sports activists who believe that overtly feminist causes need to be incorporated in how the league, and its teams, market themselves.

Over at Pitch Invasion, I cannot emphasize enough how vigorously I deplore this ideological twaddle.