The World's Game In The Heart of the Sun Belt

The Atlanta soccer community is running over with major soccer events next weekend,  coinciding with the start of the World Cup. For one day only, on Saturday, June 12, the Georgia State Games will stage a 7 vs. 7 tournament at Lovejoy Park in Hampton.

Registration is continuing now for youth and adult teams, male and female, encompassing a range of competitive age groups and levels.

Visit the official Georgia State Games site for more information and to register.

Because of last weekend’s rains throughout the metro area, quite a number of matches in the group stages of the Georgia State Cup were postponed.

Games have been rescheduled for Wednesday and Thursday in a total of nine different age groups, boys and girls, with the semifinals and finals for all groups set for Friday through Sunday at McCurry Park in Fayetteville.

Here’s a searchable schedule of games, with updated scores, standings and brackets. Age groups that have already completed group play include semifinal pairings, with game times and field location information.

The Georgia State Cup is the official state championship tournament conducted under the auspices of the U.S. Youth Soccer Association.

I supposed I was rather modest in my assertion yesterday speculating that the Atlanta Beat would be vastly improved after it signed three former St. Louis Athletica players, including U.S. national team goalkeeper Hope Solo.

Jenna Pel, purveyor of the All White Kit women’s soccer blog, posts today that the demise of Athletica may just have “saved the Beat:”

“Suddenly this is a different team with a different pathos. It’s not everyday you have two of the world’s most skilled athletes at their respective positions suddenly donning your team’s shirt. O’Sullivan has legitimate top-class talent at his disposal now. Fitting for a top-class stadium.”

The Beat has now signed a fourth former St. Louis player, midfielder Lori Chalupny, who was Athletica’s captain.

FanHouse soccer writer Brian Straus, who covered the original Washington Freedom and the Women’s United Soccer Association (as did I with the original Beat) is fairly pessimistic that there’s a viable, long-term market for women’s soccer as a spectator sport in America:

“But it’s hard to take the WPS seriously at this point, and even harder to imagine that anyone else will step forward and view women’s soccer in the U.S. as a good investment.

“Meanwhile, more than 10,000 fans showed up outside Madrid last week to watch teams from Lyon and Potsdam contest the final of the UEFA Women’s Champions League. Go figure.”

In a series of moves that should vastly improve the expansion Atlanta Beat, the Women’s Professional Soccer league announced Tuesday it has it has signed three players from the now-defunct St. Louis Athletica, including U.S. national team goalkeeper Hope Solo.

Solo and other Athletica players were allowed to sign as free agents starting Tuesday after the St. Louis franchise folded for financial reasons last Friday.

Atlanta also has picked up from St. Louis American defender Tina Ellertson and English national team forward Eniola Aluko, who has scored four goals this season to lead WPS. The Beat, which tied Tampa Bay Hellenic of the W-League Saturday in a friendly that replaced a regularly-scheduled game against Athletica, is still looking for its first win in the WPS and plays at Chicago on Sunday.

In another move, Atlanta has placed midfielder Tobin Heath, its top draft pick, on injured reserve for the rest of the season.

Solo, 29, is regarded as one of the top keepers in the world. She was named the WPS keeper of the year in the league’s inaugural season in 2009, and was an Olympic gold medalist in Beijing in 2008.

She’s also been a controversial figure, openly critical of then-U.S. coach Greg Ryan’s removal of her from the semifinals of the 2007 Women’s World Cup, in favor of former Atlanta Beat keeper Briana Scurry.

The move backfired, Germany won the championship and Ryan was eventually replaced by current U.S. coach Pia Sundhage, who has had Solo as her No. 1 keeper most of her tenure.

Solo’s also one of the biggest personality players in WPS, with The Atlantic dubbing her “The Bad Girl of Women’s Soccer.”

The Atlanta Beat announced Thursday night that it will play this Saturday against the Tampa Bay Hellenic of the W-League in a friendly match following the folding of St. Louis Athletica.

The game will be played at 7 p.m. at the Kennesaw State soccer complex, the same time and venue as the regularly-scheduled Women’s Professional Soccer League game was to have taken place.

Beat fans who held tickets for the St. Louis game can use them for admission, and they will get a discount on a future home game against a WPS opponent.

In a public statement, Beat general manager Shawn McGee said a revamped league schedule is expected to be announced next Tuesday, June 1. And this:

“Women’s soccer deserves a place within the national pro sports landscape, and you have our word that we are working hard every day to ensure that your Atlanta Beat and Women’s Professional Soccer are a success.”

The ownership of St. Louis Athletica, which was scheduled to play the Atlanta Beat on Saturday, has decided to fold the team in wake of serious financial troubles but will keep alive its men’s team in the North American Soccer League.

The demise of Athletica means that the Women’s Professional Soccer League is back down to seven teams. In March, the Los Angeles Sol abruptly folded, just as the Beat and Philadelphia Independence were preparing their debuts as expansion teams.

WPS commissioner Tonya Antonucci said the league and the U.S. Soccer Federation pursued options to keep Athletica going through the end of the season, “but the operational hurdles and finances just didn’t work out.”

The Beat will be playing on Saturday at home against the W-League’s Tampa Bay Hellenic. Start time is 7 p.m. at the Kennesaw State soccer stadium, just as it had been scheduled for St. Louis. Beat general manager Shawn McGee explains ticket policies and the schedule from here.

The Beat was to have played at St. Louis on June 12. The next WPS home game for Atlanta is June 19 against the Chicago Red Stars.

Richard Farley, a soccer blogger and supporter of the women’s game, is irate that the women’s team in St. Louis was sacrificed so the men could stay in existence:

“Athletica should have been first. They were the first to play. They are performing better, at a higher level, and for less money. Financially, they are easier to save. Athletica players and fans should have been at the top of the pecking order.”

Kenn Tomasch, a blogger with previous involvement in the always-unsteady world of North American minor league soccer, thinks it’s more about economics than sexism, especially given the stormy split between the USL and the NASL that is far from being resolved:

“All you need to do is look at history and see how many people have, over time, invested in men’s pro outdoor soccer versus the number who have, over time, invested in women’s pro outdoor soccer. . . .

“That’s unfortunate for fans of Athletica – and the women’s game – but it’s economic reality.”

I admire Richard’s passion and understand his anger, but I tend to agree with the latter.

The erstwhile American soccer blogger Fake Sigi says Kenn and I are wrong. I’ve never suggested sexism doesn’t exist; I’m a woman in the sports realm after all. There are plenty of occasions I could have griped about sexist treatment, but discerning truly discriminatory action from what is not requires more than employing the white heat of reflexive anger.

Women’s sports will never grow — and grow up — as long as its denizens instantly whip out the red card of sexism when something doesn’t go their way.

The murky machinations of fraudulent investors and overpromising owners angling for something bigger, then throwing teams under the bus when it turns out they didn’t have the money, is not unique to women’s sports, nor to women’s soccer.

We know all about that sort of thing here in the Atlanta soccer community.

Even the fashion magazines are getting World Cup fever, and a slice of soccer nirvana well-known to many Atlantans is getting some national (even global) attention for its local reputation.

GQ Magazine has named the Brewhouse Café in Little Five Points as one of the “best soccercentric bars in America,” sharing that billing with some other vaunted footy watering holes, two of which this blogger has sampled for herself: Summer’s in Arlington, Va., and Fadó Irish Pub in Seattle.

The others are Woodwork in Brooklyn, Cock ‘N Bull Pub in Los Angeles and The Globe Pub in Chicago.

In its mini-reviews (available only in the print magazine), GQ writes that the Brewhouse will be “setting up a tent in the parking lot for match viewings on 3-D TVs.”

That’s all they said, since these truly were thumbnail reviews.

As those of you who have haunted that place know, the parking lot at the Brewhouse is rather small, but outside viewing should relieve some of the packed throngs inside.

The Fadó location in Buckhead has sent out its own “World Cup Media Alert” on Twitter. I especially like the link to “The Free Beer Movement” site, with its objective of “building American soccer one beer at a time.” A new one on me.

Here’s GQ’s online World Cup guide, which includes a Q and A with new fashion boy Oguchi Onyewu, among other things.

Trying not to be outdone, Vanity Fair has a fairly decent World Cup blog, and you might have noticed the beefcake cover of the magazine this month with Didier Drogba and Cristiano Ronaldo. They were among the World Cup stars (along with Landon Donovan) who gladly went before the cameras for Annie Leibovitz.

This was shot well before the final rosters were due, since Brazil’s Pato and Michael Ballack of Germany are featured:

The inclusion of Atlanta’s own Ricardo Clark to the 23-man U.S. World Cup roster was no surprise, but some of the other picks by coach Bob Bradley that were unveiled Wednesday did send some shock waves through the American soccer Tweetosphere.

No Brian Ching or Eddie Johnson up front, but Edson Buddle and Robbie Findley are in. So is Herculez Gomez, who scored in Tuesday’s 4-2 friendly loss to the Czech Republic.

No Chad Marshall or Heath Pearce in the back, but Clarence Goodson. And Oguchi Onyewu, injured most of the season for A.C. Milan (remember his formal introduction at the Georgia Dome last summer?) and who saw his first action in seven months last night.

In midfield, DaMarcus Beasley is in after nearly falling completely out of favor several months ago. Out are Sacha Kljestan, who was a borderline case for making the team, and Robbie Rogers, whom many pundits thought would be included.

In reality, Bradley didn’t have many options with injuries, including Clark, who got in a few games at the end of Eintracht Frankfurt’s season in the German Bundesliga. Speedy forward Charlie Davies was ruled out of the World Cup because of a long recovery following a near-fatal auto accident.

Before he got hurt, Clark was featuring plenty as the U.S. starting midfielder (along with Michael Bradley, the coach’s son). But the return of Maurice Edu adds to the decisions the elder Bradley will have to make about his regulars, and especially his lineup in the June 12 opener against England.

Defensively is where the U.S. looks particularly vulnerable, Onyewu’s fitness aside. The mistakes in the back against the Czechs can’t give Bradley much confidence at all. Tim Howard will have to be nothing short of amazing in the nets.

Up front, Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey are absolutely essential for the U.S., and big striker Jozy Altidore, who has shown some promise, needs to start living up to it. He and Davies were starting to click before that terrible accident, and Bradley has tried to compensate for the loss of Davies’ speed with Findley and Gomez.

On paper, this team may not be any better or worse than the 2006 team that crashed out of Germany in the group stage. The group in South Africa doesn’t appear to be as difficult, but the Americans can’t afford to assume anything about anybody they play.

In this segment that introduced the players ESPN’s Bob Ley didn’t ask Bradley any questions about whom he left out of the roster, but here are some later explanations from the coach about his final decisions.

The Atlanta-based World Football Insider site has already begun digging into the various World Cup bids for 2018 and 2022 that were submitted earlier this month to FIFA, and thus far the initial analysis indicates a fairly tight race at the top.

England, Qatar, Russia and the U.S. were neck-and-neck in WFI’s World Cup Bid Power Index, which reveals a thorough, detached method to assess the strengths and weaknesses of every bid.

The Americans rate strong in transport/accommodation and relationships with FIFA members, which figure to be two of the biggest factors of all. Not so strong is the “wow” factor, and the analysis does explain that expansive travel issues could be a drawback:

“The US bid’s transport system is one of the best but the distance between cities and venues raises questions over whether they would be able to fill stadia for low-profile World Cup matches.”

One of the centerpiece arguments of the Atlanta bid group is the primacy of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, and it figures into a proposal to have the city become the venue for an International Broadcast Center should the U.S. land one of the available World Cups.

Here’s a video from the official USA Bid YouTube page of all the bidding cities, with Atlanta leading off:

With Europe (likely England or Russia) likely to get the 2018 World Cup, the battle for 2022 figures to come down to the U.S., Qatar and Australia.

If your first reaction about the Qatar bid is to question its viability, check out this video of the first five proposed stadiums, which are fully air-conditioned but open-air. They’re almost as visionary as the Middle Eastern nation’s audacious attempt to land the 2022 World Cup.

More facilities would have to be built and the biggest question is whether Qatar is big enough to have a 32-team tournament, but the idea of FIFA extending its political and commercial reach into the Arab world by staging a World Cup there is what makes international soccer politics so unpredictable. And intriguing:

(h/t Cloudspark)

They’re posting more frequently at Peach State Soccer, with roundups of the Cobb Adult Champions League and ASA Extreme Tournament.

Go have a visit and take a look around . . .